A great week here!

So much work got done recently, even with all the rain and cold weather keeping us from getting outdoors to do much. First, I'd like to address a few comments made on the last couple of posts, because I think it's important to keep up with the give and take my Gentle Readers and I have together.

For "Unknown," who mentioned about the glassworker here, that would be Red Fern Glass, literally just down the mountain road from me. I checked before thinking to see about a recycler around here, because I, too, thought maybe he could use it. Unfortunately, he has no use for broken mirrored glass, or window glass or tempered bakeware glass or mason jar glass or microwave turntable glass. But it's a great idea, or we both wouldn't have thought of it, so thank you!

For Brother Curt, I had insurance at Butterball, but it wasn't the greatest. And truthfully, the whole time I had it, I've had to fight with it. In the time I was insured there, I never did get my eye care or dental care cards, no matter how many times they were ordered. There's an issue with having added Quentin and our daughter (my daughter, his stepdaughter, but he is "Daddy" to her), because Blue Cross NC screwed up the effective date after Q got fired last fall. That has made a problem with a prescription Amber had in late December getting reimbursed after it wouldn't go through at all to begin with. Four months later and I'm still waiting for the paper claim folks to fix things and send me the check so that I can send it up to Mom to repay her for putting out for the thing out of her pocket. It wouldn't be so bad but it was nearly $200!

For Amand, yes, the kudzu is a pain in the behind and a bit of a nightmare to clear when it's old and the main stems are thick and woody. (I tend to cut those up for the woodpile for kindling, no waste around here if I can avoid it!) It grows like crazy and is a mess. I really hate the stuff, especially when treetops are tangled together in it and you have to take down a bunch of scrub to get the first one out of the way completely!

For Tina, yes things are going to get slowly better and Q will get back to work. Now that I'm back at Tysons, he knows it's just a matter of time before he can go back, too, and things will really get better. And I don't remember  the message I sent you but I don't think it was horribly important. Good luck on your venture, my friend! I hope it comes together for you in short order. Waiting can be so hard on a person when you've waited and waited for something, can't it?

And finally, for Harry, thank you for the link, but do please remember folks, while the article said lines could go so fast, they realistically can't. The human body can only move so fast to do certain jobs. The USDA looking for things isn't as much of a problem as the article makes out, either. At least at Tysons, we are trained to look for things like bad meat and pull it off the line for further inspection and potential disposal into the condemned barrels by line leads, so as to keep it out of the human food chain. If it's just bruised and overly discolored, it'll go off to pet food. If it's really nasty looking (some birds come in with hidden infections you don't see till you're cutting them up), then it goes into the incinerator.

Speaking of Tysons, it's great to be back. Obviously, I can't talk about how we do things because that's company confidential information, but I can say that Butterball had me doing stuff that was mostly one-handed, and I'm a lefty. So now working with both hands a LOT, my right hand and arm all the way up to my shoulder really is kind of sore. It'll pass in a few weeks, but in the meantime, my right arm aches, especially the wrist. Once my body gets used to the new range of motion stuff I'm doing, I'll be okay. Tyson is good, too, in that we have to stop the lines twice a day to do stretching exercises so that we don't hurt so much. The stretching is for ergnomic reasons, to help keep us healthier and less in pain, though it still aches some. I'm glad though, that I'm in a job where I stand up straight all day again, so I can be comfortable, instead of bent half over all day long, and end up with my back screaming at me and feeling like a bunch of hot knives are laid across it, and having my feet ache so bad that they throb all the time, quite literally, to where walking on them or just standing up hurt so much it was a miracle I could do it at all. A better, more comfortable work stance makes a big difference. I walk out of the plant tired, but not hunched over like some kind of Quasimodo!

And now for some pictures from the last couple of weeks!

Where we cut down that thorny locust a couple of weeks ago. We still haven't had time or good enough weather to get it cut up, but you can see a bit better (sort of) the old "goat pen," such as it is. It wouldn't hold a goat for nothing now, but it will make good scrap once Q gets the oomph up to go tear it down.

Another view of same. You can see  lot of the trash on the ground where we cut stuff down, but it's a lot easier to clean up without having to work around trees. I really need to get this area raked  up to make it look better once the last little bit of big trash is out of there.

No, that's not snow in the foreground. That's a piece of old carpet sitting on top of a lot of rocks. We use it to toss a lot of the brush on, as it's right next to where we cut logs for the wood pile. The pile in front of the trailer is the last of the old toolshed out back that I tore down.

Some of the brambles I cut down from next to the house. There's a lot less there than it seems, but there's so many dead canes and they arch all over the place, so it looks like a LOT of stuff there. They didn't fruit much if at all last year, so they're getting cut back completely if not pulling out of the ground for me, so I can plant other things here and put a new planting of brambles elsewhere.

More brambles I cut down, this pile came from around where the old shed was. The spots level enough to put a new shed, so that's likely where one will go once things are completely cleaned up.

Me and brambles and short sleeves don't get along well. You can see the scratches from carrying armloads of the cut down stuff to the burn pit.

The "yard" next to the walking path, looking toward the house. You can see that the deckside trash piule is much smaller - Q is at least trying to get out and burn some of that stuff, which is what's stirring up the wildlife! There's a lot of junk weeds I pulled out of here that got burned, that only took me about an hour to clear up all of last year's dead stuff.

Some of the logs I hauled out of where the old shed was, from off the trees that smushed it. You can see the woodpile is still growing, we are never going to be done working on it, lol. Some of the stuff I hauled up is already cut up ...

And this is what about 3-4 hours work with my little 8" Black & Decker battery powered chainsaw did for kindling and small logs. That's a LOT of wood there, I counted nearly 60 logs when I threw them on the pile.

Using one of my eventual garden tires to hold down some of the brambles I'd cut up and dragged to near the burn pit, because it was too windy to burn and we didn't want them blowing all over the yard.

More of the brambles in the pit before lighting them off.

Not sure if they are daffodils or tulips, but these are the flowers that are trying to grow out between the "goat pen" and the old sewage lagoon.

And this one I took this morning from my car on the way down the mountain road. It's the little seasonal creek that tends to flow across the road (and has created a small gully in doing so) just below our property line. Teeny waterfall!!!!!!! It sounds so neat, babbling along as the water flows across all the rocks, and looks so pretty.

So that's it for this week, hopefully all this rain will clear up so I can get outside again and do some stuff! I love my job, but I'd love to get out and work on my property, too!!!!