Cleveland isn't bad.

I finally got Stacey going and made it to Cleveland. The first challenge was finding a place to park. We ended up in the parking garage of the Stafford(?) Hotel. It was getting late so we ate in the little cafe in the hotel. It turned out to be delicious. I thought my BLT was better than Stacey's Reuben but she enjoyed it. We left from there and did a walking tour of the area. There's a lot of good architecture downtown and few drunks. We went through a couple of arcades where Stacey scared me by looking at expensive jewelry. We bought some excellent chocolates and some good macaroons, finishing up with a coffee for Stacey and hot chocolate for me. Back to the car and we drove around for a while. I finally got a look at one church I've been seeing from the road when I drive through to Perry. It turns out there are two identical churches only a few blocks apart. That must have been a good church salesman. We went over the 25th Street bridge which I wanted to show Stacey and found ourselves by the West Side Market. It was too late to go there but we went to the Penzy's Spice store and spent way too much money. I hope that will hold us for a while. All in all, a pleasant day. Last weekend, my cousin Matt and I started clearing part of a field that is infested with locust thorn. Those of you who have never met a locust thorn are fortunate. Every part of the tree is covered with thorn except the leaves. The trunk of a mature locust thorn will have thorns growing from the trunk with thorns growing at a right angle from that and yet more thorns growing off those thorns and so on. The tips of the thorns break off under your skin and fester. We were cutting them off with the magic sword ( Sthil FS 90) and dragging them to a trailer with a hook but Matt is now using a pitch fork to allow him to stay farther away. He and his daughter Samantha worked on that this Saturday while I worked around the house. I'll have to see how they did. I moved the sheep and steers into the south pasture. It grew much faster than I planned to keep for the winter feeding. The north pasture isn't to bad so I decided to top it with the bush hog. That way, it will grow more evenly and maybe have more tender tips that the animals like. I hope to reseed some of it too. I got it done but my ass is killing me. I've got to get better seat cushions on these tractors. I'm not back to my regular physical capabilities. I doubt I could manage more than four hours real work per day. This is making it easier to accept the idea of retirement. I need to get down to one job. Stacey spent the last few days with her sister at the casino in Windsor and at a wedding shower. She didn't loose much. I ate the refrigerator clean so she can cook again. It's raining today so we may go see a movie. Take care all.

She didn't make it.

Stacey's mom came home from the hospital, got to check on her dogs and died that night. Since I'm still off recovering, I was able to take the time to help Stacey out as best I can. Now, they're sorting through all the accumulated stuff and trying to get the house ready to sell. I'm trying to stay out of the discussions as much as possible. I'm trying to use this week to build up my strength to go back to work on the 24th of August. I'm only able to do about 2 hours of hard farm work a day. That's about 10 times the amount that I do in an average work day. I should be ok. The Traffic.com stuff may get me. Those batteries are a bitch. The animals are fine. The chickens and guineas are patrolling the yard and the mosquitoes and flies are much lower levels. They look good in the yard. The guineas chase the cats around. Frankly, it's better entertainment than summer tv. It's Stacey's birthday and if I can get her dressed and off the phone for a while, we're going to Cleveland to stooge around. It's 10:30 already so I'm not optimistic.

Same old, mostly.

I continue to heal well. My friend Mikey has helped me weed. My cousins have been helping with yard work.It's all good. The fair went as well as could be expected. We did get a sheep to lamb in time. Stacey got Best of Show for her cherry pie She never did that with a cherry pie before. She got some other ribbons as well. I took a Second with my Gluten Free Almond Cookies. Stacey says the cookie class is especially tough so it's a real achievement. Of course, she's my wife so she could be just shining me on. The fair just didn't seem right. The weather was beautiful. Where were the tornadoes, the straight line winds and the massive lightning storms accompanied by flooding? It just wasn't right. The only thing our gardening this year has produced is cucumbers. Stacey keeps trying to come up with new ways to fix them. She keeps telling me how good they are for the joints. I recognize this for what it is. She's trying to get me to eat them up. As our only garden produce, I guess I'll have to. My Mother-In-Law is in the hospital for a heart attack. The docs put in a stent and she should be fine. Right now, she's so doped up that she has no idea of where or what. Her son and granddaughter had to drag her to the hospital, kicking and screaming. She hates hospitals. That's it for now. It's back to the front porch to read and watch the birds. Maybe I'll do an extra set of Kegels to break the monotony. I got to get out of here.

