Today I took care of yesterday's unfinished business. I drove the Suburban down to Ponca Iron & Metal and sold several boxes of squashed aluminum cans. All those cans added up to 296 pounds, and sold for $162.80. If my arithmetic is right, that's 55¢ a pound. Not bad. When I got home the cable guys were laying more cable down the road from me, so I went and told them it would be OK if they went back and fixed the place where I got stuck yesterday. I'll wait a few days to see if they do. If not, I'll phone their company and ask to speak with a boss.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 Today's pleasant weather presented a good
opportunity to spend a few hours attacking a patch
of small trees with the puller. As the picture
shows, there are so many to remove that the job
won't all be done in just a day or two. It's a
random mix of species — elm, redbud, and several
others — that need to go. I'm leaving forsythia to
grow up and fill the area. If those are allowed to
thrive they will make a spectacular annual March
display.
Thursday, April 3, 2025 Oops! I lost a day. When I got up this morning it was raining, and somehow that made me think it was Friday. I spent the day thinking it was Friday. Fortunately, in my current world that meant nothing of any consequence to me. The return of wet and chilly weather did prompt me to have evening fires, which required the little task of bringing in wood. If this is a normal April there will be fewer evenings calling for fires in the kitchen stove and the living room fireplace. From May to next fall my trash burning will take place in the burning barrel in the back yard. The current wet weather is much needed, but it may complicate any yard work that calls for using the truck. Getting stuck in mud isn't a major tragedy, but it's inconvenient enough for me to avoid it if I can. |
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Friday, April 4, 2025
The real Friday, as predicted, started wet. I hid inside and did a bit of catching up on reading, and wasted some time online. In the afternoon the chance of precipitation fell to about 8% and I did my grocery shopping with no worry about getting soaked. Again the evening was cool enough for fires, and the wood supply is running low. One day soon I need to get busy cutting firewood. It won't be a lot. The forecast says by the middle of the week we'll be having highs in the eighties.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
One of today's activities was getting back to my practice of filing receipts. Ideally that will result in computer files of all my expenses. I'm starting with the easiest month, the current one. We're in the first week of April, so there aren't many April expenses to record. Now that my April expense files are up to date, I'll go back and file the March receipts. My Saturday treat night dinner was at the Chinese buffet. This week's movie was Death of a Unicorn. Paul Rudd heads a good cast in this fantasy which treats unicorns as a reality. They are not always nice. They can be disagreeable and aggressive in response to human failings. Jenna Ortega is very good as the teenage daughter, and Will Poulter shows his ability convincingly to pass for an American. I count this one as being not a waste of time. If I can sit through a movie and not feel I've been conned, it's successful.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Rain was pretty much over, but the chill held on for another day. It was cool enough for fires in the kitchen and the living room this evening. I did a bit of catching up on reading, and walked up to the cemetery tovisit the old-timers.
Monday, April 7, 2025
One of today's highlights was a three mile walk with Shorty, an exercise of about 45 minutes. After that we went shopping for contractor bags and toothpaste. The drugstore was out of Pepsodent, but will have it tomorrow. Being downtown, I dropped in at the CPA's office to see if I'm needed for anything on the tax forms. Not yet. I'll go back in a couple of days to sign things and write checks.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
I'm blaming my age and my brain injury for how confused I am by paperwork now. I'm happy to turn the tax job over to somebody who knows what he's doing. Meanwhile, I have enough other stuff to do. Today one of those other things was a session with the psychologist. That's an opportunity for me to blather about a subject of endless fascination, myself.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Big day. I went to the USDA office to turn in a form and to be sure I had filled it out correctly. The young lady glanced at it and said it was fine. At home I took the chain saw down to the wood lot and turned some fallen branches into firewood. I left the wood in the truck, and will split it later. That may be tomorrow, or it may not. I also phoned my old friend Herb, who I met in 1963. He's a year younger than I am, but is in poor enough shape to be in a "facility" with people to take care of him. I don't know if I did any good, but I tried to encourage him to get some exercise. A lack of physical effort is a sure way to speed up the decline of old age.
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Dad's birthday. He would be 122. I find that as time goes by I miss the old timers more, not less. Today I stopped at the CPA's office and signed this year's tax papers. It's a wonderful relief to leave tax preparation to younger folks who know how to do it.
