Update your plans

The drive to Mad City was just that .. Maddening.
Traffic on the beltline at noon is similar to rush hour.

But we made it to the attorney's office with time to spare.
It was time to review our Estate and Living Will.

We met with our new attorney Rebecca. I think my husband was smitten with her brilliance and smarts. Her beauty did not evade his eyes either.

She was pointed and courteous asking direct questions that got her the answers needed regarding updating the paperwork. We went over assets and debts and quickly went through updating our POA paperwork.

Reviewing your future needs and assessing what you have and don't have are very important things even to do while you are young.

Yes, it may even cost some money. But peace of mind is a great thing to have.

One of the things that keeps us focused on this is all of the issues we've had over the past few years with my MIL. However now with her having a court appointed Guardian we can concentrate on visiting with her and not worry about sorting all of her finances out. Plus she never made a Will but since she has an appointed Guardian, whatever is in her estate is no longer available to any heirs.
Thus there will be no fighting when she does pass on.

I've seen too many families, including my very own relatives argue, fight, and cause rifts because no one thought to prepare.

The drive home was much nicer.

One more meeting and we are all updated.

I know this is not a subject most folks like to talk about. But hey.
It is life
and
death.

Meanwhile on the farm

Well, it seems the gals and Fred are doing quite well this winter. I often see Mica or one of the bays sleeping on the huge old hay pile in the sunlight, soaking up the warmth into their heavy winter coats.
We have had wild swings of temperatures. Two weeks in a row we had warm temps that got up to 50 degrees and made everything into mush.
Then someone turns the thermostat down and we get onto a freeze.
Pools of water turn into skating rinks and the mules and cattle tip toe around the icy spots.

Morris and Dixie have had a few days where they could get out and play together.

Morris won't go too far before he decides it is time to go home on our walks.
Dixie is good and doesn't complain, she defers to the elder dog and is always submissive to him.

Winter afternoons are for sitting on the porch and watching the stock tank fill with water.

Dixie has no idea that she is not a lap dog/puppy anymore. I am so glad I trained her not to jump on me, or not to try to sit on my lap while I am in a chair. She knows it is okay to 'cuddle' if I am sitting on the ground. That is a lot of dog to have in one's lap.

I put a large dog crate in the back of the Subaru and wanted to see if Dixie would go in it. When she was a pup, she did have a crate for a time in the tiny house. She was very good about 'crating' up. I showed her the crate, she put her paws on the bumper of the car and I encouraged her with a slight lift.
She was in. I gave her a treat and she practiced getting in and out. She learns new things so fast.

We are set to go on a Trail Challenge Hike together. It will be nice to have company. Dixie is very easy to talk to. ... And she never reveals what I tell her in confidence.

Morris's appetite is waning again, the vet says we can keep infusing him with fluids once in a while but his blood work is heading south...slowly. He spends 90% of his time doing this:

Once he starts showing pain we will make a decision.

Stella and Hank are doing well. I've decided to keep cleaning their 'stall' and keep them in until the weather breaks. I don't want them dealing with the wild swings of temperatures at this time.

10 large square bales were delivered by Hay Man Daryl to the ridge top. We have 10 more coming before mudseason. Those were stored in the round pen.
I've made plans for selling the culls of the Dexter herd at auction this spring.

By the end of spring, we will have the mules, 15, and 6 Dexters which will include Stella and Hank.

I've been doing a work out each day. One hour of hiking equals about a mile in our hills. Dixie accompanies me most of the time.

Rich is not doing well with the colder temperatures, it is very hard on him.

Our motto is one day at a time.

This ends the Farm Report.

Updates

Harvest is in full swing again after a few dry days. Of course that all changed over night when another round of rain swung through the area.

Most of the soybeans in the area around where I live are harvested. Some of the larger Big Farms may not be all in.
There is still a lot of corn standing. Some of it still looks green, some fields are brown/golden and ready to be harvested.
Since we had such a strange spring the planting was delayed in areas and in other areas everything went as ... I hesitate to say smoothly as nothing in farming goes exactly smoothly.

Mules. They are all happy! Siera and I were out the other day, I took time to saddle her and ride her to go and check fences. I could have easily walked, but felt like it. 15's education is at a stand still as is Sundance's. I need to work with both of them but it always seems that something else grabs my attention.

