Now, I am not sure about you other folks out there, but there are nights I have very active dreams. I am quite sure this is just one of those silly ways my mind works. It does tend to wander down some strange lanes once in a while. Last night was one of those active dreams I was participating in. This is a normal thing and I get quite used to it. But there was a time in my life, I actually shared my bed with people I cared for. They were not used to my silly dreams. On one particular night, I was dreaming I was swimming under water. Just looking for treasures. It wasn’t long before my bed partner woke me up in a fit of terror. They complained, I had stopped breathing. Well of course, I was swimming under water. One doesn’t breathe while casually swimming under water. There was another occasion I was loudly growling in my sleep. Again, I was awoken wondering what was going on. I was in a contest with a black bear to see who could growl the loudest. The loudest growl was the winner and the other walked away. Then there was the dream I was shingling a roof, but I fell off.  Now, I jumped right out of bed on that one. I was again questioned about what was going on.  Oh, no problem, I just fell off the roof. Well, last night was another of those active dreams. I was in a heated discussion with someone, and they kept pulling at my arm. As I was trying to walk away, they kept yanking on that arm. Finally, I yanked real hard to escape but found myself unable to move that arm. You see, the deep pocket sheet had dislodged, and my arm was caught in the pocket. I was having a wrestling match with the bottom sheet corner pocket. There are many early mornings, I just give up on those little struggles and get up to start my day. Unfortunately, this makes it normal for me to be up and about at two am. The little creatures that are living in my attic for now don’t care. They just scurry about when I turn the lights on. One of these days, I am going to need a program to evict all those noisy buggers. They sure do like that old blown in insulation. There are cures to help quiet the active brain down a bit. Some, I have tried and found the cure was worse than the problem. I am not one who advocates using un-natural substances to live a supposedly healthy life. These man-made pills get to be habit forming. A lot of times, the side effects are even worse than the problem. The one thing I have found that works the best is good old fashion physical work. Good ole manual labor. I don’t care what it is, splitting firewood, digging a ditch, cutting down trees, or whatever. Just get outside and do something with those muscles that still work as they should. Get used to working harder tomorrow than you did today. Eventually, you can justify that falling asleep just as soon as you sit in that nice comfy chair. Of course, that leads to the problem you fell asleep at four in the afternoon. You got your six hours of sleep, and it is now time to go do something. I have found in the past, one just can not mow the lawn at midnight. I have had a few complaints about my mowing the lawn at four am, but it was such a nice morning. One of those nice cool quiet mornings.  I figured it was ok to make noise at that hour, the neighbors were making noises at ten a couple of nights ago. Noises in this little piece of land have a strange way of traveling. Some mornings, I can hear M&H start a truck and they are almost three miles away. I have had to hang some motion detectors that sound a ding dong alarm because of stray voices seem to be at my doorstep. I am sure these are not just in my mind. I stop what I am doing and go to see who is visiting. Low and behold, it is just the neighbors who live quite a distance away. So, the ding dong bell actually notifies me when someone is indeed here. That works fine until the wild animals decide to do a walk about. Which is great, because there are times, I actually like seeing the wild animals much more than people. They just keep on walking by. After the many years of dealing with certain types of humans, I prefer the wild animals instead. I can always get out the bb gun if the wild animals become too much of a pest. But then, you know, I never did try that with pesky humans. I will have to remember that the next time one comes to visit.    Ken White COB mountainman

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