Random Thoughts-a Bit off the Reservation

I'm late posting.  But I have been trying to get some outdoor work in early before it gets too hot.  By the time I get finished I don't even think about posting here since it takes a lot out of me, especially with the humidity.

Yesterday was the second year anniversary of my Dad's passing.  'K' went to spend the day with her so she wouldn't be alone.  My presence seems to add stress to her so it was good that 'K' was there.  She had a good day.  They even went to eat at my Dad's favorite restaurant, Cracker Barrell.  Mom doesn't go there anymore since it is too hard for her.  All the help there knew them and they treated them really well.  Having 'K' along put her in such a good mood that she stayed happy the entire time.  Mom didn't ask 'K' to go to the cemetery with her.  'K' was thankful for that.  Mom probably went later, by herself with flowers.  He is buried right next to my Mom's parents and her sister.  So she can pay her respects to all at the same time.  She has always done this.  

I'm going off the reservation (oh no, is that racist?) for a bit so be forewarned.  I met our next door neighbors on my morning walk this morning.  They were wearing masks which is unusual for them.  Then they told me she had COVID.  But she apparently had a very light case.  They had both been vaccinated.  She goes to get tested today to see if she is over it.  I kept my distance, I am 'vaccinated.'  

I understand that this 'vaccination' isn't a true vaccine.  It modifies your RNA so that if you get COVID it helps your body fight it better.  Not sure what it does long term to my RNA.  I had reservations getting it at all.  But here I am.  Whatever it is. it certainly hasn't slowed the spread.  It almost seems it is now more prevalent than when it first came out.  It has hit closer and more times to those that I know.  And if you can believe the news it seems we're all doomed to get it sooner or later.  Blame and accusations and threats are being thrown around about those that won't get vaccinated or wear a mask.  Violence has been visited on some.  My question is, since this isn't a true vaccine, are they working on getting a true vaccine that actually gives a measure of immunity?  I never hear anyone mentioning it.  Why just this one RNA treatment?  I'm sure the conspiracy folks could give me an answer.  I admit that this is all so confusing, get the vacc, wear a mask, don't go out etc.  Whatever you do you get chastised by those that have an opposing view.  If I choose to wear a mask, (I haven't gone back to mask wearing...yet)  But what does it matter if I choose to?  Does it harm you?  Why does it make you angry?  Who gives a rat's butt if I do?  Maybe a lot less visiting social media will calm your jets.  We need cooler heads and less talk.  Take care of your self and MYOB.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the travesty in Afghanistan.  Tears have been shed.  I can't really figure out if this was planned to be this bad or it is pure incompetence on the part of our government, our military, our president.  My personal thoughts are incompetence, total and full.  As usual the blame game has started and the lefties only have Trump to blame which I think is absurd and is nothing but a cover for their failure.  OK.  I gotta stop, this could go on forever.

Happy Trails 

89th Birthday and Other Odds and Ends

Sunday was my Mother's 89th Birthday.  If you didn't know her you couldn't guess  that she is that old.  She is very healthy and may outlive me.  We got our Sons and their families to joins us over at her house after church.  We stopped and got some food for everyone along the way.  Mom seem so pleased and happy.  We stayed until about 3PM.  Not long enough to wear her out.  

Even with her great health, she still is preparing to leave this earth any day now.  We did have a little chat about that.  I felt like she needed to be aware of it in conversations so she didn't turn off her visitors.  Then the visitors would not come as often and she doesn't want that.  She seemed to appreciate being made aware.  

One of the things she has been working on is weeding out photographs.  There are a lot of albums of photos.  I came home with a lot of them.  Less than half and I took probably a dozen.  Most of those belonged to my Grandparents, my Dad's parents.  I will go through them and dispose of the ones we cannot figure out who the people are, or bad photos etc.  Also a lot of them are of my Grandfather's career in the Fire Department.  I may donate those to the fire museum or a friend that is a collector.  I'll keep any he is in.  We have a plan to make one wall of our home a family wall and it will get filled with old photos and some of these will find their way there.  Many will be of those that have gone on before us, some the kids never knew.  I hope they will ask who some are and what the stories are.

