Busy Day

What was suppose to be a beautiful day, started cloudy, but by noon the sun was out and by 2:30 it was warm.

I started the day with about 45 minutes working out a Lake Therapy. When I got to work, my day moved quickly from one thing to another. My museum assitant and I check out where we could put some new shelves in the storage room and how we would redign the storage area to make room for items in the semi trailer. A board member and her husband had cleared out the wardrobes last week and now they need to be dismantled to make room for the changes we plan. I then sat about figuring out the mid-month bank deposit, assigned some research, answered email and snail mail, spoke with several people about some projects we need to have done and some county artifacts that we are interested in receiving. Had lunch with friends, came back and finished the deposit, went to the bank and then had a doctor appointment.

When I returned from the doctor appointment, Ardmore called me to come home and drive the truck out to the field. First I had to email the newspaper articles to a couple of papers, stop at the grocery store, and the hardware store.

After taking the truck to the field, I decided it was so nice out I would go for a walk while he was combining. That was very restful and enjoyable. I listened to Blood, Sweat and Tears on the Ipod came back and we decided the canola may be too wet to combine and needed to have the moisture checked first. I ran the canola over to the neighbors and checked it while Ardmore worked on checking grain bin fans. It was 8:30 by the time we got in and I still needed to fix something to eat and ride the stationary bike, fold a load of laundry and put another load in the washer. Do my nails for work tomorrow. Now it is bedtime... Thank goodness!

Sunday, a Day of Rest

Woke up to rain again... It misted all the way to church. This week should see a change, at least that is what accuweather says. We should see warm weather and no rain for the next week, a miracle in the waiting.

Ardmore leaves for church at about 7:15; I leave the house at 9:15, I need more sleep. Good talks today, missionaries both gave excellent talks encouraging to not be afraid to speak about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why do we have knee fright?

Exercising takes me about 1 hour and a half every morning. Then comes the icing of the knee. Today was tough, my knee bothered me almost all day. I have iced it two times. Perhaps that isn't enough but there are other things to do in life, like enjoy the two hour nap I took this afternoon. MMMM, that felt so good.

Tomorrow I have pt (more pain and torture). I also have a doctor appointment in the afternoon. I hope he can help me with the pain behind my knee that has been tormenting me. I think the pain now is worse than the pain I had before I had knee replacement. Plus, the stiffness is real torture. Hopefully, I can get some answers. My orthopedic specialist doesn't deal with these problems, only bones.

It is a relief to see the price of oil drop to about $100 a barrel. We decided it was time to order gas. The cost -$1660 for 500 gallons for farm gas on Thursday. It is utterly amazing that there can be such a fluctuation. Last year we paid $2.27 a gallon, this year it is $3.38, about 1/3 more, plus the price of grain is going down. I bet the grain prices won't recover to last fall and springs prices anytime soon. We also have the added expense of having to dry our grain and purchase equipment to help do that. I am not anxious to see what the electric bill will run over the next three months. Right now we have three 5 horse motors and a 1.5 horse motor running, when we add the drying heaters tomorrow, that will put it at two more motors running. OUCH! Farming is very expensive and a gamble.

Ardmore switched headers on the combine late this afternoon. He has decided to take off the canola before we tackle the rest of the wheat. I hope the canola will go on Tuesday, it will take at least two days to get it off. This will mean that I have to leave work early again. Well, our crop has to come first.

Talked to Michelle, Brian and James either yesterday or today. Life is good.

Thought for the day:

"Therefore I say unto you. What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,

believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Mark 11:24

Why does it continue to rain?

Here we are, three days from the last rain and it rained again. Will we ever get our crop off? We have so much wet grain in the bin now and some of it at a moisture level of 19% and it continues to rain. Just when the grain moisture starts to drop so we can combine, it starts to rain again. Ardmore purchased two electric heaters to place on the grains bins. I think we will need one more but we are trying to be hopeful.

He has decided to take the header off of the combine and put the other header on so he can take off the canola. The wheat has too high of a moisture lever and he is hopeful that it will drop while he is taking off the canola. He needs at least two days of warm weather to see the canola dry enough to take off. We are praying it will come off this next week, as the weather report looks promising.

