Back home

So, I've been up at the parents' house, helping out mom and dad with the summer chores that are part and parcel to living out in the country.

Normally dad would be doing them.  But thanks to the Kung Flu bullshit, and in particular, the restrictions they placed on hospitals, and the way the medical community reacted, when my dad had a minor problem, it didn't get fixed.  So it turned in to a major problem.  That still didn't get fixed.  Until it was almost too late, and in the end, dad ended up in the hospital for two months, without any kidney function.

A man who was 175 pounds, cutting down trees and fixing fencelines in May, is now an emaciated man who can't lift a chainsaw.

The good news is that he's home, he's getting better, and it looks like his kidneys are slowly coming back to life.  I can't really talk too much about what he went through without a Red Curtain Of Blood falling over my eyes, so I'll focus on the positives.  He has his mental acuity.  He's as sharp as he was prior to this incident, so there's that.  But physically, he's a shell of what he was, and so that meant that the word around the house needed to be done by someone else.

My brother than I have spent about a month each on the property taking care of things.  The biggest thing is firewood.  My parents heat their home with a wood stove, and it takes 6-8 cords of wood a year.  For those who don't know, a cord of wood is a stack of wood measuring 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet.  128 cubic feet of wood.  Luckily, since the property was logged last year, there's plenty of dried wood available.  So we got that cut and stacked, and then I went to work on the logs that we brought down this year.  Here's a little sample of one morning's work.

For reference, the bar on that chainsaw is 20 inches.  After I got done with that, I split a pile of red fir that we took down in July.  Do stuff like that.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

We cleared out the shed that you see behind that wood, which contained about twenty years of detritus from country living.  Reinforced the floor, built a bench for dad to work on.  Multiple dump runs.  Did maintainence on Dad's tractor so it's ready to go for plowing in the winter time.  He can get on the tractor and run it, but he can't crawl underneath to change the oil.  Mom could, but she's not really mechanically inclined. 

Cleaned out the barn.  Cleaned up the property.  Cleaned the chimney, which wasn't too bad since it gets cleaned every year, but still had a lot of creosote built up.  Winterized Dad's boat.

And stacked more wood.  And split more wood.  And stacked more wood.  Mom bought a side-by-side, and the Mrs. was able to find one locally, brand new, that she got a hell of a deal on, so I trailered that up for them.  Dad can now zoom around the property without having to worry about not being able to walk back. 

Cleaned and lubed the rails for the garage door.  So on and so forth.  There was a lot of work that just didn't get done in years past, that my brother and I were able to accomplish.  I'll be taking a week of leave around Thanksgiving and doing even more up there, while the Mrs. and my Mom do whatever it is that women do while men are out working.

I made it back home last night, and today I slept in until 0900, which I haven't done in years.

Anyways, that's why I was out in the middle of nowhere with no real internet.