Painting has ceased for now.  Way too hot and humid for my old self.   The Granddaughter is here for a couple days.  The timer on my bread rising just went off.  I am thawing a chuck roast and will use Kent Rollins' recipe for smoking it.  I tried my own way once and it as a disaster, inedible.  Hopefully I can get this one done right since they are so expensive now.

Happy Trails

Quick Update

Just a quick word.  I sat with an elderly friend yesterday while his daughter had to run in to work to get a payroll out.  I will do that again today.  She really needed my help and I don't mind at all.  So I really didn't have time to put anything together.

The vultures cleaned up the road kill quickly.  By Noon most of the vultures had quit the scene.  All I had to do was pick a skeleton and hide.  No meat at all.  No skull either.  But I have never seen a skull remain at a buzzard feast.  No idea where it goes.  I don't hang around a watch.

Reworking my 'get home' bag.  I may go to two small bags.  The one I used was crammed full and wasn't big enough to carry items for two people.  I will mostly likely move all food related items to a separate bag.  I have left that bag in the car for months at a time enduring the heat.  That can't be good for any type food for long.  So those food items will get transferred to a separate bag and I have to train myself not to leave it in the car.  

I gotta get a move on, thanks for coming by and as always...

Happy Trails

The Feast and the BIG Dog

Everyday when I get up I look outside to see what the day is like weather wise.  Today when I looked I see something laying in the yard near the road.  This is never a good thing.  It's usually is a white tail fawn that didn't get out of the road fast enough for those idiots that think the roads here are a race track.  Before I can confirm what it is two Ravens land on it and and start doing what they do.  They fly off and a turkey vulture (buzzard) lands on it.  A doe is crossing the road and proceeds to chase off the buzzard.  Sorry Mom, you baby didn't make it.  All of  this before 7:00 AM.  Now, at 9:15 AM there are no less than 20 buzzards cleaning up the mess.  It will most likely all be gone by this evening.  At least I won't have to haul it off.  I have to find away to block our windows so Snickers isn't barking all day at the buzzards in his yard.

This is one of the things that we see every so often out here.  We have a lot of wild life, especially deer.  It's not unusual to see 20 or more in the yard either laying down or eating my grass.  So consequently we get to see nature at work, even the gory stuff.  It freaks out all the newbie city folks that have moved out here.  Apparently they have no idea how nature works from what I read on the neighborhood app and FB groups.  It's really sad how ignorant people really are.  The comments are generally as dumb as the original posts. 

Part of the problem is that these folks feed the deer and it keeps them around populated areas.  I get it.  The are beautiful animals.  Fun to watch.  But we are overpopulated with them.  Feeding them only hurts them, they lose their fear of us to their detriment.  There is no real predation here in our neighborhood except for an occasional loose dog killing one.  There are bobcats but they are too small to take on a deer, maybe a fawn.  There has also been sightings and photos of a Mountain Lion roaming around.  But that's not enough to thin the herd.  So the herd gets bigger and bigger and becomes a problem.  In the fall my front yard smells like a sewer at times due to all the deer waste.  There is no real solution since this area/neighborhood encompasses well over a thousand acres. It could easily be triple that, I just don't know.

I am usually out on my morning walk with the dog before sun up trying to beat the heat and humidity.  Snickers loves it.  Most days it goes very well and he is learning not to lunge and bark at every dog that we meet along the way.  But there are just some dogs that he just knows he has to protect me from or show them that he is the boss and owns that street.  The bigger the dog the more he goes nuts.  This is a dog that weighs in at 16 lbs. with very short legs.  The other dog walkers sometimes laugh at his antics.  But evidently he doesn't know or care that he isn't a big dog.  There were two today he just knew he needed to either kill them or poop down their neck so they would know who's boss.  When we finally get past them, he is so proud of himself that he saved my old butt that he prances and smiles up at me making sure I know he is a good boy for doing his job.  It makes me laugh even though I had been pretty unhappy with him prior.  Still more work needs to be done to socialize him better.  There is a happy medium somewhere between doing his job and not going nuts.  This may take longer than I want.  

