Ozark Oddments: Heavy Lifting

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Heavy Lifting

A couple of days ago I took the truck to the feed (sorry, farm supply) store in town to pick up 50 pounds of sunflower seeds. The price has doubled since before the pandemic, and I periodically debate whether I am going to continue to spend money on feeding birds with the cost of everything else so high. But watching the birds is one of my great pleasures, and so I decide to keep buying the sunflower seeds.

When I walk in the main building, I see pallets near the counter with various types of 50-pound sacks of feed, including the sunflower seeds. Yay!!! That means I will not have to drive back to the warehouse and try to back up reasonably close to the loading dock, and avoid hitting the fork lift and the wall of straw, and any farmer in his flat bed or farm truck who might also be there picking up feed. I do not do well backing up in any event and I can’t see well in the truck because of the camper shell.

So I pay for the sunflower seed (and the price is still double), and the middle-aged woman behind the counter walks over to the pallet, picks up the 50-pound sack of sunflower seeds, throws it over her shoulder, and carries it out to the truck.

I am full of admiration and amazement at her strength. It has been a very long time since I have been able to pick up a 50-pound feed sack. These days I have been cautioned not to lift anything very heavy because of the osteoporosis that has made my back so fragile.

I have had to be creative in figuring out how to do things that I used to depend on Richard to do since he was hurt a year ago and is limited in what he can do. To get the feed sack out of the back of the truck and into the basement, I put a trash can under the tailgate, slide the sack off the tailgate and into the trash can, and then position the hand truck under the trash can and wheel it into basement. The sunflower seed can stay in the trash can, which has a tight-fitting lid.

Necessity is often the mother of invention.

1 comment:

Henny Penny said...: Oh my goodness, how I can relate to this post. I was out today buying bird seed, which also has doubled in price. I also have osteoporosis with back problems, including three herniated disk in my lower back. You've come up with a pretty neat way to handle that 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds. I've found that if I lay the heavy bag across the end of the buggy and push it carefully to the car, I can roll the bag off and into the back of the car.

Your posts are always interesting and fun to read. Hope you and your husband have a Merry Christmas.; 7:56 PM

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Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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