Moo.

Blurry daffodil

Howdy. I am very, very tired today - physically, mentally, emotionally. I'm not feeling particularly depressed, though, which is good. I'm just really tired. I've been working outside most days for the past month plus now, and I have developed new respect for farmers, landscape people, construction workers, tradespeople, and the like. It's tiring, lemme tell you, lifting and pulling and digging and shoving and hauling and dealing with recalcitrant machinery. The omnipresent biting flies and the heat and humidity and dirt and oil are icing on the cake of outdoor work. Of course I'm also keyed up over the whole blood pressure debacle and have managed to convince myself that I won't be able to do it, so I've also been living with a sort of low-grade dread every waking moment. Yep. I'm an Olympic quality worrier, there's no question. The next - and last - blood pressure test happens next Tuesday morning. We shall see what we shall see.

I repeat - I do like the outdoor work most of the time. I see and hear gazillions of birds, I get to watch butterflies and occasionally frogs and deer and woodchucks, chipmunks, and rabbits. I am witnessing the season's progression instead of being locked away in a windowless lab. It's good stuff, and I'm guessing now and the coming months will represent the only time in my life when I get to do the sorts of things I'm doing and get paid for it. I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that I appreciate it - it's just that I'm weary at the moment.

I'm going to that Women in the Outdoors seminar tomorrow from 8 to 5 - I'm kind of looking forward to it and kind of feeling too tired and antisocial to go. I signed up for rifle and shotgun lessons, as well as outdoor first aid and wilderness survival. My back-up activities are landscape sketching and hiking. I'm not sure why I chose the sketching bit - I'm not especially artistically inclined. The hiking one is a little silly, too - I know how to hike, and I know how to prep to hike, especially here in the NE. Ah, well. It'll be an interesting day, I'm sure, and maybe I'll make a friend or two. My father has warmed to the idea at this point, which is a welcome thing; M., however, is sulking about the fact that I'm going to be away all day. We had talked about tree shopping on that day, which I'd kind of forgotten in the midst of final exams and hectic work schedules. It annoys me that he's behaving like this; it's not as though I ever really do anything for myself. He tried to pick a fight about it last night, but I just wasn't having any part of that nonsense. There is, after all, nothing at all wrong with what I'm going to do, and we can tree shop any time now that I'm out of school. Kind of ironic how both of the men in my life objected to this outing of mine. Meh, I say.

Well, time to embark on the day's work. Today I shall be fertilizing 400 or so trees, scrubbing moldy apple boxes (charming!), taking branch diameters on 200 tree limbs, and possibly potting yet another shipment of trees. Which, yeah, more wheelbarrowing of heavy, heavy dirt. Jocularity!

First, though, one more cup of coffee and perhaps a sound slap on the face. Must wake up...

Until later, then - ta.

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Edited to add: I just got my final exam grade in the email from my professor - I got a 90 on the final, which brings me up to a 90 for the whole class. A nice, solid B. I prefer A's, of course, but I'll take this happily and run with it. Now, to pass the blood pressure test....