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.

Glue Mule and the Happy Chair

I finally got to work on the 'Happy Chair'. Well, what exactly is a Happy Chair?

Here is one that I started quite a few years ago...

Well a Happy Chair is a chair that I take mess around with until I have something bright and chipper.
I've given most of my chairs away as gifts but I think I am keeping this one.

They normally take quite a long time to do. So I decided to try and different method.

First I primed it after sanding the old crusty varnish off from it.

The seat is still okay enough to keep so I covered that with plastic bags.
Apparently recovering the seat with cloth later won't be too hard.

I place it on a stump in the yard and gathered some spray paints.

The first coating was purple and I started at the top of the legs.

I then proceeded to take the red and blue and just have some fun.

I touched things up and then set the chair out to finish drying in the sun and the wind.

I'll work on the details with my craft acrylic paints later and then seal the whole thing.

All that fun with color for only about $9 in spray paint.
My husband watched me and thought I was a bit nuts. However, this old chair had been hanging in the shed for as long as I've lived here and I think at one time Rich had purchased them at auction with the intention of refinishing them and selling them.
This one is just for fun. It will probably be a favorite for the kids when they visit. I know I'll grab it to sit on the porch or eat at the table often. How can you not smile when sitting on such a brightly colored chair?

I took my rope halter and lead rope and went out to the Merry Meadow and started to gather up mules. Siera was the first one to come, so I grabbed her and took her out of the Meadow for grooming and hoof picking. She enjoyed her time and reluctantly went back into the meadow after taking a munch of grass in the yard.

She needs her haircut too for the summer, but Rich wasn't quite up to helping me.
Next I got Sunshine and took care of her. She was going to run off and evade me when I came with the halter but in the end she stood quietly while I 'captured' her.
Sundance was too easy to catch. As we left the Meadow she snorted and looked a bit wild eyed. She can be a bit herd sour and hates leaving Sunshine, her half sister.

I tied her to the Hickory Tree and proceeded to work with her. She had never gotten the attention she deserved before so I've decided to take care of that. She is my mare's second mule foal and the last one we have raised on the place. Rich was always going to start her under saddle and now that I have more time [I think], she will start her schooling.

Sundance thought the fly spray was a bit of a monster. It is my own home brew and works well for the time I am grooming them. She danced around the tree, and then settled down. I groomed her and then went to picking her hooves. She'd done well the last time I had her out, but occasionally she gives our farrier a bit of grief. I wanted to cure that.
I wanted to make this a daily thing.

On cue, she gave me a hoof shake with her left hind. I held it until she stopped and then slowly put it down. I repeated picking up all of her feet again until she started to anticipate what I wanted. In between holding her feet and rubbing her, she got the idea that this was a game.
I finished with her and walked slowly with her back to the Meadow. I expected that she would be in a rush to get back with Fred, Siera, and her sister. However I was surprised.
I let her go and stood to the side.
She moved over to stand next to me.

I rubbed her forehead and stepped away. She stepped over and stood quietly. I moved again. She moved again.
I was pleased. Rich had always handled her before as he had claimed Sundance as his mule. She was showing me some rather pleasant attributes. She potentially was like Badger and Siera. A Glue Mule.
Some think that a Glue Mule is not a good thing to have.

However when riding out in the woods and picking berries or hunting for photos, it is a great thing to have. A Glue Mule is more interested in staying with you than running off towards home.

Her education will be slow and not hurried as will 15's. I'm looking forward to time with both of them in the round pen and first rides.

Got to love a Glue Mule!

I know, slightly blurry shot. But it was getting dark and...well. There she is, the red headed beauty.
Sundance.