Pain Free

I feel 20 years younger my legs feel like they weigh 20lbs less and don't have the pain in them like I use to. If everything stays like this I'm gonna be a happy camper. I have so much more energy now I can't sit still. The last 2 days I have been going 100 miles an hour. I was so wound up last night I didn't get into bed till 1:00 and my dang eyes popped open at 6:00 with my mind going what are we gonna do today. I just got up put on some cloths and walked for a mile then came home a pickled some peppers. Its hell wanting to do so much work now and can't lift more than 5lbs for 6 weeks so I do a lot of walking around. See the doc tomorrow and see if I can't do some work around here. I sure need to mow the yard.

                  I was so bored last night I pulled to camera out and took some pics of the moon. First time I really felt like taking pictures.

           The grand daughter wanted some chickens so come Nov. 6th we might just have some.

Hopefully next week my pain will be taken care of.

I go into the hospital Monday to get my ole back cut on. They gonna do a Laminectomy and try to get rid of all the damn pain I've had for the past year. Maybe I'll get back to doing my blog more often.
  Did go out to the ranch for a week and had some fun out there but every morning I got up bent over just barely able to walk after a couple of hours I was able to walk around like most people. Every time I would sit for a while I had to do the same routine of trying to walk normal.

Bought Another Truck

Bought this 94 Ford Ranger with 24,000 miles on it. The dang thing is like new and has only been driven to the Beer Joint once a week by a 85 year old man.

I bought it from my uncle and have to say I got a hell of a deal on it, gave $1,200 for it. This is the truck I wrote about a few years back that had just quit running on him and we took it to the Ford dealer who screwed him out of $1,400 saying they fixed it. They tried telling him it was the fuel pump and replaced it and it died on them so they tell him it was a bad pump and they had to replace the fuel line from the filler tube to the engine. My uncle never trusted that truck after he got it back from the dealer. So ever now and then he would drive it around the block so it wouldn't just sit. Well he called me up a few months ago and was sitting on the side of the road waiting for a wrecker to haul this truck home and he was fed up with it and was going to sell it. I said hell I'll take it and bought it from him. I had it hauled to a friend of mines place found out that the fuel pump fuse was acting up replaced that and it has been running ever since. The wife loves it so she is driving it every day.  

 When I set and do nothing like I have been lately I get to thinking about all kinds of things and most times it winds up costing me money.

 I read where ole Billy Bob has this dang Mr. Heater so I get to thinking I bet that would work out at my place. So I head over to Amazon and ordered one. It should be here tomorrow.

Before that I got to thinking about the time I hatched out a bunch of Quail. The damn things ate me out of house and home. Well I get to thinking maybe I can sell me some chickens or something if I just had me another incubator. Guess what I have setting in the spare bedroom. A damn incubator. I keep asking the wife if she wants some chickens but all she says is I don't want no damn chickens. When she cools off I'll see if she wants some turkeys.

She didn't get over all those quail like I did. I was new at hatching eggs and had to learn by trial and error and I had a few errors with those quail. It was before we had internet so it was trail and error. 

 I had built a brooder to put all those little quail in after they hatched so they would stay nice and warm. With all the feed and water in that brooder and the mess those quail made I had to clean it out real often. The first time I tried cleaning that brooder out I get to looking in there and thinking this ain't gonna be fun at all and then this idea came to me, I bet I can use a vacuum cleaner with a hose on it to clean that thing out won't take no time. So I grab the shop vac and shoo those little quail up to one end of that brooder and start vacuuming that dang thing out. Everything was going real good and I'm thinking this is going to be a piece of cake, then one of those little quail decides he wanted a closer look at that hose and before I could grab him swoosh he was gone. The wife said the look on my face was priceless but I was more concerned about that damn quail. I jerk the top off that dang vacuum and start digging through all the junk that was in there and there he was God that was one sad looking quail. To my surprise he was still alive and kicking lord was he kicking. I set that little quail down on the floor and all he did was run in circles I didn't know if he was dizzy from being sucked up in that long hose and maybe spun while he was on his journey from hell in that vacuum or maybe had a little brain damage I didn't know, but he ran in circles for 3 days and then he died. I felt so bad about sucking him up like that that I took him out back and gave him a nice little burial.

Bet You Thought I Died.

