Chapter 40
I’m tired. Bone tired. Dead dog tired. So is Mitch. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished but there is still a lot to do. You could say that is the life of a farmer, but that’s not all we are and not why we are doing things this way. Mitch said there will be new things on the list when these things are all scratched off. Not “might” be new things but will be new things. Whew. When my parents used to warn Dale and I that adulting was going to be a lot of hard work they weren’t kidding. It isn’t just the physical labor involved, it is the mental labor you have to put in before, during, and after most things.
How would you like to move an entire library to a new location that never even thought about being a library? Mitch helped me build shelves in the storm cellar and I’ve moved all of Grammy’s books … from the garden journals to her Bible commentaries to all the recipe books and hobby magazines she’s collected and those she’s made into scrapbooks over the years; they’re more idea books than real scrapbooks like you make with stuff from the hobby store, but look dead useful now that I need that kind of inspiration and help. I also want to bring down her recipe boxes but that’s going to have to wait until I can find a place for them because Uncle Hy’s library of books had to fit on those same shelves. I had to organize them as I moved them all, and I don’t know which set I’ve gotten more ideas from, Grammy’s or Uncle Hy’s. Not that I’ve had a lot of time to look. Did I mention that we’ve been busy and I’m tired?
We’ve been working both outside and inside since the “Night of the Bombers”. Sounds like the title of a movie. A bad movie. Like Night of the Triffids, the Night of the Comet, the Night of the Iguana, the Night of the Meek (an old Twilight Zone episode that Mom liked for some reason), and on and on. Just … weird … and tiring.
Inside I’ve been going over every room to try and make sure nothing breakable or valuable is in line of sight of a window or where it can be rattled off the top of something. Mostly that has meant taking everything off the walls and off flat surfaces and putting it in boxes and sliding it under the bed in that room. It’s made things look so bare that I can hardly stand it. I know Mom would say I am being foolish and sentimental but after the first room I decided to take pictures with my tablet so that I can put things back together the way they were when this war is over with. If you think it is hard for me, it is really hard for Mitch. This is his home even more than mine and having it turned upside down, and not for Spring or Fall cleaning, has been super stressful for him. He can’t even stand to go in Grammy or Uncle Hy’s bedrooms. I feel bad for him but the one time I brought it up he said that it had to be done so it had to be endured. Sounds like something he might have heard from Uncle Hy a few times. I just wish I could make his “enduring” easier.
I’ve also started going through the attic like Grammy had planned for us to do, just maybe not the way she planned for us to do. Mitch wants the windows up there “free of debris” in case we have to use that level as an “observation deck.” He also doesn’t want anything valuable up there in case we have to fight a house/roof fire. That gives me the heebies. But in an old wood house you have to be realistic.
We need more room down in the cellar and Mitch told me something I never knew. There actually is more to the cellar but Grammy’s second husband – the one that didn’t live very long and turned her sour on being anything but a widow from that point forward despite having the farm and all from her first marriage – sealed an area off that Uncle Hy’s father had dug and enclosed when he was thinking about changing the house layout. Boy was that a mouthful. Mom would red-pen it to pieces but sometimes you just have to tell stuff all in one breath or risk losing your train of thought.
Essentially it works something like this. In the old days you dug your cellars first and then built the house over them. That was due to most people only having picks and shovels to dig their cellars or because they were reusing an older homesite to build a new home on. It isn’t unusual to find that old homes have dug, filled, re-dug, or re-purposed cellars and basements under or around the site. The reason why this cellar is like that involves some family history more than engineering.
“Where is it?!” I asked Mitch when he told me about it. “Grammy never said a thing.”
He shrugged. “Sore subject for her. You knew her second husband was abusive? He didn’t hit but he wasn’t exactly the good man he wanted people to think. More than a little nuts too according to Dad.”
“Er … I kinda figured based on things she said after I found out about it. And Uncle Hy let slip one time that we are related to the Winters.”
Mitch made a face. “Yeah. One of the Winters married a daughter of that guy. Dad … I don’t know the entire story but apparently that man imagined himself to be a lay preacher with a side order of what the psychologists today call narcissistic personality problems. He was going to build a chapel to have a home church because he broke with their church right after they got married. However, that’s when he found out that Grammy didn’t own the farm outright back then, her brother-in-law owned half because that’s the way Grammy’s in-laws had deeded it out in their wills. Anyway, the brother-in-law nixed the idea and Lofton – that was his name – started doing things to undo all the improvements that Dad’s father had planned to do before he got sick. Dad ever told you how he died?”
