[AT] Old tractors and old men

Sun Feb 5 11:37:11 PST 2017

As Crocodile Dundee might say "Now this is a ramble..."  :-)
At 74 I am the oldest surviving member of my entire family except for my
only sibling, my sister who is 3 years older. She is currently under
hospice care and is expected to die very soon. She has what I call the
family curse. My family tree is rampant with Alzheimer's... She has not
spoken at all to anyone in several months. One maternal gg-grandmother
spent her last days in an insane asylum at Toledo OH. My father was
diagnosed with Alzheimer's and got to the point that he would constantly
sabotage me. Simple stuff like switching on tractor ignitions, stealing 3
point lynch pins and PTO pins and valve caps etc. He was lucky, his
congestive heart failure got him before the worst of the Alzheimer's kicked
in. He had 3 sisters. All 3 of them went the full Alzheimer's route and
they died from it. Two of them finally became violent at the end and
couldn't have in-home care givers. They were all local and I spent a lot
more time involved with their care than I really wanted to. My maternal
grandfather had no idea who I was some time before he died even though I
often was there and took him in for medical issues a lot. At least he was
still civil when lung cancer took him a little early. My mother was the
worst. She got to wandering and was the reason I quit farming. I could not
keep her from wandering and work in the fields at the same time so I cash
rented most of the farm and started selling stuff. We (Diana and I) were
the care givers for both her mom and my mom and her mom lived with us for 3
years. Her mom was quite sharp even though she was legally blind, almost
totally deaf and could only walk with a walker. Super nice lady. She was
also battling cancer which eventually moved to her brain which killed her
but she was still sharp the day before she died. Two of Diana's brothers
saw how the double care giving load was dragging her down and called a
family meeting where they decided that it was time for their mom to go to a
nursing home.
My mom kept getting worse so when my sister was here from Florida for a
visit we decided to put mom in an assisted living facility. Mom rode the
Alzheimer's train all the way to the end of the line and crashed through
the bumpers. Basically her mind finally forgot how to operate a body...
Diana and I both came out of those years with all of the symptoms of PTSD.
It really messed us up for a while.
With so much of it in the family on both sides and especially with my
sister having it so bad our doctor keeps doing the little test routine on
me but so far she says I seem to be OK. Of course I have the normal old guy
CRS and plenty of "senior moments" but so far so good.
Like many, Diana and I have become all too familiar with a lot of medical
folks and have cost Medicare and AARP supplemental ins. roughly $250,000.
Diana has an inherited blood clotting mutation commonly called Factor V
Leiden that is currently keeping her from knee surgery. If you have had
family that had a problem or died from pulmonary embolism, cardiac event
from a blood clot or a stroke you should Google it. Warning, don't expect
all medical folks to know much about it, even some doctors... Surgeons tend
to know more about it. It has also recently been linked to recurring
miscarriages as well. I have spent a zillion hours researching this issue
after our middle daughter almost died from a bad PE. I believe it was the
cause of death of Diana's father and her oldest brother. Diana developed a
DVT when we took a trip a couple of years ago even though we knew of the
mutation and had been getting out and walking a lot.
If you are positive for it the risk goes up as you get older and the
surgery risk goes way up if it involves bone work. Diana fell and shattered
her wrist and they put it together with a plate and 9 screws. We believe
that triggered her DVT.

Ain't getting old a hoot...  :-)

.

On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Grant Brians <sales at heirloom-organic.com>
wrote:

