Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[farmerjan]

Monday eve. Getting ready to get a shower and get to bed.....early morning to leave for Durham NC for an ankle dr appt. Had PT today and he did some measurements on the angles the ankle will go, and general info on the progress. He says he thinks I would benefit from a few more weeks therapy, especially since I got a "late start" due to the longer than expected restrictive boot when I couldn't get in for the appt and x-rays in April. Plus, they are helping with some knee movement, exercises etc.... and I really would like to keep it going. Of course he is the ankle replacement dr.... but hoping that he will keep me going for a little bit to help with the knees which is helping with the ankle as movement is a little freer in the ankle with the knees doing some stretching etc....
The PT is going to give my name to one of his patients that had knee replacement done at a dr that I am considering. I asked if there was anyone who would talk to me about what they liked/didn't like about this dr..... I have heard good things. He couldn't give me the persons name, but I said he could give my name to this person so they can call me and we could talk. Won't hurt to get a patients opinion.
I also talked to an "older man" who was coming out when I went in, and he has major ankle problems.....has seen the dr I talked to a couple of years ago and they say he is not a good candidate for a replacement.... I told him about what a good experience I had overall, and told him to consider going to my ankle Dr at Duke, and at least get another opinion. I looked nearly 5 years to find this one and am SOOOOOOO glad I did. Maybe he can't help this other man, but what is a consultation appt going to hurt? I would love for him to go there and find that Dr Adams could maybe do something to help him. My PT guy said that of course he couldn't disclose info but that they guy had some major issues with his ankle, and that he didn't have alot of options at this point. Well, my "option" was FUSE IT by about 6 different doctors.... and look where I am. I really hope he at least looks into it.

Sunny and humid today, supposed to have 60% chance of showers and got one quick little one that barely got the roads wet. Tomorrow supposed to be even more chance then several days of clearing off and drier. Will probably cut hay tomorrow if it doesn't wind up raining again... or cut it at least on Wed.

Dropped meters off at the farm that tests their own cows, will pick up on Wed morning. Have PT Wed morning, drop off the rental car that I am driving down tomorrow, get the meters and stuff, stop by the house and get the rest of the meters, and then take to the big farm that I am going to test Wed aft/Thurs morning. Going to be a long day Wed......

Looked at another company that does the storage buildings, got a few more ideas/prices. Lady spent quite a bit of time with me and various possibilities which impressed me. Prices right in that 5,000 range. They have a "July sale" of 7% off if you pay cash/check..... That's 2-400 all according to what I "order"....

Habitat "Restores" are closed here except for appts. ; not very productive there.

The guys didn't come back to my son's property today.... I understood them to say they had a couple of other jobs they were behind on.... and they had to "start" my sons in order to comply with the "land disturbance" permits..... this way they can get an automatic renewal since the job is started. So that might work in my favor on the house and the boxwoods/tree removal as far as the closing and it taking place before I get it done. Talked to the ins lady for a few minutes, we tossed around the amount that I might want to insure for..... since I am putting down 20% only have to actually insure for the borrowed amount... but I told her I would rather go higher, like 100,000, since it would take all of that to rebuild the existing structure anyway.... plus it gives me more on the outbuildings.... she is going on vacation next week and so we will talk after July 6th which is plenty of time before the possible closing of July 18th at the earliest. I said I was looking at the week of July 20th....

Got the little truck moved for the guy who is working/helping us. Got to sit down and see what we can come up with as a fair deal as far as # hours worked in exchange for the truck.... Also got another mower that was at the previous mechanics shop.... she is closed up and selling the property since her mother got sick and she had to take care of her and then passed away. It is in pretty good shape, and since mine has steering issues now, can hopefully make one good one out of the 2 and have a few extra parts. Both engines are pretty good, extra mowing deck, blades, all that sort of stuff. So he is going to see what all it needs and get it running so that I can use it. Also a friend of his has a smallish little trailer for sale for 150 that the mower will fit on; and since I can't seem to get my son to do things since he is back seeing the GF that messed his head up while he was recooperating from the broken femur..... I need to get something to use to be able to move it back and forth to both houses while I am working on the new one and still living at the rental. Then I will have the freedom of doing it myself. Those small trailers cost more than that, and I can put a "slow moving vehicle triangle" on it to just go the 5 miles or so back and forth. And it will be mine to do with what I want, WHEN I want or need to. Another small expense that I wasn't counting on, but my son had promised for the last 3 weeks to go get the truck after getting after me to find out about it, and didn't do it. So when the mower was also available, I decided that it needed to be done and he got a guy to go get both at the same time.

Guess that's all the news for right now. Gotta get going....

 

[Baymule]

Make sure on your house insurance that you get Full Replacement. If you don't, they depreciate your house, then pay you a portion of the insured value. Just another way to screw the customer.

 

[Bruce]

Won't hurt to get a patients opinion.

Not at all, best to have a first person account of the doctor.

 

[Mini Horses]

Most insurances actually require you to insure at the CURRENT per sq ft aver cost of a new built home, for the sq ftg of the insured one. It is full replacement. That is for stick built. Mobile homes are like auto -- insured for resale value. Plus here, the barns and equipment sheds are valued at a set price, while a garage is considered "part of the house" value, even if detached. Yeah weird. So if not listed & value placed, my barn could blow away and I would get only tears! It's a "farm policy", so some issues are covered for workment's comp, animals, liabilities, etc., that are not in the usual intown coverages. Just not needed.

 

[Bruce]

My barns are so old and in such sad shape the insurance companies won't insure them at all.

