5 minute freewrite 2888 prompt mud in the eye

This is my post for #freewriters 2888 prompt mud in the eye hosted by @mariannewest

My sister wants to make money by pompano fishing, so I told her I would drive the boat if she handled the rods. But first, we had to get bait. Today we went to the beach to get the bait, sandfleas.

We went south to Turtle Beach first, and there were lots of fleas there, but they were all too small. Next, we went to Seagrape beach, and nothing was there, so we went to the beach just south of the inlet and did not see any there either.

We drove north of the inlet to Whitey. As soon as we walked down to the beach, as far as I could see, there were fleas, and they were the right size.

My sister used my husband's rake, but found it was too hard on her, she got a few fleas, but spent most of the time sitting on the dune. My back and hand was hurting, but I kept going because I knew we needed them. I am paying for it now. I walked on, getting the fleas, while she waited for me to come back. She had my phone in her bag, so I did not get any pictures of the baby turtles that I helped.

I saw a cluster of something odd, and it took me a bit to figure out what it was. It was baby sea turtle flippers. The sand they are pumping on the beach is not soft like beach sand, and they were stuck in it, as if they were in concrete. I started digging them out, some were upside down. They did not have mud in the eye but were very sandy. One by one, I set them up right, and they crawled to the water. A man came over to me and helped get them out of the hard sand. We dug up twenty or twenty five of them.

When I got back to where my sister was waiting, I asked her to watch my bucket of fleas while I walked ahead and got more. I would walk back to her and dump them in my bucket, then take my bucket to the next spot and leave it with her. She decided instead of waiting for me to come back to her, she would pull both buckets and carry the rake she used to me. The tide was high, and she lost my bucket, spilling all of the fleas I got. I feel bad about it, but I threw a fit. We saved what we could but lost a lot of them.

If getting them was not enough work, when we got home, they had to be blanched and dried before we could put them in bags to go in the freezer. We ended up with 19 bags, enough for 9 days of fishing.

I do not know what I did, but now I can not put any pressure on my left foot, it hurts to even touch it. I am using a cane to walk. My back, my hand, and now my foot, I am falling apart.
photos are my sisters