Friday, April 11, 2025
Other than breaking up small twigs and branches for future winter fuel, I don't think I did any work today. I guess I should do something interesting so I coyuld write about it here.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Travel day. Donna, Lori, and I went to the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma to see the bison herd. Just getting there turned out to be more of an adventure than being there. The girls got me started on family history and blathering about that distracted me from navigating. I wasn't watching where we were and missed a turn that caused considerable wandering in Kay and Osage Counties. Eventually I figured out where we were, which got us headed the right way. Then I did it again. The next missed turn ended with us going all the way to Pawhuska and coming into the place from the south instead of from the north as I had planned. Fortunately we didn't have a deadline, so all the wandering was an opportunity to see new territory. As for being there, the girls were happy to to see some bison in their natural prairie setting. Having been there before, I was a little disappointed that we saw so few. There are about 2500 of the critters there, but we spotted only two or three dozen, all at a distance. In previous visits I've driven through crowds of them in the road and on both sides. Maybe we should go back when the grass is taller.
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Today's first job was sorting out the daily pills for the next three weeks. That required a drive to the pharmacy when one of them came up three short. Now all the doses for the next twenty-one days are laid out and waiting. One of today's outdoor jobs was grinding little burrs from a chain and reinstalling it on the saw. Another was taking the garbage pail from the back porch out back, emptying it, and rinsing it out. Another was getting started on breaking and cutting off twigs and little branches from downed limbs in the front yard and putting them in a bag to become fuel for some of next winter's heat. There's more to do than I will ever finish. I'll do what I can, and not worry about what doesn't get done.
Monday, April 14, 2025
Taking advantage of another decent day, I went back to breaking and cutting little twigs and branches off the downed limbs in the front yard and putting them in a dog food bag for part of next winter's fuel. I made good progress on that, and one more session should have the limbs ready to cut up and put in a bag too. That will clear the lawn for mowing. The grass is getting tall enough , so it will be good to have mowing season under way.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Another day of progress on downed limbs in the front yard. I finished filling one bag with twigs and small branches, and started another bag. I expect to have that mostly finished tomorrow, and should have enough of the lawn cleared to allow getting started with the mowing. I don't know if I'll be ready to bring out the mowing tractor, but should get to that pretty soon. The weather is cooperating, but the forecast suggests a rainy weekend that will interrupt my outside projects. This evening was cool enough for fires, and I sat in front of the fireplace watching Finding Your Roots. There aren't many things on TV that I make an effort to see, but that is one of them.
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
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More good weather meant more yard work.
Part of that was trimming off twigs and small
branches from more downed limbs, which will be cut
up and put into dog food bags to make some of next
winter's heat. I also fired up the Dixon and mowed a
patch of lawn behind the truck, where I will do said
cutting up. I also got started on the mowing across
the road. The forecast is for another warm day
tomorrow. I expect that will let me finish cutting
up the downed branches and bagging all the pieces.
Maybe I'll get more of the mowing done too.
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Thursday, April 17, 2025
Even with time off for a trip to town to replenish my supply of frozen veggies, I did finish something. That was trimming all the little twigs and branches off the downed limbs and filling a bag with them. There's more little stuff to start another bag tomorrow, but that looks like it won't take long. That will leave cutting the larger branches into little pieces with a chain saw and bagging them. I may even get more mowing done. The forecast says tomorrow evening begins a rainy weekend that won't be much good for yard work. It will also be chilly enough for burning some trash in the fireplace.
Friday, April 18, 2025
Change of plans. After updating my checkbook and writing checks to pay a couple of bills, I set out to take a walk. Feeling a bit chilly, I wore a coat. Shorty wore a leash. As usual it was a three-mile course. West on Birch to Country Club Road, south to Chestnut Avenue, east to 91st Road, north to Birch, and home. On 91st just north of Chestnut, everything changed. I don't know whether I tripped over the leash or my own clumsy feet, but down I went. Doing a face-plant on asphalt left scrapes on both hands and my right cheek. A couple of guys driving by saw me lying there and stopped to help. They helped me up to a sitting position and I sat there a couple of minutes. One of the guys suggested calling an EMT crew, and I consented. It took the EMT folks a few minutes to cover the three miles from town, but though I wasn't seriously damaged I let them get some practice on me. They cleaned off some of the blood, checked my blood pressure and other vital signs, and brought me home. I ruled out a hospital visit because nothing was broken and I wasn't seriously damaged. This little adventure ate up enough time to leave me scrambling to get done everything I needed or wanted to do in the afternoon. That included a drive to town to get more diapers and a little box of first aid bandages, a visit to the veterinary office to get a prescription for heartworm pills for Shorty, and a return to town to buy a new watch. The one I've been using for a little over a year has died. A replacement was only $11.91. If it lasts a year I'll consider that good enough.
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