Not the day I imagined

Sure I had planned an afternoon of bicycling along the Kickapoo River and doing some exploring.

However.

Things sometimes do not go according to plan.

The day looked cloudy and rainy, so I delayed my bike trip up the Kickapoo Valley and decided to work on other projects.

Here is Sven doing some of his work. I stake him out in areas that need a bit of cleaning up. He does his job well and tramples the other weeds he doesn't eat.
Right now nettles are his favorite along with tall grasses.
The only issue is that once he cleans this area up, you can see all the 'junk' and chunks of metal that Rich has tossed over the years.
This is on my list of things to clean up this fall. One small area at a time.

Projects....

This is a rocker I picked up at a rummage sale. It needs a new 'stay', but since they only come in pairs, I guess I'll replace both of them. I'm going to sand the chair down a bit and let some of the natural wood come through...or I will paint it. I'm not sure quite yet. It is a tiny rocker and suited for very small people. Charlie and I sit on the porch and rock a lot together in the evenings.

This old chair needs a face lift and...well, one leg is slightly shorter than the others. The paint is chipping off badly. So I got after it with some sandpaper and then ...

I thinned some white paint that is mildew and water resistant and 'whitewashed' it. I sandpapered sections again to smooth it out and decided to brighten up the areas I'd had painted red at one time.
When I am done, I'll coat it with a polycrylic paint and it should weather the porch better. Once the cane is worn out, I'll use it as a planter. This chair has really survived the ages! I've had it for about 27 years.

Just after I started with repainting the little spools, my neighbor showed up and it was time to get to work.

Justin began to saw and I began to stack. He was grateful for the firewood and I was grateful that he could cut up the downed tree.
The Honey Locust is very dense and hard wood so he dulled up one chain just cutting!
He showed me how to gas his saw up, how to change the blade, how it started...he even showed me his chaps that he wears. Apparently they are safety chaps that will stop the saw blade. He said they are warm, but a good safety precaution.
He said I could operate a small chain saw, like an electric one. I was skeptical. He is trying to convince me that I could even get an electric powered one with a battery. Lighter and able to do a lot of the work I needed done.
Hmmm.

Anyway, I started to stack and carry. The little stuff from the tree top went here.

And the BIG stuff.

I had to bring up from the bottom of the yard and toss over the little sand hill [left over pile of sand and rock from when the basement was dug for remodeling]. I'm hoping to hire someone to come in and smooth out that section of the yard for me in the next year, along with the other trees that are just west of the house getting cut down.

I told Justin I'd carry the chunks of wood and toss them where we could easily get at them to stack them in his trailer.
He kept saying, "That is heavy."

I replied that my Deadlift PR weight was 105, and if I used the Sumo Deadlift stance and a jerk to the waist ... I was able to pick up the small logs and carry them fairly easily. I had to think about how I'd been taught to lift and think it through more than once.
When we got close to the stump, I chose to roll those pieces up the hill and into the big pile.

We were pretty surprised that the tree was solid throughout. It was not rotten.
However the root system was so shallow it was a wonder that it hadn't blown down years ago.

Our conclusion was that perhaps further below the dirt, it could be rock and perhaps that is why it was so shallow? I guess, we will never know.

What about Sven? I moved him a few more times and he did a fine job of uncovering an old Snapper mower that was buried in nettles. He then stood on the seat of the mower and reached higher.

Oh and the last note for this morning.

After lifting and carrying all of that wood, I am not stiff or sore.
Amazing.

This and That

Well, a bit more fun with Sven the little goat.

Basil who is my neighbor's dog, greets Sven. She stayed by him while I bottle fed him and then she wanted to play.
He wasn't quite sure what he should do. A couple of times he tried to hide from her.

When I took them outside for some fresh air, Sven did go potty and Basil supervised. She was a good host and as you can tell, she loves having her picture taken....

Here she is cuddling with Sven and I after coming in from outside.

We had a short session of play and then Sven was tired. After all, he is only two days old.

Soon I will bring Charlie to a bottle feeding and see how they get along. I want Charlie to understand that goats are not to be chased. He likes to chase ALL things except the mules.

Gearing up for our next storm. Need to push some snow back further. My duties don't seem to end this winter.

PT went okay. Not much they can do for Rich. But Aric did suggest a few exercises to help him maintain some leg strength to assist him in getting up and down from his chair [he doesn't do recliners]. He also gave him a compression sleeve for the knee.

Other than seeking a visit from our local ortho guy there isn't much else to do. Though we will see Aric in another two weeks to see how it is going with the little light exercises and the adjusted chain.

Now to find a slightly higher chair for him to sit in. It was suggested to put nail 2X4's to some legs to give it some elevation. We shall see.

What to live for

Yesterday was a busy day. We'd gone to the VA for appointments on Tuesday and it felt like we spent the whole day going from one place to another.
Actually we got in early and were seen early which is not the usual way things happen.

