Third part 05/20/2019

            For that one person who actually reads my posts, I have been painting the Fords so-called office. I had decided to basically divide it in to three parts and the first two have been completed. I have planned the third part, and believe I will begin on it today or tomorrow.

            This portion will require removal of the Ford’s ole desk, removal of a couple shelves on the east wall, some repair to a sheetrock problem in a corner, cutting a new door in a cabinet, (yes that sounds crazy but it is necessary) and a lot of painting.

            Removal of the desk will be difficult as the security camera system is located there. I haven’t decided if I should relocate it or not.

            This work will require me to move a bunch of this junk, I mean a bunch of items into the garage during this process.

            With this third part completed, there will be only one or two more thirds to go. I am not sure what Tres is going to do as he will not have the desk to lay under, unless he goes to the garage and lays under it there.

            What? You say the math don’t work? Sure it does. Didn’t you have fractions in school? Five thirds is totally possible! Five thirds is equal to one and two thirds.       Why do I even try?

            I have a photo, my first wife purchased me a shirt with the extra money she was able to procure this weekend. She went to the park and was able to get a bunch of aluminum cans out of the trash cans.

                               

            The shirt has my name on it. My spouse of half a century explained that if I were to forget my name all I had to do was look down. She is always thinking of me!

Three thirds equal 1, two more thirds equal 1 and two thirds!

Senior math-ologist; Don Ford

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6 inch rain 05/18/2019

            The day started too early for me. It was a Saturday, and I should be allowed to stay in bed until 6:00am. It didn’t happen! Now you are probably trying to get ahead of me thinking, he is going to say the cat and or dog woke him. Nope, I am not going to say that, so please allow me to tell the story without any additional interruptions.

            I awoke early, as I had business which I needed to address. This Saturday is the day to hall off your limbs and other trash. I got dressed and had a cup of coffee. As I sat there thinking about hauling the limbs it came to mind, that I would need to tie down the limbs. Finishing the cup of coffee, I found my way out to the Ford’s ole trailer, which was attached to the Ford’s ole Chevy. I secured the limbs, check the lights and made sure the trailer was properly attached to the truck.

            I made another cup of coffee to accompany me on the 5 minute trip. I decided to leave the homestead at 6:45 hoping to be one of the first in line. When I arrived there were about ten trucks, some with trailers, in front of me.

            At 7:00 they started accepting the vehicles. The dumping process was uncoordinated, I could have come up with a better plan. When I left, the line of vehicles wanting to dump items was so long, I could not see the end of the line. I would guess easily 50 vehicles in line.

            When I arrived home, I decided to sweep the trailer and get it parked in the back yard before it rained. As I was sweeping the trailer it began to rain, this rain turned out to be a 6 inch rain. The drops of rain when they hit the driveway, were 6 inches apart, thus a 6 inch rain!

            I am proud to say, the trailer is parked in its normal spot, the drive way is swept, and the rain has not yet begun. What a nice beginning to a Saturday.

            My Spouse of half a century and I had lunch and then she went to a grocery store. We returned home and I was forced to take a nap. After an appropriate amount of time with my eyes closed, I wondered out back to look at the blackberries. A bird had one of my small ripe berries and there are several half ripe that should be ready tomorrow. As I wondered around the back forty, it began to sprinkle rain on this senior’s body. Knowing how sweet I am, and that I would melt if I got too wet, I headed back inside.

            The thunder is almost continuous but it doesn’t seem too close, and the rain is very hard. We have received a little over half an inch of rain in the last half hour, it had let up some, but is raining hard again. Do we need the rain, that is not important, we get it, needed or not.

 

A rainy afternoon at the Fords!

Senior sweetie: Don Ford

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Friday activities 05/17/2019

            Today was an odd day. Now I know several of you are thinking, “Mr. Don”, has an odd day almost every day, and that is kind of true. This Friday was even odder. It all started like this.

            Friday morning at 7:50am, that is when Gabi arrived here and I was going to take her to school. That is normal and not considered as unusual. Upon her arrival, we were informed that we could go to her school and observe the, “Fun in the sun day”. We were told Gabi’s group would be at field 5. We had no idea where field #5 was at.

            I took the Gabi to school and returned home to get dressed properly, “Clean jeans and shirt”. We were in a big hurry to get there not having any pre-warning, I did not take any folding chairs, and I did not take any sun block. All the kids were playing soft ball so we watched two games, all the while our old senior bodies had to standup. It was a long walk from the car to the ball fields.