The pill has worn off

Now, where was I? The sheep are doing well but then all they need is grass and water. There's plenty of both. We bred two ewes to come off just before the fair and I may have cut that a little close. They seem adamant about not lambing in time. The babyland exhibit needs them. There's no pigs do to a diarrhea virus and there's no poultry to try and prevent the spread of bird flu. This is rough on a fair. I didn't get the chicken area together in time so we won't be raising chickens this year. That's going to really hurt the bottom line. If you've been to the store, you know what I mean. I guess we'll be eating Chinese chicken like everyone else. For the guys, a normal prostate gland is about as big as a walnut. When the gland is removed, the urethra is hauled up and sewed to the bottom of the bladder. This makes your dingus a bit shorter. Mine appears to have been about 3 inches in diameter, based on the incision. Now if I were Johnny Wadd, the 1970s porn star; this would be a minor problem. Unfortunately, I was of normal length and as such I fear the winter. I'm going to have to put a collar and lead on it to be able to drag it out. Keep that in mind for your future. My days consist of setting on the front porch reading and napping so don't expect any exciting posts for a while. That's just the way it is. Take care.

Just an update

I'm alive and doing pretty good. The operation was by robotic surgery and was very easy on me. I'm up to the diaper stage right now and and feel 5 years younger. I'm doing my Kegels and I have surprising control already. It's a trap. Let me explain. I feel great so I went up to Toledo to see my one Brother-in-law once more before he goes back to Panama. We had lunch and then went to get pet supplies and groceries. I was tired and worn from the Toledo approximation of streets so I rested a bit and ran up spaghetti sauce with meatballs to feed my Saturday volunteers. Guess what, I'm not as healed as I thought I was. First, my body must have not liked my lunch of the day before.I got the definite impression that I was living off a diet of habaneros and water instead of a waffle with cherries. I had to go back to taking my pain pills which is why it's taking so long to write this. I had to sit on the porch and watch my cousin and his brother-in-law trim trees and haul brush. Normally, I love watching other people work but this was hard on me. It's raining again. We've hardly gotten a days break. The garden is a disaster and I'm forbidden from working in it. My friend Mikey is out of work again and I may be able to talk him into working for me for food and fuel. A day or two would beat the weeds back. Whether the plants will rot in the ground is another matter. I'll try to post again when the pain pill wears down more.

A Slight Change of Plans

The lawn is mowed, some of the sheep are sheared, we probably won't do chickens this year and I've got prostate cancer. I figured I should get that out right off. I'll be getting it out June 30th. This rather knocks out my plans for the year. It looks like I'll be taking most of the summer off. The technology seems to have improved. The doc seems to think that I could get out of diapers in under 6 months and in as little as 6 weeks. Any fantasy I might have been having about a virile old age is out the window now. No wandering the post-apocalyptic wastelands coercing nubile young ladies into wild sex with the offer of an MRE. I'll eat the damn MRE myself now. It's the young ladies loss, not mine. The back fields aren't draining well now, anyway. I've got some ditching to do. I may be able to work up ground for winter wheat and some cover crops by August. I'd like to plant the one field to tillage radishes. They're a variation of the diakon radish but instead of growing big around, they grow long, penetrating the ground as deep as 12 feet. They die off in winter, rot and provide drainage channels through the hardpan. The one field could really use that. Stacey and I went over to Put-In-Bay for a day. I had to service some sirens over there so I took her along. We traveled the island, ate a good meal at Hooligan's and got up the Monument for the first time in years. Since we went on a weekday, there wasn't the press of drunks that you would have on a weekend. It was quite the magical day. The next day, I got the word on my prostate. Damn karmic balance. Our front porch has been getting a workout lately. I've been spending my non-working time reading out there. Stacey and I watch the birds in the bushes. It's been a circus parade lately. Scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles and a vast number that we can't identify. The latest is a chubby little bright blue bird with 3 black stripes on his wing. I've decided to call him a Blue Sargent. There's nothing in our bird books anything like him. Just another reason that I gave up formal birdwatching. I just try to appreciate what I see and hear. It's in my nature to try and define the world but it seems to be in Gods nature to prevent that. Ok, one more commercial. You find yourself resting more and not riding your bike or running as much. You just seem to have more trouble going to work and doing anything when you get there. Something just isn't right and you begin to suspect depression. Before you take that Prozac from your doc, make him give you a full check for cancer.If he balks , get another doc. I've had trouble bouncing back from the last two winters. They were hard winters and I figured that I was aging badly. I was beginning to wonder about depression. After talking with some other members of my nonexclusive club, I've found that this lethargy can be an indicator of cancer. Your body is fighting and you're sick but it just doesn't register. Take care of yourselves. I probably won't die soon. I'm going to try to add a video of one of my new favs in music. I'm not really that fond of Celtic music but theirs is different and watching them is like watching puppies play in a basket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xppqs-QhnUw

