2018 has been an interesting year. Nothing major on the home front has broken down, just the normal maintence and minor repairs. Health wise, we've dealth with various medical issues in the effort to continue enjoying life as pain free as can be reasonally be expected at our life stages. Myself, I buggered up my right shoulder while doing maintence on our Windstar van. An MRI revealed some ligament and tendon anomalies along with a few bone spurs. Medical profession strongly suggested surgery. Had my mobility been more limited I would have oped for the surgery, however; I was not limited in a majority of movements during physical therapy sessions so I declined. So far, I'm performing all RV repair duties at work without limitation.
Sharon has been doing pretty good with her Parkingsons. Her medication regiment has been helping with allowing her reasonable relief. This last year her neck and lower back have been giving her some problems. Medical studies revealed a possiblity of reduced lower back pain with a nerve ablation procedure which Sharon elected to have done. Her lower back pain has been reduced, but there is still a level that causes some pain if she's on her feet too long. Over the counter pain meds help take the edge off when she over does it. She would love to be totally pain free, but she's thankful her pain level is better than it was.
As I shared earlier, the garden was basically on autopilot, but actually produced some tasty spuds beets and carrots. I left the carrots in the ground and covered up leaves and a tarp. When we need a few carrots, I go out and dig up a few. They are SO sweet! The volenteer tomatoes actually did better than the purchased tomato starts. Our strawberries didn't do squat this year due to weird weather as was the case with Sharon's raspberries. The raspberries came on much too late and were froze out. The birds got the better portion of the raspberries this year. (smile) My rhubarb was the only crop that actually went nuts this year. It produced HUGE leaves and stalks. I never expected the rhubarb to grow so well. It actually was out-growing our abilty to keep it thinned out. (chuckling) The best outcome of our garden this year has to be the dog pen fence. It performed far better than expected. I seen no evidence of deer jumping over. However, there were deer tracks found in the garden caused by me leaving one of the doors open over night. Oops! My bad! (chuckling) They didn't consume much.
That's a wrap for another year!! Thanks for stopping by. Happy New Year!!
Our garden this year pretty much was on its own. I completed the 6 foot high dog pen fence around the whole garden and it kept the deer out completely. Sharon was estatic that her raspberry bushes actually grew quite well without the deer pruning them every night. ( chuckling ) Unfortunately the weather had a profound effect on the garden. It was colder than normal this year into the planting and turned dry and hot mid-way and latter. Strawberries did not do well at all, tomatoes did not come on until very late then the weather turn very cold with periods of freezing very early. The only plants that were fairly normal were red potatoes, beets, carrots(still in the ground) and my rhubarb that grew huge! Certainly wasn't lacking rhubarb this year! ( smile ) Fingers crossed next season will be better. I need to get a green house constructed.
I'm still working at the RV dealership in Hermiston doing service and repair. I'm still able to crawl in, over and under these things, but I'm a little slower doing so. ( smile ). I enjoy the overall challange of fixing these things. The introduction of hi-tech electronic controls that the RV industry thinks needs to be in RVs is causing some of the older generation problems trying to figure out how to program, set and/or control via a tiny control screen. Weird LED lighting, wireless everything is really getting out of hand. Gone are the days when a simple on-off switch was the norm. Aw well, just another layer of technology that keeps me in a paycheck. ( grin )
Everything is the same regarding keeping up with gardening, lawn and pasture mowing, keeping Kabota in operational condition(had to pull front axle and install busings and seals due to lube leak), keeping Windstar on road for 80 mile trek to and from work every day, as well as keeping Sharon's BMW running as it broke down twice and required AAA to get it home. Thank goodness for AAA! Well worth the yearly dues! I did not do any repair work on the motorhome this year. Just been too busy with other projects. The pressure tank in our well went out this year and that took immediate precedence over every thing else for obvious reasons ( smiling ), but managed to get a new one purchased, door opening modified due to new tank much larger in diameter, and installed and functional in one day. It's amazing how the focal point sharpens when one discovers a critical daily necessity is no longer available! ( chuckling )
The other nice event has been several visits from brother-in-law Ed Murphy as he travels to and from Boise where he's staying with his daughter Dawn. Ed has been driving his new pickup visiting friends and relatives in North Idaho, Washington and Montana this year while his is still physically able to do so. We are about half way to those destinations so he stops in for a vist and some times stays over nite when his schedule allows him too. We are happy to see that he's feeling good and still able to get around to visit or get in some fishing with his son in North Idaho.
That's about it for this session. I'm editing this session via another computer I've set up to allow me to do so via my butt on the couch in the living room. ( chuckling ) Maybe now I can add to my webpages more often. ( wink ) Until then, Happy Thanksgiving Season to all.
Sharon is hanging in there with her Parkinsons. She has mostly good days, but occasionally she experiences quite a bit of pain. This mainly manifests itself in the latter part of the evenings when she gets out of sync with her meds or over does herself during the day. I'm really thankful we decided to purchase our treadmill when we did. Sharon uses it daily after contracting Parkinsons.
Myself, I've been undergoing the usual medical diagnostic testing for someone my age. I've gone through the colonoscopy testing as well as Neclear Heart Scan and Nuclear Heart Stress tesing. This testing is where they inject a radioactive tracer to make you glow in the dark for a week. (chuckling) With the number of heart related issue in my family, I figured I best get checked. Good news is I passed all exams with no issues or problems detected. Maybe my home-made sauerkraut is showing benefits afterall. Love that stuff! ( smile )
We've been experiencing some extrodinarily warm weather this winter. We received one skift of snow that only lasted about a week and nothing more since. Of course, higher elevations have received quite as bit more. However, the temps here are such that our rhubarb and other plants are starting to emerge. This is somewhat troubling because we have quite a bit of winter left and lot of freeze opportunities yet to come. I have started on our 2018 garden plan. I'll post the current plan URL link which will be under the Gardening link from the main page. Last year's garden turned out not very good at all. Yes, we had rhubarb coming out our ears and the raspberries are doing better. The strawberries turned out ok for their second year. But, beets, green beans, carrots and tomatoes did not do well last year at all. If it weren't for the volenteer tomatoes we may not have had any tomatoes at all. This year is going to be better. (smile)