The aging homesteader

Carla Burke wrote:..... something of an Olympic sport. ...... Oh, the pictures we paint...

Ha..LOL!  This beautifully illustrated the conundrum.  We want warmth and movement, yet can't help but feel like the Michelin tire man when in full regalia.  Can't we all have a 'dressing staff' like they did in Downton Abbey?.....someone to follow us around through chores with a full chest of toiletries and a cuppa tea when the going gets rough?

One vote for Dickies.....anyone else?

I have not used other brands, but I really love my Walls. available here.

I get cold. I have worked for several hours at a time in 20 F with 1 extra sweatshirt. Toasty. In warmer weather I do wish I had overall s instead... The website runs clearance prices in January I think. The only way we could do it for all of us.

Lol - now imagine trying to shove all that bulk down around your ankles, lol

My standard uniform is a wool shirt and vest.

Clothing is one approach. With my long and winding property, it's on my list to set up several "bucket composting toilets" with lots of biochar and tree duff in them, so I don't have to run 1/4 mile first, or do the lady squat thing. I've been thinking of trying one of those lady "shewee" things, but even then, I *don't * want one more thing in my pocket all day, so a few buckets with toilet seats for emergencies seems worth the nuisance of then having to cart them somewhere to compost.

Thanks so far to all!....  Yes, Joylynn, in addition to the link you provided, I see the local TSC store sells that brand also.  I hope to check them out this week.  John Dean.....if only! lol.  Lately it's been long underwear, flannel PJ's, and that covered by a tight-weave multi-pocketed pair of cotton scrubs.  String ties attempt to keep them up, but the downward creep over the passing hours becomes so annoying.  When the desire for dapper takes hold, I go with a pair of red suspenders that pulls the entire ensemble together, literally and aesthetically. (After a while, you just can't un-see these images.  .... or so my wife tells me! lol)  But then I need to decide which of the different 'pants' down there get's the suspender clips.  It gets confusing.....and increasingly colder weather is not helping the matter.  Thanks for the recommendations so far!....

Jay Angler wrote:Clothing is one approach. With my long and winding property, it's on my list to set up several "bucket composting toilets" with lots of biochar and tree duff in them, so I don't have to run 1/4 mile first, or do the lady squat thing. I've been thinking of trying one of those lady "shewee" things, but even then, I *don't * want one more thing in my pocket all day, so a few buckets with toilet seats for emergencies seems worth the nuisance of then having to cart them somewhere to compost.

Agreed! Doing the 'lady squat thing' with the Michelin man pooled around your ankles? No. Just. NO.

John Weiland wrote: String ties attempt to keep them up, but the downward creep over the passing hours becomes so annoying.

I have string ties in several of my farm pants, however, I don't tie them.

Do you know the "plastic spring button" gizmos that you often find on coat hood strings? Or backpack elastic holding areas? I salvage them from friend's old stuff and add them to my button jar until needed. When Hubby realized that's how I was quickly adjusting how tight my pants were (tighter for farm work if standing, a little looser during lunch break for example), he couldn't wait to get one on a pair of his pants that kept sliding down.  You just squeeze the button and pull as much of the string through as you need. So long as the size of the button is correct for the diameter of the doubled over string, they're quite secure. They do come in different sizes though.

Jay Angler wrote:

John Weiland wrote: String ties attempt to keep them up, but the downward creep over the passing hours becomes so annoying.

I have string ties in several of my farm pants, however, I don't tie them.

Do you know the "plastic spring button" gizmos that you often find on coat hood strings? Or backpack elastic holding areas? I salvage them from friend's old stuff and add them to my button jar until needed. When Hubby realized that's how I was quickly adjusting how tight my pants were (tighter for farm work if standing, a little looser during lunch break for example), he couldn't wait to get one on a pair of his pants that kept sliding down.  You just squeeze the button and pull as much of the string through as you need. So long as the size of the button is correct for the diameter of the doubled over string, they're quite secure. They do come in different sizes though.

