Just another ordinary week.

When one day feels like a whole week....

Sometimes I can get out for a walk and to beat the heat, the last few walks I've done have been at sunset. I set hubby up with a TV show and go for long walk on the ridge. The woods are thick with brush and skeeters at this time of night.

Usually there is a breeze on the ridge and if I am lucky, the skies are beautiful also.

The shot below is looking back at our house as I head up the driveway.

This one is taken at our mailbox on the ridge looking east.

I turn around here and head back home, I know how long I can be out and about and time the walk with the end of the show.

After putting him to bed, I headed back out on to the porch to see the moon come over the trees. It was nice to look at.

I couldn't resist trying to take another shot[s] of the fireflies. I guess they have been my obsession this year since I've been watching them since late May.

They were quite active. I imagine the heat and humidity keeps them going. [The moon was not that large, I put it there to hide the smear of light from the long exposure.]

I spent the morning working on the wreck of one of my favorite little pastures.

I am lucky that my mules obey one single hot wire and don't bother it. There is a fence in that mess, it is a 4 strand barbed wire fence that had a single hot wire running on the inside of it. The mules have lived with this boundary for 20 years and have no desire to push through it. They have plenty of feed on this side of the fence.

I put a single hot wire over the trees and inside the pasture away from the mess.

I went back to check on the forest and saw this.

I need a chainsaw gang to cut through this mess or just let the animals find a way around it. I'm going to shorten the availability of the forest and lessen my fencing work.

There are 3 more trees down across the fence above the creek. I'm going to pull the hot wire and this fall pull the posts. The gals don't need to go all the way down there any more.

I've made an executive decision to have the southern pasture [field] mowed. I'll hire the guy that did my trees last year. I have some work for him to do so this place doesn't look like a disaster area.

I did take a break and worked on my Echo weed eater.

I thought I had it fixed and ... I didn't. I may need a 'new' head for it. However, I did get the trimming done with only one line attached. When I ran into the tough stuff, the machete worked out well.

It seems that I get the yard mowed, we have inches of rain, humidity, ... I catch up a bit on the garden and the trimming ... and 

back to mowing. I have an inner sense of time. I do some work, run to the house and check on hubby, go back out, work...come inside, meds...lunch... and then chill out time for a bit in the heat of the day.

I DO find some time to chill out.

In fact I decided to take a hint from Aurora ... I decided to make a raft for my Legos. It was a way that my husband could be amused and I could spend some quiet time indoors.

Hot glue, strands of twine, moss to cover the mess.... and...

It looks like a pretty neat little raft...

It won't float for real..., but this guy can use it in his escape from dinosaurs...

at least when I get around to setting that up....

Here is this little piece of serenity. Bachelor Bucks in Velvet having their night out.

Today is Tuesday and I have a major car repair that can't wait. Wednesday sounds like a fishing day with Steve. Yesterday we saw the Social Worker and his nurse. I'll be firing our Respite Gal after today. I cannot cannot trust someone who is not responsible enough to get to her job on time with my husband's care. 

He doesn't trust her any more either so it is no longer a good fit.

The pressure is on and I am working details out on how to continue care here at home and do the things I need to do.

Last night I went to the hill north of the house to watch the sky and the field. The moon rose behind me and I enjoyed the show. 

I LOVE fireflies, this summer they have given me hope and courage with their bright lights and flickers.

PS-- Hubby needed my help while I was up there and he opened up the bedroom window and rang the cowbell.

😉😊😁😀...and that my dear friends worked so well!

Any...way....

Many mornings, Charlie and I try to get out for an early walk. Sometimes, we actually make it. 

This shot of Charlie was taken a week or so ago. 

Getting out for a stroll is not always easy. I try to at night but it seems there is always something else to do. Thankfully most of the programming that we watch is rather uninteresting and I've decided not to pay for any more channels.

So evenings are spent reading, or gardening instead of staring at the TV. I often fall asleep if I do find something to watch now. The other half is getting up generally several times a night. He also is getting up between 4 and 5am. 

That used to be my quiet time, as I was the morning person and could enjoy sunrise walks along with quiet time with my coffee.

Charlie looks pretty serious here in this shot. He was just being Charlie, walking along looking for interesting smells.

Froggy Froggy...! I found this guy when I stopped to admire the fading spring phlox.

And on Wednesday morning this was the start to our walk. Whoops! This ancient oak fell over in the night. It's base was hollow and filled with carpenter ants. 

I texted this to our neighbor who lives at the top of the driveway and she sent it to her husband at work. I also sent it to Rich's pal who had planned on coming over to take Rich [and I] for a drive on Wednesday with the message that the driveway was blocked.

And then this happened.

The neighbor came home from work and made sure we could get in and out of our driveway. Steve [in the red shirt] showed up with his chainsaws and we had the drive cleaned up in no time flat.

My neighbor said he would clean up the big pieces for firewood and I said I'd clean up the little stuff and put it in a pile. 

Wednesday was another 'old' guy out day. 

I sat in back and enjoyed the ride and listened to the conversations.

Since we weren't fishing as it was so hot and humid, Steve wanted to find some wildlife for me to 'shoot' and enjoy. He had a grand time looking for turtles. Me looking for turtles amused him as he lives near a river and has turtles and snakes in his yard all of the time.

But. We did find turtles! But only in one park.

