Month: January 2021

I found out that my prostate biopsy came back indicating cancer was present. I am not happy about this development, but prostate cancer is quite common in men of my age.

Surgery to remove the prostate is indicated, but the question of radiation therapy is still not clear. On February 5th I will undergo two more tests, one of soft tissue and the other of bone tissue, to determine if the cancer has spread outside of the prostate. If so, radiation will be added to the treatment. If not, surgery without radiation will be the path forward. I will get the results of these tests on February 15th. I am not looking forward to the next couple of weeks!

But life goes on. Pam has been busy painting the library, a detail-intensive task, and working on the art deco design she has chosen to add interest to the walls. Here are a few photos of this work-in-progress.

Before any painting can begin Pam has to go around with spackling compound and fill in gaps, dings, and other defects. Then she uses an artist’s brush, the kind you would use in a paint-by-number project, to touch-up paint on the window frames and other woodwork. Only then can she apply paint to the larger wall areas. There is a lot of up-and-down the ladder work to get things done. (I would take a photo of Pam painting these walls but she says I have enough shots of her painting things and wouldn’t allow any more.)

I was not nearly as productive this last week. I did work on a number of small projects, though. Going through a few boxes I found my work clothes which I had brought back from The Lot when I closed up The Box (RV trailer) for the winter. These went into my closet and various drawers. I unpacked my snowmobile suit and boots which had been in storage in the garage attic. These will help keep me warm when I go out to push snow around. Lumber was purchased and I built the first of the ‘large window’ inserts for the house’s bay windows. This first unit went into the Media Room upstairs and the next will go into my bedroom bay window. Boxes that had held Christmas decorations, now sorted and stored in plastic totes, were broken down for yesterday’s (Friday) recycle pickup. (Recycle pickup happens every other Friday.) A Monday night snowfall had to be addressed Tuesday morning so I spent some time cleaning the alley access, mailbox access, and sidewalks. I try to take a daily walk of at least one mile. The RAV-4 was taken to a u-spray car wash. More slides were scanned. Some editing was done on my digital music collection, deleting songs that I just didn’t care for, mostly heavy metal or duplicates. And, just for S & G, I went though my mail box, deleting old mails and old sent mails. It never fails to amaze me that even in retirement the amount of junk that builds up in my mailbox is surprisingly large.

Although I have not installed any more insulation in the garage, I had the heater going while I was working on the Media Room window insert. After about 10 minutes of running I shut the heater down as it had warmed the space to a comfortable working level. Previously I had to keep the heater going continuously to be comfortable. The insulation is already paying off in more comfort on these cold days.

Some time was spent watching birds at the new feeder. The local feathered community has discovered it; now it is not uncommon to see from one to two dozen birds at the feeder at any given time. Recently we spied a finch and jay among the more common sparrows and chickadees.

From time to time we are reminded of the very rural nature of Elma.

The days fill up and go by fairly quickly, but we both miss working outside on different projects. Outside time is now relegated to letting the dogs out to run/do their business, keeping the catio cats supplied with food/water/heat, getting the mail, or to shovel snow. Whoopee.

Photo Archive

2003, Aspen Hot Air Balloon Festival

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Himself’s prostate cancer diagnosis is not welcome news. We will “deal with it.”

The refresh project in the library is progressing, but very slowly. The shadowy light in the room this time of year only allows about 2-3 hours of fine detail painting per day. Which is about as much time as I can force my eyes to concentrate anyway.

Be Well. Happy Trails.

This week saw us working on small jobs. There is also some medical news; let’s get to it!

Monday Pam and I went to Mason City to get a biopsy taken on my prostate. (While I was in the clinic Pam checked out the Mason City Walmart.)

The procedure was routine but took time as the first step is to get a shot of antibiotics and then wait for 45 minutes for the stuff to circulate. The procedure itself took about 20 minutes. It was not comfortable (and a bit embarrassing) but had to be done.

Due to my Type-2 diabetes I have been getting blood work done on an annual basis and this is the first time my PSA (prostate enzyme) has been elevated. If biopsy tissue shows cancer cells, the cancer would have been caught at an early stage.