These things? https://www.amazon.com/Drawstring-Clothing-Backpack-Sportwear-Shoelace/dp/B0778B2RH1/ref=asc_df_B0778B2RH1&mcid=391672f5fdf83ce893b92de59cf57b5e

I use these wherever I can. But, I'm trying to find some that have a longer life, because I keep killing them. They are awesome in lounge pants & on hoodies!

Carla Burke wrote:These things? https://www.amazon.com/Drawstring-Clothing-Backpack-Sportwear-Shoelace/dp/B0778B2RH1/ref=asc_df_B0778B2RH1&mcid=391672f5fdf83ce893b92de59cf57b5e

I use these wherever I can. But, I'm trying to find some that have a longer life, because I keep killing them. They are awesome in lounge pants & on hoodies!

They're the ones. Mine are usually salvaged and I haven't found that I kill most of the salvaged ones, but I have found ones that I bought in the "Sewing Department" have broken. I'd look for a backpacking or custom awning shop and see if they have sturdier ones? We got some off the web at one point and so far they're lasting also, but they're fairly big round ones.

Jay Angler wrote:....but I have found ones that I bought in the "Sewing Department" have broken. I'd look for a backpacking or custom awning shop and see if they have sturdier ones?

Yeah, camping and back-packing equipment is where I was introduced to these and was thinking of looking in a local sporting goods/outdoors store for them first..... I will give this approach a try and see if my 8-pack abs are just too Herculean for their build......  [ Ha!.....not likely. ;-) .... underneath all of that Michelin tire is a Pillsbury dough-boy... ]  But I'm also leaning toward the insulated overalls.  Not fond of that fashion for summer, but it may lessen the need in winter for layers underneath and then easier to drop to the ground for necessary maneuvers....  Thanks for the great suggestions!

You might find them in dive shops & mountain climbing shops, too. But the sewing shop ones are pretty pathetic. I've killed the salvaged ones and sewing shop ones, both. I haven't tried the ones from paracord.com or paracordplanet, yet, but I'd think they might be sturdier.

Hi John,

I just noticed your location.  Now I have to go back to my Northern MInnesota days.  Yes long johns we’re standard garb. Oddly, for the top, I still normally wore a wool shirt and a vest.  Admittedly, the shirt was heavier as was the vest.  Yes, this was for -30 and -40f.  I always kept a down jacket handy, but I only used it when I wasn’t especially active. As has already been mentioned, it was too restricting.

So I ended up getting a pair of these Tough Duck insulated coveralls.  Had never heard of the brand, but apparently they have a reasonably long lineage in Winnipeg, Canada and some of their items are sold through Northern Tool and Equipment in the U.S..  The coverall chosen has a lot of what I was looking for....apparent ruggedness, along with a simple selection of pockets, zipper mechanisms at both ends of the main zipper on the clothing piece, and relatively easy on/easy off.  The detachable hood was a plus and having chosen an extra-large size, was pleased with the fit and 'feel' of the garment.  I won't be dancing "The Nutcracker" in them anytime soon [ :-) ], but for snowblowing and winter chores, seem pretty good!  Here's hoping durability is a hallmark of the brand.....

I have similar, but I have never worn them in southern  Illinois ….I would roast to death.   When I was driving a great deal, I did keep them in my car in case I got stuck in the middle of nowhere in the winter.

At the first of the month I had a pretty long day. Got up early to feed the animas. I then spent a long day in the Big City because my wife needed a bunch of medical testing and related meetings.  We got back late. I spent more time feeding the animals.  Then had to unload groceries from the car. I was pretty fatigued. At some point my foot caught on something in the kitchen, and I was on my face.

I am doing ok from the fall.   But I have become more aware of trip hazards and 14 hour work days …..especially the two combined.   I am now searching my homestead of potential trip hazards and addressing them.

