04-03-2016, 10:56 PM
Whew. You know the old saw about being only as old as you feel? Well, if it is true, then I'm very, very old.
I used to work for ranchers in Sequin and Lampasas, TX during June and July of my University summer breaks (football two-a-day practices started in August, so I only had two months to make some extra spending money for the coming school year). Almost all the work I did was fencing and repair work on barns and tool sheds - Putting up new fencing of all kinds, cattle fences built with wood and electrified wire or barbed wire, wooden fences for pig pens, and wire enclosures for ostrich, emu, and of course chicken enclosures, and simple carpentry on wooden buildings. Those were long, hot days, working with two or three Mexicans who were seemingly tireless, but after a couple of summers I got used to it, and it beat the hell out of the roughnecking on offshore rigs that many of my friends took on for summer work - Roughnecking paid better, but spending two months on an offshore drilling platform would have driven me insane.
I spent most of this weekend rebuilding the chicken pen from the ground up - We've lost five birds over the last four months to foxes, opossums, raccoons, and chicken hawks, and with 50-plus new birds expected to join the 26 we have now, it needed to be made both bigger and more secure - So my wife & tore down everything but the three secure dog pens we've turned into roosts for the birds to spend nights in - Took down the roof supports, pulled up the old posts, tore down all the chicken wire fencing, and started over, clearing another quarter acre of our lot adjacent to the quarter acre we had previously fenced in, putting in new, thicker posts, framing a new roof, and stringing high-gauge wire fencing that will be much more critter-proof than the simple chicken wire we used when we originally built the run for the walls and roof. We even poured concrete around the bottom of the entire fenced-in enclosure so that nothing can dig its way under.  Back in the day I could have done that and then showered and gone to a nightclub, but at this moment I feel as if I'm made of rubber bands, and not even an 800mg Ibuprofen is doing much good an hour after I took it - My back is a mess.
The only plan I can come up with, now that I've showered and eaten a couple of tuna sandwiches is to consume as much Miller High Life (don't laugh, beer snobs - It was on sale for $7.99 a 12-pack) as I can while laid out in my recliner, add 10mg of Valium to my 15mg of Temazepam when 10PM comes around, and hope my back feels better in the morning - I dread having to go in for more epidurals, even though I'm three weeks overdue for them, those suckers hurt.
OK, finished whinging now. Have a wonderful remainder of your Sunday all, and don't stress about work until you get there tomorrow. All things in their time.
Best,
- b2g
I used to work for ranchers in Sequin and Lampasas, TX during June and July of my University summer breaks (football two-a-day practices started in August, so I only had two months to make some extra spending money for the coming school year). Almost all the work I did was fencing and repair work on barns and tool sheds - Putting up new fencing of all kinds, cattle fences built with wood and electrified wire or barbed wire, wooden fences for pig pens, and wire enclosures for ostrich, emu, and of course chicken enclosures, and simple carpentry on wooden buildings. Those were long, hot days, working with two or three Mexicans who were seemingly tireless, but after a couple of summers I got used to it, and it beat the hell out of the roughnecking on offshore rigs that many of my friends took on for summer work - Roughnecking paid better, but spending two months on an offshore drilling platform would have driven me insane.
I spent most of this weekend rebuilding the chicken pen from the ground up - We've lost five birds over the last four months to foxes, opossums, raccoons, and chicken hawks, and with 50-plus new birds expected to join the 26 we have now, it needed to be made both bigger and more secure - So my wife & tore down everything but the three secure dog pens we've turned into roosts for the birds to spend nights in - Took down the roof supports, pulled up the old posts, tore down all the chicken wire fencing, and started over, clearing another quarter acre of our lot adjacent to the quarter acre we had previously fenced in, putting in new, thicker posts, framing a new roof, and stringing high-gauge wire fencing that will be much more critter-proof than the simple chicken wire we used when we originally built the run for the walls and roof. We even poured concrete around the bottom of the entire fenced-in enclosure so that nothing can dig its way under.  Back in the day I could have done that and then showered and gone to a nightclub, but at this moment I feel as if I'm made of rubber bands, and not even an 800mg Ibuprofen is doing much good an hour after I took it - My back is a mess.
The only plan I can come up with, now that I've showered and eaten a couple of tuna sandwiches is to consume as much Miller High Life (don't laugh, beer snobs - It was on sale for $7.99 a 12-pack) as I can while laid out in my recliner, add 10mg of Valium to my 15mg of Temazepam when 10PM comes around, and hope my back feels better in the morning - I dread having to go in for more epidurals, even though I'm three weeks overdue for them, those suckers hurt.
OK, finished whinging now. Have a wonderful remainder of your Sunday all, and don't stress about work until you get there tomorrow. All things in their time.
Best,
- b2g