Having a bad neck leads to cascading problems throughout the home and homestead. We barely left the house all week, and by Friday the kids had cabin fever in the worst way. They fought, bounced off all the furniture, formed marauding gangs to terrorize the landscape (aka--me), and in general were crazy people for days on end. Guys, I am not used to crazy kids! I'm used to kids who get their energy out by running around outdoors, who entertain themselves for hours, and who are nice when they talk to their mother. They start turning against me and I barely know how to handle it.
In addition to crazy kids, work also tends to pile up when you have to rest your neck for a few hours after every chore session. By Saturday there was desperate need for sweeping and general straightening of the house, I absolutely had to fill the water troughs, and (as I mentioned in the blog post) the cow's milk situation was becoming dire--she almost dried herself off by refusing to let the calf nurse! Absolutely unacceptable. In addition to all that, I needed to get the washer to a repairman, which meant clearing a way for it to leave the laundry room. So when Saturday came along, my neck was still a little kinked but had no terrible muscle spasms; I decided I was going to get things done, neck be derned, and once they were done I could go back to pampering it if need be.
So Saturday started with morning chores, and an extra milking to start Apple on the path back to lactation. I only milked her of about a pint and I had the calf drink while I did it, so she would not be able to stop herself from letting down. (Of course this meant he drooled in the milk, but that's ok--I never intended us to drink it and pigs like it better with some drool.) (I lied, it makes zero difference to them.) (OK I don't know either way. Can we be done with this string of parenthetical clarifications? Yes? Yes. Sorry. On we go.) Then I fed her some extra alfalfa pellets and about a cup of oats. Normally I don't give her any grain at all, grass-fed is so much healthier, but in a pinch grain really fuels lactation in a way that none of the grass equivalents can--or at least none of the ones to which I have access at a moment's notice.
After our breakfast I went back out to start filling the water trough. That means getting hoses out of the basement and strung out to the barn. As I was working on this, I thought I would walk across a part of the back yard that is notoriously icy; the snowmelt from a large roof area falls there and runs through the snow down the slope, turning everything slippery. We'd had a good six inches of fluff this week and it seemed like enough to adequately cover the ice, giving me good--
CRUNCH
Yep, that's the sound my neck made when my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on my back. CRUNCH. So I lay there for a bit. There may have been tears. There were definitely sobs. Can I move at all? Will the pain be excruciating? Will I be confined to the couch for days? Do I have enough ibuprofen? Can my liver handle all the ibuprofen? As these questions and more passed through my mind, I slowly realized that as yet, there was no pain, and I wouldn't know for sure until I got up. So I moved my head experimentally; it felt fine. I sat up. Still fine. I stood--carefully... turned my head this way and that, touched my chin to my chest... Hallelujah, I was cured! God used that fall on the ice to adjust my neck! I got right back to work, feeling a renewed vigor and ability.
About then my dear mom and dad arrived. Dad's main plan was getting the wash machine to the repair shop, but while I was carrying buckets from the filling trough he also helped me by creating a barrier so the calf couldn't get through the horse's stall to escape. this means I can start leaving him totally untied all night, letting him nurse as much as he wants, and Apple can't just hold her butt in the wrong direction to keep him away. Dad and I worked in parallel in the barn for a while, then went in and finished clearing the laundry room. The washer just barely fit out of the doorway (we had installed a cupboard since it was last put in there, it was very close, and we did have to push the china hutch three inches), but once we got it out we were able to get it on the truck smoothly. After dropping it off we came back to the house and I started getting ready for the next part of the day: My dear friend whom we have been calling Quill came to visit and help me take the kids swimming at the Y!
Swimming at the Y is a very rare treat. We honestly never do it. By the rules, as long as a kid hasn't passed a swim test, s/he has to stay within arm's reach of a responsible adult. My arms' reach is not very many square feet, and with four, very independent kids... one of whom is two and is pretty sure she's half frog... let's just say I haven't even tried. And I'm glad because even with Quill's help we barely managed to keep the kids contained. Still, she was able to hang out with the littles in the shallow part of the pool while I took the older ones and gave them a little swimming lesson for a few minutes; then we all went in the (surprisingly swift) "lazy river" to be swept round in circles by the current. Everyone loved this, especially Dilly, whose eyes shone in a way I seldom see as she just hung in her little flotation jacket without a thought of fear or doubt. She liked to poke her toes out of the water and watch them as the current carried her away. It was magic. the older ones had a ton of fun too but before too long everyone was shivering, so we slowly shepherded them out of the pool and to the locker room. After swimming, Quill treated us all to Domino's pizza, with cinnamon twists for dessert. The pizza was delicious, but those twists... I have no idea how to get that much cinnamon flavor unless they have some sort of concentrate. So good! And because it's almost Fat Tuesday and I love Quill, I also made Packzi and filled them with raspberry jam.
