MEMORIAL DAY 2013

This is a photo of Jake Garn speaking at the dedication of the Veterans Memorial in town today.  It is an awesome memorial and although I did not grow up in this area I know a lot of people that have their names etched into the granite blocks.  It was a good thing to go to this dedication, if no more than just to be thankful that we are free because of many peoples sacrifices.

The honor guard reminded me of several times assisting with those honors at a funeral.  I thought long and hard today about the three that died in the plane crash on B Hill many years ago.  That was a tremendous loss to two communities.  RIP Dave, Steve, and Randy.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY....NOT SO MUCH

It has been nearly a month since I posted anything on here.  I could use the excuse that I have been really busy but that would not be true.  I evaluated it this morning and it is mainly because I am lazy and didn't want to spend the time sitting here thinking about what to say.

I took a new part time job as an inspector for the construction of a power line through  a good portion of the state we live in.  I am working about half time and that feels pretty good right now. I think when the dirt starts to move and the construction really starts (they are just doing survey and design right now because of environmental constraints) I will be working almost full time.  Time will tell about that.

I think it is really funny that I went to school to be a Forester so that I could work work in the woods all the time.  That worked well for the first ten or eleven years. Then I was promoted (?) into a more managerial position and lost most of the field work part of the job.  I still fought wild land fires so still got to spend a lot of the summer out in the boonies.  As time passed I got another promotion which put me in charge of about 500,000 acres of your National Forest.  That was great but it further restricted my time in the boonies.  I continued to fight fire though. 

When I retired I thought I would spend a tremendous amount of time in the woods.  I did spend some time there and continued to fight fire but it is really expensive to go out in the woods just for enjoyment.  The amount of time I spent out there reduced considerably.  Then I got this part time job.  It is only about half time but all of the time is spent out in the field.  I do not have an office and the only things that resemble an office are the materials and I-pad that I carry in my truck.  I have no supervisory or budget responsibilities and am only responsible for reporting what I see to my supervisor.  It has been great so far and I don't see it changing much. 

Another great thing about this job is that my boss is going to allow me to continue fighting wild land fires.  The company knew before they hired me that if I could not fight fire I would not take the job.    That made me feel really good that they said they could work around that.  This will be an interesting field season for me.

BUSY---YOU DECIDE---I AM EXCITED

SPRING'S COMIN'---I HOPE

It has been almost three weeks since my last post on here.  I don't understand why it is so hard to find the time right now to keep this blog up but it is.

I said in the last posting that I had started working for TRANSCON Environmental inspecting the a new 345 kV power line that is being constructed through this area.  I am currently working about half time although that translates to parts of three days per week.  That doesn't seem like much but before I went to work for them I felt like I was pretty busy and in fact was wondering how I ever had time to work.  It isn't the same thing as working on fire because for fire you leave the area for two or three weeks and work about 16 hours a day so you don't have time to think or do anything else except eat and sleep.  That makes the time go by really fast and makes you really tired so when you sleep, you sleep.  When you get home from a fire you don't have to worry about what is going to happen the next day and can revert to your OTHER life.

When I was working I was generally awake at 4:00 a.m. even though the earliest I could officially get to work was 6:00 a.m.  It really irritates me that since I have taken this part time job I am raring to go at 4:00 a.m. again and the earliest I can officially start working is 7:00 a.m.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?  Old habits die hard.

Inklings had her knee surgery 38 days ago and she is doing very well.  She has been up and going for 10 days and has stretched her work outs on the stationary bike to 30 minutes a day.  That is really good and will probably keep her from having to go through a rehab center to regain her flexibility in the knee.  Time will tell but I think she is doing extremely well---but then again I am not a Doctor.  ;-)  

We also buried her Father two weeks ago and that has been tough for her and for all of her siblings to deal with.  They were all prepared for him to die if he fell and broke his hip or something or if he got really sick.  They were not prepared for him to die from heart failure, in his car, coming over to visit with us.  Her Mother was driving and did really good on getting him into the emergency room of a hospital but his heart was just not strong enough to make a recovery.  The nurse that dealt with him was the son of one of my good friends from high school and I am grateful to him for how he treated my mother-in-law.

Spring is arriving slowly with lots of surprise snow storms.  We got a flurry a few days ago that dropped 10" overnight.  That was quite a shock but now the grass is starting to green up and our tulips and daffodils are coming along nicely.  Here is a picture of the surprise snow storm we had last week.

    SPRING IS COMING---I'N'IT???

THINGS ARE LOOKIN' UP!

It has been almost three weeks since Inklings had surgery on her knee to repair a torn meniscus.  When they got inside the knee there was a lot more damage than they had anticipated.  The surgeon told me they would be out in about thirty minutes. In a little over two hours I got to talk to the surgeon for a few seconds while he was on his way to another surgery for which he was late.  He gave me eight photos of the inside of the knee and talked to me about all the work they had to do on it and showed me how they sewed the tendon back together.  He told me that Inklings was to stay off her knee for three full weeks and not try to do anything.

