the Day After Disaster

Justin slept really well last night, and he is actually already up. I got him— I helped him get dressed. Um, I need to call the person today, the orthopedist. Anyways, I'm gonna call them. I'm gonna call them and get an appointment for Justin. The hospital said do not take your arm out of that sling until you see the orthopedist. Well, as I had said, let's take the sling off so I can do that. Justin was like— I had dreams that he had removed it just by going like this. Um, today we have got lots happening. Preparing for butchering still. The cows got out this morning. I got the boys up to deal with that. I'm gonna look at the cabbages. There's a lot of other things, so Gonna get this laundry started. I need to get Henry up. 'Cause if I just let him sleep, he'll never go to bed tonight. I guess get out and do cabbages. That is running. And we're gonna check in on the patient. Here he is.

Sore.

He's sore, but that's great. That soreness is— means it's back in.

And I thought when you dislocated your shoulder and put it back in, you were all better again.

But that's not the case. No, it even took a minute.

You gotta be careful not to move it.

Shooting pain?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, that's why they told you to take pain medicine.

It's still in, isn't it?

Yeah, it's still in. Yeah, it's still in.

Gonna do a standing job. This is the worst time because we are at the height of busyness on the farm. The sea monster butchering, 2 days from today.

I know, I hope we can get—

it's the height, absolute height. After that we have one less chore and it kind of goes downhill. We're figuring out the most important things to do today. Get the cows fenced.

Hot.

The little solar energizer we've been using on it is not cutting it. They're gonna have to do some flip-flopping from the other ones and get the electric— the grid energizer on the cows. Well, you gotta harvest the cabbages and get the butcher in shape.

No, but then I have to figure out what to put in the freezer for you. Do we have people coming to us today?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank goodness. We put it before our members. And now this is like, we actually really need the help. And they'll learn how to butcher, so—

Well, what I figure you'll do is kind of talk everybody through it as Jonah does it.

Yeah, because that's 3 days.

We have to give you pain medicine to do that.

I don't want to do pain medicine. He does have to do pain medicine. I don't want to do pain medicine because listen—

Then he'll overdo it.

That's right, and I'll, you know, be tweaking it and not even knowing it. The button of pain is their friend. Pain is a gift. One of my top books ever. One of my top favorite books. No, The Gift of Pain. Oh, it's such a good book. Such a good book. I certainly took pain medicine when the doctors are putting this thing in. I said, bring it on.

You were searching.

Because they're adjusting it and messing with it.

He was so funny. He was like, I thought you said you were gonna give me pain medicine.

I wish you had at least recorded the audio.

I know, I should have recorded audio. I didn't think of it.

It would have been R-rated.

It would have been. There was a lot of, um, not good words being said. But of course—

Release that.

We could have at least gotten the funny things like, "I thought you said—" And then like, it was funny, so he's laying on his stomach and she was working on his arm.

She's trying to talk to me.

And she was trying to talk to him, and then when it would like— when she would do something and it would hurt, he would lift up. So like, say these were his feet, right? And this is his knee. He would lift up his legs and go like this.

She asked me how many sheep I had and I said, too many. You didn't even know.

I know, I didn't touch it.

And then, oh, at one point I said, Lucas thinks I'm a wimp.

Lucas was the nurse.

Of course he didn't even scrape. I of course apologized after it was all over, said it was the drugs talking.

It was. You were— you were drugged, man. I mean, I feel like it was for all to hear the way he was talking. I mean, you couldn't really hear— like, you could hear like noise, but you couldn't necessarily make out what other people were saying in other rooms because I had to— I had to get out of the room a couple of times. Good or not good? Well, it's funny because they kept saying, have you done this before? Have you had this happen before? Well, because we came in and we're like, is this okay? And then they're like, how do you know?

And we're like, because you can just see it. Well, they wouldn't ask how they know, they would say, have you done this before?

I know. And then the lady in triage was like, did you try to put it back in? And Justin was like, no. Apparently people do that. I'm not gonna pull the Mel Gibson.

When I put it back in, they said you can only really do that if you're a chronic—

Yes, it's a chronic thing.

People don't really put the first one back in.

Lily is making a nice meal for the kids. When we say nice, it's usually carb-filled, but I'm going to come out here to Justin cuz I got you an appointment this morning at 9:30 to see the doctor. So we're going to go— we need to leave in like 50 minutes. Well, 2 to 6 depending on the severity.

They gotta look at it and they gotta tell me what to do to take care of it and all that stuff. I need the calves separated so we can get milk at lunch.

I need to get 16 boards of drywall also. Well, for what? Okay, to finish. That's what Randolph said we need to help me. He also— he gave us instructions for you also.

