Blackberries

The one things that's gone reasonably right in the last few weeks.

Our feeble excuse for a front hedge has several berry canes in it, and starting last year we had some thorny things growing by the steps to the side porch.  The canes in the front had berries, but about the time they turned red they disappeared; presumably some birds liked them. This year we have more canes and a lot more berries and I thought to put bird netting over them.  Whatever the reason we currently have a lot of red berries and, at least the ones by the porch, are turning a lovely dark blackish purple.  So I guess they are actually blackberries, and the birds just liked them when they weren't quite ripe.  I'm not complaining.  They are very tasty.

The girls are getting sorted out.  Younger will be doing some summer school stuff, and while she will be repeating the year, she won't have to repeat 9th grade English and World History, which she found insanely boring the first time round, so a second would have been torture.  Elder has some stuff to do over the summer and I'm hoping that the carrots we've jointly picked for her to get after each 20 online units are done enough to submit will get her to actually work on them.

Me?  I'm just tired all the time, and then, when I get to bed, I mostly can't get to sleep, or at least not at a decent hour.  Friday I turned the light out at about 1:30, and was still awake at nearly 4.  It takes very little to get me winded, and something as simple as sitting still and eating or drinking something can get the heart arrhythmia going.  I did get some stuff done around the house and yard last Sunday, but I'd had two days off at that point, having had to take Friday off to keep an eye on elder child as she had had some anesthesia for an impacted tooth removal, and needed a responsible adult to keep an eye on her.  However, I don't get two days off between every day when stuff needs to get done, so almost nothing is getting done.  I am scheduled to have stress tests, regular and nuclear, done on the 8th, and I almost hope they do find something, because then we might be able to do something about it.  Or at least we'd know *why* I feel so useless.

And someone stole our lawnmower last week.  I admit that the shed doesn't lock, but the door does shut, and for heaven's sake, it's a 15 year old Craftsman 21".  If they've sold it I doubt they could get more than $50 for it, and probably less.  But that means all we've got is a slightly rusty hand mower, and I need to sharpen the blades.  It doesn't do well with grass longer than 4 inches either, and some of our stuff is worse than that.

I need a goat.