“No. Grammy generally pretended those years didn’t exist. I mean she even scratched some stuff out of the family Bible so I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know it until I asked Mom why Grammy hadn’t remarried after Poppa Decker died when she would have been so young at the time. Mom is the one that explained about Mr. Lofton not being a nice man and taking his disappointments in life out on Uncle Hy when he was only a very little boy.”
“Yeah. Grammy told me it made Dad wild when he was a young but that he outgrew it, and I wasn’t to listen to all the stories that my bio-mom’s side of the family told. Anyway, that Old Fart Lofton had started to tractor over some young fruit trees that Dad’s father had planted.”
“Why?!”
“Meanness. Claimed God had told him that the fruit from those trees would be used for wickedness when what they were supposed to be for was so Dad could get some schooling at some point.”
“You’re kidding me,” having a hard time grasping that kind of behavior.
“Nope. And apparently God didn’t like his Name being used like that either because out of a clear blue sky a bolt of lightning came down and struck him. He didn’t die from the bolt of lightning though. The lighting bolt threw him off the tractor seat and into a tree and he got impaled on a broken limb. It was witnessed by the Sheriff at the time as well as someone on the school board and a couple other men of character ‘beyond reproach.’”
“Aw, you’re just telling me a spook story cause I said how dark the cellar was this morning.”
Mitch held up his right hand and said, “If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. There’s a folder in Dad’s legal drawer that has the old newspaper articles about it. Lofton’s kids tried to take the farm, claiming their Dad had paid the bank and taken possession of it. Grammy and her brother-in-law had to go to court to prove the kids were lying. And that’s what started the feud that got carried over to the Winters family. I’ll dig out the folder with everything in it if I have time after supper.”
The weirdest things you find out about your own family. I swear. But Mitch and I are going to see if that cellar section is worth trying to open back up. It opens off the storm cellar and runs the opposite side of the house from the septic tank and field.
On the outside we’ve already proven that the barns and sheds can be closed from the inside, the doors barred, and then a way made to go out an upper window or vent. The animal barn is easier to get into using a tree and going through the cupola up there. It is scary high but the roof is sound and not too steep, so we don’t have to worry about falling as much as with the tractor barn. We’re going to go get some last season’s hay rounds from a field over by the Delray place and save this year’s hay to feed the animals with. Those hay rounds are going to be stacked around the outside of the barns and sheds to create a kind of protective barrier for what’s inside the those buildings. There is some fire hazard from that but at the same time, it is better than nothing because Mitch said the barns – and the animals inside – are even more vulnerable to shrapnel than the house is. Mitch already has two of the outside walls of the animal barn done like that, but it is going to require a lot more round hay bales to finish the job. And those round things have to be stacked just right or they can be a danger. Rodents and snakes might take up residence in those old bales as well, so we’ll need to keep an eye on things.
Mitch used the old rotary push lawn mower to knock down some of the higher grass that has been coming up and then used the scythe when the push mower wasn’t up to a particular patch or area. He would have preferred to use the bush hog or riding mower but that would have taken more fuel than he was comfortable using despite it being a necessary task. His reason is that he doesn’t want anyone being able to sneak up too close on the yard. We’ve got the fire buckets and hoses checked out and Mitch made sure that we could still hook them up to the old pumper wagon that we are keeping full from here on out. It is a very old-fashioned way of doing things but we’re too far from any place that could send a fire truck even if this wasn’t a Buffer Zone.
The other “water” thing we did was move some poly storage tanks from the rented land on the other side of the Delray place and put them on stands at the end of the house garden rows and then run drip hose (also found at that land) down the rows. It has meant getting water from the stream to fill them with, but the plants look a lot better, and we aren’t worried about losing so many plants or all the work of watering by hand. Uncle Hy used to use the pumper tank for that during a dry year, but we can’t run the motor that much and using the drip hose also means less water wasted through evaporation.
