Gma's say the funniest things

Okay, here we go again.



So, we're sitting in the Dr.'s office and he says,


"Now that you're 89, it time to make a few decisions. If something should happen to you like a stroke or a heart attack, would you want to be put on machines or just wave to the angels on your way out?"

Her response,

"I guess that would depend on how old I got!"

First time for everything

Hey! I mowed the grass for the first time! Yeah!

Okay, I know it doesn't look very good yet, but its coming.
Just imagine a circular drive through that weedy part and you've got it.

Funny Grandma

I have been working on getting Gma and Gpa Wickham to outline their programs for their funerals. I know it sounds weird, but you know I'll have to figure it all out, and they have their own ideas about how it should go... so, I'm trying to get a head start.

Gma gave me the names of 2 songs that she wants sung at her funeral. They are very old and have been VERY hard to find sheet music for since they're both out of print. So, I finally found the song "Trees" online and ordered it. There was only one and it was used but its the only one I've found. So when it arrived in the mail, I called Gma to tell her the good news. "Good news! I found Trees! The bad news is that it doesn't have any words with it." And she said....... "That's ok. I know the words!"

Tom's a muddy kid!

I needed to post this awhile ago, but here ya go!


Out at the "lower ranch" we water the animals by sucking water out of a hole Tom dug with a sump pump attached to a hose. It works very well, actually. It didn't start out that way and it has gone through an interesting evolutionary process to get where it is right now.

At first Chris rigged an auto water pump to a stationary bicycle with a hose down in the hole and another hose coming off the pump. That worked fairly well, but it had some structural problems and the pump tended to get plugged up with the not so clean water. Every so often, the hole would need revising and it would become enlarged in the process. Before long, the "well" was quite an impressive hole in the ground and contained a large amount of water. They had put a piece of plywood over the hole to keep things, and small pigs, and clumsy people out of the water.

That was all great for a time, but as one thing leads to another, this leads me to the story that I was going to tell.


Tom went out to water one afternoon and found that his well had been invaded by a very large sow and her babies. (There's no sheet of plywood in the world that can stand up to a 600 pound thirsty sow.) Chris was also there, and between them (I'm not really sure about the finer points of this part) they managed to cut a step in the side of the well that allowed the sow to scramble her way out of the hole. Unfortunately, there were 3 of her babies drowned at some point in the process. But, considering the situation, I think we got off lucky!

Now, the sow having been rescued, there was the well to consider. As you can imagine, the sow had totally thrashed the hole in her efforts to escape. But Tom, was not discouraged! He climbed right in there and started cleaning it out with his trusty shovel. He made it bigger and better, completely cleaned out and straightened up. He and Chris set the sump pump back up in the bottom of the well with a bucket for protection, and covered it over with big old logs, and plywood. It looks great. It works great too. Now anyone can go out, turn on the switch on the generator, pull one time to start the generator and water pours forth from the hose with great efficiency! Its awesome. (And Tom showered up just fine!)

What a birthday!

Well, the good news is that Tom will live. The bad news is that he's not going to be very happy about that for the next couple of weeks. He has Mono! No, it's not West Nile Virus, although at the beginning he did show all the symptoms of that. Then he got worse and we were sure it was strep. He has some lovely white spots on his tonsils! But alas, when he tested negative for strep, they did a blood test for mono and it came back positive. The doctor just called me. What a bummer for your birthday, eh?
When Tom wasn't at church on Sunday Pres./Dr. Christensen asked alot of questions about his symptoms. He warned that mono often masquerades as strep and we should get him tested to make sure. He kinda leaned toward the mono and so did we. Tom was hoping for strep cause a good dose of antibiotics will fix that right up. Whereas, mono just takes time to get over and there's not much to be done for relief. Of course, there's also the teasing rights of others, especially family, when you get the "kissing decease"! So, essentially, there's no relief in sight for Tom on any level!
Also, an interesting side note, Dr. Christensen said that if all the mosquitos in the whole county bit Tom, there wouldn't be enough West Nile virus present to even make him sick. So, that was nice to know. We don't have to worry about that.


So, Happy Birthday to Tom! Poor soul! He is one miserable kid! You can see how swollen his eyes are. He's not just squinting into the camera. The swelling actually started last week and we were puzzled by that cause he said he didn't feel sick or anything. I asked him if he was crying himself to sleep. (He said no) :) But it kept getting worse and then the sore throat started. It took as few days before he actually felt sick, but then.. Oh Baby!! He has been so miserable. I asked the doctor about the swelling and he said it was like a side effect of all the massive congestion in his head. But the good news is that he has one week of it under his belt and he only has about another week to suffer before he can find some relief from his terrible sore throat, fever, aches and headache. What fun! he has requested to not celebrate his birthday until he feels alittle better so he can enjoy it.