Today was very much an outdoors day!

Thanks to the AWESOME riding mower my brother and his wife gave us, I was able to finish mowing the yard yesterday.  Which means that one of the goals of the day was to get out the weed trimmer to clear areas the mower can’t get close to.

A loud and messy job, so I waited until after our afternoon appointment with someone from the home care department.  This was a follow up on the last visit, with a different person.  So while we waited for her to arrive, I started working on cleaning up the flower bed on the west side of the house.

At one end of the flower bed, there is an unusual variety of lilac; it’s bushier, has tiny leaves, and masses of sprays with tiny flower buds right now; it’s blooming period seems quite a bit later than the other lilacs, which are near the end of their blooming period.

One of the problems with it is that there is a maple tree growing out the middle of it.

Plus, lots of dead branches.

So I started cleaning away dead branches and cutting away the many suckers at the base, just to get at the maple.  Where I found this.

This is the trunk of the maple tree (which would have been self-sown), bent around a lilac stem.

I had to cut away more of the lilac before I could take out the maple, which had to be done in sections, due to the size.

It was very awkward work.  The lilac stems are surprisingly long and bendy, and many were wrapped around each other.  So much so, I found myself wondering if someone hadn’t done it deliberately at some point; perhaps they were overhanging the space between the house and the flower bed or something.

Once the maple was out, I could see the damage it did to the lilac.

I’d already had to cut away a branch of that stem, and I’m not sure if I’ll have to cut the rest of it away.  Without being regularly pruned, the stems are so long that, without the dead and dying branches (and the maple tree) holding them up, they’re just sort of… flopping.

It was while I was working on this, that the woman from home care arrived.

While she was here, she went over her form questions, double checking my husband’s mobility needs and what we’ve got around the house.  She even took a look at our bathroom (higher toilet, bath chair, lots of arm bars in the tub/shower, and we made sure to bring the special hand held shower with us when we moved; you can shut the water off at the handle, rather than at the wall, and it has an extra long hose).  She asked about how he finds raising his legs over the side of the tub, and brought up that, if he ever needs it, there is a transfer chair available.  Which we already have, as my father needed one, and it’s still quite new.

She checked out the hospital bed as well, confirming that my husband is now able to get in and out of bed without losing his balance.  He’s really enjoying that thing, and finding it very comfortable to sleep on, too.

She also went through her list, asking about cooking, shopping, laundry, etc.  If the girls and I were not around to take care of this stuff, he would be able to get home care to come in to help.  As things stand now, it isn’t needed.

Which brought us to the only thing that we are hoping to be able to get; a ramp, to make it easier for my husband to get in and out of the house with his wheeled walker.  One of the things we learned is that, if we were to qualify for a ramp, we would need to get a contractor to give us a quote to pass on to them.  Qualifying for funding is another issue.  I had found out about the program online and read that there is an income cut off that can change, so they said to contact to find out what it is.  I’d sent an email and finally got a response.

Based on that, my husband’s disability payments put him at too high of an income to qualify. :-/

She’s still going to see if there are other programs available, but if we can just get someone to assess the location for us, and give us the information we need, then we will have something to go on to get it done ourselves, at some point.

So that meeting went well.

After she left, I headed back out to work on the yard.  I just cleaned up the trimmings I’d cut down earlier, then got out the weed trimmer – and the two 100 ft extension cords we’d been using to get power to the garage.  With those, I can reach pretty much anywhere in the yard.

While I worked on that, the girls cleared out the large pile of branches I’d cleared away from the maple grove.  The dead stuff went to the piles by the fire pit, but most of it was green.  The green wood pile by the fire pit is already getting big, so they decided to add to the pile I’d started outside the yard, when I cleared the back of the garage.

I didn’t think to take photos before I started with the weed trimmer in some areas.  After going around the house, I went around the east yard, including clearing a path to the Saskatoon bushes.  When I started working on the south west yard, I was finally able to go around parts of the “spare” house in the yard (I have no idea what my mother has in mind for that building; I did ask her, but the only answer I got was that it’s for storage.  !!  It was originally intended to be moved to one of the other quarter sections, for one of my brothers to use as a home), and the south fence line.  There had been a single mowed pathway leading to around the back of the other house.  There are several curved rows of spindly trees, planted close together.  I’d asked my mom about them, and she told me she planted them to be a “living fence.”

Personally, I’d like to get rid of them, as it’s really not a good place for trees.  I don’t think she really thought about what they will be like, at full size.

And that doesn’t even include the two rows of fully grown trees immediately behind the other house.

Very little of the area is mowable, and no one has tried to clear in between the trees, at all.  So I started clearing parts of it with the weed trimmer.  There isn’t much I can do behind the other house, until we clear away the junk and fallen branches, and random cinder blocks.  :-/  It’s a big job, and I wasn’t able to finish it today.  Weather willing, I’ll continue tomorrow.

Once done the yard work for the day, I decided we needed to have another cookout.  This time, though, I did baked potatoes.

I will post about those, separately. :-D

My husband was even able to come out and join us for a little while.  Not long enough for the potatoes of finish, unfortunately, but even a little bit is good.  :-)

After the fire was no longer needed to cook food, my younger daughter and I took advantage of it and started adding more from the clean up pile.  Unfortunately, we seem to be adding to it much faster than we’ll be able to use it for fire pit fuel! :-D

Since we were tending the fire, anyway, we also took turns cutting down some of the logs to fire pit size lengths.

We’re going to be set for wood for a good, long time!

We’ll just have to find lots of reasons to get the fire pit going, I guess. :-D

The Re-Farmer