I hope you recover fast, John. And definitely something to be concerned about. I look at our future retirement home and see so many hazards I need to do something to remedy.

Ouch, John! I'm highly susceptible to over-tired falls, too. And under-healed accidents, when I've not allowed myself sufficient time to heal, before getting back to stuff I'm not yet strong enough/ don't have enough stamina to safely accomplish. It's kind of embarrassing just how often I do this - you'd think I'd learn. Some here may remember my comments a couple years ago, about a series of bad falls I had, with lasting injuries, including a chopped bone in my elbow, and some deep bruising and strained muscles, tendons, and ligaments,  over the course of about 3weeks. All but the first fall could probably have been avoided, if I'd simply allowed myself sufficient time to heal from the first one.

(So please let yourself heal from this one, before you attack more projects; please don't follow my example!)

Yes, you've got it going in the right direction. I was blessed with good genes. I'll probably live to 90+ with little *perceived* limitations to my activities, then die suddenly from doing something stupid. And that's all right with me.

HA HA!

j

Anne Pratt wrote:I once wrote an article for (the very early) Mother Earth News!  Then 35 years flew by, and . . .

I recently retired from my job, which involved a lot of sitting while driving, sitting while at the computer, and sitting in a courtroom waiting to testify.  In the last year, I've spent my time gardening, wielding a pitchfork to move wood chips around, and generally climbing around my steep property.  And in the off-hours, I'm at the physical therapist, in the Pilates class, or getting a massage.  All of those years of sitting, followed by all this activity, brings on a whole lot of pain.  I'm going to have a cart to move those wood chips soon, because hauling them up steep hills in a wheelbarrow seems like less of a good idea.

I bought a house with a first-floor bedroom and bath, and we built a big garage.  I think this place will see me through, and I belong to the Aging in Place Committee in town.  The new coop will be built to ergonomic standards!  I might also start raising the raised beds - good idea, Jay!

Hi Carla,

My common approach to any problem has been to push harder. I need to thought check more and slow down.

John F Dean wrote:Hi Carla,

My common approach to any problem has been to push harder. I need to thought check more and slow down.

My brother from another mother....

Hi Jane,

Falling never hurt anyone.   It was coming into contact with the floor that hurt.

John, right! Floors and the ground are dangerous things!

As long as I got some attention here, the fall took place 2/1. When I kneel there is severe pain in my rt knee when I put weight directly on the knee…. BUT…   I can bear weight on the knee without pain while standing, I can walk without problems, I can carry 50 pound bags of feed without any pain, I can use a shovel without issue.   There is no visible bruising or swelling.   I am wearing a knee brace not for support but to protect it.

My assumption is that nothing is broke. Is there an opposing opinion?

John F Dean wrote:As long as I got some attention here, the fall took place 2/1. When I kneel there is severe pain in my rt knee when I put weight directly on the knee…. BUT…   I can bear weight on the knee without pain while standing, I can walk without problems, I can use a shovel without issue.   There is no visible bruising or swelling.   I am wearing a knee brace not for support but to protect it.

My assumption is that nothing is broke. Is there an opposing opinion?

Can you tell precisely where the sharp pain originates? In the front side of the patella? Behind the patella? Between the femur & tibia/fibula connection? Deeper in the ball/socket? Off to the side, where it might be the miniscus? By the lack of bruising or swelling, I kind of doubt there's a break, but there could be internal swelling, in the soft tissue connections behind the patella, that wouldn't necessarily be visible, but could still be acutely painful.

I believe I've recommended a deep tissue ointment for one of your prior injuries, but you might also use a mixture of dmso and an arnica linement. I fully agree with using the brace to support it, and I've even used them, at times for nothing more than to remind myself to baby the injury, a while longer, to let it heal more fully, even while I still 'get back to work'.

Rt knee. Alongside inside edge of patella. Applying pressure feels like a rug burn. Applying more pressure sharp pain.  The pain levels have dropped since immediately after the fall. For example. For several hours afterward the knee felt like a rug burn without contact.  For several days afterward pressure would result in intense pain.