 

[farmerjan]

Talked to the ins lady on the way home from NC dr appt. She did some figuring at different amounts of coverage.... and even though the house is costing 75... it is getting insured for 96..... at a cost difference of $26 per year. Once I do the work, she said we can up the coverage even more. The "outbuildings" are 10% of the value of the house.... so if I add a 5,000 building, it is insured for 9600 value if it is destroyed.... @Mini Horses is right about farm policies being different, but it seems to me that you could get some insurance on the actual barn structure.... I know that my son has it on his pole barn that he built. Don't know what all else he has on the structures at the farm he has, where the house is rented out. Since he has the ins all with the GF at Farm Bureau ins... I have not been privy to it.... Another reason why I am not getting ins with her either. Plus the other big farm ins co that I am going with, a neighbor farmer said that he switched to them a couple years ago because the rates were better and he got more coverage..... I don't want to have any financial dealings with her so there are no hard feelings down the road.

It isn't a good situation with her again. Found out he took her with him up north; and it upset my father and the caregivers that he brought her to the house there. My father has had a cold for a couple weeks, and he did not want any one outside family there, and my other brother has gone there with gloves and mask and all, to do it "right" with their feelings and the precautions. Plus the caregivers are also taking care of another elder lady and they were upset that my son did not take any precautions and had a stranger there with him. My brother that I don't see eye to eye with called me this eve and we had a good talk. He was pretty put out because my son did not follow any precaution protocol with them being older and having immune compromised systems; my father having the stroke last year, my mom's dementia and such.... wanted me to maybe say something to my son. I told my brother that after the dr appt tomorrow for my father, that he needs to just say that no non-family members are allowed, masks are required.... and I told him to "blame it" on the doctors orders. I don't expect that my son will be going up there any time soon again anyway. There is too much here that needs to be done now.

We do not do masks and such here much, although they are required like at PT and the Dr office today. But even the Dr and I were talking about it and he thinks that we will never get this straightened out if we keep up all this extreme lockdown and don't get some exposure to get our immune systems built up. He also said that the increase in cases are in his opinion mostly due to the increased testing, and that more and more of the younger people that are testing positive are also not having many or any symptoms and they are mild. He also feels that there are more false positives that are being reported than are known because there are some factors that cause the false positives. I do know that I will not go voluntary test.... they say to be sure you need to test every other day... WTH .... and that many have some exposure are testing positive when it is theri immune systems actually mounting a response.

Yes it is serious for those that are immune compromised.... but there is a new report out by some Nobel prize winner that says that the virus will basically die off when we hit like 15-20% of the population showing positive.... I did not read it, just heard about it on a "liberal" radio broadcast on the way home.... they were trying to discredit it and then there were some other experts that were citing this nobel prize winning scientist's facts of previous viruses and how they react and what the course is that they follow. Will have to see if I can find more about it.

Internet has been iffy, will post this and do more later.

 

[Bruce]

but there is a new report out by some Nobel prize winner that says that the virus will basically die off when we hit like 15-20% of the population showing positive

That sounds like total BS. The virus is going to say "I hit 20% of the humans, good enough for me"? And all the Covid-19 viruses around the world had a conference and agreed that they would all just die at that time? Maybe it will die off then because the other 80% have already had it and the 20% is the only remaining population not exposed prior? AND, why do we still have flu and cold viruses year after year? Why don't they all die after 20% of the human population gets infected?

Sorry, not buying it.

so if I add a 5,000 building, it is insured for 9600 value if it is destroyed

I think that would be "up to $9,600" depending on the replacement cost. If all the out buildings burned the company would still be on the hook for only $9,600 total.

 

[farmerjan]

Yeah, I did not state it correctly.... but the point is that we are going to insure for more than the required amount of the loan due to the potential of the house's value going up as soon as I do some work on it.....I will have to exact wording once we have a closing date, I will get the paperwork.

Did the 2x herd Wed eve and Thursday morning (today). Knees giving me a fit ...... Spent several hours on the tedder, and tomorrow will be the rake. Son tore up the discbine on some ledge this afternoon late.... says it is major.... taking it to the dealer tomorrow to see if they can repair/replace the cutter bar.... he said probably in the neighborhood of 6-10,000..... Holy cow......He carries insurance on it specially for damage because they are like 33,000 new now..... ALWAYS SOMETHING..... but I have a feeling he was not paying as close attention as he should be.....because he is usually so very careful of the rocks and ledges..... I am afraid to ask who he was on the phone with.... because I am afraid it was her again. They were constantly on the phone, back when he came off the truck wrong and broke his femur.... he was in a rush to go see her so one of his friends told me recently and was not paying attention and that is why he slipped.... They are not very happy he is back with her either because they said she will ruin him....

 

[farmerjan]

Can I lock him in his room??????

 

[farmerjan]

Got to get a shower, I am itchy and dirty and all that. Cancelled my PT tomorrow due to being in the hay field raking.
Got 6 more weeks of it by prescription from the dr so that will help with both the ankle and knees anyway. May as well take all I can get. I will be going 2x a week instead of 3 which will be easier to do and the appts are earlier so not as much of a pain to drop everything in the middle of the day since we are into hay and such.
Farms are also trying to deal with the weather and haying.... so not that big a deal to get them to test. Have the 525 cow herd tentatively scheduled for next Wed morning.... was going to do it Tuesday but I took that available dr appt for the PA to look at the knees that the ankle dr suggested. I sure hope that I can walk on Wed..... hoping that they do decide to do some sort of injections if she thinks it will help the pain..... but how it will affect me will be the trick for testing the next morning....