Mother and I trying to saw a dead limb off a tree.......is not a pretty site. First I have to convience her it is dead because she can see leaves on the limb next to it...........then she can saw better than I.....which is probably true but I had the saw! lol
We did the job and carried the big ole limb to the side of the road to be carried off by the city.......lumber jacks we are not!
There has been a gentle rain for several hours. Not everyone is having such agreeable weather but we are fortunate.
The farmers are happily dancing in the barn yards and toasting each other with large steaming cups of coffee.
The country roads although graveled are muddy and have deep ruts so anyone who is smarter than the average bear is not going out on those roads.
The plants around the house are busily drinking all the cool fresh water they can get and the grass is pushing forth on the lawn by giant leaps!
The kids are slogging down the bar ditches along side of the roads carefully getting their shoes soaked and their pant legs wet to the knees depending on how tall they are.
And me? I am reading a good book, drinking some of that coffee mentioned above and listening to the raindrops splashing in the wet leaves beneath my window.
Mother is sitting in the living room all wrapped up and the cat cuddled up on her lap providing lots of warmth.
Jack is watching the history channel on TV and nursing an upset stomach since he put on a morphine patch this morning. There isn't anything to do but take the special tablets for the stomach and drink coke. So that is what he is doing.
On the patio the neighbor's dog is wrapped around himself as close to the patio sliding door as he can get. Scally a crippled cat is also wrapped in a ball in a box outfitted with a fluffy mattress cover folded to provide the most comfort. Mama kitty is inside the barrel tree enjoying time away from the "children", and blue (gray) long haired cat is sitting on top of the cat tree which provides a large feeding table with his nose in the wind dreaming of "lady"kitties or wayward birds, who knows.
And if you were to drop in...............you could enjoy a large chair, a throw if you were cool, and time for a chat or a nap, depending on your mood.
Peace reigns at Marigold Country Home!
Mother's car would not start because the battery was down. She has a fairly new battery but probably has a short which is draining the battery between drives.
Well, I set up the battery charger and attached the "red" to the red and the "black" to the black and did the recharging deed!
The car runs and I have driven it three times in the last two days.....<smiles>
Of course I am not allowed to take the car to have it serviced..........or to have it checked..........or whatever...........because I do not walk on water and a friend of the family promised my stepfather that he would take care of the car.......forever I guess!
Well, now I kinda sorta walk on damp dirt I guess instead of water but I can charge a battery! LOL
Some days I am so frustrated with challenges that I over look the obvious.
Mother's first thing of the day is the paper and coffee. That fits most of us. But for her it is the obituaries and I find that so morbid but she is losing so many of her friends. The next thing is the weather and that doesn't change much but she likes to see the promise of rain.
She will always be a farmer and rain and the lack of rain is the the constant topic of discussion. Jack said it has to be the topic of discussion because nothing else happens here. LOL You always have the weather with you.
Anyway after doing the obits., the weather, and looking at the puzzle because solving the daily word puzzle is an all day thing (Jumble- a scrambled word game). I have started looking at the classifieds telling Mother that I am looking for her a job..... we pick out everything from plumber( which she wishes she could do) to truck driver and she says she sure can't do that one! I suggested bartender and she said she could pour "whiskey". LOL but it has become a newspaper game with us.
How else do you "entertain" someone who can't see, she can't tell the cats from the dogs sometimes, and can't hear the radio or tv, but has no problem wth music, I tried reading to her but it becomes so difficult to make her understand and is so hard on my throat and voice for any length of time.
I did get her some beggin strips to feed the little dog who comes here to beg. She feels he is starving because she can't see his little fat tummy. But he wags his tail and tilts his head just so and she knows he loves her. She is a real push over with the animals......as is the rest of the family! When all else fails she goes to the patio to see if there are any animals there to talk to.......sometimes there are one or two.... usually not any except at chow time.
