Springtime in Central Oregon

One thing you can always count on if you live in the high desert of Central Oregon is that you can't count on what the weather is going to be from one day to the next. One minute to the next. Day to night. You might have it 80 degrees and then 35 at night. The saying goes "if you don't like the weather wait around 5 minutes", "The only place you can stand in a mud puddle and get hit with a dust devil" and many more.

I woke up this morning to great big snowflakes coming down and it is April 16, 1013 at 6 am.

The flakes were big and it was sticking and then the sun came up and it quit snowing. My beautiful flowers I was so excited about now have a blanket of snow. I don't think I am going to plant in my garden today.

They are stubborn and intent to keep blooming even  if they are covered in snow.  It looked so funny to look out my window through the tomatoes that are in the window sill and see snow all over and big flakes falling from the sky...Is it now spring??

They say Thursday it won't freeze at night for a few days so I am going to plant my tomatoes and other plants in the garden where we can have a dining room table back. I can't use the pellet stove because it is covered with plants.  You can hardly see out the big windows, they are covered with plants and then this cold spell came.  Even when it isn't snowing you wait for a section of weather that is not going to freeze at night for a few days to plant where they get their roots settled and then you cover them with a blanket if a cold spell comes.  If you don't do that you can't raise a lot of stuff because the growing season would be to short.

Wish me luck that the weather forecast doesn't change and I can plant Thursday before the plants completely take over the house.

Thoughts of the elderly

We don't always think of all the problems with getting old. You can't do things anywhere near as fast as you used to do but yet you still want them done.

Lifting things that are heavy become a real chore so how do you haul 40 lb feed sacks around? Your bags of garden soil? Use a wheelbarrow they say, right trying to walk with my balance with a wheelbarrow should be made into a cartoon and I still have to lift them out of the vehicle into that wheelbarrow. I know I will put plastic down in the back of the car and load it by the bucket as I use it.

Laundry can even be a problem, never realized how much bending is associated with laundry. I swear my arms are shorter to fold those sheets and blankets too. Ok we can just roll them up and put them in the cabinet and shut the door and no one will ever see them anyway.

Dishes are not a problem yet except for the cast iron pans when they are full and they hurt arthritic hands and wrists.  Why does the chore I hate be the one I still get to do with no excuses?

Baking a turkey is almost an impossibility as they are heavy in that pan..I know we can leave it in the oven and just eat all of it..Can you pretend a chicken is a turkey?  The way I am going pretty soon it is going to be a game hen.

Vacuuming is one chore that kills you period, your arthritic hands, your back, your knees and your feet.
So, put in a hard wood floor where we don't have to vacuum except with the little floor cleaner.

Taking a bath becomes a long forgotten memory because you are afraid you might never get out of the tub once you get into it. I know float on your stomach until you can get your knees under you and then hang on to the side and stand up..whoops forgot about that knee replacement and you can't put weight on your knees. Oh the dreams of relaxing bubble baths will have to do.

Remember what it was like to set around on a winter's eve in front of the fireplace. Well going out and chopping wood is no longer an option. Order it chopped already is expensive and you still have to carry arm loads of wood into the house. I know get a pellet stove,  40lb bags of pellets for your stove?

I might have to give up eating anything or being very thrifty as I can't do big shopping trips anymore.  I think going grocery shopping at Costco may be one of the worse. Everything comes in big amounts and you always buy a ton to save another trip of 50 miles to get there. I don't think anyone goes to Costco and gets just a few things. By the time I pack all of it in I don't want to ever go back without counting all the miles you put in shopping in the huge store. So now I buy things almost daily where I don't have to pack it into the house. That is my daily walking program.

I have decided that weeds are greenery for the garden and flower beds. I can't bend over and pull them anymore as I tend to be pulled over onto my face with my balance instead of the weeds being pulled out.

Walk they say, well now I have to use a cane or a walker. Those walkers don't fit anywhere you want to go and are a real pain. I also hate the way everyone looks at you when you use them. They seem to think if you have a walker then you can't see, hear or think and treat you as a sub-human.  I hate it when I go into a store with my granddaughter and they don't want to talk to me, they won't hardly look at me, they talk to her..Give me a break, I am buying this and she doesn't know what I like the best. I am old not stupid.

I hate my eyes going bad. You look so forward to when you have a license to drive. That shows independence, now I am back to being dependent on someone to take me everywhere like a small child. I am thankful I can still see the beauty of the flowers and see my loved ones faces.

The worse thing of all about being old is watching your friends pass on, every week you have fewer and fewer friends. The friends that understand are all gone away and the young treat you like you have nothing to offer. They don't want to listen to your stories and tell you that you are living in the past. Well that past thought me a lot of things about life that young ones still have to learn, remember some day you will be old too.

