Robbed maybe not! Helped maybe not!

[johnb]

Just had tell ya about trying to help my neibor with his saw chain. Went over to see what he needed for new saw chain and maintence as I do every year or so. He's an 80 year old ex-farmer that still goes to the woods and cutts his own wood. After and hour of looking everywhere for his 3 chainsaws we decided they were robbed. Two Stihls and a Husky pilfered from an old mans barn. I kept thing sad as we had given up the search and headed for my truck, but I remembered seeing an old military truck that his son-in-law keeps in one of his barns and thought I wonder. After climbing the tires and lookin over the 4 foot sides there they were setting in the corner of the bed safe and secure. I blurted hear they are out of sight. I explained he probably put them there for safety but in reality I think they want the old man to stop cutting wood. I left them there but he knows where they are so, did I help him (not sure). The Hoosier

 

[sachsmo]

If the old boy is still cutting his own wood, I sure as heck would tell him where they are.

 

[SteveH]

My nearest neighbor is a guy a half mile up the road who is 93. He still cuts his wood and, in fact, last year bought another chainsaw.

I go up there and drop trees for him and cut the trunks into about six-foot sections. So he won't be either felling or wrestling with suspended and risky big trunks. If I do any more than that, he is really ticked off. As it is, I have to pretend I just want to fool around with my saws and drop some trees. He buys it, or acts as if he does, but he lets me do it. He loves limbing and bucking and runs a gasoline-powered splitter though these days he keeps it permanently in the vertical mode so he does not have to lift anything up onto it.

Don't know about your neighbor, mine is going strong at 93.

 

[Chris J.]

My wife has a friend who's father is in his late 80s, he insists on doing the work around his small farm and she worries about him. I told my wife to tell her if his time comes while he's out working, she can know that he exited this world doing what made him happy.

 

[Mastermind]

No matter how old I get no one had better hide my saws, or any of my stuff from me. I would be a pissed off MFer.

 

[Brian13]

Although I am still young, I firmly believe you dont get old until you start to act like it. I had an aunt who was splitting her own wood until her late 70's. Activity keeps you young.

 

[audible fart]

No matter how old I get no one had better hide my saws, or any of my stuff from me. I would be a pissed off MFer.

cjcocn will hide your billy ray cyrus cd's from you.

 

[the westspartan]

If the old man wants to cut, let him cut. If his well-meaning family finally talks him into not working, the same people will be trying to talk him into going out and getting exercise in a few months. My aunt in KY is 90+years old and she is still out pushing a mower around her yard and running her tractor around what's left of the farm. There is a reason why these old people can still cut wood.......................because they never stopped cutting wood. Its not the same as taking some 80year old guy that worked behind a desk his whole life and then retired to play golf and then sending him out to cut a couple cords of wood.

 

[Mastermind]

cjcocn will hide your billy ray cyrus cd's from you.

OK I'll bite. Who in the hell is this billy ray cyrus??? A motivational speaker or something?

 

[Rearden]

Farmer up the road from me has grand kids my age...and I'm a grandfather myself. He gave most of his land to his kids over the years but still farms about 50 or so acres closest to the house himself, raises a couple of beef cattle and some hogs. No body told him to go organic, he recycles manure as fertilizer and grows his own feed 'cuz that's what his pappy did. Keeps two mules that he hitches to plow when he doesn't feel like listenin' to the racket of the tractor, and still puts up hay all by his lonesome. I thought I was being a good Samaritan when I stopped by one day to buy some straw and offered to help him load a couple of trailers into the barn.

Now I ain't no spring chicken, but I was always athletic and have done pretty physical work all of my life, but that crusty old dried bit of ancient leather worked me half to death. Time we finished I was sneezin' and wheezin', gasping for breath and soaked in sweat. Buck turns and asks me if I wanna help with the rest - 'cuz he's got four more trailer loads to put up before lunch!?

Stay the hell away from those oldsters. They'll kill you long before they'll hurt themselves.

Just by coincidence, I know his son - whose a truck driver - and when I had occasion to ask him why he didn't farm like his daddy, without skippin' a beat he looks dead at me and asks if I'm nuts and adds "hat work will destroy any mere mortal!"

 

[dingeryote]

Get those saws out and tuned up for him.

