Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018
I have some difficulty remembering to type 18, instead of 17 (the year), or is the correct terminology keying, since we no longer have type writers. I am not here to discuss terminologies, I want to talk about temperatures. Today started off at 14 degrees here at the Ford Homestead and it warmed up to 52 after lunch. The warm up encouraged me to get outside the house to rake and vacuum a few leaves.
I may have stated in the past that many times when I am attempting to do yard work the neighbor and their kids come out in the yard to play. Being a safety minded individual, I do not run the Ford’s Old Mower around kids.
Today was different, the kids were not outside. Unfortunately there were 8 or so city employees with three trucks, a chain saw, a chipper, and a pay loader, cutting tree limbs that were out over the street that could possibly due damage to emergency vehicles, if the limbs were to hit the top of the vehicles.
All these vehicles had to stop in front of my house while they were cutting limbs at the neighbor’s house. This slowed me down as I didn’t want to run the mower next to where they were working.
I did eventually get many of the leaves cleaned up from the front yard but not the back yard. The temperature is supposed to rise into the 50s again tomorrow and I may get a shot at the back yard. I may try the ford’s old riding mower in the back yard, as my senior body is tired, in part from working today and in part from slipping and almost falling. The fact that I was able to catch myself put a big strain on the few mussels I have left.
You want to know what happened! Wow, someone is interested in my well-being, or at least my actions! Nice!
I was stepping toward the outside faucet, where leaves are piled up several inches deep. There was some ice on the stepping stones under the leaves which caused me to slip. I caught myself and I knew that I would have some sore muscles today.
Prior to the leaf adventure I had decided to water the plants in the hot house. Tres, the Fords 8 month old pup, had been dragging the Ford’s old yellow hose around the yard, so I had my doubts as to the workability of the hose. After I was able to get the ice out of the first hose which connects to the faucet, I then checked the yellow hose for leaks, there was one.
I decided I would use the hose anyway. As I was watering inside the hot house, the leak outside was creating a muddy mess, which I had to walk through when exiting the building. After turning the water off I took the Ford’s old pocket knife and cut the yellow hose leaving a part in the yard for the Tres to play with and the rest went to the trash can.
We do have most of the outside Christmas decorations disconnected from the electric, but it has been too cold to take them down.
Thursday January 4th, 2018
After lunch it had warmed up enough for this senior person to step outside and preform some of the duties of the vacationing Grounds Manager, such as going to the back yard and getting some of the fallen leaves out in the middle of the yard where I could vacuum them up.
First I took the leaf blower and got many of the leaves away from the house and out of the flower beds. Then I got on the riding mower and continued to blow the leaves more to the center of the yard. After the riding time I had to dismount and start the old walk behind mower. I vacuumed the leaves and ended up with about 10 more bags that will need to be hauled off later.
The main problem I had was the Tres. He continued to chase the mower and barked without ceasing. I found a short chain and tied the Tres up for the first time. He stopped barking and looked as if he had been beaten while on the end of the chain.
I decided to put some of the leaves inside the Tres’ dog house. I thought it might encourage him to get inside during bad weather. He walked over and looked inside, we will need to wait and see if the leaves will draw him in.
My spouse said we need to wash the Tres. We got some warm water flowing and he climbed into the bath tub not knowing what we were going to do. He was pretty good and stood still as we washed him. We had the usual tug of war using one of the drying towels after he was dry. All in all, not a bad experience.
May your leaves blow away, may your dog be clean!
Don Ford
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