Company day

TERRY

I called Terry about mid afternoon yesterday.  I thought I would be getting her after all of her therapy was finished BUT she was just finishing up one.  She sounded good.  As always she was tired.  She had several therapies during the day.  She said she thought she slept fairly well.  Again she mentioned that she had a pretty good day.  Still sounds like she is struggling with eating enough but I am hopeful that will gradually get better.  We are now on the countdown as she only has perhaps 9 or so days left in acute rehab.  I have done some research on transitional rehabs and have printed out info on 6 of them.  I am thinking the social worker and I will have a conversation about a place mid to late next week.  All in all it seemed to me that there is kind of an up tick in her health.  Is that real or is that my position kind of attitude?  I really do not know.

I know, a bit unconventional but I am trying.  This was my breakfast this morning.  Garden lettuce, garden radishes,  home made baked chicken and cherry tomatoes all with avocado dressing.  I limited the dressing to no more than 2 T as it has 150 calories per T.  I know it is not your typical morning food but then we are certainly living in a nontypical time so I think it is fair to say anything goes.  

That darn new mower did it again yesterday.  I was less then 30 seconds from DONE and the battery decided to take a rest!  So with less than a minute to go I needed to wait for more than an hour for the battery to charge!  THEN, to my surprise, as I sat on the couch and looked out towards the street later I see that I missed the middle of the boulevard.  How bad is that?

I woke up at about 6 AM and could not go back to sleep.  Well I did have about 8 hours of sleep but I feel tired this morning.  I think I need some fresh air so will bike on down to the village and just ride around.  I still shake my head as I sit and look out towards the street.  I would say half of the people who are riding or walking have a mask on.  WHY???  I did see one seedy looking guy with a bulge in his backpack so if I read in the paper this morning that Wells Fargo was robbed I will call in with a description!  Medium build, dirty white tennis shoes, hooded sweat shirt over his head and baggy pants.  Can't say if he was white, black or other as that would be racism.

I am having kind of a hard time over the last few days.  I think I need to turn over my calendar as the month of June was for Dave with 6 pictures of him.  NOT a good thing for me to sit at the computer and then often glance over at the calendar.  He would have been 76 a week from tomorrow.  

Early August of 1958

It is early afternoon and we are harvesting rye on Jim's land down south.  Dad is in a pretty good mood.  Rye is always the first to be harvested as it is planted in the fall so it comes up by the time the rest of the crops are planted.  The straw is extra heavy this summer and Dad took off the belt on the back of the combine where the straw comes out.  That leaves the straw in a windrow which Dad said he is having Rollof ball.  That means will will have straw bales to load and put into the barn.  I always liked that as they are so much lighter than alfalfa bales.  I pretend they are the same weight and throw them around as if I am a strong man!  Anyway Dave is kind of excited.  When we harvest Jim's land one of each three truck loads goes to the elevator in Geneseo which means Dave gets to drive the combine when Dad drives to Geneseo.  It also means that just maybe Dad will come back with root beer or some candy!  It is a quiet day and rye is not the worst to harvest so the "itch" factor is low and that is always nice.  Now oats, that is another story.  Dave and I sit in Big Red, the truck and talk about life.  We have already come to the conclusion that we do not want to be farmers.  Our machines are old and they often break down.  The land has too many of those darn rocks and cleaning out the barn by throwing manure out the window is not a favorite past time.  Oh, and it seems that darn water tank in the barn always overflows and we kind of forget that it is our fault!  We talk a lot about school.  We miss Wood Lake rural school but then we have new friends in Cayuga and that is good.  Dave is kind of apprehensive about school as he is going to be starting high school.  It seems that we never run out of things to talk about and sometimes it even means that I almost miss my job.  My job is to estimate when the rye will get up to the auger in the tank.  I then climb the ladder on the side of the combine and level the grain out so Dad can go a bit farther before we unload.  I really like to guess when I need to be in the tank because I jump out of the truck and race across the field in bare feet.  The stubble, the Canadian Thistles are no match for the leather soles of my bare feet.  I then take note of how close I was to arriving as the grain touches the auger!  I know, kind of a weird way of having fun but one makes your own fun on our farm!  On the fourth load that goes into the truck it is full and Dad heads to Geneseo while Dave takes the tractor and combine and pretends he is a grown man and I sit in the tank probably singing some goofy song.  We always guess how many bushels of grain will be in the truck.  Four tanks into the truck should mean 200 bushels but often the grain weighs more than the standard so then there are more.  Now the standard weight for rye is 56 pounds per bushel so IF the rye weighs more than 56 then the load will be more bushels which is often the case.  Anyway Dave and I have a contest to see who can come the closet to the # of bushels.  I have no idea who usually won but my guess is it may have been 50/50 most of the time.
As the sun gets low in the sky the humidity starts to come in and we have to quit for the day.  Dave and I are pretty happy as that means we will be able to jump on the bikes and get our lake bath in before the mosquito get too bad.  All in all a pretty fun day living in rural North Dakota on an antique kind of farm!!!

Maybe not such a good day as I did NOT have my FP.  Lazy me went with the POD coffee and using the Starbucks it is not bad.  Time for a bike ride.