The title should tell you how I am feeling. I must say I thought my spouse of 49 years was kidding me when she told me about the situation. I said, “Don’t try to be funny”, but she insisted she was telling the truth. I looked her in the eye and said, say that again, I can tell if you are teasing or not. She looked me in the eye and made the statement again. I now believed her. I ran to the back door and through it open, pushing the storm door out of the way, I leaped onto the patio. She was telling the truth. It was there, just as she had said. I turned and slowly staggered back into the house, with a tears coming from my eyes, I asked why? My spouse did not respond, she just turned and walked away.
Feeling as if the world was against me I decided to go outside and raise the stepping stones. There are 20 of these stones and each one needed to be raised. As with anything on the ground, these stones at one time were about an inch above the ground, but as time passes and there are many grass cuttings, along with people walking on the stones, the ground works its way up around the stones and they become level with the ground or even lower than ground level.
I went out to the back 40 and procured a hoe and shovel. I then pulled the Ford’s ole red wagon over to a dirt pile and loaded the wagon with very dry dirt. I was able to make my frail body pull the wagon loaded with dirt, the shovel and hoe, to the work site.
I thought, this might be a good time as the temp was only 65 degrees, and the sun was not up over the trees yet. I would observe one stone noting whether it was level or not, then I used the hoe to remove said stone. I placed the appropriate amount of dirt into the space where the stone had lain, tamping the dirt down with the hoe, I would then replace the stone and proceed to the next stone. My frail old body continued this process until I had raised all 20 stones.
Worn out and sweating profusely I put all the tools and wagon back and headed for the house to get a cold drink of water. After a couple glasses of water I began to feel like myself again. As my mind cleared I once again thought of the situation out back. The grand kids arrived but they didn’t notice that my eyes were red from crying. I was glad that they had not noticed, I would not want them to feel bad for me.
As you know, if you have read any of my postings of late, we have been getting bids on remodeling the bath room. I have not been real happy yet with the bids received, I believe everyone should make a fair profit but these people are trying to get rich off senior citizens.
We may work as our own general contractor as it seems that we could save some money. Being our own general contractor has its draw backs. We have a plumber coming on Friday to give us a bid, we have previously gotten bids on the materials. We will see how that goes.
This afternoon I remember that I was supposed to defrost the freezer unit on the refrigerator in the garage. The main problem in doing this was I had to get the big cooler from the shed. The large cooler is at the bottom of a bunch of Christmas, Halloween, and Easter decorations. I not only had to move them, I had to move two ladders, a chop saw and stand, a lawn mower, cat carrier and a fertilizer spreader.
I took the large cooler to the garage and began to remove the frozen items from the freezer. The cooler was just about full. I then tried to remove the drawers from the freezer. When I got them out, I could see the ice, so I took a small towel and a bucket of water and tried to loosen the ice. The water helped but the ice did not come out. I went for my homemade wooden mallet. Tapping the ice ever so gently at first, and then harder a little later, the ice was broken into pieces.
I removed the ice from the unit and it was now on the garage floor. I grabbed the Ford’s ole broom and swept the ice out onto the drive way. It didn’t last too long in the sun. I washed all the drawers from the freezer and dried them. I dried the inside of the unit and reinstalled the drawers.
My spouse of 49 years was now home from shopping, and I asked if she had a particular method of placing the items back into the freezer. She did! I handed each item to her and she wiped any frost or moister from each item, and replace them in the drawers. Mission accomplished.
That afternoon (yesterday) the people next door had the tree trimmers out, butchering the tree in their front yard. They have only one tree, as there are no trees or any other plants anywhere in their yard. I grabbed a big glass of water and moved my chair into the shade so I could watch. These are the same people who trimmed my tree a few months ago. I enjoy watching the fellow who works up in the tree top.
I watched for a while and then I noticed it was becoming that happy time of the day, so I went and got a different drink. The Tres wanted to watch with me. As I sat there and Tres lay there watching I noticed Tres was looking up at the sky. Naturally I looked up and there was three large hawks or eagles, circling overhead. It is easy to distinguish between a hawk and a buzzard.
Suddenly one of the hawks pulled his / her wings in and dropped like a rock. I thought I was going to see the hawk get another bird but just above the tree he /she put their wings out and flew back up into the sky. Tres and I do enjoy watching hawks or eagles fly around.
That is what happened yesterday.
Take time to enjoy each and every day!
The watcher; Don Ford
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