Opa's place -Where an old rooster visits with friends

[EweSheep]

Quote:
What did you get?

 

[Opa]

Old Clyde is a pretty amazing mule. Extremely well mannered and gentle. When Joe wants to use him, rather than brush him he takes an air nozzle and blows the dust off. His dam was a Tennessee walking horse and he is gaited, plus besides being able to use him to ride or drive, he is also broke to pack. Joe has actually shot from off his back and when packing meat he isn't the slightest bit skittish. While he is well over 16 hands my granddaughter was riding him when she was six years old.

Ewesheep, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Clyde is one fine looking mule. I used to do a lot of riding and I'll take a gaited mule ver just about any horse.

 

[EweSheep]

I've been on trail rides and a few of my riding buddies have gaited mules. They are very level headed while the other horses woudl have spazzed out merely at a deer or a trickle of water on a creek bed. Never saw one that would run into the ground either. Mules would STOP when they had enough and they will NOT move until they decide they are able to continue.

The bay mules are almost my favorite colors or buckskin if you can find them. Yes, it is always the eye of the beholder that would love mules. Put a carcass on them, they are not too fazed by it while horses would just panic particuarly if it is something they are not used to.

I've ridden a fox trotting mule and he was NICE! Smooth as he goes! However his ears........

 

[Opa]

I find it extremely hard to criticize a mule's ears. All I have to do is look in the mirror to be reminded that from the back I look like a 55 Chevy with the doors open.

 

[Highlander]

Quote:
What did you get?

Snow!

 

[Opa]

Thistle, the recent addition to your environs didn't come from me. My package is still sitting is a sodden lump in the garage while I wait for it to refreeze. What you now have must be a gift from God. Perhaps he wanted to provide your wee bairns with a white Christmas, or perhaps he just finds it humorous to watch you bundle up to slip and slide your way out to tend your birds. I did however suggest to him that I was willing to share all I have with everyone was bereft of this winter wonder.

Today has started much earlier than I would have preferred. I awoke, put on the coffee and when I opened the computer discovered that it was only 3am. I guess that explains why I feel as if I haven't slept.

The last couple of days have been rather chaotic here. Hope's 80 year old stepfather was cutting firewood on Saturday and somehow a limb struck him his forehead. Even though the resulting laceration was quite deep he just wiped off some of the blood and went to a local diner to eat. When a waitress suggested he have it looked at he stopped at Hope's brother's house on his way home. He took him to the hospital where they stitched up the cut and then admitted him for observation.

Hope spent the majority of Sunday with him while the doctors ran a variety of tests to determine why he was so disoriented. They ruled out a concussion but decided that he is suffering from dementia. We had noticed that for the last year or so that he often seemed confused and unable to do many simple tasks so we knew this was coming. However, it still is a bitter pill to swallow.

Yesterday was spent consulting with doctors and social workers and one of the first things they did was send in the paperwork to have his drivers license pulled. While that is right and needed it will place getting him places such as shopping and doctors solely upon Hope and I.

Dementia affects people in many ways. With my father it was as if each day he became a little less each day. He was very cooperative and appreciative of everything that was done for him. Finally one day he was no more.

With Hope's stepfather he is very angry and argumentative and I think his care is going to be very difficult. In the twenty plus years that I have known him he has always been cantankerous and I shudder to think about what the future has in store. It's often said that God will place no more on your plate than you can handle, but I think he has given me a platter.

 

[NotAFarm]

Plate, Platter, Trough.........He will see you and Hope through it Opa.

 

[EweSheep]

 

[Opa]

In a previous post I spoke of waking to the smell of something burning and of how I was unable to find any source of the odor. Last night I again smell the odor of burning plastic and I finally found the cause. A duplex plug in which a light was plugged was melting. It appears that there was a loose neutral wire going into it. When a light plugged into it was switched on the current draw caused the wires to heat. The plug is deformed by the melting and an inch of insulation has melted from one of the wires.

I'm glad I found the cause but I'm happier still I found it before it sit the house on fire.

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

Glad you found the problem Sam. I wonder why it was not tripping the breaker? It should have been!