Springtime

The trees are budding, the flowers are up and I'm at least a month and a half behind on everything. I rented a skidsteer to clean out the sheep pen and now I have to repair the walls. I have started some plants but I haven't tilled a scrap of land. I've changed oil in my little tractor but haven't put the bush hog on it and cleaned the back of the farm for plowing. I've been cleaning up the trash in the yard but I've only got about half of it mowed. I've helped another guy set up his hives but haven't looked at ours. I have 6 new lambs on the ground but not one sheep sheared. This year, I couldn't coordinate an orgy in a whorehouse with a crew of submariners. I just keep slogging on. There is a real possibility that we may be able to sleep in a real bed by the end of the week. The wallpaper is up and the carpet is down. All they have to do is put up the ceiling fan and we can move the furniture back in and have the mattress delivered. There's a little work to be done in the upstairs bathroom yet but that won't matter for a while. The big job will be going through all the boxes and deciding what to throw out. We have a lot of crap. I've got to find time somehow to get the chicken area together so we can get some chicks started. Sure, we have a freezer full of beef but what about chicken? It's a bit short but I've got to go.

The Florida Vacation

One of the problems of keeping up a blog is making everyday life interesting enough to keep the readers from passing out from boredom. Finally, I have something to write about. The Florida Vacation We finally got another vacation. We left out of here on the 27th of February at -9F and drove to Winston-Salem, NC to pick up a friend. This was hardly an instantaneous thing as there's a lot of Ohio to drive through. Let me introduce our friend Janet. She was the only female attending our avionics classes at Piedmont Aerospace and became a good friend. When Stacey and I were looking for furniture, we went to N.C. and I suggested we stop in. Stacey was worried about meeting my old “ girlfriend” but 15 seconds after meeting, they slammed together like a pair of magnets. That's when her husband John and I knew we were in trouble. It was like mixing fire and gasoline. What one doesn't think of, the other does. Janet has had some rough times in the last couple of years starting with the loss of her husband. We decided that a Florida vacation might cheer her up so we shoehorned her into the back of the Focus and took off. It's a long drive to St.Petersburg so we stayed in Savannah, Georgia overnight. We greatly enjoyed the town and plan to go back for a longer stay. We ate in a place called The Shrimp Factory and had a superb meal. We each had our own appetizers and split an order of Pinebark Stew. Stacey loved the raw oysters ( she can have them), Janet had their version of coconut shrimp and I had seared scallops. The Pinebark Stew is a form of bouillabaisse loaded with shrimp, scallops and meaty fish. We had an excellent waitress. We walked the river, bought candy and took a historical carriage ride through town. It's beautiful, even in the rain at night. Don't stay in the Quality Inn. The drunks come off the riverwalk yelling and screaming half the night. The next day got us to a St. Pete's resort called the Tradewinds. We had the afternoon to discover that walking in the white sand of the Gulf is darned tiring to someone who has been cooped up all winter. The 80 something degrees and sunny sky did help somewhat. We looked over the facilities and hit the sack. I got a cabana , walked in the sand, walked in the water and sunned my feet for a while. I prudently put my white cotton socks on before napping out of the sun in the cabana. My legs were covered as well while I napped . Did you know that white cotton socks don't block the sun very well? I didn't know that. Red feet look strange. Janet wanted a palm for her mom. The next day,we found a palm arboretum. Man, there's a lot of different palms. We picked up palm seeds and talked to the staff about the best places to buy palms. We sat under the palms and watched Janet try to get a picture of the front end of an ibis. About that time, my Uncle Willys schedule opened up so we went off to visit him. Uncle Willys is almost 91 and spends a lot of time in a wheelchair these days. His daughter Mame looks after him quite well, driving him to card playing , bingo and other activities. We had a good visit and then off to Tarpon Springs where it was my privilege to buy dinner for Uncle Willys and all. I don't know the name of the Greek restaurant, just that their emblem is an H and they have an attached bakery. They make a superb baked whole Red Snapper. It took a while but that just gave us a longer visit. The waiter was classic Old World where service is an important job and not just slopping the customers. The entertainment portion of our meal was watching him debone the fish with a pair of spoons. When he was done, it kind of looked like an exploded diagram of a fish. I actually felt good