            We returned home and rested a while before getting dressed again to go to a graduation at Baylor. With clean clothes on we headed out. We were about ¾ of a mile away from Baylor’s stadium when we ran into stop, and sometime go traffic. It took about 20 minutes for us to get close to the stadium, still in mostly stopped traffic. We were seeing young people with their caps and gowns on, getting out of cars both in front and behind us, and either walking or running to the stadium.

            I decided to get into a different lane and not go to the graduation! We drove past the stadium and traffic was backed up on every road and the parking lots appeared to be full. We did not go, but we plan to go to the party this afternoon.

 

Unbelievable traffic, not good for senior persons!

 

Don Ford

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In the beginning 05/16/2019

            In the beginning there was a single Black Berry, it was all alone. The property owner, an old and feeble man, was able to limp out to the berry vines. As he surveyed the ole tired vines, he found a single little berry. This renewed his hope, and gave him new found energy. The old man skipped and hopped back to the house knowing, “There will be a bunch more Black Berries!”

                                                           

            Yesterday I reviewed the Black berry crop and I found one small berry that was black, see photo above. There are some red berries which means, I will be checking the berries twice a day until all are harvested. If I fail to check the berries, the birds will harvest them.

            Our son David checked his berries and there were four black berries of which the birds had been eating on one, for that one person who is not good at math, David had three good black berries. 

            Before anyone comments, yes that first berry is very small, most of the green berries on the vines are as big as your thumb.

            While reviewing the berries I came upon a blooming flower. I found this to be a little odd, as those flowers had bloomed in the past, and usually only bloom once a year. Photo to follow.

                                                           

            Changing the subject; yesterday I began to work at the second third of the ford’s ole office project, painting. First I removed several items from around and above the Ford’s ole desk, and then removed the doors from the cabinet. The painting followed the same process as previous painting, three coats of white paint to cover the blue paint.

            After the third coat of paint was applied, I allowed it all too dry overnight, and then replaced the doors and one shelf this morning. The next third of the project requires me to remove the ford’s ole desk. Removal of the desk will allow access to a drawer and door to a cabinet that hasn’t been opened since I began to work at home. I believe that was about 12 years ago. My spouse of half a century believes there are some old records not 45s but probably LP records in that area.

            We have discussed the possibility of cutting a hole in the side of that cabinet and installing a door, which would then allow access to the cabinet while the desk is in place. Not sure how I would do that until I remove the desk and see what I have to work with.

            As they say, “A Seniors work is never done”!

Did you notice, if you were to add an “e” to the end of my name, “Don”, you get, “Done”?

That is my way of saying this posting is finished!

Senior author of wonderful postings; Don Ford

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Early morning 05/15/2019

            It was early morning and the sun was rising in the east, or was it rising in the west, who knows. I thought I should get a photo with the sun shining on the front of the Homestead. The sun shining through the windows and doors make the rainbow colors on the wall.

                                   

            Allow me to answer a question. Someone wanted to know why I would transplant a six foot tall blackberry. I transplanted a blackberry bush that was about one foot tall last winter, and it is now growing very tall.

            I went to town yesterday to get some oil, air filter and gas stabilizer. The oil and air filter was for the walk behind mower.

            After returning from town I was able to mow the back forty. I then ate lunch and took a nap. When I awoke from the nap I looked at the weather and saw that they were saying rain was almost on us. I went out and grabbed the ole string trimmer and began trimming the grass along the fence and around everything. It took about an hour to get it all trimmed, and as I finished it began to rain. Perfect timing!

            I saw something yesterday afternoon and I thought I would tell you about it. Last year there was a black bird, also known as a Grackle, which was seen in and around our yard. This particular bird had one leg, and he hopped around on the one leg almost as good as the birds with two legs. That was last year. 

            Yesterday afternoon I saw another bird on one leg. I wondered if this happened to be the same bird that I saw last year. If so, then a disability in a wild animal or a bird can be overcome. The one legged bird can fly as good as any other bird. I hope it is the same bird and he/she has adapted to his/her disability.

            There are 10.5 days of school here in Hewitt before summer vacation begins. Summer vacation makes most of the kids happy, but are they necessary now days? A hundred years ago the kids were needed to work on the farms in the summer. That is not the case now days.

            If the kids went year round, most working parents would likely be happy, they would not need to find ways to take care of the kids during summer months. Teachers would be like other employees working year round, would they look for other jobs.

