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goldengirl,
if we were a more socialist country ( like germany ) the elders would be cared for by prostitutes who are way past their " sell by " date , thus creating legitimate employment opportunities .
just kidding , but with a baby boom generation aging all at the same time some serious solutions are in order .
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Bob, what the h*ll happened to my riding mower? It was running fine when I stopped it to pick up a bag that had blown in the yard. Tried to start it and it just...goes zsszsss, like the wheel or whatever it is that turns on the inside it frozen. How?
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sounds like an electric starter problem jeanette . zsszsss , sounds like possibly battery cables need cleaned and tightened before going farther into the starter motor . battery terminals loosen themselves over time . cheap bolts stretch and loosen .
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It's like a stripping sound... like something isn't turning properly. New battery... tuned up this spring. grrrr Ok... going back out to clean the cables and maybe beat the h*ll out of the alternator.

The starter has given me problems in the past.... gonna tap that also!
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texarcana,
your problems are easily solved . feed all those fn dogs to the horse , give me the horse and ill make link sausage out of him . 2/3 rds of your workload dissipates practically overnight .
i do love me some homemade link sausage -- and 100 mg morphine tabs .
thats pretty much it . everything else annoys me .
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jeanette , stripping sound is more like starter gear drive ( bendix ) failure . splash motor oil on the nosecone of the starter . aluminum tends to corrode and bind things.
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Bob... you love dogs. Yes, I realize you think yo don't... one smell of puppy breath and the funny antics like scratching their own back on the rug... watching them roll over n over......ahhhhh will surely melt even the most finicky heart.

Venison makes great sausage!
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my favorite dog story was told to me by an old fellow at the factory years ago . as a young boy on a poor southern dirt ranch he befriended an old stray dog and of course the dog made himself at home . while building fence with his dad one day they were taking a rest break when the snoozing dog started that dream twitching thing they sometimes do . " earls " dad picked up a 3 lb sledge and knocked the mutts brains clear out the back of his head . he said " thats fer killin my rooster last week " . isnt that a heartwarming story about survival and priorities ?
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Captain...I love you but as a lifelong animal lover and rescuer that is a horrible story...nothing funny whatsoever about it.
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hope, capn is like someone with dementia. You can't fix him or argue with him. I don't know why he writes stuff like that. Probably his filters aren't in place anymore.
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horrible...absolutely horrible.. :(
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it isnt meant to be a funny story . its a story about keepin it real . if you have no rooster your hens are going to disappear one at a time to predators . im not opposed to pets but people whos foremost priority in life is their pet , arent right in the head . phsycological science and personal experiences back me up on that .
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I am not right in the head then. I have spent my life as a wildlife and animal rescuer...I do not have the time or energy to get into a debate with someone who does not care for pets or animals...your opinion is that..your opinion..as wrong as I think it is...and you really don't want to know what I think of your "phsycologocial science and personal experiences"....I'm going to leave it at that.....but I find it to be personally offensive.
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I had a rooster and a hen... one night last fall, something crawled through the fence (totally fenced in back yard) grabbed my hen from their roost, plucked it all the way out through a drainage pipe leading under the the fence. Where was my big tough rooster? Outside my bedroom window squawking for help. Why? He knew I could help... We all need help one way or the other.
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Capn is right that we animal folks are a bit touched. I have always been crazy. But it is really okay being crazy. It keeps all the normal, sane people away. The trouble now is people tend to get more normal and sane as they get older, and I'm still crazy. No one likes a crazy old lady. My roommate rabbits like me just fine, though. Nice thing about rabbits is they never argue and they are happy just to get a plate of food and some good petting.
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I can understand on a farm life is tough. If dogs ran thru your pasture and ran your cows it was just understood they would get shot.That's why I keep my dogs up because as great as I think they are when dogs get in a pack even Lassies becomes a wolf again.I don't know about killing a dog like cap stated in front of a child like this but like I said , farm living can be all about survival, you can't have your livestock being killed. I had my dogs and horses long before my mother came to live with me, in fact her 2 dogs live with us. That's why AL and NH weren't really a viable option because of the dogs, she loves those dogs and I believe a lot of her mental health depends on those dogs.It 's not that I put animals as a priority over my mother,I see her dogs as part of keeping up her mental health and to deal with depression. It's just with her narcissistic personality she can't stand to see me have any kind of life that doesn't revolve around her. She knows that as I start riding again I will be going off to ride with other people,she won't get all my attention.I refuse to let her start using "illness" as a way of controlling me.
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Changing the topic to a lighter subject for a moment...