She is doing a lot better and is counting the minutes until she can start doing some things other than sit on the couch or lay on the bed.  She has been able to shower when she wanted to after the fifth day but was a very good patient for the first two weeks. She hurt like crazy so that is probably why she was so good.  This week she has been doing a little more, probably more than she should be doing, around the house and I think she is feeling a ton better even though she still can't move without the walker or bend her knee very much. I think the healing process is going very well and she is going to be alright again.

In the middle of this her father died.  He was 86 but it was a shock as the night before he had made arrangements with her to come over and visit the next day.  When she got the call she thought it would be her mom and dad telling her they were on their way.  Instead it was her mom trying to tell her that her dad had died but she couldn't talk.  They were on the way to see us when he had a bad chest pain.  They decided to keep coming our way and stop at the closest hospital.  As they got further down the road he had another bad pain in his chest but recovered somewhat from that.  When they arrived in the town the hospital is in her mother drove to the hospital and they took him on a gurney and gave him CPR for an extended period of time but his heart was not strong enough to maintain a rhythm and he died.  He was a good man and will be sorely missed by his family and his friends.

I took a job with TRANSCOM Environmental and am inspecting the environmental compliance for the construction of a new 345 kV power line.  This company recruited me and a good friend to help them with this project.  We agreed to split a job as neither of us wanted to work full time.  I also told them I was going to continue to do fire and if that was not OK then they needed to find someone else.  They assured me they could work around that.  I have worked two weeks and have found quite a few things in the project that needed to be changed.  My friend and I have discussed the changes and then called our boss to let him know our thoughts.  So far so good---every recommendation we have made has been implemented.

It has been kind of fun to be back in the game.  The company is treating us well and we are hoping to see the job through.  It will take two full years to complete the power line.  There is likely be another year of closing the access ways and rehabilitation of the construction disturbance so this job may turn out to be a good thing

HOPE THIS FINDS Y'ALL WELL!

 

A LONG ROW TO HOE

Inklings had knee surgery Wednesday, February 13, 2013.  She made a wise crack that she was having it done on the 13th day of the 13th year but at least not on Friday the 13th.  Her surgery was supposed to be simple and pretty quick but after they got inside the knee they found a lot of unexpected problems.  The meniscus was torn in two, the knee cap was fixed in place with scar tissue, there was lots of irritated cartilage inside the knee, and there was a floater about the size of a nickle running around inside.  The surgery was supposed to take about 45 minutes it took over two hours.  She was supposed to be up and around in five days after the surgery she isn't supposed to put any weight on her knee for three weeks.

The only five after the surgery is that she cannot shower for five days.  That in itself is a tough thing for her.  She hates it when she can't wash her hair every day.  She has washed it a couple of times in the kitchen sink but that is hard for her to do too.

She is recovering pretty well and I can see less and less pain associated with her knee daily.  She has an ice chest and pump attached to a bladder on her knee by two hoses and without it she would be in a lot more pain.  I am thankful for this new development for post operative treatments.  It is an amazing little ice chest with a pump hooked to two hoses that go to the bladder.  The pump puts ice water from the chest up one hose to the bladder and the other hose returns water from the bladder to the chest.  It takes about 15 pounds of ice a day to keep the water cold but the results are amazing.  I really can't see any swelling left in the knee but there are still a lot of bandages around the joint proper.

I am glad we didn't wait any longer to have this surgery done.

CATCHIN' UP

Last fall I was doing a rehab project for three large fires so I didn't get around to doing the maintenance on my rain gutters.  Well that is part of the reason.  The rest of the reason is that the leaves did not fall off our trees until during the snow storm that put all the snow on our roof.

While we were eating lunch yesterday Inklings said "It must be warming up, there is water running off our roof everywhere."  That is really bad because it means the rain gutters are plugged and some of the water is going back under the first layer of shingles on the roof.

I got up and went out to unplug them.  I have had some problems with balance the past few months so didn't dare get on the roof to clean them so I got out my extension ladder and cleaned them off that.  It made Inklings nervous so she came out and handed me things I needed to do the job and took care of getting the hose to me and turned on when I was ready.  Our neighbor from across the street was also nervous and yelled at me to be careful not to fall and watched until I finished the gutter on the side she could see.

It is nice to have this job done and it will last until at least November when the leaves again fall into it.  I have quite a bit of work to do on the gutter itself when it gets nicer outside sop maybe I will add the gutter protectors that supposedly make it so the leaves don't plug the gutter.  It would be nice not to have to do this job every year---SOMETIME---

PROCRASTINATION COSTS YOU---ALWAYS!!!

S'LONG 2012

2012 is just about to go out the window and 2013 is set to start.  All in all 2012 was a very good year.  We had good health and bought a new car.  I went to five different fires and had a good season   After fire season ended I was asked to inspect the rehab contracts for three different fires.  There was one for seeding and one for flying wheat straw mulch onto the worst burned areas.  It was a good part time job.  I worked on the preparation part for two weeks in October, the seeding contract for two weeks in November, and the mulching contract for two weeks in December.  That was a lot more work than I expected but it was good to do it.

We had all of our kids home for short visits for Christmas and 11 of our 20 grand kids too.  Would have been nice to see the rest but I just count my blessings that I got to see some of them.  Taking everything into account 2012 was good to us.

WHO WOULD HAVE EVER GUESSED I WOULD LIVE THIS LONG?????