Want to quit 12.02.18

It is December and as I had explained earlier, I will send reminders several times this month stating, if you want to stop receiving these emails, just send me a note saying remove my name. I do not want to be a bother to any of you.

               If you or someone you know wants to receive these notifications or be put back on the mailing list, send me a note and I will add you, are them, to the mailing list.

            December is here and we haven’t purchased a single Christmas gift, or if we have, I am unaware of any such purchases. My spouse of 49 plus years has been decorating the inside of the homestead. I haven’t counted the Christmas trees yet, but I do know of 6, and I feel sure if I were to check each room there might be another. 

            Update; I checked with the CEO and was informed that there are only 6 trees this year.

            I was talking with my sister last night, she lives in Missouri so the conversation was over the phone. My sister will be 90 the last day of this month and she has problems remembering. We had talked for probably 15 or 20 minutes and we were getting ready to hang up when she commented that she was glad I called. She went on to say, I think you are a nice person and I really like you! I thanked her and told her I really like her too. I believe that was possibly the nicest thing she could have said to me.

            How do you like that, I am a nice person. I guess there are many people who would not agree, but at least one person thinks I am nice.

            Yesterday I went out in the back 40 and put the leaf blower to work. I have blown the leaves in to 5 distinct areas and hopefully will get the lawnmower out today and vacuum these leaves. I have reviewed the front yard and it is again covered with oak leaves, so depending on my ole body’s abilities, I may also go after it again today.

            Many, and I do mean many, of the leaves from our trees have blown across the street against the neighbor’s curb, and onto his yard. If I offered to help him, I would need to offer to help others, and as we know, others probably don’t think I am nice!

May your day be filled with kindness!

Senior leaf blower and mower: Don Ford

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Hair or not 12.01.18

            Everywhere one looks they are selling items for your hair. You can make your hair shiny, a different color, straight, wavy, free of dandruff, even make your hair grow, but there is nothing I know of to stop hair from growing on my ears.           No comment please!

            I remember my grandpa, his name was Beedy Za Wyatt, and he was a Pentecostal minister retired, when I knew him (he passed when I was very young). I remember grandpa had a lot of hair growing out of his ears. Now that I think about it, I wonder if all that hair reduced his hearing. I assume he did not have the ability to remove the hair.

            Now that I have made you just about toss your cookies, oh, I just had cookies with this cup of coffee, this short but sweet article has nothing to do with ear hair.

            History:          Back in the day, you know back in the early 70s, actually it was in 1973, when I quit the National Guard. Yes, I said I had quit. I joined for six years and when the six years were up I stayed in for a while. At some point I decided I had enough and I quit. You can do that after you have completed your contract of six years.            

            As a military person, we could not have facial hair other than a mustache. The Monday after I quit the Guard I went to my Manager Len Mattes at HWI, and asked if he had a problem with me having a beard. He said something like, it’s your face, do what you want.           That is when I started the beard. I had a beard for 32 years.

            Back to present day; a few days ago I decided allow some hair to grow on my chin. Now you get to see an ugly photo of senior fellow at the Ford Homestead, “Me”! Click if you dare.                                                

            When on a fixed income, it is difficult to afford color photos, hence black and white.

Enjoy the first day of December, only 23 days till Christmas!

Santa’s senior helper; Don Ford        

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Can't get ahead 11.30.18

               It is the last day of November and the leaves are falling. This year seems to be somewhat like the northern states in that the leaves on a lot of the trees have turned many pretty colors.

            I have removed the leaves from the front yard one time already, and plan to remove them again today. I looked at the yard and was surprised with all the leaves that are in the front yard. The street was also covered so, would you believe, I decided to rake the street bringing the leaves onto the front yard. What do you think the neighbors think of the ole man raking the street? See photo of me raking the street, click to believe.

            After getting all the street leaves onto the front yard, I then began raking the leaves and placing them into leaf bags. In the photo below, you can see how my raking was proceeding.

            Would you believe it took several hours of raking to get these leaves all in bags. My old arms and hands are worn out and I need to take a nap. With tears in my eyes, I took a photo of the finished product. You may notice that the leaves were still falling from the trees in the front yard. The yard will be covered again by tomorrow. Click to enlarge.

            Before anyone comments, yes that is Tres’ tail at the right side of the photo.

            A neighbor stopped and commented that there are still a lot of leaves on the trees in our yard. I said he was right but I did not want to do them all at one time, but small amounts over several times.

Fall got its name from leaves falling!

Fall guy; Don Ford

                    I used the lawn mower not a rake, I am too lazy to rake.

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Hard head 11.29.18

            There are many things that can be said about Fords in general, and one of them is, “They can be hard heads”! I do not know if this applies to all Fords worldwide, but I do believe it applies to the group I am a part of.

            The hard headedness is somewhat like the Ford Curse. It is contagious! Before that one person asks, I will enlighten you, the reading public, as to what the Ford Curse is.