When I’m not cleaning and organizing, or helping Mitch with some building project or other, I’ve been working in the gardens doing other stuff and trying to keep up. Onions and hot peppers are all making, and I spend at least an hour at the end of the day braiding long strings of them. Strawberries are making and I’m having to pick them morning and afternoon so I don’t lose anymore to spoilage than might otherwise happen. One night I made strawberry short cake only with biscuits. I thought Mitch was going to lick the pattern off his saucer.
I’d give a lot for a frig to give me a little extra time. Mitch says he might have an idea between my Farm Project paper and Uncle Hy’s ideas and books. I hope he can do something because if I’m having trouble now, I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when the gardens really start producing. I’ve made just about all the canned strawberries I can handle and they are still coming in.
And speaking of producing hand over fist, the zucchini has started coming in. Holy Crow! What was Grammy and Uncle Hy thinking when they planted the gardens? I kinda get that they expected at least some in the family to head to the farm, but it is just crazy how much extra they planted. I’m not sure what to do with it all to be honest. I am digging through Grammy’s recipes files but I’m also trying to put as much fresh on the table as possible. And then Mitch threw another problem at me. We need to save seeds because who knows when, where, or how we’ll be able to get more seeds. *ARGH!* My aching brain.
Tomorrow Mitch is going to need help getting some of the hives moved around. He laughed when I told him I’m worried about putting the hives where we can’t see and check on them every day.
“They’re not puppies or kittens Nann.”
“Obviously,” I told him, more than a little embarrassed by my worry.
“And look at it like this, they need to be spread out some so there is plenty of things for them to pollinate and get nectar from.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what is it?”
I sighed feeling stupid. “I don’t know, okay? I just … worry about them. Why I should I don’t know. They have pin sized brains and don’t know me from Eve … or from a rock or anything else. Matter of fact I don’t do anything but irritate them. But … I … I …” I shrugged. “It’s different than when I helped Uncle Hy do it. He was responsible for them, not me. Now I am and … and they might be annoying little stingers but they are still something alive and … I just worry that I’m going to do something wrong and they wind up all dead. And that doesn’t even count that you want to harvest all this honey all those hives are supposed to make and if I mess up that’s not going to happen.”
“I ain’t sayin’ its stupid Nann but … they’re bees. This is what they are created to do. Keeping too many in one spot … some will starve and they could get a disease and spread it to all the hives. This is just how you manage bees … by letting them be bees.”
I know he’s right. And I know I’m being a little ridiculous. Mom would say a lot ridiculous and too sentimental. But like I told Mitch, it’s different now that I’m responsible for things.
At least I seem to be proving to Mitch that I’m not a kid that needs to be kept in the yard or on a leash all the time. I now go foraging on my own. Fine, it isn’t far from the house but at least it is farther than the apron strings he tried to strangle me with for a while. There are rules … of course … like I have to tell him where I am going and how long I’m going to be gone, I have to carry the Glock, and if I see anyone they shouldn’t see me first. That’s not all he says on the subject but those are the biggies.
Thank goodness because as much as I like working with Mitch I’ve been falling behind on the things I’m supposed to be responsible for, like the foraging and gardening and stuff. I’m happy to report that the yellow morels are in though there aren’t as many as there were last year; I think because it has been so dry. Finally dug that wild ginger that I wanted. I want to plant some nearer to the house but haven’t had time. I think I got the last of the fiddleheads, if I take any more there won’t be any next year. The wisteria, black locusts, elderberries, and lilac are in bloom and I made some flower jelly – something Grammy used to win awards for at the County Fair. One of the reasons Mitch wants to move the bees is so they can have at the blooming things going on right now. No specialty honeys this year, just need to make sure the bees have enough to eat since there doesn’t look like there will be any field crops.
I tell you if I was any more industrious that I could just spit. It’s almost time for the lightning bugs to start coming out so it is time for us to be moving inside. We saw big planes (Mitch says large transport planes) earlier in the day coming out of the East. Mitch wasn’t sure from where and it was an odd direction. We never saw planes coming from the East even when I was in town. Everything was always North to South. I wonder what it means. Mitch is in the cellar sending out a report on the planes. They were flying high and he says he thinks they were ours but he is reporting it either way. All I want to do is lay down and rest, sleep and escape for a little while. Mitch hasn’t had a migraine since the medics gave him those eye drops. On the other hand my head feels like it could roll off and roll away.
