The Return of the List, Knee Pain Evolved

Friday after work I stopped at Home Depot to get another 250 pounds of sand for the chicken run and 20 pieces of sod to bolster areas in the front of their yard that had become muddy.  The sand helped raise some low areas of the run which got mucky during the rain storms last week.  I laid the stuff down as soon as I got home, obscuring my original plan to get on Cindy’s Echelon bike for some cardio.

So when I was married to Ali I used to always write a list of what I wanted to get accomplished every weekend.  She absolutely hated that I did that.  Cindy actually likes lists but I stopped doing them a couple years ago at least.  I think at the time the thought process was it would be a way for me to not work so hard on the weekends, we all saw how that has worked out.  I just work hard without the list.

But this weekend the list was back and it was long with double digit items on it.  On Saturday Cindy had Census work to do so that left me to tackle the list head on.  I worked from 7:30AM til about 7PM with minimal breaks in between.  I even wound up doing something not on the list, fixing the chicken playground area. Months ago there was a mini-tornado that spun up in just the right spot to flip the hinged roof up and over.  In the process it damaged the roof panels, ripped up one of the 2×4’s and did some other damage.  I had haphazardly thrown it back together afterwards but it looked like shit.

At Home Depot I got some replacement roof panels.  When I got home I took off the bent up panels and removed the damaged part of the frame.  Rebuilding the roof took maybe an hour, leaving the chickens with a pristine playground once again. This time I added a 2×4 “stop” to prevent the roof from flipping all the way over in high winds, in theory.

Doing the repair left me with all of the old and slightly damaged panels.  I used two of them along the two long edges of the playground, this would block the view of a predator if the hens were in there.  Two more of the panels went on the back of the run again to obstruct view but also provide rain protection.  The final panel got hung on the back corner of the fence, a few inches off the ground, once again to obstruct view of the chicken yard from the rear property line.

I then hopped on the new tractor and mowed the rear half of the property, the first time I did that with the Husqvarna.  So far I am really digging the tractor, I just need to get the sunshade on it so I am not melting quite so much. After I got done outside I had an even longer list of things to do inside.  I cleaned bathrooms, counters, and steam cleaned the floors among other tasks.  When I finally stopped working around 7PM I was tired but felt like I accomplished a lot.

So my left knee had been making very slow improvement over the last couple weeks.  It didn’t feel awful doing all that work Saturday but when it came to go to bed I had a very odd problem.  If I laid in my normal position on my back with legs elevated on a pillow my left knee was absolutely killing me.  The only relief I got was rolling onto my side which is a position I do not sleep soundly in.  The end result was a miserable night of sleep where I would keep waking up when I rolled onto my back.  I keep referring to it as knee pain but if I am being accurate it is a radiating pain that moves up and down the left leg. It sucks.

Despite the horrible night of sleep I hit the ground running Sunday.  After paying bills I got out on my MSX for a little bit to talk about the whirlwind of EUC based activity that recently happened with me, selling two wheels and sending my V11 back for repair.

I also did a video just showing the Skydio 2 footage from the ride.

During the afternoon I continued assaulting the list.  One item on there was to finally do a video review of the new tractor.  Tractor videos on my channel have been surprisingly popular.

During the evening I got one of my four printers that are out of order back up and printing, I obviously have more to do there.  Last nights sleep was much like Saturday with radiating pain on my back and fragmented sleep that left me exhausted and bleary eyed today.  At least I only have a four day work week to contend with.