Here's the Wildman thinking. I know it surprises some of you, but I really do have thoughts sometimes.

I'm just wondering what everyone is doing about getting older. There's a set up for someone! I mean, what are ya'll doing to make life easier when you get older. Things like easing the work load. O.K. I can see that somehow this question isn't coming out like I want it too and I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to fix it. Here's an example. Around the bottom of the trailer we have that silly vinyl siding for skirting. The weedeater tears it up. Around Summer I plan to replace the skirting with aluminum cans and clay. Weedeating is usually a big chore when mowing the yard so I plan on putting about a two foot wide strip of gravel out from the base of the house to eliminate weedeating altogether. I have some kinda slow growing short fescue grass in the yard. I don't have to water it and I only have to mow it maybe once a month or every six weeks. I plan on getting sawdust to put between the raised beds to eliminate the grass and weedeating and raising the beds up another level each year until I get them up to where I don't have to bend over so much. Even though the chicken coop is only about a hundred yards away, I'm thinking about moving it into the woods at the end of the house where it will be more accessible during the cold weather and have more shade in the Summer. Plus electricity will be more easily available to it for lighting and heat. It'll be more convenient to feed and water the chickens if the weather gets real bad like it did last Winter. I'm also trying to eliminate things that are going to be constant maintenance problems and install or acquire things that are going to make life easier when the back hurts, the bones creak or the muscles ache.

Do ya'll see where this is going? I could use some other ideas but ya'll better hurry, 'cause I'm getting older every day. I'm already in the creak, groan and moan mode.

Wildman (odd moment)

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

Answers

Hmmm...interesting thoughts. I try to find ways of saving myself work now, not when I am older, but thats cuz I'm lazy! Housework is not my forte and my carpet is getting terribly stained thanks to the kids and my own lax attitude towards where they snack. Solution, we will be ripping out the carpet to have pine floors laid down (hopefuly this winter). I positioned my barn in almost the same spot as the one that used to exist on this property and cleared a path through the woodpile and assorted junk between it and the basement doors so that I don't have to walk further. My chicken coop is a leanto added to the barn with a door and laying boxes opening into the barn. I used hardware cloth to floor it so the droppings would drop through or could be raked down through to underneath the coop and cleaned out once a year. Thats a bit drafty so I banked it with bags of leaves and hay. When I raise pigs I use a pig nipple for the water and attach to a hose so I don't have to cart water back and forth between house and pen. The garden could be better positioned but it was the best place we had for it. I mulch the bed and have laid carpet in the permanent paths because nothing else was keeping the weeds down (gravel or woodshavings). I may cover the carpet with barkmulch or woodshavings for asthetic purposes. The carpet is upside down and looks pretty cruddy. Thats my bit of advice...weed barrier!! When I get older I will probably either scale back or try another lifestyle. My husband talks of us retiring to take sailing trips around the world. I said that if I can laze around, reading and drinking wine and eating bread and cheese a la the Mediterranean I'm in!!! :o)

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

Ha! Well lets see. No lawn, no animals yet (just a little cat), no grid electricity, no kitchen yet, no bathroom yet (just an open air toilet),no water piped in yet, not married (barb and I 22 year relationship she lives in town), No kids living with me, no job (retired at 50 on about 1200 a month), no tv and oh did I mention no job?

Most people have to much stuff and not enough time. I'm trying to get some more stuff with my spare time!!!!! Ha! Ha!......Kirk

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

When we added my office on to the house, we made it accessible so it could be a bedroom if need be. The bathroom has a step-in shower and holds a bath chair easily. This was put to the test when, only months after the addition was finished, my Dad moved in to be cared for.

The back door stoop has no steps, only about a 3 inch high ramp. The sidewalk goes all the way to the driveway (about 70 feet) and is 4 feet wide. Will easily take a walker or wheelchair. The hottub is on the deck right outside the door. You step down into it, no steps up or climbing over the edge. Tile and wood floors make it easy to clean. The dirty laundry is in a rolling bin in the basement.

I am sure there are other things we are doing. Just can't think of them now.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Wild man, I think I am still in shock, whoa, whats happening! I'm getting older??!!! My husband was talking about getting a Plum tree and a couple more peach and a cherry the other day. I didn't say anything but I was just thinking of how sore and cramped up my hands get when I process all that we already have!!!

MY eyes are really making me mad these days as I can't read anything without taking my glasses off!!!!!

And every time I go to a family reunion a male in my family, It's always a male! Has to commit on all the gray hair I am getting! It doesn't seem to matter that his head is COVERED with gray hair, he still has to let me know that he noticed mine. Like because I am a female that I am suppose to do something about it. Well Maybe I will and maybe I won't!!!!!