Happy Trails

Painting Etc.

Nothing exciting on the Homefront to report.  I decided to get some out door painting done.  Yes, the same painting I have been messing around with for 2 years.  Although last year little was done.  Since I have gutters to be installed on 9/1 I wanted to be sure that the facia in those places was painted prior to installation.  That is now complete plus some additional trim/facia.  I would guess I am about 60% complete on the trim give or take.  Almost the entire front of the house facia is now complete.  I hope to finish that part up tomorrow along with the last side of the garage.  The facia is the hardest for me to complete yet easiest to paint.  It's due to the height at the peaks of the roof.  I am not sure how the two highest peaks will get completed.  I've done them before but I was much younger then.  I have to admit that since I fell off the ladder that last time, I am much shakier now.  Once all the facia is complete is should go pretty easy as it will be just siding that is done be a roller.  I'm in the mood to get it done now.  However, the heat, humidity and climbing up and down multiple times to move the ladder, I am only good for about 4 hours.  

'K' got her steroid shot Monday.  It helped some.  She goes back to physical therapy today.  I am not sure they are doing any real good.  I know the last time she went put her into a pain level that was worse than anything prior.  She has an appointment with an Orthopedic surgeon in Sept.  He will take a look at her X-rays and decide  of an MRI is needed.  Oh and she got an X-ray on her hip and it reveals bone spurs.  I am not sure how she avoids surgery.  I found out the arthritis in her knee is significant and he PCP hopes she can avoid and knee replacement.  SMH.  I may need to trade her in on a newer model.

The interior is finally finished.  'K' got her new curtains up late last week.  Now she is looking at new rugs.  LOL it never stops apparently.  I'm holding out.  

We are planning on going to a Bluegrass Festival in the Northern part of Texas come October.  A couple of the legends of Bluegrass will be there and I can get them off my bucket list.  Del McCoury and Ricky Skaggs.  There aren't a lot of chances to see the big name performers in Texas.  Now if we can keep 'K' off the surgery list we should be good to go.  I am trying not to think about the china flu thing that seems to be making everyone excited.

My favorite Del song:

Happy Trails

Rain

It's raining, again.  This has been a very wet Summer.  Also cooler than I have ever seen or can remember.  August along with the end of July is historically very hot here.  I don't think we have been over 95* in that time but it's been mostly lower than that.  We did get near 100 July 3 and a time or two in June.  But over all this has been a very pleasant Summer.  Everything is still green.  I have only broken out my tractor sprinklers once.  I was getting close to needing to again and then, rain.  Yet I see up North in places like Canada temps well over 100*.  It's just been crazy for temps almost everywhere.  Since I don't watch the network news anymore I don't know if they are blaming it on something like global warming (I'm sure they are rationalizing that) or those things out in the Pacific, Nina something?  Wish my gutters were installed.

'K' heads over to the Doc today to get a steroid shot in her knee to get some relief. She has had a rough weekend.  She also persuaded them to X-ray her hip on the same leg that is giving her trouble.  She thinks there is something else wrong there.  I am hoping once the knee gets sorted out the hip will too.  But that hip has bothered her off and on for years.  So who knows.  The knee seems to have exacerbated it.  She has been pretty immobile trying to rest it up and hoping tp relieve some pain.  They suggested stopping PT until the injection as the last round seemed to make her hurt even more than before she started.  I just hope they get this figured out soon instead of messing around like they have.

I haven't been able to get any news on my blood work or a prescription they denied me.  It was one I have been taking for years.  No explanation after two attempts to contact.  I have to use a patient portal and message that way.  They don't answer phones anymore if ever.  They have been pretty good about it.  I'm not sure what's going on.  Maybe the doc is on vacation and they don't know what to tell me until he sees my bloodwork/messages.  At least they could tell me that but nothing has happened in over a week.  If I don't hear soon I will go by the office and confront them, they can't ignore that like they can the other.  But now they have a security person there LOL.  Nah, I'll keep my cool.

Happy Trails