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September 16, 2017: Hard Physical Labor

Pete and I are no strangers to this, especially Pete, our efforts can be seen in our place. We have not documented everything – we should have, but we didn’t, so we have no visual record as to what we have done. And in not having a visual record, we deprived ourselves of a sense of what it is we have done. Once in a great while someone will come by who saw this place many years ago – and see what we’ve accomplished – but this isn’t often. Instead, we get visitors who have been regularly – they just take note of this or that, but too, don’t have the sense of the whole.

Today was a full work day for us both. I had a mental list at breakfast, but the minute I stepped outside my priorities changed. I did not think that I’d finish splitting the wood in the woodpile, but in looking out the kitchen window after breakfast, I decided that this was what I would do.

Pete decided, actually I decided for him, which is something I’m guilty of – to work on putting up the rail fence in the playground of higher learning. So while I was splitting wood – with the splitter, in the upper quadrant – he was in the Playground, hammering away.



I next figured I’d clean out the goat and chicken sheds – I do this once a week. It takes close to two hours. I sweep, sort feed into buckets, take old hay out of the pens, and rake up the goat poop in the back area. I did not get to the latter chore today. This is because I made the mistake of going down (via the back gate) to the Playground to see how Pete was doing. I ended up picking rocks – there are a lot of them there. He moved some out with the tractor.

He then came to a point in the project in which he realized that he needed fifteen more fence rails. Oh oh. This necessitated a trip to Mariann and Dick Stoffel’s place. But first we made a stop at the grocery store and a stop at the feed store.

It was about 7:00 p.m. when we got back. I cleaned the horse pen while Pete cut the edges off the fence rails. He then drove the rails to the playpen. I put the shorter rounds in the manure cart and then, after pushing the cart uphill, tossed the logs in the now very large wooden pile.

I milked Stormy, and then headed down to where Pete was. He continued working. I cut the branches off one of the post and he kept pounding away. Then I resumed rock picking. We quit when it was too dark to see anymore.

All this work – neither one of us could do what we are doing alone. It is a synergistic relationship, one that most of the time is enveloped in a spirit of cooperation. Without cooperation, you have nothing.

Next: 257. 9/17/17: Build it and HOPEFULLY they will come

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