about giving him a tip. We parted ways with Uncle Willys and Mame and returned to the resort. Staceys knee was bothering her so she rested while Janet and I walked the beach. I sat and watched Janet take a hundred pictures of bird butts and multiple sunset shots. Stacey came out and we watched the sunset. I was hoping to see a green flash but no joy there. It was a good night. Wednesday, we started with a croissant from Cafe Soliel back in a corner by the Publix market. If you get to St.Pete, go there. It's cheaper than going to Paris. On to palm shopping. As it turns out, it's hard to buy a baby palm tree. The first place we went didn't have any but Janet and Stacey both bought desert roses. These are succulents that look like mutant kohlrabi. They are alleged to bloom. The next place did have a small 4 foot palm for $4. We dropped the plants off and headed to the Dali Museum. There seem to be Dali Museums everywhere. I think there are two in Cleveland. Dali must have painted in his sleep to turn out so many pictures and sculptures. The one in Tampa was most enjoyable. There was a good mix of his works from early to late. We all enjoyed them. The museum itself was worth a good look. I've been in many museums holding priceless art and none of the others had more cameras than a Las Vegas casino. There appeared to be two guards per room plus rovers. The guards looked ex-military and not cooks or electronics techs. They looked like guys who killed people and regretted their present job choice. They weren't sleepy old guys. Lean in to look at a picture, there's a guard. Point out a detail, there's a guard. Bend down to tie your shoe, there's a guard. I was afraid to go to the restroom there. We had a snack, bought souvenirs and moseyed back to the resort. Janet bought Stacey and I massages for our anniversary. I've never had a professional massage before but I'm going to have another. I recommend them. Thursday, Janet went to the spa, Stacey played in the pool and I did laundry. It was the first chance I had to read. We packed all unneeded clothes up and UPS'd them home. This left more room for souvenirs. Off to the cafe for a sandwich and then to the Florida Aquarium. Nice aquarium. The exhibits are set up as slices of Florida ecology, complete with mangrove trees and birds. We closed the place up and went looking for food. We went to a small steak joint near the resort that one of the other quests had said was great. He had low standards. The salad was tasty and the bread was good. I've had better beef. It must have been some type of Florida cattle. I could chew it but I was definitely getting my fiber ration for the day. Friday, we started back. Not having enough souvenirs, we stopped at Hancock Grove outside of Dade City. We bought oranges, jams and Janet bought an orange tree. We look like a mobile greenhouse. About that time, my cousin Matt called and said “ The food in your upstairs freezer is thawed.” Darn, the door has a tendency to get stuck open a bit so I told him to clean out the freezer so it wouldn't stink. Then he says “ It's 37 degrees in the house and there's water dripping on your bed through the ceiling fan.” Ah Crap. I called my insurance company to see what our coverage was and they had a disaster clean-up crew in the house in under an hour. We had to stop again to buy strawberries, tomatoes and onions. We slept at Janet's that night. Saturday, we had breakfast at the K&W with Janet and her sister Lucy, then hit the road. Good roads all the way with a meal in Charleston, WV. We arrived home to our mattress in the back yard, the bedroom ceiling torn down and the upstairs sink turned off. I slept upstairs but Stacey slept on the couch to stay close to a working bathroom. Sunday, I decided to catch up on the work around the farm. The cow pen really needed to be cleaned so I pitched out the unfrozen part, watered the cows and sheep and headed into the house where I dissolved into an unmoving, whimpering little boy. I seem to have strained my back muscles. A Lot. It's now the next Saturday, repairs are proceeding at a rapid pace and I can walk mostly upright with the occasional use of a cane. I need a vacation. Some odds and ends: We ate at an Italian place called Gigi's one night where I had Shrimp St. Tropez. It was very good but of special note was the busboy. Either he suffers from OCD or is unusually dedicated to doing his job to the best of human ability. Either way, I honor him. Given all the noise on the news about homosexual marriage, throuples , polygamy, and such, I decided to refer to Janet as our sister-wife in casual conversation. This provided considerable entertainment for me. When a man overheard that, I usually got a thoughtful look. When a woman overheard, I got a look that would flay a squirrel. I haven't had such fun tweaking the Mundanes for years. Even Stacey got into it after a while. Once I get a sd to usb convertor, I'll try to upload random pictures which will have little meaning to anyone but us. Have fun. I'm going to lay back down now.