To stress a point, there is zero discomfort as long as no pressure is applied. Normal ADLs are not affected.  

I'm not a doctor, by any stretch of the imagination, but I AM horribly accident prone, with a genetic (EDS) tendency toward soft-tissue instability, and the pain description sounds very much like what I've felt (multiple times) when, in diagnoses, my injuries revealed strained &/or torn ligaments &/or tendons. If you've made the ointment or linement, I'd use it. If not, getting some form of a combination of arnica & St John's wort on it, regularly, babying it, keeping it elevated... These are things that have helped me through frighteningly similar injuries.

Sorry to hear about your knee John.
Let me share my knee story with you as a motivator to see a specialist. After a skiing accident in my teens, the advice the doctor offered was physical therapy. I did the exercises until the knee sort of healed then continued with my youthful active lifestyle.
In my adulthood, I would occasionally “tweak” the inner workings of the knee. After that I’d support it with an Ace bandage or brace, stay off it and walk around with crutches for a week or so. For pain relief, I tried recipes for healing balms made of plants as well as over-the-counter products. I resigned myself to a lifetime with a bum knee.
About a decade ago, I really got fed up with the pain and decided to face my fears: arthroscopy, knee replacement, arthritis injections…. All the worst possible outcomes floated through my mind.
I went to a sports medicine clinic, lined up with dozens of others for x-ray, then was ushered into a room to wait for the orthopedic surgeon to give me the bad news.
After looking at the images, conducting a 5 minute examination of the knee bending in all sorts of directions he said, “Your knee is fine. Years of babying it has left you with muscle atrophy on one side and impacting your gait, which is causing the pain. You need physical therapy. Report to the front desk for PT sessions.” He said goodbye and darted out of the room.
I was ecstatic, yet also very regretful that I let fear get the best of me. The actual imaging, professional assessment, and a post-PT-daily-exercise-routine has addressed the issue that I avoided for too long. No more pain.
I feel duty bound to encourage anyone suffering with pain to check in with medical experts who rely on extensive training coupled with imaging technology. Please get the full picture of the problem then look at the treatment options with an open mind. Hopefully, non-invasive options are within reach.
Best wishes to you John!

I moved from private property life to an intentional community. My cabin is off grid but has solar lights and a well 20 feet away (this was an improvement for me).
The main support of others of like mind living with intention gives me peace of mind.

Welcome to Permies Lara!

It has been three weeks since the fall. I am keeping the brace on.  As I commented earlier, it is to protect from bumps rather than it is for support.  The fall has not impacted my mobility. The only time there is pain is when pressure is applied at certain points.   Those points are shrinking , and there is less pain with pressure.  So, I am pretty optimistic.  

While I am still of the opinion it is a sprain, the three week time frame leaves me less confident.  Still, there in no swelling. I can bear weight without discomfort.   I can walk without discomfort. I can lift 50 pound feed bags without issue.  

Hmm... This sounds in line with potentially a MCL strain. It isn't unusual for the recovery process to be around a months time so I hope that gives you some relief. No swelling is very good. Continued swelling tends to tip off towards being a tear or so.

The best non-doctor advice I can give you is to not baby it but to baby it. By this, I mean make sure you are walking but don't start doing the twist if you know what I mean?

John, I regularly tweak my knees, from an earlier lifetime of playing competitive soccer (and running lots of miles on pavement), too much horseback riding, and being a hyperflexible person with strangely formed cartilage and bone (osteochondromalacia) who dislocates everything. Doctors told me as a kid with dislocations there was nothing wrong with me, as an adult they tell me it's impossible I'm still able to move, so I don't take them seriously.

