May 22, 2026
On May 10, when I woke up, I felt better after taking it easy the day before.
Last night, Bruce gave the pill bottles to me. I thought it would be more efficient for me to get the pills. In the morning, while in bed, I knocked over my water bottle while reaching for the pill bottle. I thought I could lean over and get it. In leaning over, I fell out of bed and landed on my side. Falling out of bed didn’t hurt, but getting up was so painful that I had break through pain. I had to take my first (and last) oxycodone pill. Bruce heard me and came to see what had happened. He found me sitting on the bed, gasping in horrible pain. He got the oxycodone pill for me. It worked and I drifted back to sleep for a while. The lesson is, don’t lie down on the floor and try to get up. Maybe if I hadn’t tried to get up on my own, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. I am so used to doing things myself, I didn’t think to call Bruce. I may have been a tad embarrassed about falling out of bed while lying on the floor.
After my nap, I was feeling much better and was able to get up. My pain level had dropped to the level it had been before I fell out of bed.
Bruce went out to work (play) using his tractor. Using the front loader, he finished filling the hole left behind during the removal of Pine Tree One’s stump. He smoothed out the top with the front loader, making a nice flat area.
I walked around and looked at the garden. I evaluated the work Bruce completed in the back pasture.
Later, I took another walk. Since I was out walking, Bruce asked me to supervise putting down cardboard and pine chips around the newly planted persimmon tree. He placed the cardboard around the tree under my direction. The tractor rolled over to the pine chips. Bruce used the front loader to scoop up a load of pine chips from the pile o’ chips. He drove the tractor to the new persimmon tree. Using a 5-gallon bucket, Bruce scooped pine chips from the front loader and placed them on the cardboard around the tree. With the pine chips surrounding the persimmon tree, Bruce was ready to put chips in other areas.
Bruce drove his tractor to the garden.
I asked Bruce to put some of the pine chips around the alpine strawberries. He used the shovel to move the chips from the front loader to place them around the strawberry plants.
The last of the chips, I had Bruce place around the tomatoes and soybeans in bed A4.
That was enough walking outside for the day. I did some walking inside. I didn’t feel drained and exhausted, just a bit tired and sore. I felt this was a reasonable amount of walking.
Getting out of bed isn’t fun, but if you swing your legs off the bed, you can stand up without any trouble. Getting up off the floor, I had no way to get my legs under me.
Blackberry Homestead 