I have a follow-up appointment this coming week to go over the results with the doctor and will have more information to review. If the prognosis is cancer there are a number of treatments available.

Otherwise it has been a pretty quiet week with small projects getting attention. Pam has completed more painting in the library and picked out a shade of white for the upper parts of the walls. Known as ‘Woodland Morn’, the creamy white should offer a nice contrast to the green of the lower walls and bounce some light around the room. Here is a sample on one wall.

I worked on a few small projects, including putting up a bird feeder. The bird feeder had been in storage for maybe a decade or more. In spite of our resident population of outside cats, I decided to get it out and set up. It’s a large unit with three feeding tubes. As the ground is frozen I built a temporary base for it. A trip to the local farm supply store yielded some ‘black oil’ sunflower seeds and a bag of saffron seeds. The sunflower seeds went into two of the three tubes and the saffron went into the remaining tube.

Black Oil seeds have an easier-to-crack shell than the striped seeds and the safflower seeds appeal to songbirds. It took a couple days for our local birds to find and start using the feeder, but there is now some activity every day. We can watch the feeder from the library, kitchen, and my bedroom windows so we can observe the birds pretty easily. It is good to see them getting some food during these cold and snowy days. This time of year, we’re viewing sparrows, juncos and chickadees.

A pair of projects took up some of my time. First I re-arranged part of the garage to improve access to the passenger side car door. Normally I back the car into the garage which put the passenger door close to my ‘big boy’ toys. Up until now this limited the space available to swing the door open. The new arrangement fixes this.

The second project involved the John Deere garden tractor and snow blade. With snow in the forecast for tonight and next Wednesday I decided to move the existing snow away from the edges of the sidewalks. This would give me space to put the new snow when it arrives.

Speaking of snow, here is a photo of some of our snow fighting gear.

Events at the Capitol on January 6th continue to reverberate through the political world. I would just like to include this tribute:

We have begun getting information pertaining to tax preparation. I will have to file part-year Colorado taxes as well as Iowa tax. In addition, we sold property in Colorado and began getting Social Security payments. It will take some time to review all sorts of information and figure our taxes this year!

Photo Archive

I scanned more slides this past week. Those below are from a hiking trip to Hanging Lake in Colorado. The year was 2004.

For more information about the lake, which is considered a natural wonder, do an internet search or follow this link.

Thats it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Stucco walls. Ugh. Have I mentioned the interior of 702 Main is loaded with stucco walls? Old, fragile stucco walls? The walls and I have been in direct conflict since the start of renovations. Any nail or screw hole into the stucco tends to start a fracture of mammoth proportions. You should see the broken plaster mess around electrical outlets, for instance. It is a design dilemma.

Therefore, rather than installing new wood details (ceiling or wainscot molding, primarily), I’ve hit on a solution. I found an online vendor that sells grosgrain ribbon by the yard, in various widths (Ribbons And Bows Oh My – RABOM). Their 1.5 inch grosgrain is pretty much the width I’ve been using, and it’s available in a wide range of colors. Ribbon is flexible enough to travel up-and-down-and-over the uneven contours and bulges of the plaster walls, ribbon is fairly easily attached using brass upholstery tacks, and ribbon can be removed at will without permanently damaging the plaster. The ribbon solution was used in the parlor bedroom last winter at wainscot height, and it will be used in the refresh of the two downstairs rooms this winter. The overall “look” fits well into a Victorian.

If only Elmo will leave this treatment on the wall, that is…ah, Elmo.

Be Well. Happy Trails.

Here we are in the middle of winter and there is not much happening at 702 Main. A few projects are progressing, including painting and insulation installation.

Pam’s living room repaint is moving along. She has the lower part of several walls painted in the green hue she chose. Now comes the harder part, picking the shade of color that she wants for the upper portions.

Pam would like a shade of white, but there are hundreds of ‘white’ paints out there. Picking the right one will take some time.

While Pam was painting I was in the garage installing the insulation I bought a couple weeks ago. My goal was to get the eaves enclosed, insulate the west wall, and fill in as much as I could with the rest of the insulation batts. I had just enough to get these priority areas done.