I've had partial tears and dislocations in the knee. In both cases, the associated swelling lasted (multiple) months but ultimately healed up fine, and I kept using the knee the whole time.
Using a brace is great, I've found that icing and elevation can do absolute wonders. Maybe see if you can minimize the carrying of 50lb bags (plop them off the truck into a wheelbarrow? I know you have critters to feed, but maybe carry as little as you can possibly carry). But really, ice regularly and elevate if you can. Internal swelling is not visible, the stuff in the knee is really packed inside there tightly, but even the tiniest bit of swelling can cause pain and limited function.

Hi Timothy,

Maybe.   ROM does not seem to be affected. Pain is brought on by kneeling or applying pressure to those spots that would be impacted if I was kneeling.

This...

  minimize the carrying of 50lb bags  

My good friend has an old photo of me with a bag of goat feed on my shoulder, barefoot, big pregnant headed up the rocky trail to our cabin

Makes for a memoriable photo but adds up to 'not so smart' fifty years later.

Now that we have this flatish acre, I can move that much weight and more quite easily around the yard with a smallish dolly...sometimes a wheelbarrow but the dolly is easier to load and move esp for big pots of soil and bulk food orders.

Judith Browning wrote:...I can move that much weight and more quite easily around the yard with a smallish dolly...sometimes a wheelbarrow but the dolly is easier to load and move esp for big pots of soil and bulk food orders.

As we get older, a variety of "wheels" is ideal. I've got a dolly and a 2 wheeled wheel barrow that I use a *lot*.  I just got my Running Cart (3 wheels) repaired, but haven't needed it yet. My Garden Cart died of old age, but its replacement is in the queue. What it can do that the others aren't as good at is moving dog crates with live birds in them.

Granted, my property has several changes of elevation and is long and skinny, so I need the right tools to manage things, coupled with being on the small size.

Jay Angler wrote:   I've got a dolly and a 2 wheeled wheel barrow that I use a *lot*.  I just got my Running Cart (3 wheels) repaired, but haven't needed it yet. My Garden Cart died of old age, but its replacement is in the queue. What it can do that the others aren't as good at is moving dog crates with live birds in them.  

Garden cart, yes.  The big wheeled one with the removable 'tail gate'?
We used ours a lot and now it's waiting on $$$ for some solid tires rather than the many times patched tube tires.  I thought it worked well for leaning upright and flopping a hay bale in...that and for some reason I was rearranging logs with it when we first moved here.

The one wheel wheelbarrow gets used a lot also but too big a load and it's tippy...

Do you have a photo of the 3 wheeled running cart? I'm trying to picture it.

Judith Browning wrote:Do you have a photo of the 3 wheeled running cart? I'm trying to picture it.

We got this from a Charity Shop over a decade ago, and it was old when the shop got it. It had a sling seat for a baby, which I removed. I carefully made the wooden platform, and there's a strap I added at the back with a clip on it, so things can be slid on from the back and with the strap secured, they can't slide off. It will fit 2 square buckets, which we use for moving feed and other things like compost around the property.



There are two plastic bits that hold the front wheel in place, and Hubby overloaded the cart once too often and broke one. He kept insisting he'd make a replacement out of metal, but my son gave up waiting and printed me a pair on his 3D printer. It took two tries, as the first set was just a bit too small and didn't fit. I used stainless #10 bolts to hold them in place, so if the plastic doesn't last, it will be easy to replace again, but at least in the meantime, I've got it back in action.



The angles of the bars that used to hold the baby sling, decrease the usefulness, but for what we paid, we've used it a lot. What it looses in efficiency of design, it makes up for in shear light weight and excellent rolling - you don't want to let go of it on a slope!

Has anyone else noticed that their doctors look like they just graduated from the 8th grade?   I mean, shouldn’t an MD at least look like a high school graduate?

the joke in our house was always "when the cops look like high school students, you're officially old." i didn't realize it also extended to every other profession, once i got old enough.....
i found myself breathing a sigh of relief in january when i realized that the surgeon who operated on my husband was old enough to shave.