> Herb's advice here in his post is right on target. The fun part of
> farmers markets is the interaction with people and supplying them with
> nutritious and tasty food. The best sales people I have seen at farmers
> markets are almost always senior citizen men. My advice to Charlie and
> others is to also look for a young person who doesn't have access to
> land or tools but can be interested in farming. I myself got into
> farming because I had a market garden in our Suburb when I was 10-13
> years old on a neighbors property. He and his wife loved the veggies and
> that the property was taken care of ad he liked seeing me work....
>              Grant Brians - Hollister,California farmer
> p.s. I will admit I grew up before Video Games, cell phones and the
> Internet so I wa wired for work, but still there are young people out
> there who want to learn and work.
> On 2/4/2017 7:10 PM, Herb Metz wrote:
> > Charlie, and Others, I turned 86 several months ago.  Ten years ago I
> > developed severe scoliosis, then old mans humped over condition.  It is
> not
> > funny, but people (all ages and both sexes) clear a path and open any
> doors
> > when they see me coming.  Surgeons reach for the door knob soon as they
> > learn that I have heart arrhythmia; also am on my second pacemaker. My
> back
> > gets a bit worse each year;  doctors say to set my own pace.
> > Barbara and I seriously enjoy gardening; she has a prize daylily garden
> in
> > addition to roses, irises, etc.  I have a large no chemicals vegetable
> > garden and sell at both local farmers markets.  Not diplomatic enough to
> be
> > considered a good salesman, but I sure enjoy selling because of the
> > conversation sharing with others who appreciate good vegetables.  That
> perk
> > is a bigger plus than I ever expected; in fact I had not thought about it
> > until after it was well established.  And that is why I primarily
> addressed
> > this email to you. You are an exceptional conversationalist, so I think
> you
> > would likewise really enjoy the marketing portion of such project.
> > Yes, we are getting older; last year we had to hire a part time helper.
> > When I was 15 or 16, I remember Dad telling a carpenter cousin that
> doctors
> > were now telling retiring farmers (many farmers in KS at that time) to
> "stay
> > busy"; their prior advice had been "they had worked hard all of their
> life,
> > so sit down and enjoy retirement and take it easy"; unfortunately many of
> > those farmers were being buried a few years later.
> > Another big perk is getting to use our Allis Chalmers tractors; D-14,
> G's,
> > 720 large lawn tractor, and equipment.
> > Just thinking about a trip to the VA and seeing young veterans in
> > wheelchairs, who will be in wheelchairs the rest of their lives (limbs
> lost
> > because of land mines) quickly provides an occasional necessary attitude
> > adjustment. Herb(GA)
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: charlie hill
> > Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2017 5:32 PM
> > To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> > Subject: Re: [AT] Old tractors and old men
> >
> > I'm 66 now and according to my doctors and all the tests
> > I'm in good shape.  Blood and urine work all looks good.
> > No severe prostate problems yet, etc. but my legs are giving
> > me a fit.  Doc tells me my knees are far enough gone to replace
> > yet but they are a bit unstable and grind at times.  My right hip
> > is hurting me.  My ankles have been bad since I tore them up
> > playing football as a kid.  All of that together along with the stress
> > and inactivity of looking out for my mom for two years until her death
> > have turned me in to an aching,  out of shape  old man.  I have been
> > cleared by my doctors and a physical therapist to go to the gym and
> > try to get back in shape and I'm going to do that soon.  luckily my
> > insurance
> > will pay for most of the cost of that through a program called Silver and
> > Fit.
> > Others may have access to another program called Silver Sneakers.
> > My urologist did a CT scan of my kidneys and bladder recently.  He didn't
> > find
> > any problem there other than benign prostate hyperplasia but he did
> notice
> > that
> > I have some deteriorating discs in my lower back so I guess I need to be
> > careful
> > at the gym.
> >
> > Speaking of farming.  As sad as I am that my mom is now gone on, I always
> > thought
> > that when that day came I'd be free to do something different with our
> small
> > farm.
> > I wanted to try farming some sweet potatoes, pumpkins, water melons, and
> > veggies for
> > sale at a road side stand.  I have almost all the equipment I need to do
> it
> > and I even
> > have irrigation equipment left over from our tobacco farming days.
> However,
> > I just don't
> > have the drive and motivation to do it now.  I also thought at this age
> I'd
> > be able to restore
> > my tractors and old trucks but I don't have much enthusiasm for that
> either.
> >
> > Oh well.  At least I'm on the green side of the grass.
> >
> > Charlie
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > AT mailing list
> > http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

-- 
-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com