After reading one of the many books she had brought for the kids (this woman knows how to spoil us), Quill made her adieux, and Tea Rose voluntarily helped me with chores. I got almost half a gallon of milk, thank the Lord, so the cow's lactation problem seems to be resolved!
In the morning I woke with some new hitches in my spine, these lower than before, but no real loss of capacity--I just have to keep being careful. After chores was church, which means a flurry of hurry, a half hour drive, and then a calm, thoughtful change of pace for a couple of hours. Sunday school is a deep unpacking of Psalms, and the sermon was about the radical change the gospel should make in our hearts and lives. Two generous church members supplied me with taco ingredients and skirts, respectively! Both were much appreciated. After lunch chores my neighbor across the street wanted the kids to come ride snowmobiles with his nephews! It was unexpected, but the day was perfect and I had chores done, so why not? We bundled up and went across the road. Tea Rose and Bean rode behind George's two very responsible, careful nephews, and I took a sled by myself with Dilly securely in front of me and Kensie behind. (This sled had a backrest and handholds for a passenger and was perfect.) Kensie had a blast, but I have no idea what Dilly thought--she sat absolutely still and silent for the whole ride. Not a word, not a sound, not a flinch, not a twitch. Total deadpan poker face. After a couple laps around the big field I stopped by George and asked if she wanted to get down. She didn't move, nod, shake her head, or in any way acknowledge the question, no matter how I phrased it. So we did a couple more laps and called it good. Once she was off the sled she started climbing snowpiles and sliding down, which pleased her greatly. When the bigger kids were done they built a few snowmen at George's request, then had a bit of a snowball fight with the big boys (which basically means Bean threw snowballs at them and they pretended to throw them at Bean). Once everyone's snow gear was properly soaked, we went home, after profuse thanks for a fun afternoon. We had just the right amount of times to heat up taco components for dinner!
This has been such a good weekend that I feel like next week has to be good too. I hope I'm not being unrealistic. I'm absolutely not out of the woods on my spine; I'm hoping to hear from the chiropractor's office Monday that he at least has a release date and some idea when he can start practicing again. I really hope he's ok. In the mean time I'll work hard when I can and permit myself rest when I can't. Since the laundry room is mostly empty I'm really hoping to get in there and put some trim and cupboard doors up that never went in... We'll see...
In addition to crazy kids, work also tends to pile up when you have to rest your neck for a few hours after every chore session. By Saturday there was desperate need for sweeping and general straightening of the house, I absolutely had to fill the water troughs, and (as I mentioned in the blog post) the cow's milk situation was becoming dire--she almost dried herself off by refusing to let the calf nurse! Absolutely unacceptable. In addition to all that, I needed to get the washer to a repairman, which meant clearing a way for it to leave the laundry room. So when Saturday came along, my neck was still a little kinked but had no terrible muscle spasms; I decided I was going to get things done, neck be derned, and once they were done I could go back to pampering it if need be.
So Saturday started with morning chores, and an extra milking to start Apple on the path back to lactation. I only milked her of about a pint and I had the calf drink while I did it, so she would not be able to stop herself from letting down. (Of course this meant he drooled in the milk, but that's ok--I never intended us to drink it and pigs like it better with some drool.) (I lied, it makes zero difference to them.) (OK I don't know either way. Can we be done with this string of parenthetical clarifications? Yes? Yes. Sorry. On we go.) Then I fed her some extra alfalfa pellets and about a cup of oats. Normally I don't give her any grain at all, grass-fed is so much healthier, but in a pinch grain really fuels lactation in a way that none of the grass equivalents can--or at least none of the ones to which I have access at a moment's notice.
After our breakfast I went back out to start filling the water trough. That means getting hoses out of the basement and strung out to the barn. As I was working on this, I thought I would walk across a part of the back yard that is notoriously icy; the snowmelt from a large roof area falls there and runs through the snow down the slope, turning everything slippery. We'd had a good six inches of fluff this week and it seemed like enough to adequately cover the ice, giving me good--
CRUNCH
Yep, that's the sound my neck made when my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on my back. CRUNCH. So I lay there for a bit. There may have been tears. There were definitely sobs. Can I move at all? Will the pain be excruciating? Will I be confined to the couch for days? Do I have enough ibuprofen? Can my liver handle all the ibuprofen? As these questions and more passed through my mind, I slowly realized that as yet, there was no pain, and I wouldn't know for sure until I got up. So I moved my head experimentally; it felt fine. I sat up. Still fine. I stood--carefully... turned my head this way and that, touched my chin to my chest... Hallelujah, I was cured! God used that fall on the ice to adjust my neck! I got right back to work, feeling a renewed vigor and ability.