            The Ford Curse has existed as long as I have been alive and as I understand it, for many centuries prior to my arrival. Simply stated, any time a Ford eats, he / she will get food on their clothing. The contagious part is, if you eat with a Ford, you will also get food on some part of your clothing. Ask any of my friends who have ever eaten a meal with me. THAT IS TRUE!

            Fords have always been hard headed. As I understand it, the Fords were kicked out of England and sent to Ireland for being so hard headed. The Ford clan lived in Ireland for several hundred years where they were not only hard headed, but inbred with the fighting Irish. The Fords finally decided to legally migrate to the United States (or they may have been asked to leave). Henry Ford and his family were a part of our migration.

            Enough history, each Ford, regardless of age or sex, has the hard headed attitude built in. Some of the Fords actually try to not acknowledge it, but it shows up without their permission. I have stated that the hard headedness is contagious. If a person marries into the Ford family, within less than 6 months they will have been contaminated with the Hard Headed Bug.

            Even if a female Ford marries, and changes her name, she is still a Ford inside, and the Curse along with the hard headedness will be introduced into their new family.

            Why am I reporting this to you, when most of you know this to be true? Good question, and there is a reason. This hard headedness not only applies to humans, it applies to any animals who stay with the Fords.

            Example: This morning Tres and I walked outside to get the newspaper. Normally he goes out, does his business and then gets the paper and brings it back to the front door without me leaving the porch.

            Today this hard headed pot hound went out, did his business, walked around the yard and came back without the paper.

            I gave him the command, “Get the paper”. He looked at me as if he did not understand.

            I repeated the command, he was ignoring anything I said.

            I took one step off the porch and he started for the paper. I stopped, he stopped. He was playing his game with me as if he did not understand what I said, but he wasn’t going to let me get the paper.

            I then started walking toward the paper and he ran to it. I stopped and he looked at me as if to say, just try to get it. I took one more step and he grabbed the paper and ran past me to the front door.

            This hard head expected me to pet him, and say he was a good boy, after he was that hard headed.

            I suggest you avoid the Fords! If you have not been contaminated, and if you are single, I suggest you have any perspective mate’s family tree checked for the name Ford.

 

            Well that is all from the Ford Homestead, I need to get to work on a couple projects.

 

The Ford’s Curse and Hard headedness, they go together!

 

Senior Fellow of the hard headed and cursed society; Don Ford 

 

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Hustler 11.28.18

            Normally I am not a hustler. We senior persons, normally do not hustle. This morning was different. I received a call asking if I could drive to the other Ford’s Homestead, pickup Gabi, and take her to school. I looked at the clock and I began to hustle. I may have driven at the speed limit the entire trip.

            I believe we were able to get the Gabi to school at 7:57am. I was not sure if that is on time or not. There were other kids being dropped off, so we may have been close to getting there on time.         Later I learned she arrived on time!

            Changing the subject, my printer does work now, it is on line, but does not work wirelessly. Still more to do to get these old computers and devices working as they should.

                                    Change nothing on your computer, lest ye have problems!

            It isn’t as cold this morning as it was yesterday, and it is supposed to get up into the mid-70s today. I would like to clean the Ford’s Chevy today. It seems that Tres has a tendency to leave hair in the vehicle. I have a seat cover that helps a little.

            I would like to vacuum the front yard with the lawn mower. Leaves are starting to fall and I thought I might try to stay on top of the situation. Vacuum more often with less effort!

 

            I need to take a break and get a cup of coffee. I will sign off for now.

            Wow, not on break yet. I decided to try and print the above as I was closing down. It printed wirelessly! I must be a genius!

            Now I am on break.

 

            Break is over and I have decided to clean in this office as much as I can. There is a lot of dust and normally I remove almost everything placing the items on tables in the garage. That isn’t going to happen as the garage is still not back to normal. I can’t even get to the tables.

            I have been successful at cleaning more than half of the office and I will get the rest tomorrow, I hope.

            I did get the front yard vacuumed with the mower and it looked good for a while. The wind is still blowing and the leaves are still falling. Many of the leaves are from the neighbors trees.

            I did not get to the Ford’s Chevy today, maybe tomorrow.

            Tuesday I had decided to go to the star coffee place as I still have enough money on my gold card to get a cup of coffee. I stopped going to the mac coffee place as they raised the price back to normal. If they are at a buck on the price, I will go to the mac, otherwise I will not. It took several minutes as usual at the star coffee place to get my order at the drive through. When I got to the window the fellow said the lady in front of you paid for yours. It happened again, free coffee. I am so nice that people like to pay for my coffee.

            That is all for now;

You have been blessed, now you should be a blessing to someone!

We all want to receive, we should also learn to give!