Cap, the wooden wheel story put me in mind of the ingenuity we have to show sometimes...

My sister and her husband are often out of state - he works on oil rigs, and she travels with him. They're gone for several weeks, then home for a few days each month. They had an old camper trailer they took with them to live in during their absences, and on one trip home last winter, they brought it home to exchange it for a new one they had just purchased. About 100 miles from home, they noticed the tire on the trailer was starting to go soft. They stopped and aired it up, but it went flat again, so they put the spare on. Then THAT went flat by the time they were about 5 miles from home. Not one to be beaten by circumstances, my bro-in-law took the trailer off the truck, drove the few remaining miles home (sis stayed with trailer) and rigged up a wooden ski. Took it back, strapped it to the flat tire on the trailer and SKIIED it home! :-)
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Dad has had the congestion (cold is gone now) for over a week now. The constant hacking and clearing of the throat and what sounds like a mule deer hacking up a lung. Anyone have a recommendation? He had the round of antibiotics, decongestant, Cepocol, fluids. Now he as usual sits around all day in his chair at a 45 degree angle. I tell him to sit up with pillows so the fluid does not run into his throat. I want to take him out to lunch for his birthday but not with him hacking and clearing (level 10) of his throat all day.
Will the colds in the house never end? This is week 4 of colds making the rounds. I don't think anyone wants to have visit them or vice/verse.... wife, me, Dad, wife.....
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tgengine what is the humidity level in your house? if it is low it could be the reason dad can't clear the remaining mucous. Put a humidifier by his chair. talk to the Dr about something to liquify the mucous.
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Thanks, humidity is not bad pretty normal right now, will dry out tomorrow with the chill coming this way. I think part of it has become second nature, he is not realizing he is doing it.
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Capt I too am a life long animal lover and have kept horses who wer beyond the useful life but I felt a comfortable retirement was owed due to their life of productive work. My own father who worked with horses his whole life never allowed an animal in our house. My half sister had a pet rabbit and Dad killed that and had her mother cook it for Sunday dinner. That to me was truly terrible but they were short of money, living well below the poverty line and dinner without meat still was not acceptible. There is no way I would have ever done that to my children but when an animal was at the end of it's life I never hesitated to have it euthanized.
Hope I do believe the Capt tells these stories for the reaction he gets. He has had a life time of experience observing people and knows just how to press peoples buttons. If dementia does overtake him and all the filters are gone he will become the patient from h*ll for his caregivers unless he realizes soon enough and self destructs.
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Agreed Veronica...completely. If you can't properly care for an animal, or don't want to risk it being around your livestock, don't bring it home in the first place. If you have an animal that has become a nuisance, find it a home. I believe God expects us to protect and defend those who are vulnerable...those groups to me include not only children and the elderly, but also animals. I have spent a lifetime of observing people who think it is amusing to push peoples buttons with certain topics ...especially cruelty to animals, and find it ignorant and repulsive. I will refrain from commenting further about the issue, but I have never been able to just ignore an issue without speaking my mind as well, on a topic that means so much to me...and to our society...Cruelty in any form lessens humanity...and we are already on treacherous ground there....
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Okay, mom is really trying to push the guilt button this morning,I can already hear that "tone" I know so well when she is displeased with me. I let her know that I was stll planning on riding my horse with other people and may even stay out overnight with others horse camping. I just wonder which way her health is going to blow.I guess what I am going to do is those nights and it wouldn't be for more than 2 nights in a row I am going to hire my friend to just stay over at the house. At night my husband has his hearing aids out and is completely deaf, also with no glasses on can't see well and I just know my mother would exploit this to create some drama, she's bored,a narcissist, her health is good right now,she doesn't really like to get around other people , and I(her natural born victim) is showing signs of "rebellion" by trying to have some kind of a life outside of this house.Yesterday, one of her "boo-hoos" was she couldn't raise her right hand to her mouth to eat when she was at the restaurant and right in front of me to demonstrate her frailty she put her right hand literally over her mouth. I told her but her putting your hand up there now and she immediately put her right hand down in her lap looking like a guilty child.Then she immediately c/o being hot at times and that she was allergic to heat, this was a new one.Well my husband and I are still running our window air conditioner at night because we are hot.Then it was (now these complaints are coming one right after the other literally) she was short of breath getting up to the BSC ,doing her business and then getting in bed. She should see me trying to get up at night with my hip that has been freezing up on me, my husband has to help me get up on the AM. As for short of breath she sure can talk fast without missing a beat or pausing for breath.I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have already told my husband if she starts "something" I am just going to call the paramedics,(if it is at night I am definitely not driving to the ER, my nightvision as my husband's is terrible) I will call the ER to check on her, I have an up to date list of her meds, PMD,medical history that I can hand to the emts and if they admit her to the hospital I will call an agency to have a sitter for her.I am just not going to let her jerk me around with "medical?" problems.It's as if she is looking for something wrong.She is taken to the hair salon once a week, taken to church whenever she wants to go. taken for manicure/pedicure when she wants,goes once a week shopping and out to eat(I don't remember the last time my husband and I got to eat out).I can't make her younger, I can't untwist her spine, I do keep her pain level down to a daily of 2-3 which is about what mine is.I don't no what more I could do without being a magician.
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I belong to a lot of animal rescue sites on FB. That's where I found my beloved big girl Sydney. I can't volunteer as much as I'd like to. Transports and fostering is just too much for me at this moment BUT... what I have started doing is making things for fundraisers. They provide the materials. I provide my time. This is going to be a huge help for the rescue's as well as my mental health during these long cold winters! Win win.
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Just learned that my uncle (my mom's bro-in-law, her sister has been gone several years already) is teetering on the edge. He has had mini-strokes several times a year for about 10 years now, and has Parkinson's, which appears to be advancing to the point where he can't eat or swallow without gagging. (That could be a combination of things - the strokes and the Parkinsons being only 2 of the major issues he has right now.) He has reached the point of sleeping a lot, not being hungry or wanting to eat...sad.

