In the meantime, we were worried that there would be a repeat of the 2012-2013 year of cancer treatment that Margo is still recovering from.
She returns to help her father tomorrow. He spent the two weeks she was away in an assisted care facility, getting a taste of what that kind of home is like.
Margo had been in West Bend since early April and had brought her father home for two weeks to see how well he could adapt about 6 weeks after his stroke. With someone there all of the time, things went OK. However, his stroke has been quite hard on him, both physically and mentally and he is not ready to be on his own.
So she is headed there for another month or two to see what the next step in his rehabilitation will be. Monday, June 16th, he will be 89.
In the meantime, here in Cushing, we are finally done with planting the gardens and into mowing lawns and working on the farm to clear out and clean out some of the accumulations of the past 72 years, especially the junk dumped off in the past 15 years from relatives and neighbors, the left overs of garage sales, moves and temporary storage.
Sorting through is fraught with memories. An old piece of wood with short chains and a few irons reminds us straightening the Armstrong Barn. Dad made a huge lever that hooked to log chains connected to each side of the barn. As we moved the 12 foot lever through a huge arc, the bowed out walls came together 1 inch closer and the lever latched one link on the chain while we cranked the screw jacks pushing up 30 foot to lift up the falling roof. Although the 12 foot 2x4 lever handle was long ago cut short to be reused, Dad kept the lever "just in case." And I have to decide to save, toss or ??? My current thinking is to clean the big barn out, and turn it into a partial farm museum for all the kids in the family who have never seen a real farm.
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| We haven't run the sawmill for a couple of years |
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| Everett, Dad, Byron and Russ on a March day 12 years ago working our our tans. Brother Everett made the chairs. |
