Chance meeting.

Yesterday was busy. I had to run to the store and as it happened, I ran into my old boss that I hadn't seen for quite a while

For about 10 years or so I worked for a local Chiropractor in town. It was just the two of us in the little office. I did all the dictations for medical notes and did all the billing and coding for him before I ended up at the local medical clinic when I needed a change.

The change in him was pretty dramatic. His hair was now pure white as was his fancy little mustache, but it all stood out with his nice tan.

We stopped to talk and catch up. I asked how his long time partner was. Last I'd heard a couple of years ago, she was struggling with lung issues. Damn. He told me she died last year. Now he spend his winters  near his kids in Florida. 

They were great friends of mine and we lost touch after I quit his office, moved to the clinic and then moved on to become a security officer in another town. However, they took care of my aged Jack Russell when I had to drive Rich to his radiation treatments for 6 weeks in 2015. 

We talked about my hubby briefly then I wanted to say something positive and commented that he looked quite well.

He shook his head and said he wasn't really. He had a pacemaker as his heart was getting stiff as a old wooden board and he had prostate cancer. He said it is the slow growing type. He said he might take radiation treatment but no chemo. 

To his credit, he is a retired doctor and I did see him work miracles with so many people. He wasn't your typical Chiropractor. He often referred patients to their regular primary for more help. He was one of the good guys who didn't just ask people to come back over and over. He'd often tell the patient ...if you feel better, don't come back but call if you need me!

We've always remained friends but were out of touch. He and his partner had different social circles so we rarely ran into each other except once in a while at the Farmer's Market in town.

He seemed pretty sad about losing his gal friend of 30+ years and I knew how he felt. A bit lost. He was trying to decide what to do with his house in town and we discussed that also. We fell into an easy conversation just as we used to when working together.

Before we parted ways with our grocery carts, I put my cell phone in his contacts so if he needed to call or contact me for any reason he could.

When I got home I told Rich all about it and his reaction was like mine. "Oh Damn. She was one of the good ones. John is a good guy too, I sure hope he decides to spend his time with his kids and grands."

We sat quietly thinking about the times we had John and his gal out for mule rides and picnics, the celebrations we had together and the way we ended up getting out of touch.

I hope he thinks about giving us a call so we can invite him out to pet some mules since he was always fascinated with them. He is one of the good guys with a kind and generous heart.

Catching up busy...

Some infrared photos from this past week

This past week has been a busy one. Appointments at the VA and an appointment for the Subaru.
Struggling to mow the yard on the days when I won't float the mower.
Changing the oil and doing maintenance on the 4 wheeler, the zero turn mower, and working on the tiller. All jobs I that were deferred before to 'the boss'.

Thankfully, my neighbor was been kind enough to spend most of Sunday afternoon showing me how to go through these engines. I learned new terms.
Two cycle and 4 cycle engines. He even found an adjustment on my little mower and it mows better!

Now the yard is shaggy again, but I have my flowers all in and the flowers I wanted seeded...are seeded.
There are family 'things' going on but I choose not to address them on a public blog of course.

 The hill that we normally let the pony graze and keep trimmed. It has

been too wet for that this year. I 

had to hand mow it this last weekend. 

I think it looks nicer mowed than pony

mowed.

 West side of the house. I have some very hardy

plants in here,

and I moved the hosta as it 

never does well in the heat

of the summer.

I added mulch to keep

the moisture in during 

the dry spells.

Not showy flowers, but some interesting

colorful herbs.

One day I may actually put a border

around the edge.

The innards of the 4 wheeler.

It was cutting out so we took it 

apart.

I think it should be okay after

all the work we did.

I put up a hummingbird feeder next to the east window in the eating area. The Hummers are plentiful. Today I'm going to grab an Oriole feeder and put it up as well. They are trying to get into the hummer's feeder and keep landing on the porch and singing to me.

They will only be around until late June, but I would like to enjoy seeing them close up. Besides Rich enjoys seeing them also.

I've been visiting my MIL in the Nursing Home and some days she is really not very with it. Her dementia has progressed or she is confused as she is in the 'home' for now. They ... the care team is considering returning her to her apartment with more help.

Two nurses stopped me yesterday to ask if I could help them come up with an idea to keep her feet up because of her edema.

Such the rebel. MIL puts her feet down as soon as PT/OT leaves the room or one of the nurses or aids. She needs to have them up so that the edema can be controlled. I guess she has trouble figuring out night and day also. 

All this is expected going forward with dementia and her kidney failure. MIL is rather unconcerned about anything other than getting back to her own bed.

On the days I visit, I always call home on my cell phone and let mother and son talk for a while.

I did take some time for myself yesterday and managed to take a nice quiet walk in the dreary weather. I even found more morels!

I'm looking forward to a few more fun things coming up at the end of the month....

Another whirlwind week

Well I did find out thanks to my neighbor what the mysterious plant was growing by our mailbox.
Lupine!
I think it should actually be in a sunnier spot, but I'm going to leave it where it is right now and see what happens with it.
We added some Veronica which likes more shade and should come up each year with purple blue spikes of flowers.

