County Fair, Haying, and Health

Most July days in the 1950s and 60s would have found the Hanson Boys
out in the hay field sweating away whether it was 90 or 100 degrees.
When I first started we still used a hay loader pulled behind the hay wagon
that brought the hay up onto the load.  I started driving the B Farmall on
a real steep hill.  The loader came loose, rolled backwards down the big steep hill,
and gracefully a big arc at the bottom never even tipping at all.  I was 9 at the time.
Dad just had me circle around and come back and re-hook up (better this time) and we
just kept on working.  Quite exciting for a kid.  

Spent the first two days of this week at the Polk County Fair grounds preparing the Red Schoolhouse for next week's county fair.  The Polk County Genealogy Society is hosting it this year.  I put two window air conditioners in and will have the school the Cool Spot at the fair.  Centurylink is putting wireless in at the fair office and at the 4-H building and we are hopeful of getting a signal to the school house so we can do some online genealogy, the way everything is going nowadays.  The building has metal clad siding which does present a problem for getting the signal through the walls.  If it works, we will bill ourselves as "The Coolest Hot Spot at the Fair."  Drop in next Thursday - Sunday 9-9 and you may catch us there taking a urn being hosts.  We have a lot of fruits, vegetables, and other stuff to take as exhibitors, so this coming week will be getting it all ready.  Have a decent pumpkin already to go--just have to disconnect the IV with growth hormone going directly into the stem.

An early hay rake was made to look like a bunch of hay forks  each helping
to gather the hay into windrows.  The photos were taken a few years ago near
Grantsburg at the Morris Blomgren auction.  It was huge, and I took photos of
everything.

Nothing new to report on my 9 weeks of Myasthenia Gravis. Still waiting for prednisone to slow down the production of antibodies attacking my nerve-muscle connection.  My latest description of MG;   A bunch of beavers are building dams on the streams that run from my brain to my muscles.  Medicine one, mestinon, puts them to sleep for a few hours and medicine two, prednisone, attempts to kill them off.  

Generally I can function OK--nothing much physical because I tire almost immediately trying to do anything that involves voluntary muscles (breathing, eating, walking, typing, etc.).  However, my mind is razor sharp; I have no pain, I am comfortable and can do the normal things of daily living--just not the strenuous things.

Margo is having tests today at Mayo.  She had a mammogram that picked up a lump and also had a few lumps under an arm.  Today she gets a biopsy and MRI.  This is to rule out cancer, and rule in benign cysts.  She will find out the results tomorrow.  Scary business getting old.