Renovations, Mam’s fall

When we bought the house we are in now there were four large mirrors in the bathroom but they were brass looking and ornate. Mama did not like that look so I took them down – the painters needed them out of the way anyway - and we have been storing them for reuse. Mama has had it in mind for months now to get them in shape to rehang.

Over the past several days Mama has been working on those mirrors to get them textured and painted. She had them almost ready on Tuesday but one of the two was not completely dry. Last night they were ready to install. I got them up without too much trouble. Mama was pleased but it only served to get her fired up about getting a lot of other little things done.

I started to install a new ceiling fan in our bedroom but the ceiling under the old ceiling fan needed to be scraped and painted. Since the fan had not been taken down while the painters were in the house – they needed the light it provided in the room - the ceiling under the housing of the fan still had the popcorn on it. Mama does not like that at all. We decide to go to Lowe’s to get a medallion to cover the ugly ceiling and put it up before I installed the new fan – which has a much smaller part that attaches to the ceiling. Mama is painting that medallion today.

The fifteen dollar medallion ended up costing me another hundred dollars because the fan needed a light kit and the entry need a new light and the transition trim from the kitchen to the sunken living room needed to be replaced. I stopped her there. We will have to wait a bit before some of the other little things that aggravate her get addressed; before Alfredo and his wife come for a visit next month.

After we got back from Lowes we got the hay and feed I had had Mama buy earlier that day out of the back of the truck. Our one lone cow is getting thin looking as she nurses her not so little bull calf and I have no more round bales to give her. So we paid the premium price for square bales to supplement until the ground is dry enough to get another round bale to her.

We will be picking up several bales this afternoon but I cannot get them to the barn without burying the tractor which is heavy enough without a thousand pound bale scooped up in the bucket. We bought enough small bales to get by until the middle of next week. It will just require a little more work on Mama’s and my part.

As we were taking the feed – loaded in a wheelbarrow - through the gate at the back of the carport Mama, who was trying to walk with me to steady the bales of hay, caught her foot on the discharge shield of her mower and fell down hard. Fortunately, she did not hit any obstacles in her fall but she landed on her left side with her arm under her as she fell.

By the time we finished at the barn and got back to the house her elbow was starting to bruise and her shoulder was hurting. She is going to be very sore today.