Oregon City, Oregon - Week 15 - April 12 - April 18, 2021

Twelve weeks ago on January 18th I went to the hospital because I passed out at the end of the bed and no one knew what had happened...so to the ER.  Granted I had tested positive for Covid and had gone to the emergency room earlier for symptoms.  I really don't want to dwell on the details.  But...the last three months have been pretty hard.  The day I came home the from hospital, Dad went in and he was there for seventeen days suffering from a staph infection that had invaded the vertebrae area in his lower back.  He had surgery to remove the infection, blah blah blah and came home four days later.  Then we entered the realm of home health with antibiotic IVs three times a day, home health nurses visiting once a week, weekly trips to the pharmacy to get new antibiotics, PT visits, doctor appointments, video and phone appointments.  Pretty awful, but the result was a husband who is alive and recovering bit by bit each day.  He has physical therapy exercises he does each day and appointments every three weeks.

In February there was a serious ice storm that ravaged the Portland metro area.  Power was out for a week, trees fell down everywhere, millions of branches fell off the trees lining our driveway. Our woods were trashed by all the fallen branches - all of this after I'd spent the previous year cleaning out all of the brush and limbs in the woods.  There are/were so many that I could not even walk my "route" through the woods because the path was blocked.

The ice storm and its destruction and Dad's physical condition made me realize that we needed a reliable tractor to provide much needed muscle.  The old Kubota was a piece of junk that wouldn't reliably start, had no power steering, was only 2 wheel drive, had hydraulics that leaked, oil that leaked.........you name it!  

So we bought a new tractor.

That can haul children

and firewood in the front loader

And has a grapple attachment which can haul almost anything

And a weight bucket in the back which is a counter weight.  Good for carrying heavh sand and tools.

This week, work on the new roof for the lean-to began.....but will finish on Monday.  With the new tractor we felt we needed a place for it rather than using a tarp to cover it when not in use.  The old lean-to leaked and the roof was otherwise in terrible shape.  Additionally the joists in the old one had been 2x6s rather than 2x12s so the roof sagged over time.

We celebrated Dad's birthday this week.  Went out to breakfast at Biscuits with Jessica, Bev, Whitney, and Ann.  His present was the tractor :-)  And for the fun of it we went to Corner 14 with WWHC

Logan and Abby sang in church on Sunday.  They did an excellent job.

I have begun to clean the woods of the limbs that fell during the February ice storm.  It is pretty awful but not as bad as the clean out last year.  My goal is to finish by the middle of June when burn season ends.  In the photo I am pulling three piles of bundles branch pieces to a staging area where I'll later pick them up with the crapple.

Ruby is in training for work as a landscapers assistant.

And, of course, there has to be a birthday celebration.  This time is was for Ann.  Warren made her cake which had purple and orange on the sides - for the Broncos.