Motivation on the Homestead

 “Its 5 am this morning and I just don’t have any motivation to get out and do anything.” If you think that this statement doesn’t occur on my homestead you would be dead wrong. The older I get the more it occurs. Some mornings I am anxious to get out and work and some mornings it is like I have asked myself to pull my eye teeth. Crystal and I went and got our annual flu shot for date night yesterday and I am a little out of sorts. I don’t know if it is actually the shot or totally psychosomatic. Every time I get a flu shot I feel puny for a couple of days.

Now when I was a kid there weren’t all the flu shots and all the injections for the childhood diseases. We had many vaccinations including polio and smallpox but we still had childhood diseases that kids have a remedy for today. I have had the mumps, measles, chicken pox at 31, and all the other childhood diseases not vaccinated for. When Crystal and I were a young married couple, AKA before children, we got a flu that was so terrible even my hair hurt. My sister in law and future brother in law came over to the house and he was sick. I thought he was just being a big baby with a little cold. Oh no, he had brought in the plague! We were deathly sick for nearly 9 days. I am happy to go and get a flu shot if it keeps me from getting that stuff ever again. I think I was 23 then and fought it off now at 59 I don't know if my immune system is up to that task.

I remember in the 2^nd grade a little girl in my class got strep throat and it developed into something else and she died. At 7 I didn’t know what happened and in those days adults kept the details from kids. I remember Mrs. Buckner, my 2^nd grade teacher, cleaning out her desk and just crying. I thought it odd that she was crying. She ruled her class with an iron fist. She was about 70 – not really but to a 7 year old brain she was very old – and tough as nails and she was blubbering like a little kid. The little girls mom had come to school to get her things after an extended absence.

There wasn’t Facebook or blogs that let people know everything about peoples lives. There wasn’t even a phone in our classroom. Your family knew what was going on and a few friends but when the little girls mother came to the school Mrs. Buchner was confronted with losing a student all at once.  That tough old woman who had worn me out with her paddle on many occasions was crying like a 7 year old who had fallen off the swing set.  It is just amazing to me to think that the little childhood diseases we get can become deadly. I am so thankful for modern medicine. Yes it has its bobbles but we have social media that magnify those few mistakes and blows them out of proportion. It causes people to mistakenly think that the disease is not a bad as the prevention. I assure you the prevention is tons less. I know!!

How do I know you ask? Well, our family graveyard is as old as this country basically. Some of the tombstones are in the 1700’s. Many a day have I wandered through that graveyard on the way to go hunting. I have spent many a day just identifying some of the tombstones. Many are really worn and look so old you can’t identify them.  Some are just rocks. But, all the stones before the 1970’s have one thing in common. There are a lot of child graves. Before the advent of vaccines like polio, mmr, tetanus, whooping cough, etc. those diseases laid waste to children. Dad lost a sister to whooping cough at 6 months old. In that grave yard for every adult there are 4 or more child size graves. It was common for a family to bury multiple children. If you made it to 14 you were pretty much gonna make it into adulthood and beyond.

So, I try not to complain about feeling bad this morning. I am about to go out and work on our greenhouse some more. It has been slow going this summer but I am starting to move forward on some of the projects as the weather cools down. Wednesday I fell off the ladder while putting the roof on and thankfully it didn’t do anything but tear up some skin and hurt my pride. I was considerably sore for a few days but except for one or two scabs I am fully mended. Ten years ago I would not have even noticed such a tumble but today I feel it. I am just glad I didn’t break anything.

I know this is a little shorter than previous blogs but I need to force myself to go out and do a little work. The daylight is breaking. It is just amazing to me that at 59 I have to force myself. You would think by this age you would have self discipline enough to just be ready to soldier on through anything. But some days when your body says hey I need a break, give it one. Nah, I can have a break at lunch. I am sure I will feel better once I am out there working it happens almost every time. Just try to remember that Life and Homesteading are a Marathon not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride! But, don't give in to the "I don't want to's" you will feel better in the end.