Old Farmers run on momentum. If they stop and actually slow down, they aren't long for this world.
Have seen it too many times.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[alderman]

Nobody can make up his mind for him. I took a small tree down for my elderly neighbor. I offered to buzz into pieces, but he insisted on doing it himself.

No protective gear whatsoever. No chain break.

I head for home and a bit later get a call from the neighbor asking if I would finish cutting up the tree.

Seems he was cutting, tripped backwards, went flat on his back. The saw, still running, got thrown in the air and stabbed bar first right next to where he was laying. He figured somebody was trying to tell him something and gave up the saws that day.

 

[tallguys]

Yes, my grandfather was 91 when he was called from this world but almost until the end he kept doing all the things that made him happy. I still have his 031AV.

 

[Rearden]

I thought ya had to be able to cut wood or Canadian law required that you be set adrift on an iceberg? :msp_ohmy:

 

[les-or-more]

Get those saws out and tuned up for him.

Old Farmers run on momentum. If they stop and actually slow down, they aren't long for this world.
Have seen it too many times.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

Yep, farmer a mile up the road sold the house he had lived in all his life,barn and last 40 acres, friday he passed monday night.

 

[smilin possum]

Don't let nobody begrudge him of what he loves to do.
My uncle is 80 and he stihl goes to the woods and cuts and splits his on wood. He don't get around to fast he's had 9 strokes and can't crank his big saw so I bought him a new Stihl 170 easystart for his birthday. He is so proud of it he carries it in the tool box on his truck and has showed everybody how easy it is to crank.

At home he throws his stuff in his golf cart that he put bigger tires on and hauls butt out thru the pasture slinging cow pies and mud eveywhere. He's done this all his life and if he were to stop I actually thing it would lead to his demise. He's doing what he loves and if he leaves this world out there in the woods he went doing what he knew and loved.

Let um do what they want to do it helps them more than you know. Uncle Ern falls and yes i worry he's going to hurt himself but the last time LP and me helped him cut wood he fell and I asked if he was alright and if he needed any help, he told me to get his damn hat and he'd get up when he got good and ready.
How do you argue with that?

Saw Safe

 

[Richard Dupp]

Seems to me about the last thing you want to do is take someone's independence away from them. Yeah, there comes a time, but this society seems to want to force that time on oldsters way before they are ready. Just remembering my dad and how he cherished his independence.

 

[Rearden]

Lewis Black did a bit about how little modern medicine actually understands about us that's classic. He talked about some guy they found living a perfectly happy and trouble free life alone in New York City at the age of 102 or so. The story goes that when asked about his diet, he responded (I'm trying to paraphrase from a beer sotted memory) that from the age of about 83 his diet had consisted of 3 bottles of Thunderbird a week...fat back and bread fried in lard. He went further to say that when asked why he fried his bread in lard, the old man protested "'cuz fat back's too lean!"

Black commented that had the doctors gotten a hold of him they would have had him instantly on a diet of twigs and berries...and he'd of been dead in a week. One of the strongest supports that old folks have in staying vital and engaged is in being able to maintain their routines. My father's father died of a sudden heart attack sittin' in his easy chair readin' the paper no more than two months after his third attempt at retiring. My grandmother had just freshened up his coffee before going out for her morning bike ride down along the river, and she found him on her return, still sittin' and holdin' the paper. We buried him later that week and without her hubby of the last 50 years, she passed away two weeks later. Takin' care of him was her whole life after the kids were all grown and gone, and with William (never heard her call him anything but Mr. or William) gone, she just didn't have the will to adjust to that much change. It's probably a combination of a lot of things, but I don't think there's much denying that it can be as much mental as it is physical that finally ends the game.

 

[turnkey4099]

Get those saws out and tuned up for him.

Old Farmers run on momentum. If they stop and actually slow down, they aren't long for this world.
Have seen it too many times.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

Yep, up in my age bracket it is "use it or lose it" and once gone you ain't gonna get it back.

I'm a bit worried about next year. I have few prospects to do some"knock and ask"s but have nada lined up for cutting.

Harry K

 

[superwd6]

I'd sooner die by chainsaw accident then linger on for 10 years crapping myself in some old folks home. So long as he's not hurting any one else help him out a little