Still Alive

It's been quite a while. I could make excuses like computers dying and work but it would be a lie. I just didn't want to for a while. I've been reminded that there are folks who like to read this and I should get back to work. Last winter was a bitch. I like winter but my joints locked up bad. I couldn't get out to do anything. I had to save everything for work. I can't remember ever enjoying winter less. Spring was wet and kept me from getting my corn in early. I tried but it was a total failure. The garden did all right but not really what I wanted. The sheep did very well and the steers as well. We only had one beehive make it to harvest. If it doesn't survive the winter, we may take a break for a year to rebuild equipment. It's been a year of death. Myrtle the cat was about 18 when I had to put her down. Little Grey Kitty was about 14 when we put him down. He had cancer so bad and was in constant pain. We lost humans too. One of Stacey's cousins, two good friends and now a sister-in-law. Worst of all, they were all people we liked. The last one was Kim. She never actually married Mike but she was a fine sister-in-law anyway. She died in Panama in the cardiologists office and they couldn't do a thing to save her. She had a funeral down there then her ashes came back for a memorial up here. This last weekend, we had a Wake for her. It turns out that she had written out precisely how she wanted that done. It was not, however, held outside since it was killing cold out. The caterers did a magnificent job on the dishes she specified. It was definitely Kim. Take some baby spinach, add some red onion slivers, some ripe mango bits and toasted pecan pieces, then serve with poppy seed dressing. Think of Kim. It hasn't been all death and disaster. There have been occasional bright bits. Early in 2014, we had too many kittens and they've hung around. Our outside male cats, Bootsie and Samson, took off. I really missed them. The day after I buried Myrtle, I was walking back from the barn, looked down and found Bootsie walking alongside me. He was starved nearly to death. He came in that day and is back to health now. He's become my permanent lap cat. Now, when you open an outside door, he runs the other way. He's never going outside again. I've been informed that I'll have a job for a while. Our contract has been renewed and the customer made a point of telling our bosses that we're doing a great job. The new year does bring more paperwork but I've got less than 2 years to retirement so I'll have to suck it up and do it. The winter of 2014-15 hasn't been near the problem the last one was. My joints are doing good and I'm able to work outside most of the time. We just got the house foam insulated and that worked out well. There was probably other good stuff but I'm going to wrap this up. I hope to buy a cheap tablet soon to replace my little computer. I hope that will increase my written output. Adios for now.