I was able to insulate the south (alley) wall, including the eaves on that side as well. The addition is already warmer than the rest of the garage as a result of this work. Next I will need to buy some more insulation and finish the east wall, but the biggest job will be to get insulation in the ceiling. Those rafters are 24 inches on center and the work will need to be done from a ladder, slowing the installation. I would be nice to have all this done by spring but in the shorter term it gives me a good task to work on.

A recent snow added another cover of white to the area. Very heavy and wet, the snow did not want to slide off the snow blade very well, leaving clumps of snow along the sidewalks and road.

I came across this new word which describes Pam very well.

Photo Archive

I am not sure if I have used these photos before as I lost track of some of their uses. Taken in the late ’70s and early ’80s at a place I have mentioned before, Boreas Pass in Colorado.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Although we live in a Victorian/Queen Anne style house, I am not a turn-of-the-previous-century purist when refreshing interior rooms at 702 Main. For one, maintenance of high Victorian decor doesn’t fit our life style. For another, the pets would absolutely destroy velvets, satins and laces. I installed lace curtains in the parlor bedroom, and I can’t tell you how many times I have found cats (usually Elmo) swinging off them.

One thing I am a stickler for is keeping or reproducing, whenever possible, the level of detail this house originally featured. Too many times 702 has been spray-painted a single color; these colors cover both plaster walls and woodwork on interior surfaces, then hide wood rot on exterior surfaces. This is why we are primarily brush-painting the house and repairing as we go along, restoring multi-colored details, and (too often) using artist detail brushes to compensate for previous poor quality workmanship.

All of these issues come into play in the refresh of the two downstairs rooms, which I am renaming the “library” (dining/living room) and the “snug” (Bob’s bedroom-previous owner). I’ve decided to incorporate a bit of art deco design in the library, utilizing the fan shape. I also plan to unpack as many of our books as will fit in the space, make a feature wall of travel posters, and hopefully find ways to display our curios behind glass, away from pet paws. Furniture will need to be pet friendly as well; these two rooms are the main habitat of five cats and three dogs.

It’s a process…more updates as the refresh progresses.

Be Well and Happy Trails.

Our winter activities were typical this week. Pam worked inside the house. I completed a few projects in the garage. Frosty weather created a few photo opportunities.

Last week I mentioned that Pam had started an upgrade on the main floor. This week she completed more painting of the ceiling trim, plus hung some new curtains. She also began the task of sorting and packing Christmas decorations. A busy girl.

I continued an upgrade of my garage work space, adding another storage rack and more shelving. A trip to the Rochester, Minnesota, Menard’s lumber yard yielded the storage rack, shelf brackets, more insulation to be installed, and new wheels for my table saw stand.

The frosty weather, mostly freezing fog that created rime ice, gave rise to a few photo opportunities.

And there were other odds and ends: my sharpened saw blades came back from the lumber yard, Pam measured a stretched-out Elmo at 31 1/2 inches long, and we received our stimulus checks via direct deposit into our bank account. Life goes on even if not documented in any particular way.

While I try not to get into politics in these posts, the events of last Wednesday concern me. Those Capitol rioters tried to interfere with the peaceful transition of power from one administration to another. That transfer is, perhaps, the greatest strength of democracy. To interfere is illegal, un-American, and un-democratic.

One candidate lost and another won. There is no evidence of anyone “stealing” the election. The 60+ lawsuits filed in the courts all found “no merit” in the claims of ballot irregularities. The election was fair and clean. Biden and Harris won.

There is much the Biden – Harris administration will have to clean up before they can begin to move this country forward. However, if Trump supporters refuse to believe in evidence and refuse to accept election results, America as a democracy can not survive.

I could go on (as I am quite angry), but better leave with these comments. As I write this, over 360,000 people have died of COVID-19 which Trump called a hoax. The National Guard had delegated 6,000 men to keep order at the Inauguration, an event which is supposed to be a celebration of the democratic process. The nation is deeper in debt and politically divided as never before.

I would encourage anyone reading this to reconsider the words of the Pledge of Allegiance we have all uttered over the years. “..to the United States of America…” Allegiance not to a person or political party, but to the country. To democratic processes. That is the glue that holds democracy together, and without it, democracy will fail.