Different ramblings from my elderly friends. God bless their souls, they did not have the easy life that we did. People from that generation are tough, thoughtful, honest and hard working.

Appreciate your elderly while you can as they won't always be there and then you will have wished you would have listened to them. I hope you never get old and live in a cocoon where no one any longer cares about what you feel.

We do not treat our elderly good, they used to be respected, the older they were the more respected their opinion was. Now we throw them in a home and never go see them except maybe for mothers day or fathers day or their birthday and to drop off a present that took you 10 minutes to buy and means nothing to anyone to satisfy your guilt.  They never abandoned you when you were little, nor did they put you in a home until you could take care of yourself so why do we do that to our elderly?

Spaniel or Saddle clip

We are trying something new to try and keep the dog hair down from the King Charles Spaniels. We took them in and had a saddle clip or a spaniel clip.

YoYo on the left is looking up at mom like do you still love me but Freckles on the right looks flat out ticked off.

In this one he just looks sad. We had them shave the outside of their ears too per the vet. She said to clip the ears short until the ear infections clear up and then keep the inside of the flap always clipped short but the outside can grown back out. They were pretty gross with all the medicine and stuff that was coming out of the ears. I sure hope it works.

 Paco actually growled at YoYo when he first saw him but as soon as he smelled him they are great buddies again

Strange cut in some ways but they shook all over when we got home and we did not have a big cloud of dust like we usually do when they shake. Even right after a bath they shake and the hair would fly so we have great hopes this is going to help with our hair problem all over the house.

 Mom is all worried about them getting cold at night now but I told her they could have a cover if they wanted it.

 They seem quite happy now but their fat sure shows especially freckles as he has a little fat bump on his b-hind over the tail but they are still as cute.

Much cleaner and they got a treat on the floor to go search out and find so they are happy little dogs.

I will let you know if this worked for the shedding problem. Their hair is so fine that it flies all over everywhere and you can vacuum and still hair everywhere within the hour. Other then that and the ear problems they are the neatest most loving dogs and even with it my mom loves these dogs like no other and they are little dolls.

Spring fever

I get spring fever really bad every year and want to start planting things as soon as I have one warm day. In fact one of the places I worked put out a fun memo that said "We can not accept any resignation from Linda in the springtime.  I am just terrible!  I just want outside and I want to plant something.

I planted a bunch of bulbs last year and they are all coming up nice. Now I live in fear that the hard frosts will kill them. Madras is noted for getting a really warm spell and everything starts to bloom then BOOM, cold hard weather hits. Those of us who can't wait to plant things are in bad shape and have to start all over again.

I was going to buy my mom some flowers as she fell and hit her head and split it open and I wanted to cheer her up. I got to the store and it was as cheap to buy this potted hydrangea as it was cut flowers and it will last longer. In fact reading on it I should be able to plant it outside and treat it like an annual. Gets to cold in the winter for it and I am afraid maybe to hot in the summer. It has already lasted longer then cut flowers do and we love it. It adds so much cheer to our home.

I started some German Heirloom tomatoes from seed.  I was told that you don't get all of the seeds to germinate so I planted two seeds in each starter pot. Well everyone of them came up. Mom said I had to  pull one out and throw it away..NO WAY!  I just can't do that. I decided I was going to separate them anyway and plant in little pots and which ones lived I would plant in the garden. They ALL lived!  Everyone of them. Now I have 40 little tomatoes that are growing like weeds. I have given several away and this is what I still have left.

Then we went to the store and mom wanted some Oregon early girl and a patio tomato so now sitting with my African Violets is more tomatoes that are doing good but can't be put outside yet.

I planted Strawberries in two strawberry pots. I planted house plants everywhere and then we got the Sunday paper yesterday and guess what?  Yep more plants as it was a one day only sale. I now live in a green house instead of a house and I love every minute of it. They already have little strawberries on them and blooms everywhere.

Our Sunday Fred Meyer sale plants. Boy am I going to have to plant like mad in a couple of weeks and until then we have no dining room table left, wait I see one spot I can get more plants in.

It had better not get to cold as we are using our electric heat cause someone has the pellet stove buried.

The two dahlia's are beautiful. I was standing in line to pay for them and the lady ahead of me kept turning around and looking at all my plants like I had lost my mind and then she said. "that purple flower is the most beautiful thing I ever saw, do they have any left like that". I told her they had one more and she said she was going to get it as soon as they got done checking her groceries out. The blue and the purple daisy type flowers I have never heard of before but they can be planted now as they tolerate cold but they say if you let them bloom in the house and then cut them back and replant outside they will bloom again...yahoo!  

One happy lady here, I can't plant outside but inside my house is a blooming spring day! 