I’m tired. Bone tired. Dead dog tired. So is Mitch. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished but there is still a lot to do. You could say that is the life of a farmer, but that’s not all we are and not why we are doing things this way. Mitch said there will be new things on the list when these things are all scratched off. Not “might” be new things but will be new things. Whew. When my parents used to warn Dale and I that adulting was going to be a lot of hard work they weren’t kidding. It isn’t just the physical labor involved, it is the mental labor you have to put in before, during, and after most things.
How would you like to move an entire library to a new location that never even thought about being a library? Mitch helped me build shelves in the storm cellar and I’ve moved all of Grammy’s books … from the garden journals to her Bible commentaries to all the recipe books and hobby magazines she’s collected and those she’s made into scrapbooks over the years; they’re more idea books than real scrapbooks like you make with stuff from the hobby store, but look dead useful now that I need that kind of inspiration and help. I also want to bring down her recipe boxes but that’s going to have to wait until I can find a place for them because Uncle Hy’s library of books had to fit on those same shelves. I had to organize them as I moved them all, and I don’t know which set I’ve gotten more ideas from, Grammy’s or Uncle Hy’s. Not that I’ve had a lot of time to look. Did I mention that we’ve been busy and I’m tired?
We’ve been working both outside and inside since the “Night of the Bombers”. Sounds like the title of a movie. A bad movie. Like Night of the Triffids, the Night of the Comet, the Night of the Iguana, the Night of the Meek (an old Twilight Zone episode that Mom liked for some reason), and on and on. Just … weird … and tiring.
Inside I’ve been going over every room to try and make sure nothing breakable or valuable is in line of sight of a window or where it can be rattled off the top of something. Mostly that has meant taking everything off the walls and off flat surfaces and putting it in boxes and sliding it under the bed in that room. It’s made things look so bare that I can hardly stand it. I know Mom would say I am being foolish and sentimental but after the first room I decided to take pictures with my tablet so that I can put things back together the way they were when this war is over with. If you think it is hard for me, it is really hard for Mitch. This is his home even more than mine and having it turned upside down, and not for Spring or Fall cleaning, has been super stressful for him. He can’t even stand to go in Grammy or Uncle Hy’s bedrooms. I feel bad for him but the one time I brought it up he said that it had to be done so it had to be endured. Sounds like something he might have heard from Uncle Hy a few times. I just wish I could make his “enduring” easier.
I’ve also started going through the attic like Grammy had planned for us to do, just maybe not the way she planned for us to do. Mitch wants the windows up there “free of debris” in case we have to use that level as an “observation deck.” He also doesn’t want anything valuable up there in case we have to fight a house/roof fire. That gives me the heebies. But in an old wood house you have to be realistic.
We need more room down in the cellar and Mitch told me something I never knew. There actually is more to the cellar but Grammy’s second husband – the one that didn’t live very long and turned her sour on being anything but a widow from that point forward despite having the farm and all from her first marriage – sealed an area off that Uncle Hy’s father had dug and enclosed when he was thinking about changing the house layout. Boy was that a mouthful. Mom would red-pen it to pieces but sometimes you just have to tell stuff all in one breath or risk losing your train of thought.
Essentially it works something like this. In the old days you dug your cellars first and then built the house over them. That was due to most people only having picks and shovels to dig their cellars or because they were reusing an older homesite to build a new home on. It isn’t unusual to find that old homes have dug, filled, re-dug, or re-purposed cellars and basements under or around the site. The reason why this cellar is like that involves some family history more than engineering.
“Where is it?!” I asked Mitch when he told me about it. “Grammy never said a thing.”
He shrugged. “Sore subject for her. You knew her second husband was abusive? He didn’t hit but he wasn’t exactly the good man he wanted people to think. More than a little nuts too according to Dad.”
“Er … I kinda figured based on things she said after I found out about it. And Uncle Hy let slip one time that we are related to the Winters.”
Mitch made a face. “Yeah. One of the Winters married a daughter of that guy. Dad … I don’t know the entire story but apparently that man imagined himself to be a lay preacher with a side order of what the psychologists today call narcissistic personality problems. He was going to build a chapel to have a home church because he broke with their church right after they got married. However, that’s when he found out that Grammy didn’t own the farm outright back then, her brother-in-law owned half because that’s the way Grammy’s in-laws had deeded it out in their wills. Anyway, the brother-in-law nixed the idea and Lofton – that was his name – started doing things to undo all the improvements that Dad’s father had planned to do before he got sick. Dad ever told you how he died?”