Yah, I'm still at the mourning stage, Boo Hoo, Wha wha, I'm no longer a spring chicken, no longer the bell of the ball. Now I am the matron, the mother, the rounded one, the old gray. Boo Hoo Whah!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Yes Wildman, we think of it very often. Since we are basically a self-contained homestead in that we make our own hay and some years grow our own feed and always grow our own food, we are looking at just how long we can do this. One of the really neat things we have done is how we put up our hay. We have one of the old style square bailers and you can adjust them to what size you want. We keep our bales light enough for us to lift easily and just spend a little more on twine. I went to keeping goats instead of cows because they are easier to handle and I think I could most likely milk them into fairly old age. We have slowly gone to electric starters on equipment like tiller and chipper. We keep looking at things and trying to work smarter rather than harder.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Concrete walkway around entire foundation and sold the weedeater. Two decent sized raised bed gardens with carpet walks ( no weeding, stooping and less yard). Let neighbor graze goats in what yard is left. Wife says I'm lazy, I tell her to save her breath cause my actions speak for me :>) If I'm like this at 40, wonder what I'll be like at 65 ?

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Hubby keeps telling me that I'm not getting older...I'm getting better! Just have to figure out what I'm getting better at! Even though we reached the ripe old age of 50 this year, we haven't done much to make things easier. Hubby did build himself a new wood splitter. This one is tall enough so he doesn't have to spend the time bent over! He welded the framework together with angle iron and mounted the whole thing on the front axle of a small car. Already had a hydraulic motor for it. Works pretty good and the whole thing costs less than $100.00!! I keep telling him to invent a system to get water to my barn in the winter so I don't have to lug 5 gal. buckets! I want hot water piped to the barn 'cause, as we all know, goats do not drink cold water in the winter!! Might have to move the garden closer someday. As it is we have to go downhill from our house (quite steep!), cross a stream then go uphill slightly for about 75 yds. to get to the garden. Don't know if my walker will handle that when I'm 90! Chicken coop is pretty close...about fifty yds. All flat ground. I usually shovel paths to it during the winter, but would love to find a snowblower under the Christmas tree someday :-)!!!! Hay wont be a problem, hopefully! There are several folks in my area who will deliver for a small fee if we become too decrepit to load our pickup. I will not give up my goats...although I might cut back to just one or two someday. I suppose we all have to start thinking about getting older and adapting to it. I'll think about it tomorrow :-)!!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Tren, you're so subtle. I caught the 60's colloquialism of "Wild man". If it wasn't intentional then forget I mentioned it or better yet, pretend you did it on purpose.

We have a different problem with the eyes. I can't read anything without my glasses. Between us, we could get a unrestricted drivers license.

I totally understand about the gray hair problem. Again, my problem is a little different. Women come up to me, pat my belly and ask when I'm due. Now, if I go up to a woman and pat her belly that usually ends in a loud smacking sound and my face hurting. Maybe it has to do with the amount of time my hand lingers. And if I ask her when she's due, I'd better pray that she's PG.

Kirk, sounds like you've got it made. Like you, when I had money I didn't have time. Now that I've got time, I don't have any money. Although, I've got plenty of stuff. It's old, broken or worthless but I can't get rid of it. It's mine and I'm going to keep it.

Anne, aren't you glad you planned ahead? Those are the type of things that I'm looking for. Things that are going to make it easier later. Easier now but necessary later.

Diane, we do the same with the hay (my sister raises the roof if we make them too heavy) and we're doing more and more of it in round bales. Little things like being able to drive up to where you need to unload feed and hay sure make life a lot easier.

Jay, we think alike. The less weedeating I have to do the better. If your wife thinks you're lazy, tell her you have another lazy brother in AR.

Marcia, you're lucky to have people who will deliver hay. It's really hard around here to get anyone to do anything. They say if you want help in the hay field you go looking for the high school girls because they're the only ones that'll work. If I'm going to have to work, I'd rather work with high school girls than tobacco spitting high school boys with attitudes. Most of the folks around here are farmers so they don't have time, the others are too old, some have medical problems (they're allergic to work) and all the young ones are leaving.

Thanks folks

Wildman (looking to get lazier)

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

Sheesh, Wildman.....you really blew it this time........"colloquialism"? That's WAY beyond your purported vocabulary capabilities........consider yourself outed!

About the gray hair thing.........I have expounded on this subject ad nauseum already....in CS......and I still do NOT have any.........I AM BLONDE.....so know nothing of these things.......

I do nothing to prepare for getting old; it will happen soon enough, I have no desire to encourage it by giving it attention.

Peace,

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

Em, ah, the only reason I used that word is because I was watching T.V. (PBS natch) and I must have heard it mentioned on that educational program. I'm not even sure it's a real word.

Sandy made me get off of PBS and is making me watch figure skating. They do got some nice figures, but I ain't much into the skating part!

I don't have gray hair either. I keep pulling those out! My wife calls me the Semi-bald-b***ard! And I worry more about my belly hitting my knees than I do about my hair turning gray. Or the other side hanging so low that I kick myself when I walk! Really be embarrassing to walk through Wal-Mart kicking myself in the butt and shoving my belly aside so I can zip my pants! Not gonna be a pretty sight!

I don't want to rush old age either but I'm afraid it's catching up with me. As the old saying goes, an old person moved into my body and I can't get him out!

Wildman (fighting aging)

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001