 

Most wise fellow; Don Ford

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All toys are not fun 11.27.18

            Today is one of those days that will be filled with distractions. Please understand, I do have a cup of real coffee on the desk with me at this time. In a few minutes I will take, “The Gabi”, to school. I should note that Gabi doesn’t talk much during this 5 minute drive, so her name does not refer to her talking a lot. 

            It is below freezing this morning, so I will need to see if I have a coat that I can wear. Being on a fixed income, it is difficult to have a very nice coat to keep a senior person’s body warm. 

            When I get home after taking Gabi to school, I will need to brush my teeth as I have a dental appointment. It is time for a cleaning. If they are going to clean my teeth, why do I try and clean them before going?

            What? Yes I will write about the new toy. Please stop interrupting me, I am trying to educate the reading public!

            I am back from taking Gabi to school and our discussion focused on male and female terminology. I noted that a male is a “Dude”, what is a female, a “Dudest”? Gabi explained that a female is a “Dudet”. Even we senior citizens can learn new things!

            Last evening, my spouse of almost 5 decades suggested that she would make some homemade chicken noodle soup. I responded with, that sounds good to me. She then enlightened me with the fact that she would probably use leftover turkey rather than chicken. Again that sounded good as the turkey is all white meet and we are using what we have, which saves money for the senior couple on a fixed income.

            Now I assume (ass/u/me) that all of you have taken a can of grocery store, “Chicken noodle soup”, and opened it, poured it into a container, then either placed it on the stove or in the micro wave to warm up. Bought soup is ok when you are in a hurry or you are too lazy to put in the extra effort required to make it home made.

            Let me tell you about the turkey noodle soup that my present wife made, it was outstanding! That word doesn’t do it justice. I had two big bowls at supper last evening, and I plan to have it for lunch today.

            As I was sitting here in front of the computer, TV was on and they noted that some scientists are now saying that all humans come from, “A single man and woman”. The reporters who were discussing this noted, that it seemed to have biblical connotations. You didn’t think I even knew the word connotations, did you? Well I do, and spell check corrected my spelling.

            Unlike you, who just simply take the statement at face value, I have given this some thought. I again assume that you are considering the thought, all humans started from two single humans. Possibly you are considering those two single humans as Adam and Eve. I am not here to say you are incorrect, those two humans may very well have been Adam and Eve. What I took from the scientist’s statement was that they were single. Can you believe, the first two humans from which all humanity spring, were single. That means they were not married. Maybe that is why so many people now days have kids and do not get married.

  

            I am back from the dentist. They take as much of a person’s money as does a vet. I think when they are in school, they teach them to take as much as they can from their customers.

            I have a photo to share with you. Our cat Charlie must have been hungry. We see him in the photo below eating from the Tres’ food bowl. The cats usually do not do this. Click to believe!

            The new toy that I received on Sunday was actually two new toys. One was a new Wi-Fi and the other was an extender (for that one person, I will explain extender. Extender has nothing to do with the human male body, get that out of your mind now! The extender is a Wi-Fi range extender.)

            On Sunday I tried to install the Wi-Fi and could not. I called my computer expert and he offered advice but we could not get it to work. Sadly, I re-installed the old Wi-Fi.

            On Monday I again attempted to install the Wi-Fi, with little success, at first. I finally got the Wi-Fi up and running, with no outside help, and started working on the extender.

            When I activated the extender the Wi-Fi stopped working. After some additional work, I was able to get the Wi-Fi working without the extender. Extender is not working yet but I have Wi-Fi.

            Also my printer no longer works so I now have something else to fix.

            Maybe I am not only a mechanical genius, I may also be an electronics genius.   

Two single humans started us, and they weren’t married!

Senior visionary; Don Ford

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Cold again 11.26.18

            Here it is Monday again, the holiday week is over and we are back to an almost normal schedule. As the title line indicates, it is cold again. It is only 24 degrees colder this morning than yesterday morning. Our friends up north, and we do have friends, are getting snow today. You may ask why I have presented this seemingly negative commentary. It might be because the new toy I receives Sunday, is not yet working, even after I spent time with it yesterday.

            I will attempt to activate said new toy again today. If that don’t work, I will sit here with tears in my eyes, wishing I understood the problem. If it was a mechanical problem, I would have fixed it yesterday.

           

May your toys all work!

 

New toy owner; Don Ford

 

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To tree or not two tree 11.25.18

            I would like to have this post to be mostly photos, although I understand many of you would rather have words of wisdom from, “Me”.     Sorry, not gona happen!

Standing in the neighbor’s yard, I observed these three trees that have entered a fall like state.

            The tree to the far right has not joined the celebration. When these leaves begin to fall, windy days would be appreciated (let someone else rake the leaves). My first wife is installing multiple Christmas trees in the Ford Homestead.

    

            Cacti, our Christmas Cacti’s are now in full bloom.

            Today is Sunday and I just got a package delivered by the postal service. First time I have gotten a Sunday delivery! Gota go play with my new toy!

May your Sunday be peaceful and safe!

Senior photographer; Don Ford

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