I feel like I've almost earned the right to be worn out the last couple of days. Yesterday, before spending 8 hours supervising the fence construction project, I got the damaged lug bolts on my car replaced and got home in time to grab a cup of coffee before my crew got here, then today I'd been to town to get a bruised tire on my car replaced by about 11:00 and to Vincennes and back, to buy seed for the little pasture, by 2:00. Anyway, doesn't he look happy? Look ma, no rope!

I know it's hard to judge sizes and distances in pictures like these. That fence Sunshine's standing just this side of is about 120 feet from where I stood to take the picture and angles away from the fence at the bottom of the picture as it goes north (to your left). Here's a view looking toward the far corner from about the same spot. As another aide to judging the distances involved, I space posts every 8 feet when I build fence.

I liked it better when we didn't have such a clear view of the old Wal-Mart, and before they started building the new one.  The neighbor lost two big trees near that one just left of center in a wind storm last spring, then last fall CIPS cut two about where those power poles are now; all four them were already big when we moved here 51 years ago.

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Ever watch a horse and a 10 year old play tag when the 10 year old isn't too sure what's going on? Cordell knocked a brush off the top of a fence post (where he shouldn't have left it to begin with) into the pasture, trotted about 100' up the fence to the gate, then back down to where the brush had landed. Sunshine followed right along on the other side of the fence on the way to the gate, then right on Cordell's heels back to where the brush landed, with Cordell looking the whole time like he wasn't at all sure Sunshine was going to stop when he did. No harm done but now Cordell knows not to run in the pasture unless he wants company close behind. Sunshine wouldn't deliberately hurt him for the world but if Cordell had tripped it could have been bad news.

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I still need to do some thinking about my priorities before Brad and Chad get here tomorrow. I think I'm close to closing an advertising deal that will make a non-trivial difference in how much I can do before next month but I'm not going to count on the money till I actually have it. I think right now the thing that's bothering me the most is that northwest corner where we had to cut across at a diagonal due to the water in the field; I had the guys do a really sloppy job to save time so we could get Sunshine in the new pasture last night and I think I'm going to have them fix it tomorrow. It's supposed to rain Friday night and Saturday so I guess if time permits I should also have them redo the fence on the kennel side of the barnlot before it gets too muddy again. Other than that and moving some unused posts and wire to the backyard I'll probably consider the fence done until I get my big check. If I do get the ad money I'm hoping for there are plenty of other things I'd like to see done around here but if I don't they can wait till May. I need to hold on to a little bit of what I have left in case I end up having to replace another tire or something like that. I probably won't buy one till May be I'd like to hold enough money back so if it gets hot before then I can buy an air conditioner for my room, also; I have a window fan that I think will probably be all I need for the rest of this month but if it isn't I've had enough of not sleeping well because I'm too hot.

15 days till I get my last VA check, 16 till I get my my first monthly Social Security check, then if I don't do anything totally stupid we should be in good shape till I get my big back settlement check.