I ain't dead yet but felt like it a bunch this past few months. My damn back went out on me after that last trip to the ranch. So I have not felt like doing anything except setting on my ass which I don't like to do I'm a real hyper person and setting ain't what I like to do. I pushed myself until I had to quit ballooning and everything else. I went and got another shot in my spine and it didn't do nothing so I started looking for a back doctor that I can trust. I think I found one that is in the top 10 here in Austin. Set up a visit and they took x-rays and pulled up the MRI I had back in 2012 and tells me my back had gotten worst and he begins to show me the x-rays and says I need a operation to fix what is wrong with my back. Seems like I didn't treat my back very well through the years and just wore it out. The way he explained it, it sounds kinda like this.

  Disc space gets smaller - due to the loss of water in the discs the distance between vertebrae begin to     collapse, which is why we get shorter as we age.

• Bone spurs grow – without the discs holding apart the vertebrae, they can rub on each other causing abnormal bone growths.
• Spinal canal narrows – the stresses of all the above changes causes the ligaments and facet joints to enlarge (hypertrophy) as they try to compensate and spread the load over a larger area. This over-growth causes the spinal canal to narrow, which can compress the spinal cord and nerves causing pain

So what he says is what is left of 2 disks one is pressing into my spinal column on one side and the one below it is pressing into it from the other side and I have bone spurs that need taking care of and the disks cut away from my spinal column.
 Before he cuts on me I want to know if I can go back doing the things I've been doing which means lifting heavy things like a bag of concrete or swinging a pic you know what I mean. I can't set and wast away the rest of my life.

So all I have been doing since my last post is hurting. I wont take any of my damn pain pills because they stop me up like I have a cork stuck my well you get it don't you. So I don't take them. I do fine just sitting in the chair but as soon as I try to do anything I'm doubled over in pain so I don't do nothing.

Bluebonnets In The Big Bend Country

Went out to the place for a week.This is the best time for looking at all the bluebonnets that are blooming out there. If you ever head out that way you have to take the drive down Hwy 170 from Lajitas to Presidio. The best drive in Texas. Here are a few pictures of bluebonnets I took out there.

After the ride down Hwy 170 we headed to Big Bend the next day. Haven't been there in a while so here we went.

We were heading down the Old Ore road in Big Bend and after a few miles down that dirt road I see a grave on the side of the road.

It appears ole Juan was riding his horse down the Old Ore road back in 1932 and someone shot him off his horse. It was a couple of days before any one found old Juan and the heat of the desert had taken its toll on Juan so they buried him where he fell. If you want to read a little more about Ole Juan you can here.

It rained for a couple of days around the place and got a shot of my view from the front porch.

I took my tiller out there to till up where I had mowed the Johnson grass was. I tilled up and area and found out that I have some real deep dirt there so maybe I just might have me a garden out there one of these days.

 

I have to start over.

You ain't gonna believe this, but I sold all 380 tomato plants I had. This one guy had been calling me every week for 3 weeks telling me he wanted all the plants I had. I would set up a time and just before it was time for him to show up he would call with some kind of excuse for not coming. Well the third time was Friday afternoon and he told me he would be here Saturday morning to pick them up. Come Saturday morning at 10:00 A.M. and still no show or phone call I called him up and asked if he was still coming that I had a memorial service to go to at 11:00 and would be back at 1:P.M.. He tells me he was going to the farmers market and would be by at 1:30 after he was through at the market. I ask him which market he was going to and he tells me the one downtown. Well I happen to have a cousin that sells at that market and tell him so. It turns out he buys from my cousin all the time so I call my cousin up and ask him about this strange dude and how he is telling me about buying all my tomato plants. My cousin remembers this guy because he buys around $150.00 worth of tomato's from him every week and borrows a box from him and buys the same amount of produce from the seller next to him. My cousin asked him if he owned a restaurant for him to be buying so much produce the guy tells him no that it is for his family. So this all sounds a little strange but to each his own so I sit and wait and sure enough here he comes driving up in this huge van and his wife and 2 daughter's get out and I take them around back to my tomato's. He wants to know how many I want to sell and I tell him how ever many he wanted he says he will take them all so after counting 380 plants and give him the price he heads out to the van and brings cash back and we start loading up tomato plants. I ask him if he was going to start selling tomato's at the farmers market and he tells me no that it was for his family. Now I ain't no math genius but I can figure out that unless this man is Jesus he doesn't have a family that big to eat all the tomato's he is gonna get out of those 380 plants so I guess we will see what the hell he is going to do with all them maters cause he wants more in the fall and next spring. I just might be in the tomato plant growing business.
 I have another batch of seeds planted so I will have some tomato's this season for myself.