Monday is our grandson Bryce's birthday. I wanted to email him but we do not have his new Coast Guard email address. (Hey Bryce, if you read this write to granny!) I will have to mail his card to his mother so he can pick it when he returns from his trip to sea. I hope he has a good camera and takes lots of photos so we can see them. I am putting a photo of Bryce (left) and James on the blog for any young women who check out my blog can see the hunks!

The Best of a Saturday

So, Saturday is here. WooHoo!

The Ten Best things about Saturday

1. Sleeping in
2. Calling Family
3. Watching your favorite movie
4. Eating out
5. Lunch with friends
6. Spending time reading a favorite book
7. Gardening
8. Going to Winnipeg
9. Baking
10. Sitting on the deck and enjoying a beautiful day.

Back to work

This week I am going to try to work a full week. I have several appointments today including one with my orthopedic specialist. Dr. Schall told me I was doing so well I didn't have to come in for about 6 months. I am scheduled for January 13, four months away, I change it if I need to. I appreciate this doctor, when I was discouraged a couple of weeks ago, he called me. He is a very caring person.

This has not been easy. The knee is much more painful than the hip, but I think the recovery is quicker. I am already walking over a mile a day and now I can ride our stationary bike. My knee has a click which I was told me was common. I had read it was possible to have some clicking, I would have been very discouraged if I had not read up on this. Research has been a great help, often it has taken hours to discover what I want to understand about the hip and knee replacement issues. There are many ups and downs but the ups far outweigh the downs. Knee replacement is definitely not my own knee, it is exactly what is put in, an artificial knee, but I can look forward to many years of walking and enjoying life more now. I did have pain on the inner area of my knee but Brian had been through much massage therapy and did some on me so now I know how to take care of the pain and it has really helped. I find the hardest thing to handle is the stiffness. It takes lots of exercise daily. I think the stationary bike will benefit me the most.

The house is so quiet now that the guys are gone, I am happy to back at work. Ardmore tried to combine this afternoon but the wheat was still 19.5% moisture so he quit. I hope we don’t have any rain so he can try again tomorrow, it should go then. I will be unloading grain if it does.

Are you ready to hang up a flag on Sept 11? If not give this some thought. I believe it is one of the best ways to show support for our young service men and women.
How about that McCain/Palin ticket? I think this ticket will give Obama and Biden a run for their money. For the first time, McCain was ahead of Obama this year. I say let the race begin and may the republicans win.

Thought for the day

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin

Charleen

Harvest with the family

With our two younger men home, one would think the wheat would be all off, right? Wrong! Dad does not like to combine in the dark and would quit even if there was a hot wind and the wheat was dry as popcorn. Needless to say Brian, James and Mom were not happy. Brian had work starting on Tuesday. On Sunday evening, about 9 pm, Brian and I were on our way to Winnipeg where we spent the night so he could catch a plane to LA. Ardmore and James continued to combine until dark. After dropping Brian off at the awful hour of 5, I went back to the motel to sleep and when I awoke it was raining. Discouraged because no stores were open, I headed back home immediately. When I arrived, the sun was shining and James and Ardmore were combining. That was the last day we hit the fields, it rained great drops of rain that night, 1.25 inches. It put an instant stall on the harvest. We did have about 115 acres off and have about another 95 of wheat to go. The canola is laying and probably shelling out. At least the wheat isn't laying, it is still standing. I hope we have enough warm weather for the soybeans to ripen.

I did get a couple of good photos of the men on the combine and will place one here one.

James heads back to LA tomorrow and then we are left to pray for better, warmer weather so we can get the rest of the crop off.

As for my knee and hip, it does seem to be getting better each day. I have done some heat, massaging, and icing to keep the hip from spasming again. I had pt this afternoon. I need to work on getting my knee to reach its maximum movement and that is very hard. Today I had a different pt and she gave me some new exercises. one for the hip and some for the knee. I will be trying them out tonight.

So what have we eaten when the guys were home? Lots of blueberries. This has been the year for good blueberries and I have purchased more than our share. We had a blueberry pie and an apple pie. I still can't top the Twin's apple pie so don't even try, I just order one instead. We had cheese burgers, Brian's fabulous spinach scrambled eggs, lots of fresh fruit mixes, lemon chicken, and of course, potato salad. No, I didn't bake any cookies this time, bought some instead. I figured if I baked, I would eat more than anyone else. Its a good thing it is coming to a halt, I have gained three pounds and need to take it off pronto!

Tomorrow will bring a state of quiet to our home and the lack of family will haunt the house.

Charleen