Morris. He is doing rather well. When he isn't sleeping he is more like his normal old self. He likes to nag. He wants out, he wants his new food [he loves that nasty smelling stuff!] and he still enjoys his daily walks on a leash. He won't hike with me anymore but that is fine. He still seems to get confused once in a while but that is okay too.
He gets playful once in a while and will 'zoom' around the house, being his goofy old self for a bit.
He has to get up more at night to go out and do his business, and lately has been waking me up at 4AM to go out and feed him. Well. I am making adjustments. After all, he is the aged dog.

Rich. He is back to driving locally. He went last week to an auction by himself. It was a tiring day but he came back with a Pony Tiller for the garden. I imagine it needs some work, but he says it runs. Yesterday was his first solo trip to get small bales of hay from our Hay Man.

The Dexter Cattle. We have had the ones we are keeping separated for all summer now. Our Bull is scheduled to go to processing in January. I think we'll have plenty of beef from him. Rich has put off sending the others to auction. He needs to make some decisions quickly. Deer Gun Season is only 4 weeks away and if winter settles in, hauling the cattle out of here will be too tricky on our hilly driveway.

Fall Color. Wow.
I think this week was the last of it. Within days we went from glorious brilliant colors to the Brown Season.
Next week they are predicting our first frost. Usually we have a frost by the first weekend of October.

It is time to turn inward to the household things. Painting the kitchen, organizing and building shelves in the basement, and putting away the warm weather clothes and digging out the coveralls and long johns.

It will be a challenge to keep finding interesting things to photograph in the 'Brown Season'. I actually look forward to some hikes in the woods where I will be able to see now that the undergrowth is dying off.

That wraps it up.

Three Months Later

How have things changed in three months? Well.

Rich is coming along well with his speech and language. We've seemed to hit a road block of sorts or a plateau of gaining ground. Rich sees it as a road block and feels frustrated. I try to keep him encouraged to keep moving and doing things and to keep using his language.

If we have a dreary day he is dreary himself and it is hard to get him motivated to do anything.

Lately I have been leaving part of the chores unfinished in the morning so when I come into the house I can say to him, "Oh by the way, the cattle need water. Or I need your help with getting some hay out."
Anything to keep him involved and engaged.

He still has an issue with memory or processing. We started to work on that in Speech Therapy and I soon realized that Rich always sort of had an issue of being a bit distracted when he went out to do something.

Changing what he was like before stroke can't really be fixed now. I have to ask him often if he recalls what it is he went to do. He stops for a moment and sometimes he does remember.
Those times he will give me a sly grin and say, "Oh I think I am supposed to water Thor!" He will wink at me and then tell me that he thought of something else first.
Those other moments he will stand and stare at me while he thinks. He'll frown and then say, "Nope. It is gone."

Do I miss work? Well I hadn't really thought about it. But one of my old supervisors called on Thursday to see how things were going. I told her things were working out well and I didn't miss the crazy shift hours or being called in the middle of the night because someone had called off.

I do miss the conversations I had with co-workers.
Do I miss the income?
Well. Yes and no.
I find that we have saved money by me not working. No more 60 mile round trips in the car up to four times a week. I find that I don't have to fill up the gas tank very often. Our grocery bill has dropped. I am not getting off from a 12 hour shift and driving through town and picking up take out for our supper any more.
Meals are planned and are much more healthy. I'm not exhausted all of time either!

The garden is producing a great variety of summer food and I am freezing food for the winter as well as drying herbs for winter stews.

Three months have flown by. We have been busy with visiting kids and friends, mule riding, fishing, and just keeping things going with the animals we have left.
I find myself doing more now than when I was working.

I have time to get up in the middle of the night to watch the stars, or to watch the moon set from the comfort of our porch.

How are things now?
Pretty darned good I'd say.

Three months later and Rich still improves a small bit. Our routines have changed. How we do things has changed.
But all in all, things are working out rather smoothly.

Who knew, right?

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

Weekend

Here is a shot of my husband and a pal of ours, Daryl. Rich supervised the farm workings and we did the work.
He was able to get in and out of his skid steer safely and operate it.