Be Glad When Spring Gets Here

Come on spring hurry up and get here I'm getting blisters from setting on my ass so much. We did take the balloon out last week and did a tether with it, first one of the year. If the dang winds don't start dying down this year I might have to get me another job. I remember back in 2000 in the month of August we did 20 flights that month. The whole of last year we did about 10 flights and 20 tethers. The worst year we ever had. Flights are booked solid with a long waiting list. We flew one couple last year that had been waiting for 5 years to get their flight in. OK time for something else.

When we went out to the place last time I took a mower with me and made me a Red Neck Shredder.

I tied that mower onto the back of my 4-wheeler and went after that damn Johnson grass. 

I knocked down about a third of it. I'm taking the tiller next time and till up that area I have some really good dirt there, I dug down about a foot and hit nothing but dirt so something other than Johnson grass should grow there.

                                                    This is what it looks like all green.

Its so thick you can't see a foot into it. I'm hoping to get a hold on this stuff, every time I go out there you can see its claimed a little more land.

My dang tomato plants are doing great another month and I'll get some in the ground and hope to sell a bunch of the plants to.

I just about have the garden ready I bought 2 yards or 33 wheelbarrow loads of compost and spread it on the garden and tilled it in.

I'm ready for spring.

Now for you folks that likes movies find this movie "Fandango" with Kevin Costner and you will see this rock in the movie.

 The next time you go out to the Terlingua area see if you can find this rock. I'll give you a hint its off of hwy 170.

Tomato Time

I ain't dead yet just haven't had nothing to write about. I do now though. It's mater season for me & time to plant tomato seeds. I planted 364 seeds and have them on the heat pads waiting for something to happen.There's two more trays that I'm not showing full of seeds also.

See those little pieces of paper on the tooth picks in that tray? I had the hell scared out of me yesterday morning. I walk in there and think to myself does that paper look bleary? I take that cover off and O MY GOD I can't read what they say anymore. The water wicked up through the tooth picks and the paper was soaked and the ink was smeared and I don't know what type of tomato is in those rows I start to panic cause these ain't seeds you go to Walmart and buy. I ordered these on line and they are Heirloom tomato's with some pretty fancy names to them. I'm talking about Sioux, Daniels, Black Brandywine, Rutgers, Cherokee Purple and Costoluto Genovese tomato's. That last one sounds like something a Mafia crime boss would eat don't it and a few others. Any way you see the up the creek without a paddle spot I was in. I take one of those pieces of paper and pry the scotch tape off and let it dry some and after a couple of hours I was able to make out all but 3 rows of seeds. I relabeled the seeds and dug the dirt out and replanted those rows and I'm ready for something to start coming up. Any body want to buy some tomato plants in a couple of months?

 I've been wanting to get me a tiller for awhile now but just couldn't see spending around $600.00 for one. I've been looking on Craigslist for a used one for a long time just when one pops up like the one I want I call and somebody already bought it. The other day one pops up on there and I call the guy up and he still has it. He lives over in the next town and I tell him I'll take it just hold it for me.I haul ass over there I see that everything works and wound up giving him $150.00 for it. This dang thing has forward & reverse and works great.

Did you know that a tiller can whip your butt if you don't know how to use it? I do. If your using it right you can hold on with one hand & walk along the side of it. If you try to man handle it you'll find out real quick its stronger than you are and whip the hell out of you. It reminded me of the time I got into floor covering and the ole boy I was helping told me to get the floor buffer and sand the bathroom floor I told him never used one before and he said it was a piece of cake to use. We used the floor buffers with an attachment that had a big sanding disk on it. I wheeled that damn machine in that little bath room,grabbed a hold of the handle and pulled the trigger on that sucker. That damn thing took off  it scared the hell out of me so I turned it loose and before it had time to stop it started spinning a hundred miles and hour in a circle, I thought it was going to kill me it knocked a big hole in the bathroom wall and finally stopped spinning. I thought I was in trouble until I looked into the other room and everybody was laughing that butts off. I had been set up. Any way I tilled the hell out of that garden, I liked that tiller so much I tilled it three different times. It's 34x17 now. The wife tells me I got carried away with the tilling.

  

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and a Happy New Years. We went to Oklahoma and put another Indian kid through school at the casino just before Christmas, I should learn that I ain't no gambler. I lose every time I go up there. We get back home and the wife wants to know what I want for Christmas? I told her I didn't have any idea. She says you've wanted a power washer for awhile how about that. I say hell yea so I got me a nice power washer for Christmas.

I better go check on them maters.