               If the kids went to school year round, they would receive the equivalent of a 12^th grade education in 9 years. (Instead of going to school ¾ year, they would go 4/4 year.) One of the nice things would be, “High school kids would not be old enough to drive, in the 9^th grade”, so these schools would not need big parking lots for kids cars.

               Kids going to college, after being in school for 9 continuous years, would be 15 years old. Do you think their parents would make their kids go to college closer to home? Wow, College kids get their driver’s license while in college.

               If they graduate from a 2 year college at age 17, who would hire them?

               If they graduate from a 4 year college at age 19, who would hire them?

              

Keep your new idea to yourself, no one likes change!

Senior changeless person; Don Ford

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Colors 05/14/2019

            I have a photo of several colors on the wall at the Ford’s Homestead. It is the end of a rainbow, indicating that the Ford Homestead is like a pot of gold!           Fords are like Gold!

                                               

            In the following photo there is a lot of green. This is a part of a black berry plant that I have transplanted from the original berry patch. It is about 6 foot tall and will be covered with berries next year. It was so big I have a tomato ring holding it up.

                                                           

            We have another color that we will need to watch closely. A few of the black berries are turning red, which means they will be turning black very soon.

                                                          

            Can we say, “Black Berry Cobbler”! J

            Before that one person asks, I use material from old bed sheets to tie the black berries. If you let them go without tying them, you would get stuck every time you walked around them. They have a tendency to spread.

            What did I do yesterday? It was warm and sunny so I mowed, I mean I manicured, the front yard, leaving the grass one inch taller than usual. I did drain the oil from the ford’s walk behind mower, I then learned I did not have the correct oil to refill the mower, I also found I need an air cleaner. I was too lazy to go to town yesterday, or mow the back yard, I plan to do that today.

            Warm dry weather until Saturday!

Work, work, all the day, as big ole Donnie gets to play!

Senior player; Don Ford

             

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Olden days again 05/12/2019

            Yesterday, as I was watching something on TV, there was some type commercial that had a skull of a human with two red eyes. That Skull brought back some old memories. My first car was a used 57 Chevy. It was nothing special but did get me and some friends around town. There was a store in Cape Girardeau name Cousin Fred’s.

            The store had lots of everything in it, and in the very back corner there was accessories so to speak, for cars. They had a plastic skull and it had red lights in its eyes. I purchased a skull and installed it in the back window of the 57 Chevy, facing to the back of the car. I wired the skull into the brake lights, so when I put my breaks on, the eyes would light up at the same time the brake lights did.

                                                           

            I was cool, no one else had a skull in the back window. Probably no one else wanted one!

            I know what you are thinking, “Donnie was way ahead of his time”! You are right, I basically had the first break light in the back window, and now all the new vehicles have a break light in the back window area.

            I guess I am close to being a genius. I will try and not make the rest of you feel bad with all my great thoughts.

 

            Different subject;

            Yesterday I painted a shelf for my wife of half a century. I presented it to her this morning saying we can install it this afternoon. As she looked it over I waited patiently for a comment such as thank you, or nice job, but it did not come. I then asked, “What should you say?” she said we can put it up this afternoon. With tears in my eyes, I staggered out of the room dejected, knowing my work should have been appreciated, but no positive comment of appreciation was made.

 

Keep your expectations low, and disappointment isn’t so bad!

Deflated senior worker; Don Ford

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Partly completed 05/11/2019

            Being a senior citizen on a fixed income, finding enough funding to update the Ford’s ole so-called office area, is more than difficult. That being the situation, I must try to do all the updating work myself. Many years ago, I installed some cabinets and a counter. In past years I used the room as a radio room, my first wife used it to do some art work, when I worked from home it was my office. Now days, it is considered as the computer room and or and office area.

            First photo taken before the upper cabinets were painted white.

                                                                                  

            Second photo upper cabinets are white, shelve installed.

                                                                                               

            The shelves are filled with junk, I mean valuables.

Yes there are more blue cabinets to be painted. One third are done, I will do a third at a time. I also must paint the walls and door. I should be completed in less than 19 weeks.

          It would be good if we weren’t on a fixed income, we could have a contractor do the work, but since we have not received any donations for this project, I will plan, execute, and complete this project, using only my ole senior body.

         Tomorrow is Mother’s day, be nice to all mothers tomorrow!        

Mothers like big hugs, give them a big hug!

Enjoy the weekend!

Don Ford

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