We lost Dad and his only brother last year within 10 months of each other, leaving only my aunt (Dad's sister) on his side of the family. My mom's sister passed several years ago and now her husband (Mom's bro-in-law) is looking like he's not long for this world. I understand that dying is a natural part of life, but I just wish they wouldn't happen so close together.

Kind of a sad day.
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On today's news it was mentioned that Robin Williams had Lewy Body dementia. So sad. He was such a genius when it came to play acting that I wonder if he had this disease earlier on but because of his genius quality that people weren't able to tell if he had dementia or was just being Robin Williams.
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Hm. Well, that's a new one. Mom just got up from one of her many naps, dribbled urine on the floor (not unusual) and as she was doing it, she covered up the bed (which IS unusual - she *never* covers it up, just leaves it unmade unless I make it up myself). Once she went into the bathroom to clean up, I checked the bed - sure enough, there was a wet spot in the middle where she was sitting. (sigh)

So now I guess we're hiding the problem instead of dealing with it. Good thing I'm here, I guess...I can't imagine what the house would smell like otherwise. I asked her to please not cover up the bed when it's wet - she gave me a blank look and said, "Oh, I didn't realize it was wet!" (In her defense, maybe she didn't realize it, but this is a whole new level of "off" for her.)
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Darn. Hit "post" too soon.

Stripped the bed and started the washer. She's going through an increasing amount of clothing, bedding and underwear lately. I wish I could find protective undergarments to fit her. They fit "around" her, but they aren't tall enough - they only come to just below the crack of her backside (sorry, but no other way to say it). I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be all day long, feeling like your undergarments are slipping down your backside because they're not tall enough to reach your waist.
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Jeanette...yay girl! I love that you are doing that for the rescues! I have started working on some of the two sided fringe edge blankets to try to raise money for rescues....like you, I am not able to do the transports and fosters as much as I would like these days...but I love making the blankets and a lot of folks love them....I made a huge one for Mama, has pretty red cardinals on one side and a pale buttercup yellow on the other...everyone who sees it loves it. I am making them smaller for cats and dogs but hoping I can do this to help in my own way to help raise money and help me feel productive at the same time on the side....

On a cozy note, Mama sure is snuggled in over here with her little cat all curled up beside her....such a sweet sight... :)
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Susan, bless your heart...have you looked on line as well for the undergarments...Mama is not a large woman but we get the xl diapers because they just provide better coverage...there are some companies online who have larger size ones.. ....I know the feeling of laundry...it seems like my washing machine never rests....
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