I think some things are so routine for him that he doesn't have to think about it at all.
Our 'crew' put up insulators on the line fence that is an old barbed wire fence and we ran electric line through the woods.
The fence will keep the Dexter cattle in an area previously only grazed by mules. The Dexters are much better foragers than the mules, and now we have another space for rotation.

This is generally at least a two person job. We had a good crew and once we got the lines put up we were all done in from the heat and the prep work.

I have one dividing fence to put up and then we hopefully can start moving the cattle and mules.

Rich has decided to downscale drastically. Little Richard, four riding mules, and our project pony 15 get to stay along with one donkey...Bob.

The Dexter herd will be culled and we will keep the best of the herd. I don't imagine this will happen swiftly as each step has to be according to Rich and I respect those decisions.

Some of the work will require hiring help as I can't do it all. But that is okay. The grand plan is to get things to such a place that we can do some other leisurely things without worrying about the chores all of the time.

This week is a revolving door of VA appointments, Speech Therapy, and ... Rich's summer haircut.

Yesterday Daryl and I got up early and went to watch the sun rise over Black Bottom Creek.

We arrived in the valley and watched the fog roll across the Kickapoo River. It was quiet except for the mud swallows who were busy under the concrete bridge building their nests.

When the sun peeked into the valley we took a round about way back to the farm and took another look at the creek.

Our company left at noon and we promptly took naps. It had been a productive weekend and we were tired.
The next three days were going to be full of appointments.

It was a great weekend.
Good laughs.
Lots of hard work.
Cooling off in the creek.

And good friendship all around.
You can't beat that!

Life can change

A person's life can change in a flash of a second.
One moment I was getting ready for work, the next moment threw me into a bizarre life turning event.

In 2015 during Rich's cancer treatments, he had a TIA. The Neurologists from University of WI said that if you have a TIA, your risk for future stroke is higher.

Well, he had a CVA or cerebral vascular accident on Saturday in the predawn hours. The ambulance transported him locally and the trauma center was notified by local ER.
By the time I caught up with him at the Trauma Center in LaCrosse at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital, they had prepped him for surgery and were whisking him out of the room.
A kindly white haired man took me to the side and we talked about what was happening.
Turns out this kindly white haired fellow was a Neurologist. He explained that they were going to 'go in and remove the blockage' and they had enough brain to save.
He also let me know that the brain was a mysterious thing in a way and only time would tell as to my husband's recovery and progress.

I'm going to spare you the details of the past four days. And say this.

I am married to the most amazing person. He impressed Physical Therapy so much by his physical gains and strengths, that he was released and allowed to come home with constant supervision.

The area of the brain that had an 'injury' relates to speech and some thought process.
When words evade him, we have been finding another way to communicate.
Too much going on at once can be a bit confusing.

We have some real work to do together.

And some serious fishing to get done this summer.

"I love you Badger"

It isn't often that a relationship with a large equine comes along that is 'once in a lifetime'.  I think I was very lucky to have Badger find me so many years ago.  He was a big lanky ugly and gangly barely 3 year old mule that was too tall for me...and an unlikely match for me.

Somewhere in that first 3 months that we were together, he became an equine like no other I'd ever experienced.

The two of us became inseperable.  After riding and working with him for a year, it seemed that he could understand my very thoughts and intentions.

And Badger as always, is very gentle.

He loves children.  He is fine with adults as long as they don't ride him.  [I wonder if he thought I was a child all these years because I'm so small???]

I've had Badger since 1997.  In 2009 he became sick with Equine COPD.  I've been doing periodic updates on him since then.  

This weekend the grand kids visited and since they have grown up with Badger as their buddy, we got Badger out and dressed him up.  My grand daughter thought he would look pretty with ribbons and a necklace of beads.  We took photos [thank you Stephanie for doing so] knowing that this would be the last time that the kids saw Badger alive.

Badger has had life fade from his eyes.  He struggles daily just to stand and breathe.  He has let me know that it is time to move on across the Rainbow Bridge to the Merry Meadow.  One thing I do know about that, I am sad, but know that he will meet up with his once favorite dog, Xena and Cheyanne who eagerly await him on the other side.

Badger has given delight for more people than you can shake a stick at.

I leave this post with the simple words that Ariel uttered as she gave him a hug.

"I love you Badger"

Oh yes we do.