This and That

What a welcome surprise. Nice unusual weather.
Dry and warm.
The National Weather Service has issued advisories however that this warm dry spell has increased our fire danger.

However we are taking full advantage of it.

Last minute fence repairs before mother nature blasts us with subzero temperatures and snow.

Moving the round bale feeders.
I do love a guy who can operate a skid steer!

Morris supervised from the porch. He had been sleeping on the blanket I gave him but decided to start barking at everything. I brought out his crate and he went in it.
His imagined monsters can't get him in the crate.
He settled down and napped when he wasn't watching.

Rich and I pulled fencing from the Merry Meadow. The work to maintain the fencing is now too large of a job. Mowing the meadow wasn't done this year and since it isn't our land I'm willing to just let it grow wild again.
It served a good purpose for years, however the more things stay...the same, the more they change.

We met with Rich's speech therapist again yesterday. She gave us some insights to the 'new' Normal. I do not like that phrase Your New Normal, but it is appropriate.
COPD affects so many things. She enlightened us to the fact that the brain uses 20% of the oxygen in the body. When short of breath from exertion, the brain is getting shorted also. An already damaged brain from a stroke is fighting harder to get its oxygen.
Confusion and memory issues immediately arise.
If left short of that wonderful 02, more brain damage can result.

It helps me understand what is happening to Rich when he is trying so hard to do chores. He is not a quitter. But it helps me understand why he feels lost when he is out of breath.
COPD is an insidious disease that forgives no one. You cannot escape it and as it slowly eats away at your health.

Our new thoughts to take home from Speech Therapy are these two things:
I am Rich, I am "As Is."
The more things stay the same, the more they change.
[Yes that is the exact opposite of the saying, but this fits better in our case.]

So.
It seems that some or most of the work will fall into my hands for getting everything ready for winter.
I'm up to most of the task.

The Dexters we are keeping will move into the paddock just south of the house where they can share a 300 gallon heated stock tank of water with the equine who will be in their winter pasture also.
One heated tank. One hose to fill it. The chores will become much more manageable through the cold.

Mr. Morris seems to be doing fair. Yesterday the neighbor and her son came to let him out for a potty break and drink of water. Morris apparently didn't 'see' the porch post until he ran into it. He has done this off and on lately. I don't know if he really has doggy dementia or what. I do know that his hearing is negligible and that his eyesight seems at times to be a bit questionable.

However, all of this and that aside, we are having an incredible end to November.
The skies have delighted us with morning and evening surprises of brilliant colors.

And thus, another month ends.
Tomorrow is December.

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