We have the Kenosha Gang coming this weekend. They aren't actually from Kenosha but I met them while living in that county.
So I was anxious to get the yard work started and at least do some picking up and preparing for their visit.
Rich's meds in the morning make him light headed and dizzy. Two inhalers plus a nebulizer treatment in the morning seems to make him wobbly. He feels constantly stuffed up and we asked the ENT folks Tuesday to check that out. They are following up on the Throat Cancer, fingers crossed...all looks good.

It seems one of the meds for prostrate enlargement is making his sinuses a bit swollen. It is a side effect. IF anyone can have an unusual side effect from medication, it will be my husband.

I looked up his meds and yes, they keep him going but sometimes I wonder if the meds are doing as much harm combined as they could be doing good? I think a major review of the medications are in order. So many of his meds have dizziness as a side effect.

The good news from the CT scan with contrast is that the aneurysm in his brain has not shown any change, nor are there any signs of new strokes.
The bad.
He feels lousy, he has no ambition or energy, he feels dizzy and out of breath often, he has tremors, and emotionally flat most of the time.
The grumpy Gus I used to be married to no longer oversees my fencing or corrects the way I do projects. He shrugs and watches Netflix or takes a nap.

Yesterday morning he sat with his coffee after eating breakfast and said, "I'm just slowly dying, fading away. I wish I could feel like doing something or just trying to do something."
I said nothing. What could I say? He was right. My husband was fading before my eyes.
The man who used to be the Take Charge Man, no longer shows interest in most things.

Hopefully our meeting next week with Neuro-Psychology will prove helpful. In a way Rich felt as if it would have been kinder if the doctors had not been able to remove the two clots in his brain and had just let him go.

So he went to bed for his morning nap and I told him that I was going to go outside and work. That is what I do when I am frustrated and feel helpless.

I started up the weed eater and attacked the long grasses next to the shed. Then I went after other messy places, those places that are so hard to mow.
After my hands began to hurt, I put the ''eater' down and started to trim with the little mower. I took breaks often, but got all the trimming done around the house.

After lunch Rich came out and mowed a portion of the yard and then went to lay down again. He said he'd finish the rest of the yard after a rest.

I proceeded to work on the new/old chair after I watered and rotated the Dexter cattle to a different section of the woods. I sat on the porch and took out my paints. I'd worked out my frustrations and now it was time to let my creative juices flow.

Remember that ugly chair?

Well I have been working on it a bit at a time.

I usually don't plan things out and just let it happen. I wanted bright cheery colors so I used brilliant yellow spray paint on the legs and added some aqua. I used silver on the back of the chair. I don't know why but just did.

I had some old white paint that needed to be used up so I painted the seat white. Boring old white.
While I was at it, I spruced up the wooden spool that we use as a porch table.

I finally got around to doing the edges....not shown here.

The plain white boring seat bothered me, so I did some touching up here and there and then started to experiment with some masking tape.

That was fun, so I began mixing the aqua, blue, green, and seafoam colors in a cap and creating my own colors and made more stripes.

Okay. Nice looking but not FUN!

The stripes aren't perfect, and the paints aren't perfect, but it had its charm. However it needed something else.

Now I am completely charmed by this old chair. If it lasts a season or two on the porch I will be happy. My butterfly happy colored chair.
It fits in so nicely with my spool table and funky table top...

Ready for company!

Charlie was exhausted.

All that supervising wore him out.

The day was still 'young' after supper was cleaned up.
Remember I said I had the Kenosha Gang visiting this weekend? They want to go riding. So I am saving some time and saddling each mule we will take with the saddle that will be used on them with each rider. Amanda will ride Sunsine in my Western saddle that I modified. So last night I saddled Sunshine and took her for a rather boring but peaceful ride on the gravel roads and hay fields.

Sunshine is out of my original horse, Cheyanne. She is half sister to my all time favorite mule Badger who is no longer with us.

And...
then...
my day
was complete...

Well in this life you must find something to live for
Cause when darkness comes a callin'
You'll go back to where you were before
Cause this life is as
Fragile as a dream, and
Nothing's ever really
As it seems...
~~Lily Kershaw
"As it seems"

Waiting for paint to dry

This is the chair that I started some work on this past week. This is a photo I took of it after cleaning it and doing a bit of sanding.

Here it is with some bright yellow paint and aqua blue on the legs. My Grandson Dennis thought silver would be cool for the back and so the back is now silver.

I did most of this with spray paint, it is easy and very fast. I think the seat may end up white and I may put hand painted designs all over it. I may glue stuff to it too. I guess I never really plan it out but just go with what comes to mind.

Some chairs I don't bother doing anything with. I found an old cracked chair that had been refinished so many times that I couldn't do much with it. I decided to keep it and make it my Christmas chair:

It sure is fun and different.

Anyway. Charlie and I did some work on moving stock tanks and cleaning them, then I checked on the silver paint. Not quite dry.
So I tied Charlie up to the bench on the porch and he observed as I messed around with some flowers.

I picked peonies and some Japanese irises and took the old daisies from the house and set them on a piece of wood on top of my 'spool' table.

I came up with these photos.

The paint dried and I realized that I wasn't sure what my next step was for colors or design.
I put the chair aside and enjoyed some quiet time reading a book while Charlie napped.