Hee Hee ......there is an 80% chance of rain today........now see I am doing it!
Peace at Marigold Country Home!
The lovely part of a small town medical clinic..........The personal call from your primary physician at the end of Friday. The doctor just called and said he had tried to talk to an orthopedic surgeon about my foot all week, finally gave up and tried another.
This doctor and my doctor discussed my foot, the doctor's exam, the xrays, and etc. The surgeon said 20% displacement was not a big problem as long as the foot was not deformed. So wear the "comfortable" shoe for another 6 or 8 weeks and see what happens. So my doctor and I agreed to go have another xray in a month and see how it looks..........
So, now I can relax for a while. My step-daughter was ready to come take care of her dad if I had to enter the hospital for the surgery. So it will be closer to Father's Day if we have to take that route... and better for her and her dad. That also gives me time to get the home care in place for Mother. She has good insurance that should provide respite, companship, and other kinds of care. So we move along.
Peace...........
It was deliberate! I put the water hose in the driveway! I ran over it several time in that week! And finally I hit the connecting part and killed the waterhose!
Well, today I fixed it! I had gone immediately to get the little fix parts but didn't tackle the waterhose itself for a week! But today I took my mother out to the garage to supervise........if it didn't work I wanted to blame her! lol She said she never had used those parts that she had used different ones...........well, these worked even without leakling! Yea, how silly it sounds but I felt like I had really accomplished something. Repairs are not my area of expertise!
But I guess I better learn because there are fewer and fewer people in this house to fix things!
We do have Marigolds at Marigold Country Home!
Peace!
Yesterday I received a phone call in the early morning. A neighbor had left a bouquet of fresh spring flowers on my car windshield. I had put a note on the door "do not disturb, bad pain day". She said she had sent her elves to work in my yard.
Earlier in the week I had mentioned that I need to finish the raking of the pecans and stuff in the yard to be ready to mow later. Well the elves did a great job, put everything in black bags for the trash and put the bags in the proper place. Now these elves are 4th graders. They worked unsupervised and completed the job in short order. I had gone out and given them black bags and envelopes with money for their labors.
The mom who sent the elves came over last night. I had called and left word that I was pleased with the job the elves had done and thanked her for remembering I needed that job done. She had to tell me what they did with the $$ and their shopping trip.
This is spring break for the kids, so when they were finished the mom took them to town because she was taking boxes of clothes to goodwill. They decided to pool their money and buy circular saw blades because they were building a club house and were wearing out saw blades. They had just enough with some they had saved to buy a package of several blades. The sales woman was impressed with the boys and thier purchase, what they were going to do with the blades and how they had earned the $$ to buy them. I was impressed that they didn't go buy junk right away but discussed what they needed and then set out to purchase their saw blades.
How nice to have neighbors who help..........Peace
All this xray business happens after a night when we are up almost all night.........called ambulance but the line was busy.......by that time Jack was breathing better......almost a panic attack! Hey panic attacks are MINE!
Weekend of fretting is ahead of me!
Peace at Marigold Country Home? Not yet!
Fear and panic is the basic theme today this week!
Jack has several health problems and the symptoms he has been having this week are not making me happy. He refuses to go to doctor.....I can not dray him there!
I have arranged with a neighbor to come help me clean house a couple of hours on occasions. She is a sweet young woman and will welcome a little extra money. She is also a close neighbor. If you plan ahead you seldom need the use those plans I find...........so if I have to take Jack to doctor or hospital, I can call on her to check on mother and see that she has something to eat. That is a relief beyond measure! I have to develop friends and neighbors in this little town to help me in some situations. I have several but this gal is close and I think she might be helpful.
If you are a caregiver with two patients then you double your fears and panic! Believe me you have twice the amount of bases to cover. I bought plenty of frozen dinners to supplement anything I might have in frig...........
Continuing to prepare for each new day........Peace!
PS I don't know anything about the xrays yet! LOL
I SNUCK AWAY!