“No. Grammy generally pretended those years didn’t exist. I mean she even scratched some stuff out of the family Bible so I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know it until I asked Mom why Grammy hadn’t remarried after Poppa Decker died when she would have been so young at the time. Mom is the one that explained about Mr. Lofton not being a nice man and taking his disappointments in life out on Uncle Hy when he was only a very little boy.”
“Yeah. Grammy told me it made Dad wild when he was a young but that he outgrew it, and I wasn’t to listen to all the stories that my bio-mom’s side of the family told. Anyway, that Old Fart Lofton had started to tractor over some young fruit trees that Dad’s father had planted.”
“Why?!”
“Meanness. Claimed God had told him that the fruit from those trees would be used for wickedness when what they were supposed to be for was so Dad could get some schooling at some point.”
“You’re kidding me,” having a hard time grasping that kind of behavior.
“Nope. And apparently God didn’t like his Name being used like that either because out of a clear blue sky a bolt of lightning came down and struck him. He didn’t die from the bolt of lightning though. The lighting bolt threw him off the tractor seat and into a tree and he got impaled on a broken limb. It was witnessed by the Sheriff at the time as well as someone on the school board and a couple other men of character ‘beyond reproach.’”
“Aw, you’re just telling me a spook story cause I said how dark the cellar was this morning.”
Mitch held up his right hand and said, “If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. There’s a folder in Dad’s legal drawer that has the old newspaper articles about it. Lofton’s kids tried to take the farm, claiming their Dad had paid the bank and taken possession of it. Grammy and her brother-in-law had to go to court to prove the kids were lying. And that’s what started the feud that got carried over to the Winters family. I’ll dig out the folder with everything in it if I have time after supper.”
The weirdest things you find out about your own family. I swear. But Mitch and I are going to see if that cellar section is worth trying to open back up. It opens off the storm cellar and runs the opposite side of the house from the septic tank and field.
On the outside we’ve already proven that the barns and sheds can be closed from the inside, the doors barred, and then a way made to go out an upper window or vent. The animal barn is easier to get into using a tree and going through the cupola up there. It is scary high but the roof is sound and not too steep, so we don’t have to worry about falling as much as with the tractor barn. We’re going to go get some last season’s hay rounds from a field over by the Delray place and save this year’s hay to feed the animals with. Those hay rounds are going to be stacked around the outside of the barns and sheds to create a kind of protective barrier for what’s inside the those buildings. There is some fire hazard from that but at the same time, it is better than nothing because Mitch said the barns – and the animals inside – are even more vulnerable to shrapnel than the house is. Mitch already has two of the outside walls of the animal barn done like that, but it is going to require a lot more round hay bales to finish the job. And those round things have to be stacked just right or they can be a danger. Rodents and snakes might take up residence in those old bales as well, so we’ll need to keep an eye on things.
Mitch used the old rotary push lawn mower to knock down some of the higher grass that has been coming up and then used the scythe when the push mower wasn’t up to a particular patch or area. He would have preferred to use the bush hog or riding mower but that would have taken more fuel than he was comfortable using despite it being a necessary task. His reason is that he doesn’t want anyone being able to sneak up too close on the yard. We’ve got the fire buckets and hoses checked out and Mitch made sure that we could still hook them up to the old pumper wagon that we are keeping full from here on out. It is a very old-fashioned way of doing things but we’re too far from any place that could send a fire truck even if this wasn’t a Buffer Zone.
The other “water” thing we did was move some poly storage tanks from the rented land on the other side of the Delray place and put them on stands at the end of the house garden rows and then run drip hose (also found at that land) down the rows. It has meant getting water from the stream to fill them with, but the plants look a lot better, and we aren’t worried about losing so many plants or all the work of watering by hand. Uncle Hy used to use the pumper tank for that during a dry year, but we can’t run the motor that much and using the drip hose also means less water wasted through evaporation.