You've got to have to deal with that bee's nest tonight. Yeah, like it has to be gone. Um, the burn pile is—

I still have a permit for you today. I'm leaving Justin on the porch to relax. I am trying to— I have to place just a really small order for drywall for the cabin because the boys are going to work on that today. Just need just a little bit to to get through. So I need to find either where we can go pick it up— hopefully we can pick it up. We might have to pay for delivery because they might not have it close by. So I've got my laundry switched over, which is great. Justin is actually just laying down for a nap. He's actually fasting. Well, when he doesn't feel like eating, so he's not going to eat anything because he just doesn't even feel like it. Um, and two, I think a fast is not a bad idea for him for right now. Hopefully his body is just healing. He has a lot of inflammation obviously in his shoulder. Anyways, I am headed to work. Basically he's going to fast, well, until he feels like eating again, which I have no idea how long that's going to say. Somebody commented and said 3-day fast would be good for him. He's already one day into it because he didn't eat last night because he felt not well. Obviously, I am headed over. We came home from the orthopedic. I went by the grocery store and just got a couple things, real pressing things. Like, I got the kids a watermelon. It's summer. I'm like, I'll keep them in watermelon. So I got him a watermelon, got myself kombucha because I have not been successful in brewing it yet myself. Um, but we came home and we went over to see the boys. We have a burn permit and we're finishing burning that pile up there. The boys are at the cabin working. We went by the cabin to see it. It looks great. Then we came back here because the kids told us that the ice maker wasn't working. But it seems like it's not working yet again. There is a, a bee. We have to kill it tonight. Justin did— yes, 2 days ago, not last night, but the night before, he was trying to get rid of it. Anyways, huh. So one of the kids said, hey, that ice maker— the ice maker was working. Justin had worked on that. And then one of the kids was like, hey, the ice maker is not working anymore. So we came over here to look Got it, got it working again. But then obviously I had just hit harvest, but this is freeze, so maybe that's it. Um, and then I was going to look over here to see about freezer bags cuz we need to buy freezer bags. Okay, so I think that's it. So I'm going to go back home. I wanted to come over here and check, see how many gallon bags. So we're parting our chickens now. Still going in plastic, um, but the way we were doing it before was we were dunking plastic bags with our chickens in them and it was shrink wrapping them. So we're gonna part and vacuum seal. Maybe I fixed the ice maker. I hope I did. Um, it's a beautiful day. It is cooled significantly. It is hot. It is in the 80s. But it is not as hot as it was before, so that's nice. We're getting ready for Fourth of July this weekend— this week. It's the end of the week, it's Fourth of July. Funny enough, it seems though we always have some sort of, um, accident happening surrounding the Fourth of July. So some of our friends laughed and said, you guys will do anything to get out of Fourth of July. Two years ago, Jonah had his hip surgery on July 7th, but then I ended up getting sick. I ended up getting mastitis like really badly. And, um, then the next year Justin got cellulitis. We canceled it literally like 2 hours before the party, which was ridiculous. So here's my calendula. I'm trying to get like the most open ones, and then I take them inside and I put them on a dehydrator tray. And my goal is to then, after they're dry, to put olive oil on them, let them soak in olive oil nicely, and then I use that oil in my body butter that I make for myself. You can feel the resin— I guess it's called resin, whatever it is— you can feel that on your fingers from picking them. The more you pick the more the plant puts out. So like, this is not a lot of bushes. These are self-seeded, they're volunteers. Like, I already have like 3 and a half trays of this. I feel like I'm doing really good actually. I feel like, um, I have a good amount. I'm excited to see the possibilities of what will happen this year. So that's always the beauty of spring, the that you're like, what's gonna do really well? My calendula is doing really, really well this year, and I think my tomatoes are going to do really cool too. All right, so here, this is my score from yesterday. So I'm just gonna lay them out and I'll show you what I have in my dark pantry. I think I have 3 of these already done, and I'll show you guys what I do to get the bugs off of them because there's little— these little bugs. I don't know what kind of bugs they are. I've tried to Google it, can't really figure it out. So there's like this really little bug right there. Just squash them. Just tap it lightly and you can see the bugs and dirt and stuff. Yeah, this is my fourth tray, and kind of what I do is just place it where I can and let them dry. This is my very first tray. I'll show you. So that's the very first tray. These are probably dry. That's what they look like. I'll throw it out. This is my new tray, and then this is a tray up here, and then where's the other tray? Oh, and then there's another tray right here. And these are just my dehydrator trays because I'm not using them in my dehydrator. We pretty much just use the dehydrator now to ferment yogurt because it's the right temperature for that. My dilly beans, my small pickles, and my sauerkraut. Justin said he's gonna like my sauerkraut and my pickles because it's just better. Which, yes. We are at the orthopedic now and, um, they just took x-rays and I hope that doesn't mean—

She asked, did they take x-rays? Did you have x-ray? I said yes. She said, I wonder why they're doing it again. Does that mean it could get out again?

No, it's not it. I'm hoping because, you know, I asked that question. I asked that question like, is there supposed to be space there? She wouldn't answer you. Legally she can answer you, right?

But that was the nurse. But— well, they would have sent us to the hospital, right?

Well, they were sending us to an orthopedic. Hey, Victor Justin Rhodes?

Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Andrew. I'm up here working with Dr. Paula today. How are you? Good. I was looking over, you know, it looks like you had a shoulder dislocation yesterday. Yeah. They put it back in place for you. Feels better being back in? Yeah, a lot better. Good. And then, um, you have that slaying? Is it kind of keeping your arm close to your body? Okay. Yeah, so we, um, looking at the x-rays, everything's back in place. There's no, um, Hill Sachs or Bankart lesion that I see. Sometimes there can be complications. Oh, that's good. Okay, you feeling good? Yeah, well, he said there's nothing wrong.

I know, right? I think we were just a little bit—

So we'll cross our fingers for the—

what do you call it? Whatever that thing is. The thing that takes 3 months to heal. Well, but you're gonna get into therapy. Yeah. And I'm gonna— you'll go— you should go to the same place Jim went to. They were nice there.