Fire at Ira's wrecking yard

Ira's wrecking yard is almost a landmark in Madras, it has been here forever and I think everyone in town has been there at least once or twice.

On 3/22/13 the fire department was toned out for a fire at the wrecking yard and when they arrived it was already so hot in the attic that the roof was collapsing.

 As you can see in the photo below the dangers at a wrecking yard are numerous. They do a lot of cutting and welding of metal and you can see all the tanks on the left of the large oil barrel.  Most shops that do a lot of work on vehicles uses furnaces that use the used oil to heat the shop to save costs of heating and cost of disposing of the oil.

The dangers to firemen are extreme on any fire but some are more dangerous then others.

A lot of fire departments also run the ambulance service but in our area the ambulance is separate from the fire department but they always come to any structure fire to stand by just in case they are needed. 

Spraying water from the top of the ladder keeps the firefighters out of so much danger and this truck was a saving grace on this fire.

The power company was really quick to respond to this fire and get the electricity turned off to the building as it was during working hours.  This fire went really quick. Many agencies in Central Oregon responded to assist.

A firefighter heads up the ladder to get a visual on the fire.

The firefighter can do a better job of aiming the water and observing the fire once it is knocked down enough to be safe.  With the way the wind was blowing he got quite a ride.

It is still smoky and hot at the top of the ladder for the firefighter and a dangerous job but he has a safety strap hooked to the ladder.

The one building is a mess as you can see the roof structure collapsed. The was an expensive fire with all the tools and equipment inside.

 More dangers for the firefighters besides the fire in the building.

The roof of the building during mop up stage.

Any structure fire or storage shed has a lot of losses that we don't always think about. Just like most places they had numerous things stored in the attic like old photographs.  So many people I have talked to after a fire report the biggest loss is their memory things like photographs which is a good reason to have copies stored in two places or on line. You can replace material things even if it takes a while but that photo of your child's first birthday is not replaceable.  Please think about things like this, put some copies somewhere. Like have two copies made of all photos and have one of your children keep one copy at their place.  One lady I know after a fire keeps all her negatives now in a safe deposit box.  With todays digital photos you can store on line for a fee.

Another thing to make copies or store at a safety deposit box or make digital copies off too is your wedding certificate, death certificates, birth certificates, titles etc.  They have free programs on the internet that you can use the list to make digital photos of.  The idea I like is you start on one room and take a photo of anything of value, serial numbers etc. of everything in the room, then move to the next room.  Don't forget jewelry and little things.  This also helps when it is time for insurance payment.  Then store the photos by room on the internet site you have where it is always available.

They were able to save a lot of the stuff out of the attic in two of the buildings with only smoke damage. The middle one is the one that had most of the personal items and they used a fork lift to get them out as soon as it was safe.

Triur Amadan

You are never to old to follow your dream.  This band, Triru Amadan is an Irish band and a lot of fun. My friend started playing music after he retired from his regular job. They play in the local area and have also been hired from places out of town to play. They are getting more popular by the minute.

They might not be teens but they are a pretty good looking in shape kind of guys. The get into the spirit with Irish clothing and the crowd just loves it. These guys play from their heart.

You can tell by the smiles how much fun they are having. Smiles and fun are more contagious then the common cold. When the band is having fun, everyone is having fun. A lot of people can play music but to be infectious with smiles and fun takes a special group of people.  This group plays good, plays many instruments, good singers but most of all they are having a blast.

This smile is contagious for sure. They have some other members who play with them when they can but they are younger and have to work during the day. These 3 guys are retired and enjoying every minute of it. Triur Amadan means "three fools" but they are not fools, they are just still full of life.

So if you are interested in good old Irish music and old fashioned good fun look up their schedule on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tri%C3%BAr-Amad%C3%A1n/182960001797661?fref=ts

If you are interested in hiring them you will be able to contact them on Facebook or contact me.

Exercise and the elderly

So many times when you get elderly you don't exercise because you can't stand for a long period of time or your balance is not good.

At the most senior centers they have chair exercise and it is fun if you have a good instructor. It not only exercises the body it exercises the mind as you interact with people you don't see every day.  Routine and boring aids dementia.  Any new thing you learn or do is good for you, so get out of the chair at home and go to the chair at the exercises.  

Yoga is always thought of as being done by people who are young and in shape but yoga is good for all ages and abilities including arthritis exercises.  Check out what is available in your area, sometimes the local community college has classes available.  Another place to check is your local hospital and senior centers.  Your local swimming pool sometimes offers exercise for seniors.

This little lady is one of the most fun and refreshing people I have met for a long time. Her mind and spirit is young. She says she is 89 but her wrinkles are 105.  She says to enjoy every second that life has to offer even if people laugh at you, just laugh with them. She was dancing away to the Irish Band.
She was a true blessing to my spirit to keep moving.