Summertime Blues

 

by Pa Rock

Retiree

This marks the eighth summer that I have been in residence at my retirement retreat in the Missouri Ozarks.  I was sixty-six when I arrived here in late March of 2014, and now I am seventy-four.  I have managed to travel some since moving here - Cuba and Alaska were memorable, as was Hawaii - but for the most part my trips outside of Missouri have basically been to check in on the grandchildren.  I also had dreams of writing something important, but that has slowly settled into just pounding out this blog on a daily basis.

A cousin who is about my age told me at a family gathering a couple of years ago, "Rocky, all I seem to do  is mow." and I had to admit that was an accurate portrayal of my life as well.  I mow, and mow, and mow, and two or three times a years someone tells me in passing how beautiful the yard is and how it looks like a park.   That appears to be the brunt of my legacy, so I will probably have it carved on my tombstone:  "He had a beautiful yard!"

This summer I vowed not to mow as much, and, while it was still raining, I would wait a few extra days between each mowing cycle - so I was mowing just a bit less.  Then, four weeks or so ago it quit raining.  Now the grass has turned brown and quit growing, so I am not mowing or even worrying about it, but with the dry weather and constant heat comes the other issue of keeping all of the outdoor plants watered so they don't die.  Now I am carrying water to many potted plants, bushes, and young trees, some once a day and others twice a day.

If it's not the mowing, it's the watering.  And every day I am that much older, and that much more tired.  In fact, I am seventy-four and I am damned tired.

I made up my mind last week - finally - that it was time to sell this house and ten acres that I refer to as "the farm" or "Rock's Roost."  I have kept it up well over the past eight years, and made several nice improvements, but it is slowly defeating me -  or the years are - and I recognize that.

Monday I had a realtor come out and look at the place.  She has over two decades of experience selling in this area and knows the market.  She believes that once I pull the trigger (sign the listing) it will sell quickly, and her major worry was that I would not be able to get all of my stuff out of here in a timely manner - and it would be a challenge.

So I started putting together a mental plan of how to move everything, one minor component of which will be a yard sale.  I had an old homemade wooden table in the barn that I wanted to get out and clean up to use in the sale, so I thought I might as well begin with that simple step.  When I got to the barn, I found two tables, both in need of a good scraping, and both just big enough that moving them by myself was difficult.  When I went to prop open the old barn door, which I had made by hand several years ago, I found it to be warped to the point that it would not open far enough to allow for the removal of one of the tables.  

Removing the barn door took a trip to town for a special tool, and four hours after beginning I finally was able to get the two tables outside and ready to be scraped.

Yesterday I put another four hours into the project.  During that period I was able to get the tables cleaned up, and then loaded onto as wheelbarrow and moved to a sheltered area where they are ready to be used in the sale.  Now I had eight hours into the project and and managed to move two tables approximately fifty yards.

It is going to be a very long summer!  I am not giving up - at least not yet - but I am also not fantasizing that it will all somehow manage to magically come together.  It's going to take strength and stamina to get through this move, and at my age those are declining resources.

At least I don't have to worry about mowing right now!