Monday, September 2, 2013

Working with Grandpa, email #1

I spent most of this summer away from my family, so I started emailing them weekly, this is just a record of my emails. I'm making a blog because A) sometimes I think I'm funny and B) So family and ward members can see what I'm up to without Mom having to forward my emails to them C) So I can have a record of my adventures somewhere where I can't lose it.

This is my second email home...the first one's kinda boring...

"So...first off...it is way too hot right now. It's not a dry heat either...my entire body is covered in sweat...and I've been on break for the past 2 hours. It started getting cloudy yesterday and I got super excited, because I thought it would be nice to work in the rain...boy was I wrong. It hasn't even rained yet but I feel like I'm walking through a swamp..all the time...especially when I work.
I decided yesterday that it was simply unreal to try and force myself to be outside for ten hour days in this weather, so now I'm doing 9 hour days. Hence why I'm still on break at 2:30. 
So I've got alot I could write about, and no real desire to stop and get back to work, so this email might end up really long :P
To start off this week I got severely sun burnt..it kinda sucked. I've been working outside shirtless from my lunch break to the end of the day, just about every day now. I usually put sunscreen on in the morning. I forgot to on Tuesday because I was in a rush to get started so I could have enough hours before I went to singles ward activity, which was volley ball. So in my rush to get started before 5 am I forgot sunscreen, and then forgot that I forgot sunscreen at lunch, thus getting burnt. Luckily I have a set of essential oils mom gave me and some of her salve and so I liberally applied Lavender oil mixed with the salve at every break for a day or two, and it pretty much turned into a tan. It was the fastest I've ever had a sunburn heal. The worst part of it all, was that after I worked my butt off trying to get 10 hours in before dinner, getting sunburnt in the process, I got lost trying to find the stake center. Although for once, this wasn't my fault. Grandma Silvia has absolutely NO CLUE how to draw maps apparently. It's really hard to describe her faulty method of map drawing...but I saved it just because it's pathetically hilarious just no that she doesn't draw a right turn for you to turn right...she draws a "down turn"..sorta. So anyways, instead of playing volley ball I got to follow a map that didn't lead anywhere for 50 minutes. Fortunately I had driven around buying cement and rock and such that I actually knew where I was the whole time and was able to get home just fine. I don't think I'm ever going to try and go to singles ward again...or to institute.
The strange tan lines are from my camel pack, which I wear all the time.
Photo: Strange tan lines maybe? Yahh...the life                  of a white guy.
Second story: So Tuesday night I was reading Drawing Upon the Powers of Heaven (I'll send you some notes in a different email Brenden) if you haven't read it...it talks about choosing goals or desires of your heart to pray about, and occupy your mind with and stuff like that. So I was praying, asking what I should be working on annnnd I got the impression that I needed to learn some energy work. I prayed that I could learn easily and be provided with something to practice on. Which prayer, I came to very painfully regret. The next day (Wednesday) I was finishing up another rock wall and spraying off any extra cement on the front. I put the hose down, and because grandpa's hose is possessed it started spraying me and everything else on it's own (it does this quite often). I kinda laughed at it and told it that it wasn't very nice (I think I'm going crazy over here I talk to inanimate objects all the time now..) and turned it off. I started to go inside...which if you haven't seen me do this, I always do a little wall run up the tile walls instead of walking around to the stairs, and I thought as I was jumping "I wonder if this will work with wet shoes" and then I slipped. But it wasn't just any slip, it was a hard core hat-flying knee-smashing-into-sharp-rock kind of slip. It hurt. Immensely. In case you guys haven't watched me get hurt/go through pain recently, I always breath really deeply the more the pain the deeper the breath, and if I have to do something while in pain I'll start singing "Be a Man" from Mulan and I'll force my body through the pain. So I got up, breathing extremely deeply I couldn't tell just how badly I was hurt but the pain was pulsating through my body and my right knee did not want to move at all. I remembered the essential oils and started jog limping while yell singing the lyrics to be a man all the way to my room. Needless to say, this was excruciatingly painful. Like ridiculously so. Like I don't think I've ever been hurt that badly from something so silly as a fall (and that's saying something I get hurt doing stupid stuff all the time). So I made it to my room and started applying essential oils on the knee, and I was thinking (I don't believe in consequences, I think everything has a lesson to be learned) I was wondering why the heck I would be hurt so badly, and what I was supposed to gain from this...and then I got the clear impression "You asked for practice." And I just started cracking up. Like for a good 5 minutes, I just laughed at how dumb I was as the pain was pulsating through my body from my knee. It was fun though, I got to practice pulling the pain off, and I gained a testimony of the power of essential oils, and I tried out a few other energy techniques that I had forgot about up until that point. Anyways I'm healthy now for the most part, my knee is in sorta working condition, I still pull the pain off every morning, it takes it a while to unstiffen, and I practiced energy work on my sunburn as well.

