To the Moon and Back

 Gosh I love going to the quarry! It's like a weird trip to the moon or a surreal dreamscape. How many of you have ever been?! Our visits there give me the opportunity to share the joy and unusual visuals...

As you wind your way through, you experience piles of gravel, sand and quarry dust taller than your house. And weird structures where they do god knows what- creating smashed stone and asphalt. Additionally, trucks five times bigger than the average pick up whizz by and provide a sense of danger.

Oh I almost forgot to mention why we're here again. Neko the Wonder Pony's stall had been taking on water in a big way. Between torrential downpours and the frozen ground not soaking up water, quite a lot had flooded her stall on a regular basis. I had bailed it out multiple times, but was at my wit's end. And after years of cleaning the barn and several horses stomping in and out, the floor had actually been scraped down by like a good six inches. So we set off for the quarry to fetch a pile of processed stone.

You have to wait your turn! That truck is way bigger than us, so we hover until the coast is clear. Then this giant bucket loader approaches the truck and carefully lets loose 3/4 of a ton of rock into the truck bed. I'm sitting on the passenger side so I get to see the up close and personal back hoe in action. Kinda unnerving!

Yikes! Here it is approaching. But the operators are good and we're loaded and heading home...

It doesn't look like a lot once you get it home but believe me, after shoveling it out onto the wheelbarrow and pushing it into the stall, you get a much better idea of how much 3/4 of a ton is!

 

Many trips back and forth to the barn! And we returned to the quarry the next day for a second load. We sure do know how to have fun.

Here's a view of Neko's stall after the first application of stone. The center of her stall was really remarkably low. And here's the completed stall: nicely filled up after 1 and 1/2 tons of stone:

I couldn't be happier. We had rain and no water in the stall! I'm sure Neko is happy as her barn was not the high and dry refuge from inclement weather that it was supposed to be. But now it's ready for the deluges of spring...

You Learn Something New Every Day

 

So I apparently experienced something delightful called a "migraine aura". I was minding my own business, finishing up drinking coffee in the morning, and I suddenly had this truly weird visual sensation. No headache, no dizziness- nothing!- except this entirely original phenomenon that there was a disco ball's worth of odd, colorful, geometric shapes dancing in my visual field. It looked sort of like the fringe on the piece above. Hard to describe, but like overlapping translucent shifting shapes. I think the fact that they were geometric was the strangest part. All of this only lasted a couple of minutes and then it was gone.

While I thought it was a singular experience, I thought maybe it had occurred because I had some like sleep goobers in my eyes or I had looked at the window where it was much brighter and the light had scrambled my brain and eyes for a minute. I actually forgot about it for a week.

Then I had a second episode in the middle of last Sunday afternoon. Bango! I'm feeding Robin the Good and Lo! The little geometric visitors were back!! This picture captured from the Internet is actually close to what I "saw". I decided I'd better make an appointment with my eye doctors as it was really odd and pretty alarming. Once? Okay... but twice? My eyes or brain was onto something, and I've known several people who had retinal detachments so yikes!

I played phone tag with the doctor's office on Monday (gave them my cell and they called the home phone, unbeknownst to me!). But in the meantime, my sister Cathy said it sounded like migraine aura and I have to admit that was a more attractive alternative to brain tumors and retinal detachments. And the pictures and description sounded accurate. Although I've never had a migraine in my life!

So the doctors (all three of them waltzing around in my head and behind my eyes) confirmed my sister's diagnosis. They said it was unusual for it to only last a couple of minutes- typically it's more like 15 or 20minutes. (*1) They asked if I'd been hit in the head. No. Have I had sleep disturbances. Yes. Was I under any stress?!?!!??! To which I blurted out, "Half the country in under stress!!! Things have gone crazeee and who can sleep or feel normal??!?!?!" The young doctor who was administering to me at that point laughed and agreed there was plenty to be stressing about. At least he understood!!

So I'm fine; which is a good thing to be assured that you're not nuts- the whole world is nuts. I'm also really, really glad that I got the aura minus the migraine!! And- I realize this is going to sound really peculiar, but the colors and shapes and general aesthetic of the episode was kinda cool. Like if you have some weird visual anomaly or medical sensation, make it look good! (*2)

(*1.) At which I informed my doctor that if it had lasted that long, I'd probably be screaming!!! I mean it was creepy enough for only a minute or two.

(*2) And I will amend here that I actually have consciously reduced my exposure to the news and "him". We watched part of that interminable address to the Congress last night but I half watched. And we turned it off and I got a good night's sleep!! I think I need a week of sleeeeeeep!