The sun did come out and the heat was on as well as the humidity and the smokey air. We drove through a park called Goose Island just outside of LaCrosse. Generally you can see deer wandering about along with a variety of birds, chipmunks, and amphibians.

We did get to see some Killdeer but they were far off as were the eagles.

I grabbed a few shots of the landscape.

It wasn't anything stellar, but I thought the shapes and contrasts were slightly interesting. 

I preferred this in black and white. In the second shot, you can see the extent of the smokey air that hovered above the Mississippi Valley.

By this time Rich was getting hungry so we elected to go back to The Bright Spot for burgers and fries. The effort of getting hubby in and out of the restaurant was the hardest part of the day, but we got it done.

I haven't had much time lately to visit the internet or even get out to play. I'm trying to figure out how to use my time more wisely when I do get Respite Care.

This week I did use most of my time to do a major grocery/supplies shopping for us. Hubby's feet are swollen enough from edema now that I had to find him wider shoes to wear.

I still have to figure out how to get 'time' to take my car into the dealer's to get the work done on it. The issue that needs to be fixed is covered under warranty. The trip to the dealer is an hour one way. So I have to find a solution to extend my 4 hour coverage.

I'll be addressing that very soon.

In the meantime, my pallet garden is producing beautiful Sweet William and an abundance of Daisies along with other flowers.

It is a pretty maintenance free little garden that produces a LOT of color and fun.

We are looking at a few days of rain so it seems I may have some time on my hands since I won't be able to mow yard and work outside.

Perhaps Charlie and I can sneak in some time hunting for fungi and fun.

Monday Night Storms

Monday was a pretty good day.

Of course there was the whole struggle thing of getting Rich to PT, but I set a personal record in CrossFit so I was still pretty happy about that.

Most of the day was spent doing yard work and then as the storms approached, I grabbed the refurbished IR camera and decided to give it a whirl.

Since the storm was slow moving, I thought I'd try out a couple of filters to see what I could come up with.

This one is a bit wild and crazy. Normally this filter would produce a yellowish cast to the foliage when channel swapped, but I took it further.

When the sun disappeared and things started to get dreary, I thought I'd try out the 850nm filter. In filter speak...this filter strictly shoots in black and white with the foliage become white.
I really liked the results even with the poor light.

I love the threatening sky again the white foliage.

So I walked to the south end of the pastures and took another shot back towards the house.

With that done I decided it was time to get inside.

The severe storm was a Watch so I neglected to move the mower and 4 wheeler to the shed.

Silly me. Never believe the weather people.

This happened as the storm blew in. The tree was uprooted and came down.

I worked all day yesterday on 'limbing' it out.

No real damage had been done. But the Grill was killed. The grill needed replacing a long time ago, but ..someone kept limping it along. I guess I am relieved about that.

My argument for getting rid of those older trees on the West side of the house, just got stronger I think.

One day at a Time

We'd met with the Speech Therapist at the VA. The young lady was fresh faced and new, doing her internship with Veterans. I sat quietly while she did an assessment. I think that was the hardest part for me, watching my husband struggle with certain things.

However, the ST said he was doing quite well and normally they weren't able to see 'stroke patients' this soon after a stroke. She felt that he would make great strides.

Rich isn't sure about the great strides. But the therapist kept encouraging Rich to challenge himself with tasks, but to remember that when he got tired it would not go as well.

She looked forward to meeting with us next week.

We got home just as the first thunderstorm hit. The animals were eating hay quietly and the grand kids were sitting on the couch watching a DVD on a small portable player.

After the second round of storms blew through [we made a quick trip to the basement when that storm came through], the kids broke out a new deck of cards and asked their Grandpa to teach them some card games.

Without really knowing it, the kids were helping with Speech Therapy and Cognitive Thinking skill therapy.

Yesterday was a busy one even though Rich didn't think it was. We put round bales in with the gelding lot, the calf lot, and the cow lot.
For lunch we went to the local restaurant and had a really great meal with the kids.
We stopped afterwards to see Rich's mom.

For a person who has had a stroke just 12 days ago, that is a lot of activity.
I could tell that he was getting rather tired.

Our week has been busy with visiting helpers and drives to the Madison VA for appointments. Not to mention the phone calls I have had to make or receive for more appointments and follow ups.

After the kids left, Rich proclaimed that he needed to rest. Indeed he did.

I thought I'd run down to the "Morel Area" and see if I could find us a handful to cook up as a tasty treat.

I found some rather large ones on the upper north side of the creek bed.

Morris and I gathered up a small bunch and headed back home. I walked fast, but still managed to stop and photograph some wild Columbine, wild Geranium, Jacob's Ladder, and wild Strawberry flowers. The Mayflowers are blossoming now.
I wanted to head to the back valley to photograph the Trillium that litter the north hillside.
And I thought to myself.
Perhaps next year.

This spring was going to be too busy for long wanderings.

I took a slightly different path than normal home. The storms that blew through the night before had uprooted an old oak tree which fell onto a box elder, which fell onto another box elder and basically made a huge mess.

Unfortunately, it laid across our hot-wire fence. I do have to say that the fencing we use is amazing. it is 1/4" soft braided rope fence. After Rich cut a chunk out of the log we were able to replace the broken insulators and the fence was back on and hot.

And no. He probably shouldn't have been running a chain saw. However, it needed to be taken care of.

It basically wore him out physically. And I told him that the rest of the work would just have to wait until we had a chainsaw party.

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” James Baldwin