After battling through one of the worst summer infections I believe I have ever experienced, it was quite a relief to be able to get back outside to get some work done.

The sunshine and fresh air both made me feel invigorated after about five consecutive days of germ warfare. As I write this, I am just finishing up the last of my foul-smelling antibiotic capsules.

For the duration of my ‘crud.' my energy was sapped by the ‘bug' that I had to fight. All this left me unable or unwilling to even try to go outside and work. Now, with the temperatures hovering near 80 and the sun shining, it was definitely a change for the better to be outside. The smell of sawdust on the boards for the front of the house, the birds singing and even the chickens communicating to one another in their own squawk-bock language are all like harbingers of recovery.

I get depressed pretty easily when confined to indoor spaces for long periods of time. That's why I try to get outside for a little while each day, even in the winter time. It seems to elevate my mood to be in the sunshine and fresh air, even for just a few minutes. It also makes me miss the days when I spent more time working outside.

Of course, in those days, I always dreamed of a job in which I could spend more time indoors. You can't have it all, can you?

If there is more than one choice, the one we don't have always looks more appealing until we have it. That's especially true in either-or scenarios.

I finally finished putting the new siding on the front of the house, a job that was more or less on hold for months and months. A friend helped me finish it off and traded some of his labor for my help in installing a new ceiling in his basement.

It all worked out reasonably well, considering the way such things sometimes go, but I never relish the thought of holding eight-foot sheets of plywood-like material over my head for any length of time. However, since he had the forethought to borrow a nail gun, the whole thing went much better than I had feared it might. The sheets were tacked so quickly that it really wasn't that much of a problem to get them attached.

After we finished his ceiling Saturday morning, I then put him to work helping me dismantle my back porch. It had seen better days, a fact obvious to any who looked at it. However, less than obvious was the fact that the supports were all rotted and filled with wood- eating insects.

By the time we removed the top boards, the supports fell with out very much force. I was glad it didn't fall on its own, especially while I was standing on top of it.

I only managed to salvage a few porch floor boards that I might use to nail my new roof to and one set of steps. I had installed those steps myself about a year ago to grant me a way to get down to the other side of the porch easily.

After paying a little less than $20 to the landfill to dispose of the remainder of the porch, I returned home to mow my lawn and feed and water the chickens. By the time I was done that evening, it was all I could do to get ready for bed. I want to blame it on recovering from illness, but I fear my prolonged spell of less-than-normal activity has taken a little bit of a toll on my endurance. Oh well, by the time I get the back porch built and the new outbuilding raised, I'm sure I'll be back to my old self again. If I survive, that is.

I normally have some harrowing misadventure to report anytime I start a project, but only one episode of virulent stupidity stands out. I somehow managed to saw through the cord on my circular saw again. I say ‘again' because this isn't the first time this has happened in the 10 years or so that I have owned the saw. I already had it pieced together with wire nuts, an obvious indicator that I might have made mistakes in the past.

This time, I had just started sawing through a sheet of plywood when I hit the wire nuts and they found their way under the blade, which did what blades do. Luckily, my friend pulled the plug on the saw and no one was hurt. I then went ahead and made the cord a little shorter still by removing at least two other patches. So what if my saw only has a two-foot cord on it? That's why they make drop cords.

I was very pleased that, despite the use of wrecking bars, a maul and numerous power tools, I didn't so much as scratch my finger. That's got to be some kind of record for me.

Now, with the biggest job in recent memory looming on the horizon, the question remains: will I be able to get the porch constructed in the next month or so and still have time to build my building, harvest the garden and keep up my other work before winter sets in? Did I mention that I need more firewood, too?

Oh well, I suppose the pressure of needing to get things done will serve to help motivate me to greater levels of activity, as it has in the past. Great pressures lead to great deeds, or so I hope.

Otherwise, I'll be falling out the back door, freezing to death when the fire goes out and wishing I had a building to go hide in. The best thing to do is quit writing and get started.

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