When I’m not cleaning and organizing, or helping Mitch with some building project or other, I’ve been working in the gardens doing other stuff and trying to keep up. Onions and hot peppers are all making, and I spend at least an hour at the end of the day braiding long strings of them. Strawberries are making and I’m having to pick them morning and afternoon so I don’t lose anymore to spoilage than might otherwise happen. One night I made strawberry short cake only with biscuits. I thought Mitch was going to lick the pattern off his saucer.
I’d give a lot for a frig to give me a little extra time. Mitch says he might have an idea between my Farm Project paper and Uncle Hy’s ideas and books. I hope he can do something because if I’m having trouble now, I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when the gardens really start producing. I’ve made just about all the canned strawberries I can handle and they are still coming in.
And speaking of producing hand over fist, the zucchini has started coming in. Holy Crow! What was Grammy and Uncle Hy thinking when they planted the gardens? I kinda get that they expected at least some in the family to head to the farm, but it is just crazy how much extra they planted. I’m not sure what to do with it all to be honest. I am digging through Grammy’s recipes files but I’m also trying to put as much fresh on the table as possible. And then Mitch threw another problem at me. We need to save seeds because who knows when, where, or how we’ll be able to get more seeds. *ARGH!* My aching brain.
Tomorrow Mitch is going to need help getting some of the hives moved around. He laughed when I told him I’m worried about putting the hives where we can’t see and check on them every day.
“They’re not puppies or kittens Nann.”
“Obviously,” I told him, more than a little embarrassed by my worry.
“And look at it like this, they need to be spread out some so there is plenty of things for them to pollinate and get nectar from.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what is it?”
I sighed feeling stupid. “I don’t know, okay? I just … worry about them. Why I should I don’t know. They have pin sized brains and don’t know me from Eve … or from a rock or anything else. Matter of fact I don’t do anything but irritate them. But … I … I …” I shrugged. “It’s different than when I helped Uncle Hy do it. He was responsible for them, not me. Now I am and … and they might be annoying little stingers but they are still something alive and … I just worry that I’m going to do something wrong and they wind up all dead. And that doesn’t even count that you want to harvest all this honey all those hives are supposed to make and if I mess up that’s not going to happen.”
“I ain’t sayin’ its stupid Nann but … they’re bees. This is what they are created to do. Keeping too many in one spot … some will starve and they could get a disease and spread it to all the hives. This is just how you manage bees … by letting them be bees.”
I know he’s right. And I know I’m being a little ridiculous. Mom would say a lot ridiculous and too sentimental. But like I told Mitch, it’s different now that I’m responsible for things.
At least I seem to be proving to Mitch that I’m not a kid that needs to be kept in the yard or on a leash all the time. I now go foraging on my own. Fine, it isn’t far from the house but at least it is farther than the apron strings he tried to strangle me with for a while. There are rules … of course … like I have to tell him where I am going and how long I’m going to be gone, I have to carry the Glock, and if I see anyone they shouldn’t see me first. That’s not all he says on the subject but those are the biggies.
Thank goodness because as much as I like working with Mitch I’ve been falling behind on the things I’m supposed to be responsible for, like the foraging and gardening and stuff. I’m happy to report that the yellow morels are in though there aren’t as many as there were last year; I think because it has been so dry. Finally dug that wild ginger that I wanted. I want to plant some nearer to the house but haven’t had time. I think I got the last of the fiddleheads, if I take any more there won’t be any next year. The wisteria, black locusts, elderberries, and lilac are in bloom and I made some flower jelly – something Grammy used to win awards for at the County Fair. One of the reasons Mitch wants to move the bees is so they can have at the blooming things going on right now. No specialty honeys this year, just need to make sure the bees have enough to eat since there doesn’t look like there will be any field crops.
I tell you if I was any more industrious that I could just spit. It’s almost time for the lightning bugs to start coming out so it is time for us to be moving inside. We saw big planes (Mitch says large transport planes) earlier in the day coming out of the East. Mitch wasn’t sure from where and it was an odd direction. We never saw planes coming from the East even when I was in town. Everything was always North to South. I wonder what it means. Mitch is in the cellar sending out a report on the planes. They were flying high and he says he thinks they were ours but he is reporting it either way. All I want to do is lay down and rest, sleep and escape for a little while. Mitch hasn’t had a migraine since the medics gave him those eye drops. On the other hand my head feels like it could roll off and roll away.