Some of the seeds are coming up now just barely a week later.  So we have high hopes for a semi decent mailbox garden!

The other night I made supper early and took Siera out for a 'sunset' ride.  She went willingly and we rode out to the black top and back.

Her mane is such a mess, it does need a trim pretty badly.  I hope to get to that perhaps tomorrow.  We'll see.

I rearranged the living room and packed up the old table we had for our computers.  I used some plastic tubs [see through kind!] and stacked them up and laid left over plywood pieces on top as a desk top.

When it comes time to move the 'desk' for remodeling, it will be easy to take apart.

Morris rather likes the ability to stand on the back of the couch and look out the window.

He actually doesn't do it unless there is someone out there that he can hear.  He just curls up on his end of the couch with his blanket and takes a nap.

He is handling the noises outside the house fairly well.  We'll see how it goes when the guys move to start the interior.

This is a shot of the living room and the stairway.  You can see the wall paper in the short hall has been peeled and the hole in the wall where we took out the small electric heater.

The doorway is to the bathroom and you can see into the eating area.

Our house is very small, but we do like it.  The extra room will be a blessing along with the storage.

I don't know why I didn't change the layout years ago. This makes more sense to me.

This morning I noticed the sky turned a very odd color while I was making coffee so I grabbed my camera and ran outside.

There was a rainbow!
At the break of dawn!

And then I noticed how fast the front was moving so I hit movie mode on my camera.

The rains came but no harsh winds.  I am happy about that.  We did need the rain, but it has turned our area around the house into a sink hole of muck.

Last but not least I'm getting closer to getting the scrap wood table top done!
Next step is gluing and refitting the pieces together.

I keep re-arranging the pieces.  I may even get it right so I won't have to saw any edges!

This will more than likely be an outside table for the porch.  I have also been sanding and painting some blocks for the 'toy' box.  
I bought a wooden crate to store them in.  Now I am torn between using the crate for something else.

Well if this morning's rain keeps away the construction workers, it looks like we'll have a quiet day.  

If it dries up there are things to do like lawn mowing, gardening, hiking, and cleaning up the construction site.

The guys have done an excellent job, but I am a bit more of a stickler.

I leave with a photo taken when I headed to town for errands yesterday. Ridgetop cropland as seen from Riley Road.

Busy at the Farm

We had icy fog for the sunrise.  Sometimes it blankets areas and at other times it just provides a beautiful winter backdrop to a sunrise on the ridge.

The rest of our day was spent scurrying around taking care of things.  My intent was to go snowshoeing again but the forecast said it would warm up to the 30's.  The snow shoeing would have to wait.  Warm temps make the snow clog up on the ice picks and it is not enjoyable.

I quickly got the chores done and the laundry hung out to dry in the fresh morning air.

Hubby started the skid steer and we got the round bales put out.  As the skid steer was warming up I noticed an Eagle and a young eagle had perched in the tree above the summer pasture.
I wandered a bit closer to see if I could get a decent shot and cursed myself for not having my Nikon with the zoom lens.

But there you go, Baldy and Immature Eagle.

It isn't so easy to see from the photo, but I did walk up and get a better look. 

My next 'to do' on my list was running to town to get groceries.  

We were going to have nice weather so I planned on riding Siera when we got back. Our farrier said I could ride her and it would do her a world of good in helping her 'frog' redevelop.  It would be worse for her to stand around in the pasture.  As long as she didn't limp, she was good for easy riding.

And how funny is it that she actually kept coming to the gate as if to say, "Let's get going!"

The phone rang and all of our plans changed.  Hubby's truck was done.

Finally!  It needed new fuel lines and brake lines [the rusted brake lines were noticed while our mechanic was doing the fuel lines so he decided to replace them].

Well that changed the our activities for the rest of the day.  The mechanic shop is not close and it would be dark by the time we got back.  
Our mechanic has known hubby since his daughter was in school.  Let's just say that hubby knew the mechanic since Jim was a teenager.

What a good guy he is too.  So after we got to the shop, the men talked 'old times' and visited, reliving memories and telling funny stories.

I scooted out the door and headed home so I could get the chores done before dark.  The guys could talk for hours!

Bart, our polled bull was happy to see me coming with his hay.  He'd been laying down and chewing his cud until I came up the hill with a sled full of hay.

I headed towards the house.  And stopped by my snowshoes.  I certainly am hoping I get to use them more!  They looked as if they were waiting for me in the pile of snow.

I hope today, Sunday, I should be able to ride Siera!
Perhaps I'll just have to grab her and do a short bareback ride.  It should cure my craving for riding and her craving to get out and do something!

However the weather service is predicting some high winds move in.  So that may make our riding a bit less desirable.

NOAA has predicted blizzard conditions tomorrow for areas just west of us.
Yikes!

I guess I will wait and see what the day brings.

Opportunities are all over the place.  Winter is such a wonderful time to have a camera handy.