Went to local hospital (10miles away) and had xrays of foot. It rained while I was away........gee I missed it!
Went to the local little store to get some milk.......it has changed ownership about 4 or 5 times since we have been here but think this time it will stay.........the people are hard working, clean, pleasant, good cooks, etc.
Walked around and looked in flower beds and I did see some MARIGOLDS coming up!
Trees are bursting into bloom.......they are beautiful.
Blooms on pecan trees are more like those on date palms. They hang down in bunches and are not really much like blooms.
Peace!
FOG!
It is wonderful! My foot is hurting..which says I was on it too much yesterday and today is an "off your foot" day. I had planned to go get an xray but with the fog and promise of possible rain I will put it off another day..........and can get the car washed at the same time.
I think mother was disappointed that we didn't "do" something yesterday. She went into a long explanation that she was 89 and would soon be 90. I told her not to rush it because I had a birthday the same month! LOL Then she said we didn't go to church because it was cold and rainy........OK! Why didn't she say let's run away for a while! Not that I could have understood.
I actually finished painting the yellow lines in the garage, swept the garage and did away with some "stuff" that I do on a regular basis. This is the only way you can keep a two car garage big enough for two cars!
I moved some boxes in the barn to a storage room and looked in a box of stuff I bought sometime back. It is full of lovely flowers that we can use for memorial day. I told a relative yesterday not to "buy" till we went through the box and then the box would be empty or in a smaller box..........I am into moving stuff out as soon as possible.
Mother found some things she though would be good to give away.........yiippiiiipppiiiii....thought that would never happen. Need to contact an Angel's Closet.
We started spring cleaning.......or at least I did. The living room is panelled and that is something that needs to be cleaned often. What I want to know is how dust gets into rooms that are never opened? I dust, clean mirrors, and vacumn on a regular basis. And it always needs to be done. Perhaps after the windows were regrouted, this problem will not exist?
My husband has just told me the culprit is the heating and cooling system. Airvents have plenty of dust! Now why didn't I think of that!
It is almost 9...we were all up at 4, Mother said she wentto bed hungry! I told her she should never do that.......just tell me. But I didn't offer her dessert last night and I think that might have been the problem. We had company just about the end of the evening meal and things were not quite as usual. Mother loves dessert! Well, at 4:30 I fixed scrambled eggs and toast for a sandwich and she ate it and we all went back to bed...........now what do we do for brunch? LOL
Cool, damp, Peace at Marigold Country Home!
( I haven't seen one marigold yet but lots of 4 O'clocks are coming up like grass!)
A wonderful thunderstorm last night and then there was rain! Which means I don't have to water quite so much, and that I love.
Our week has been so hectic with the tree trimming and house repairs. Changing the clocks last night was the straw that broke the camel's back or the straw that totally confused Mother. She remembered that I said we had to change the clocks but when we did she just could not cope with the clocks saying one thing and the time being something else until morning..........and even being the retired teacher that I am..........just could not explain well enough to make her happy with her clock!
The offending clock is on the kitchen table this morning so I don't know if she abandoned it, put it out for the trash, or just put the thing where it would be right in the morning! Who knows!
We all had an outting to Sam's Club yesterday and I took one of the electric riding carts and had a ball. When we were finished my foot wasn't hurting, and I wasn't exhausted from running back and forth to check on Mother and take her tasting samples(which we always do). She did really well and enjoyed watching people and being out of the house.
And so there was wet Peace at Marigold Country Home!
Bright and shiny! The workmen have repaired all the grout around the windows, the putty between bricks, the cracks in the concrete and brick walls, and many more things. The big job was repairing the wood trim on the house, staining it to match the original color and then the clear gloss sealer put on. I think it will look great. Right now we have plastic all around the house on the sidewalks, bricks to hold it down and ladders, equipment, all kinds of stuff to stumble over and cause damage to my feet! lol
It has been a beautiful day to do all of this.......rain is forecast for the weekend so getting it done was well planned.
