Been busy

Well its been a busy few years around here. Trying to get settled in on living the desert life. Hotter than hell right now or I'd be outside doing something. Got my shop all set up and my deck put up in front of my house and fixing to put one up in the back. Still have all my critters coming up to my watering hole out back. Have deer, bob cats, badgers, coons, fox, and other critters that cool off at the water have quail that act like chickens they come a running when I bring feed out.       

The ole watering hole is a little dry .

We even have bears out here.

Been doing a lot of 4-wheeling out here some days we do 60 miles on them we have a ball doing that. You couldn't pay me to move back to the city.  Don't know a lot right now its been so dang long since I posted anything about forgot how to. I'll try to post more often. Ya'll have a good day.

Bob

I.ve been putting water out for the critters. Seems this dang Bob Cat likes the hell out of it. I guess its good eating around the ole water hole.

Moved to the ranch

Its been a long time coming but we finely moved to the ranch. The past few years has been getting ready for the move and deciding on what we were gonna live in out here. The wife wanted to build I wanted something I could walk in set down and it was done. So we settled on a mobile home. I have never had a mobile home before and was used to a stick built house. There is a world of difference in the two. After the trailer was delivered the sheet rock had 4 little cracks in it which I thought was pretty good since it came from Ft.Worth. After the setup crew came out I was fit to be tied. They didn't know what the hell they were doing and cracked the sheet rock in every room. I was pissed. The problem down here is if someone is coming down here from a big city to do some work most of the hired help are illegals. We have a check point you have to go through on your way home and the workers won't come down here. So we got a crew that was thrown together that was legal to set this trailer, of the six that showed up 5 had been in prison and one had just gotten out the week before, two hated each other and almost came to blows all day. The foreman sat in the truck all day and only came out to break up the fights. Toward the end of the day he put christen music on the radio to try to calm them down. The damn music didn't calm me down or them. I was ready to jump in the fray myself by then.
 I have to take a blood pressure pill, I'll try to finish this up tomorrow.

Me And The Critters

I posted before that I started feeding the squirrels to keep them from biting my dang tomato's and it's worked really well. I have some that comes up and takes a pecan out of my hand and hangs around and kills time. What I didn't realize was the lessons they have taught me in nature. I'm always going 100 miles an hour and just didn't stop to pay that much attention to nature.

I didn't realize that while I'm feeding the squirrels that other critters are watching us. The blue jays noticed that I have some goodies that the squirrels like so they decided to come in for a closer look and see what the dang squirrels are eating and they started hanging around and eating pecans with the squirrels. I set up the game camera for the heck of it and put a pecan on my floor. The blue jay came right in to get it.

As you can tell I get pretty bored around here.

As time goes by I get to thinking enough is enough with these critters in the house they are getting to comfy in here.

So they are not allowed in the house anymore except 1 more time a little later on in this story.

So I'm feeding the squirrels and blue jays and a dang dove starts coming around and getting him some pecans along with the squirrels and blue jays. I had no idea a dove would likes pieces of pecans.

A little more time goes by and the next thing I know I have a whole flock of doves hanging around eating pecans with the rest of the bunch. The wife sees all the doves and thinks I wounder if they will come in. They damn sure will she put some game corn by the door on the floor and the damn doves came right in the house to eat that corn. That's when no more critters are allowed in the house went into effect. 

A few days ago I was feeding the critters and I'll be dang if a red bird didn't come flying up and sees whats going on with all the critters hanging around.

I toss him a piece of pecan and he flies over and gets it and  now he and his wife are coming by and getting real tame eating pecans. I had no idea all these critters liked pecans. Well what took the cake last night we where setting in the living room and look out the door and here is a coon eating a few crumbs of pecans and watching us. Just for the hell of it I opened the door and he trots off so I put a couple of pecans out on the patio and here he came eating the damn pecans. So the wife tosses him a piece of shrimp and he wouldn't eat it he liked the pecans better. I stood right there tossing him pecans and he kept eating them. He kept his distance and I kept mine.

Without the squirrels close by me the doves won't come around but the other critters still do. I've noticed that they all watch each other and know what their actions are and what they mean. Its pretty neat for a bored ole fart to watch.

I got me a new computer.

I built my last computer in 2009 and had windows XP on it. I sure liked XP and didn't want to give it up, in fact I kept using it up until a couple of days ago it got slow as hell and it didn't want to do some things it used to and I had a ton of programs on it I didn't want to lose and really didn't like the idea of learning a new system. Us old folks don't like change.

I told you I had a lot of programs.

So I go on Amazon and start ordering parts. I ordered up parts for a hot rod computer a little overkill for what I do but what the hell. I get me a unlocked 8 core processor, a Gigabyte gaming mother board, 32 gig of memory, a terabyte hard drive, a 750 watt power supply and a full windows install disk for Windows 7. I've heard to many people hating on Windows 10 so I stuck with 7. They will still update it until 2020 maybe they will come out with something better by then.
 Two days later I get all my new toys.

I put that rascal together 

and head into the computer room and unhook my old computer and hook this new one up. I say a few prayers to the computer gods and hit the power button, that damn thing fired right up. I install Windows 7 and now spending my days getting files and programs onto it.

 I've been feeding the squirrels out back to keep them from biting my tomato's and a lot of them eat out my my hand now. I noticed that the birds watch them and when the squirrels are around me eating pecans the dang doves come down around me and eat with the squirrels. The other day the wife tried putting a few kernels of corn on the floor by the door and the damn doves came in the house to eat corn. I guess word is spreading around the animal kingdom that we will feed them cause we had a coon come up to the door the other night. 

Not much has been going on.

Its hard to write anything when you aren't doing anything. After the back surgery everything started to go great. Then Dec.18th I started feeling bad and went to the doc he tells me I have a sinus infection and gives me some antibiotics to take care of it. They didn't do anything for it so I go back a couple of weeks later feeling really bad. He does a chest x-ray and tells me I now have Pneumonia so I get more antibiotics and start to feel better after a couple of weeks and then my damn ear pops and I can't hear anything out of it so back to the doc. I now have a ear infection and you guessed it more antibiotics. January 28th I finally start feeling like my old self but weak as hell from the Pneumonia I can't even walk around the block I'm so weak. After a few days I start getting some strength back and am back to normal again.

The wife gave me a new camera for Christmas and couldn't wait to try it out. So after I started felling better I thought what better way to get some exercise then heading out to Big Bend and try out my new camera so we head on out to the ranch and get settled in and head out to take some pictures.

It's amazing how some plants can grow with so little soil.

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.