Warning this story's kinda gruesome...Kaylee and Danny (if he actually reads stuff like this) be warned.
So Squirrel Hunting. Fun stuff right? Unfortunately for the squirrels I'm a pretty dang good shot with the BB gun now..Which is craazy because the sights don't work at all, so you just kinda have to guess. Anyways I killed the big one last week, and meant to eat it but it escaped down it's hole to die. This week I was determined to get another one. They completely stripped both apricot trees...and they don't even eat them, they just open them and take the seeds...and now they've started on the plumbs. They also ate all the pomegranates earlier in the year too. It's a family of 6 I think...or at least it was, the relief society pres.'s kid got one, and I've gotten two now so there's 4 left most likely. The problem with this one...is that he wouldn't die. I shot a beautiful shot from where I was working on a wall in between two pushes and hit him. It was great, every time they see me they hide now, so I was rather impressed by the shot. I ran up, and I see the little guy and I try and put him out of his misery with a shot to the head..but as I talked about last email, close range shots aren't all that accurate, and the little bugger didn't die, so I loaded it again, and shot him again...and it still didn't die. Now it had multiple holes in it, it was bleeding, and coughing and I felt really bad for it, so I ran inside and asked grandma if there was any painless ways to kill a squirrel...she didn't know any, so I went out and this time pumped the BB gun 50 times (earlier it was only 25) and shot him in the head again. This time he did die...but it must have went through and hit his spinal cord or something because he started spazzing like none other. He flopped and thrashed and ran and convulsed like no one's business...It would be really cool...if I didn't feel so bad for it. Since it was bleeding from so many shots and flopping everywhere it got blood on the pump house, and all over the squirrel hole. It was gross. I no longer wanted to eat a squirrel...at all or kill any of the little buggers either, at least not with a crappy low caliber BB gun. I told grandpa this and he said to use the shot gun :p I still want to learn how to skin/clean a mammal though, I feel like it's a necessary wilderness survival skill that isn't really taught much. Maybe I'll try and lay some snares and eat one that way (snares are another skill I'd like to learn). Or I might make some more of those live traps with cans and mouse traps that I made earlier, idk, but grandpa's loosing fruit fast to these guys, and now that I've finally gotten really good at hunting squirrel...I don't want to hunt them anymore. Time to go work. See ya.
Alright I'm back time for part two.  I don't blame you if you stopped reading this well before this...I just kinda like to write, and it's not like there's many people to talk to over here...:P
So Grandpa can't hear anything at all anymore. Silvia cleaned his ears yesterday, and took out a but load of ear wax and made his ears stop hurting. But she must have pushed some too far in, because now he pretty much can't hear at all. LIke, I was screaming at the top of my lungs at him (not cause I was mad...just to see if I could get his attention) from just a few yards behind him, and he had no idea I was even there. He's alright at reading lips though, so we can kinda communicate if you get him looking at you. But man, it's going to be a long week next week if I  have to yell everything and repeat myself 4 or 5 times like I was today...
Evan might let me ride his motorcycle later next week! :D Which is awesome, it was one of my goals for the summer, to go dirt biking, or learn how to ride a motorcycle. It's pretty cool how these things like that come about actually. Like I prayed at the begging of the summer about what I wanted to accomplish and my goals and such and I asked for Heavenly Father's help in accomplishing everything. And slowly one by one, just about everything on my list has either been checked off, or I was given the opportunity to check it off (in wake boarding's case). These kind of tender mercies happen all the time for me, which is why I bought a scripture journal, so I could write down every time HF answers another prayer.

Oh mom guess what earlier I was taking a shower and a spider climbed up my leg as refuge and I thought of you and your cockroaches. It made me laugh. It was a pretty big spider though, and it might have bit me...I'm not sure.
I'm learning lots while I'm here! Today I made a soup in my rice cooker, you should all be proud. It overflowed and spilled through the top and I burnt my finger cleaning it up, but besides that I didn't ruin anything! 
I've learned to never go squirrel hunting in socks...I stepped on a three inch thorn...but it got stuck in my callouses at about a 1/4" through...but still...a three inch thorn! I didn't know they came in that size! Imagine if I was someone normal who didn't have giant callouses! That thing would've impaled my foot!
I've learned that the absolute best hair jell is sweat dirt and a sprinkle of cement powder. I can seriously pull off any spikey hair style I want right now, which never happens with normal jell. 
I've learned how to choose a good watermelon. You hold it to your ear, and tap it. And if it sounds like your pregnant wife's belly, then you know you've got a good one.
Anyways I should probably just send this and get to bed...I don't think anyone will make it this far anyways.
Peace. Bryce Coleman
Oh and Grandpa Walter is my favorite grandpa here. He's hilarious. That is all. Goodnight :)

No comments:

Post a Comment