I painted yellow warning strips in the garage on the concrete platform and steps..this keeps all of us aware of the step ups and step downs. I will also use the same material that the contractor is using on cracks in the garage. I trimmed bushes today..........for just a short period of time.....too long on my foot and I pay dearly. Cleaning the carpet was easy I could do that sitting down...lol..........well we are ready for the weekend. Even if it rains! LOL
Peace at Marigold Country Home!
Trees, I think I shall never see...............
The trees in this yard are elms and pecans mostly. The mulberry was the one that was taken out and it was a messy tree.
I would never recommend anyone planting pecans in their yard. At the end of the harvest the ones still in the shells and the discards must be raked and cleaned up. And interestingly enough people here won't even bend over and pick up pecans because it is work, and then you have to shell them to be able to use the nutmeats! Goodness that is work too!
The kids won't even steal them or use them as weapons to throw at each other! Sometimes I wonder at the human mind........these people can't pay their bills, won't clean up their yards, won't take work you offer, won't haul off scrap metal to make some money ( and the price for different kinds is quite high right now).
I guess that is why I am so amazed at the men working on the house. They are a family business and all are polite and good workers. I offered this job to people all around here, asked for estimates, etc., and all I got were promises, delays, and excuses.
Well hope I am as well satisfied when the job is over as I am now....lol
But the farmers are already crying for rain, and so are my plants! lol
We have had the workmen here now for three days. On Monday they took out one tree, topped one and trimmed the rest. Looks decidely better and safer for wind and fire damage.
Now they are working on the eaves of the house, regrouting the windows, all kinds of repairs that I think haven't been done in 27 years. When people get elderly and someone doesn't make the decision for them, some projects just don't get done because they are not really noticed.
I said it would take 2 years to pull things together here but I was wrong, more like five I am afraid. So much needs to be done. The next big project will be landscaping because the yard is so uneven and when the rains come, there are lakes all over the yard.
This is really bothering my mother because she can't see everything the men are doing.........the house just doesn't have that many windows and she won't go outside and look. Which is probably best, she would probably tell them how to do their job! lol
Peace..............
Please, listen when you are told that everyone in the house has had a bad day! MAKE THAT VISIT SHORT!
Mother got up weak and wobbly and had had a very quiet day slowly regaining her strength. I had worried about her all day.
Jack had had a day of reactions to morphine, and the usual lime and coke had not been totally helpful. He was tired and sore and weary with the day.
We had visitors after seven in the evening and they stayed until after 9. Mother usually goes to bed about 6 or a little after. She decided to "entertain" and that wound her up.
After a day hobbling around and doing quite a lot of house work, I was tired and my foot hurt.
They didn't listen to the: we have all had a bad day,etc. They just parked and stayed. They did help with a minor problem I was having and could have finished but they decided to stay and complete the project. This put all of us off.
I love them dearly and they are helpful.....but people just don't realize some days are not good for staying for a long time. In fact I try to never stay over 20 to 30 minutes at the most when checking on someone. We had had a neighbor earlier in the day who came in to return a container and bring a sample of a new recipe, and she stood and chatted and sat a few minutes with my mother. Brief but refreshing visit.
Evenings are the only times I have to relax and prepare to rest. After running all day I need to wind down. Visitors are certainly welcome but don't bring your sleeping bag!
Peace at Marigold Country Home!
I see spring in the trees, shoots coming from the flower pots, and the silly cats that seem to have more energy and noseiness. The very expectant Mommas lay in the sun on the patio and discuss the raising of kitties with each other. ( I think that is what they are doing!)
Yesterday was in the 80's and expect the same today. Wish this foot would let me get out and enjoy the joy of yard work.
The robins are expecially fat and sassy lately. They really are fun to watch. Well, at least I have more time to watch with my foot on the bum!
Peace!