About then my dear mom and dad arrived. Dad's main plan was getting the wash machine to the repair shop, but while I was carrying buckets from the filling trough he also helped me by creating a barrier so the calf couldn't get through the horse's stall to escape. this means I can start leaving him totally untied all night, letting him nurse as much as he wants, and Apple can't just hold her butt in the wrong direction to keep him away. Dad and I worked in parallel in the barn for a while, then went in and finished clearing the laundry room. The washer just barely fit out of the doorway (we had installed a cupboard since it was last put in there, it was very close, and we did have to push the china hutch three inches), but once we got it out we were able to get it on the truck smoothly. After dropping it off we came back to the house and I started getting ready for the next part of the day: My dear friend whom we have been calling Quill came to visit and help me take the kids swimming at the Y!
Swimming at the Y is a very rare treat. We honestly never do it. By the rules, as long as a kid hasn't passed a swim test, s/he has to stay within arm's reach of a responsible adult. My arms' reach is not very many square feet, and with four, very independent kids... one of whom is two and is pretty sure she's half frog... let's just say I haven't even tried. And I'm glad because even with Quill's help we barely managed to keep the kids contained. Still, she was able to hang out with the littles in the shallow part of the pool while I took the older ones and gave them a little swimming lesson for a few minutes; then we all went in the (surprisingly swift) "lazy river" to be swept round in circles by the current. Everyone loved this, especially Dilly, whose eyes shone in a way I seldom see as she just hung in her little flotation jacket without a thought of fear or doubt. She liked to poke her toes out of the water and watch them as the current carried her away. It was magic. the older ones had a ton of fun too but before too long everyone was shivering, so we slowly shepherded them out of the pool and to the locker room. After swimming, Quill treated us all to Domino's pizza, with cinnamon twists for dessert. The pizza was delicious, but those twists... I have no idea how to get that much cinnamon flavor unless they have some sort of concentrate. So good! And because it's almost Fat Tuesday and I love Quill, I also made Packzi and filled them with raspberry jam.
After reading one of the many books she had brought for the kids (this woman knows how to spoil us), Quill made her adieux, and Tea Rose voluntarily helped me with chores. I got almost half a gallon of milk, thank the Lord, so the cow's lactation problem seems to be resolved!
In the morning I woke with some new hitches in my spine, these lower than before, but no real loss of capacity--I just have to keep being careful. After chores was church, which means a flurry of hurry, a half hour drive, and then a calm, thoughtful change of pace for a couple of hours. Sunday school is a deep unpacking of Psalms, and the sermon was about the radical change the gospel should make in our hearts and lives. Two generous church members supplied me with taco ingredients and skirts, respectively! Both were much appreciated. After lunch chores my neighbor across the street wanted the kids to come ride snowmobiles with his nephews! It was unexpected, but the day was perfect and I had chores done, so why not? We bundled up and went across the road. Tea Rose and Bean rode behind George's two very responsible, careful nephews, and I took a sled by myself with Dilly securely in front of me and Kensie behind. (This sled had a backrest and handholds for a passenger and was perfect.) Kensie had a blast, but I have no idea what Dilly thought--she sat absolutely still and silent for the whole ride. Not a word, not a sound, not a flinch, not a twitch. Total deadpan poker face. After a couple laps around the big field I stopped by George and asked if she wanted to get down. She didn't move, nod, shake her head, or in any way acknowledge the question, no matter how I phrased it. So we did a couple more laps and called it good. Once she was off the sled she started climbing snowpiles and sliding down, which pleased her greatly. When the bigger kids were done they built a few snowmen at George's request, then had a bit of a snowball fight with the big boys (which basically means Bean threw snowballs at them and they pretended to throw them at Bean). Once everyone's snow gear was properly soaked, we went home, after profuse thanks for a fun afternoon. We had just the right amount of times to heat up taco components for dinner!
This has been such a good weekend that I feel like next week has to be good too. I hope I'm not being unrealistic. I'm absolutely not out of the woods on my spine; I'm hoping to hear from the chiropractor's office Monday that he at least has a release date and some idea when he can start practicing again. I really hope he's ok. In the mean time I'll work hard when I can and permit myself rest when I can't. Since the laundry room is mostly empty I'm really hoping to get in there and put some trim and cupboard doors up that never went in... We'll see...
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| Perks of neck rest: cuddly little squishy people really like it! |
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