Photo Archive

From a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2004:

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Himself and I have worked VERY hard our whole lives, frequently performing tasks we didn’t really enjoy at all. We anticipated enjoyment in retirement, livin’ the life, setting our own schedules. The continued refurbishment of 702 Main in Elma, IA is our transition project between the work hassle of the past, into the leisure zone. We deserve to enjoy “the fruits of our labors,” as the saying goes.

Then “Bam!” – a virulent worldwide pandemic hit hard, followed by the Big Orange Liar fermenting political violence. Events certainly not on our original retirement radar. My range of emotions in reaction to horrible numbers of COVID deaths and POTUS-directed insurrection is wide – anger, disgust, fear, extreme sadness, a tumult of many more. The political fallout penetrates even rural Iowa.

As a result, be forewarned, family/friends – I am no longer conciliatory in the least toward political idiocy.

Be Safe. Happy Trails.

This is more of a photo gallery than a post. Below is a collection of photos I took on the morning of January 3rd as the sun began to burn off morning fog. Click on each photo to open a larger version, then click on any detail in the photo to enlarge the area around your cursor.

That’s it. Hope you enjoy these.

Jerry

2020 is behind us; let’s hope 2021 is a far better year!

True to recent form, we spent a quiet week at home. Pam finished hemming draperies, made a rhubarb pie (the last of the batch of rhubarb we grew), baked salmon for New Year’s Day (first time!), and started a living room painting / makeover project.

My projects were minor. I put a piece of pegboard up over my workbench; this required moving a few shelves and repositioning a light. I’ve spent a couple of hours on this already and have a bit more work to do.

Going through more boxes in the garage attic, I found a few more tools to hang on peg hooks and located my box of sport court tiles. With the tiles in hand I began assembling a mat in front of the workbench. The extra layer means I am not standing directly on the cold cement floor when at my bench, making working out there more comfortable.

We did get a few inches of snow last Tuesday evening and into Wednesday morning. After some hand shoveling of steps, porches, and the walkway to the garage, I fired up the John Deere garden tractor and spent the next couple hours moving snow around. (Now the neighbors know the snow removal standard I intend to maintain!)

We have been lucky so far this year; December overall was above average in temperatures even though we had a couple of very cold nights.

Overall it was another quiet week. We find we are sleeping in, working a few hours on planned projects, then watching some TV after dinner. It is a much slower pace than we maintained last summer!

Elmo the cat has been up to his usual tricks, finding things to destroy or pull down. For some reason he likes to play on the steps and has succeeded in pulling off all the paper decorations Pam had put up on the step risers. Here he is at work:

To his credit, Elmo does get along with the dogs.

Our Christmas decorations are coming down. Right now the only items left are the lights and garlands on the front and east porch. The tree is down and the window decorations are packed away, including the red rope lights that made up the two hearts Pam had created in the windows. The upcoming week is supposed to have a couple warmer (for January) days and we’ll take down the rest of the garlands and lights and pack everything up for use next year.

2020 is over and we look forward to a better year in 2021. Hopefully our health will hold up and, at some point, we will get one of the COVID-19 vaccinations. Given our rural location and issues with transport and refrigeration of the vaccines, distribution in NE Iowa may be a bit on the slow side.

We hope all who read these notes have a good 2021! We enjoyed hearing from those of you who sent holiday greetings.

Photo Archive

This week’s photos are from a ride we took on the narrow-gauge Silverton & Durango Railroad in 2005.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

After approximately two months of a painting hiatus, I have begun the “refresh” of the downstairs rooms. (There I am, back up on the ladder again.) At least the ceilings are lower in the two rooms slated for work this round. It will be a slow progression — one day work, one day rest!

Our current [slower] schedule may just be The Universe helping us gather our strength and resources for another year of renovations.

As Himself mentioned, Elma may very well be in a COVID vaccine desert. We’ll be looking for Moderna or Astrazenica by summer – maybe. Our newly-built local clinic should be open by then. Until then, mask – social distance – sanitizer.

Be Well. Happy Trails.