A Broken Hip and a Lump

My Mom fell a few weeks ago and was complaining about her hip hurting. X-rays showed a broken hip. Two days later the surgeon pinned the hip. She went back to the nursing home, where a few days later she collapsed during church service. Back to the hospital. All tests came back negative, but a review of the Cat Scan done when they found her broken hip, revealed a lump in her left kidney. I conferred with the specialist the next day and was told it might have been there for years. Because of Mom's advanced age, he wants to wait 3 months and take an another Cat Scan. He stated kidney cancer grows real slow. Which didn't comfort me much. Anyway, he stated any biopsy could be more invasive for Mom since she is just recovering from hip surgery. So we wait and pray.
In the mean time, we traveled on the 4th and 11th to Josephine's house in Baytown, Texas to help clean up the mess Hurricane Ike left in her yard.

It was the longest I ever pulled the Big RED Beast. She lives about 80 miles from me and the Cummins in my Dodge sucked the diesel. I didn't mind travelling two Saturdays in a row, but pulling 13,700 pounds in Houston traffic was not fun. I can get going 60 or even 65 miles per hour very easy, but I needed a lot of stopping distance and Houston drivers kept filling in the distance I left between the car ahead of me and my truck. So it was really hard to find a steady speed. I spread the cleanup work at Josephine's over two Saturdays, because I just couldn't do two days in a row after doing it at Sara's house the end of Sept. I needed a day of rest for the new week!
Josephine lives at the back of a cigar shaped acre size lot. We couldn't pile the debris and burn it, so we had about a 400 feet drive to the roadside (bar) ditch, where we piled the debris for county workers to pick up. This took a lot of time on the Big RED Beast going back and forth. It also allowed some limbs to fall by the way side. Josephine has a heart condition and drives one of those electric 4 wheel scooters. She was either on the scooter or on her lawn tractor zipping back and forth picking up the limbs.
Sara showed up wearing long sleeves. I thought that was odd, as she usually works outside in her work coveralls. I soon learned why she had on long sleeves. Every tree in the yard had large vines of poison sumac or ivy. I didn't get any on me, but Sara ran the saw all day and got in way too much contact with those dad blasted vines. Josephine is not allergic to the vines, so she made no effort to remove them over the years. Guess she thinks the flowers look pretty also!

Josephine's property doesn't have a border fence, but just a 4 foot tall chain link fence around a small "yard" around the house for her, at the time, spouse's dog. Make that ex spouse now. This chain link fence also had poison sumac and ivy vines all over it. I didn't touch the fence except with the 511 backhoe on the Mahindra. I found it easy (after Josephine snipped all the wires at the posts) to pull the fence in with the backhoe and stacked it directly behind the backhoe. Then I grabbed the fence "stack" with the thumb and bucket and off to the bar ditch. Funny thing with that fence out by the ditch. It didn't last long as a local character came up with his old beat up pickup and hooked a chain to the fence and off he went down the street to his house, sparks a flying.

At first it was fun working the 6520 back and forth, but by the second Saturday, it started to be like work. Sara was having way too much fun with her new "man sized" large Stihl chain saw and cut too many times on the big logs. I wanted to drag the whole tree, minus it's top out to the ditch and cut it up. Sara got "saw happy" and cut the tree trunks into 6 or so feet long pieces. With no grapple, it was no fun getting more than one trunk section into my 7 foot wide front end bucket. This meant I could only haul 2 large diameter"logs" to the ditch. One in the bucket and one pinched with the backhoe bucket and thumb. Towards the end of the second day I was ready to quit, but Sara and even Josephine got "saw happy" and they started cutting green trees down. Whoa! I only wanted to clean up the mess on the ground and go home. They were adding more work for the Big RED Beast.

The first Saturday, we attacked the most serious problem. A large diameter Beech tree was uprooted and leaning on the fork of another tree with the Beech's top hanging over Josephine's house. Another big wind and it would have crushed the house. I felt the pressure on me and my Mahindra. Luckily, Josephine's nephew was there with a 28 foot ladder and topped the tree. He cut all the large limbs at the top of his ladder. Then I got to dig the tree up at the roots with the Mahindra's 511 backhoe. When the roots where loose, we attached a chain to the loader's cross bar and I lifted while slowly backing up. This caused the tree to slide down the supporting tree right to the ground. I was sweating hard as I did this, as one slip from me or the 6520 and the tree would get the house!

About mid way through the day, a nice black Dodge pulling a trailer with a thumbed mini excavator on it, stopped in the street. They unloaded and started working across the street. These guys were from the Ft. Worth area down here doing storm cleanup. They left after a few hours. Later I saw Sara walking back with her saw and numerous small pieces of cedar. I went over to the pile they made and saw a large cedar log sticking out. I immediately pulled the log out with my 511 backhoe. It looked to be about 20 feet long. Needless to say, that log came home with me after trimming it down a little so it fit under the Mahindra on the trailer, for the ride home. If only the other log was that long, I would have two entry gate poles for my place!

Between the two Saturdays spent in Baytown, I had enough time to do my 300 hour inspection on the Big RED Beast. As you can see in the photo below, Booger is always near when I have the Mahindra out of the barn. He is laying just at the bottom of the photo, near the front tire and engine side panel. He doesn't do this while I am on my Hustler lawn mower, but comes running when I head for the 6520.

I have been trying to get Dad's log splitter running so I could sell it. Dad let it sit up too long and the carburetor got gummed up. I tried cleaning it, but that didn't work. I took it to Top Flight Equipment, to let their small engine expert have a go at it. But they were too busy and I brought it back home the day before Ike hit the Texas coast. Two weeks ago I decided to just order a new carburetor. The engine started on the second pull. Now the log slicer, as Mom always called it, is sitting at Top Flight by the parts and service front door, waiting to be sold.

Yesterday I mowed my whole place with my Hustler Fastrac. Since we had two days of rain last week, I had some standing water in the ditch that runs through my place. The Fastrac is notorious for getting "slip stuck" with it's almost smooth turf tires. Once one drive wheel spins, it is all over. Go get the Big RED Beast! I had to do that twice yesterday! The second time, Booger saw me walking away from the mower towards the Mahindra and came running. That dog sure loves my tractor!

While I was cleaning up last night, the nursing home called to say Dad fell and was going to the emergency room. I called Christina and we both went to see what happened. Seems Dad fell while trying to get out of bed and hit and cut his forehead. He had been complaining last weekend to me about his back hurting when he yawned in bed. I told the doctor this and they ran a cat scan and took x-rays. The results were a fracture in his back at T-12. He is now waiting to get fitted with a back brace. So with Mom's hospital visits and now Dad's, I am getting to know my way around the hospital in The Woodlands! I have been on three different floors visiting them in the last three weeks. If only I could get them in the same room at the same time. With me working nights, I only have time in the evening to see one of them if one is in the hospital. So I pray they can both stay healthy enough to stay together!

As luck would have it, Dad's baby brother (He is 81) and his wife came down in their 30 foot RV today from Oklahoma to visit Dad. My uncle still runs the building supply (we call them lumber yards down here) company he founded eons ago. But he goes home for lunch every day and takes a nap. The yard is closed while he naps! I'll try to get some photos of the RV and them when they leave tomorrow. They are headed for Louisiana. Stop back in later to hear more about us here. I have added more storm damage and Big RED Beast photos here.

hugs, Brandi