Whew.. what a day folks. We live on a farm. One would think that would be GOOD a good thing and in many ways it is. We have tractors, mowers, various farm equipment that mostly doesn't work any more because DH can't operate it properly. He rarely attempts to run the tractors now anyway. Both riding lawnmowers don't work at the moment and he's tried to take off the wheel of one (because it won't hold air).. It gives him something do to but he's continually frustrated trying to mow. We get them fixed.. he mows once and thats it.. broken again.
TODAY, its the bulldozer ..well in fact, it started yesterday...he has accused our son of 'stealing' the bulldozer and is wanting to send him a 'bill' for the thousands of dollars for it. We are trying to avoid having him get on this thing as he wants to dig a pond! I can't supervise such a thing and no one has time to stay with him during this. So our son has been stalling and making excuses for not bringing it. DH respects no one's opinion and it doesn't occur to him that anything he's doing causes the mowers to break or the weedeater or anything else he attempts. All of them have potential for danger but the bulldozer is the ultimate. Said he's going to get a lawyer and sue our son!! Incredulous..the boy drops everything to help him when he calls. That makes no difference..So he's also mad a me..told me I could just go live at my studio in town.. I told him he'd best not say that too much or I'd sure do it. Honestly, we want to have him be able to stay here but today, I'm thinking if every day brings such frustation and difficulty in trying to do farm things etc.. and some 'issue' crops up nearly every day.. gasoline spilling all over the porch..water for the garden left on..those are minor but golly. GOLLY!! The idea of some urgent reason to have to move out and relocate to an assisted living place (with a dementia wing)..maybe MOLD? I'm boggled completely.
I have no solution for your BIG problem. We don't live on a farm but a large rural lot and have always had a farm tractor. I can just imagine it would be equal to doing away with the car driving. The Neuro told us several years ago that DH should not be using a lawn mower, riding mower and most definetly not a farm tractor or any power tool. He gradually phased all of them out as his spinal stenosis kept getting worse and he traded the farm tractor for a small all purpose tractor with a lawn mower and other small equipment to use to garden and mow the yard. Last year he let son in law or daughter mow the yard and this year he hasn't been on anything except occasionally our golf cart.
I definetly would "lose the keys" for the bulldozer and larger tractors until something else works. In our area there are usually 3 farm accidents a year with serious consequenses. Have you talked to his Neuro to see if you can give him a med to calm him?
I know we have some members who live on farms. I am going to research and if I figure out who they are, I will e-mail them to alert them to your post. In the meantime, we can hope they see it on their own.
Judy, I am so sorry to hear you have had such a stressful time of late. We too have a tractor, it was a war much like giving up driving... but, it was a battle that had to be fought.
I'm not sure if this will help, but first I did hide the keys. He threatened to have new ones made, so I gave them back. BUT, only after I looked in on the motor and took out something that looked real important! LOL He wasn't able to start it, and so became the daily, hourly "game" of someone is coming to fix it tomorrow.
Eventually, I had his boys move it out of sight and it has been a non issue ever since. Of course what will work, depends on the stage they are in. Lynn's recall is zero, so it was easier to "get away" with the lil white lies.
Sorry, Judy, but reading parts of your post sounded so much like our experience. We live in the country, have a large yard, but lease the land to a "real" farmer. I pay a neighbor or a granddaughter to mow because, sure enough, everytime hubby mowed, something broke. Same w/weed whacker, etc., etc. And, he can't fix anything now. So, the lawn mower stays at daughter's house. Weed whacker and some small tools languish in the garage, but he doesn't ask about getting them fixed. I bought a power saw for son-in-law to use; and hubby asked if I thought it would be okay for him to ask to use it. He thinks sil bought it. I suggested we just let sil use it as it's quite heavy:) Yes, and he thinks people take things when he can't find them. Once he cleaned the garage nice & spiffy, then wanted to know who cleaned it so he could thank them. Our pick-up stays with granddaughter because she has horses and can use it, and hsbd has lost his license (see another post), but found his keys and drove to town once. Left an Arby's cup in it--deadgiveaway. On his trip to town, he got a new debit card, because I'd confiscated his. I didn't know he'd done that until charges showed up; so I called the bank (small town, w/understanding bank personnel), stopped the card. Banker said they'd tell him "they'd look into it" if he came in again asking for another card. That won't happen if I can keep keys and vehicles away. Never a dull moment, eh? BUT, I'm thankful he can dress himself, take care of hygiene, feed himself. Doesn't or can't do many things, but for these I give thanks. AND admire all of you who have much more to concern yourselves with than I do. I guess my day is coming. Sorry I got carried away here. I just felt so much empathy when reading Judy's post. Glad we don't have a dozer! ~ Jane L.
This is such a wierd time. Thank you all for telling me about the ways you've managed with these things.
Right now, the stage of 'out of sight out of mind' works for some things but NOT for anything he's really stuck on. The driver's license was revoked in June. He's been good about respecting that and only drives his truck here on the farm. BUT he never voluntarily surrendered it..only in a Court hearing was he forced to give it up.
The dozer is at our son's house and DH wants it taken to another piece of property a few miles away to dig the pond. To bring it here so that he can SEE it and know that our son isn't using it will just increase his anger because that's not what he WANTS. He wants to use it to work at something he thinks he can still do. Although we understand and would help as best we could, it just can't happen. We can certainly lose the keys to the dozer and it could take months to have them remade. The experiences of having mowers and pickup etc. in the 'shop' for repair only create other frustrations of wanting to call or be taken to the mechanics to 'check on' whatever we've needed to repair. Losing keys..puts this out of the mechanic's domain. Maybe this will work.
Today's a new day.. Lets hope for a better one for all! Thank you so much.
Farms, tractors, and the unwillingness to give it all up, this hits home today. my RIP dad, 87yr old loved his tractor beyond words:) in the last yr he had to give itup too but his last ride unknowing to us has been the talk for yrs. he always carried thousands, yes thousands of dollars in his wallet, (fear of the great depression:) and on his last ride his wallet fell out of his pocket and he 'planted' it over an area of 5acres along with his corn:) he never found it and only confessed months later when we wouldnt let him ride the tractor anymore. we sold his tractor and it was a sad day- anyway, adding to the post, having a farm and AD spouse at some point you may want to consider moving to where you will have facilities available and things more accessible. thank goodness my dear mom chose to move early before Ddad had to go to the nursing home. otherwise she would have never been able to manage with him -divvi
Seriously, I can't imagine how you all with farms and equipment manage to keep them from operating them. We got rid of the lawn mower, and the "Weedeater" doesn't work; he still uses the blower, but it doesn't have anything that could harm him. I wish I had some advice to offer, but all I can do is say an extra prayer for you while you try to cope with this.
No Mary but i can tell you anyone who is out in the area STILL looks for that wallet, i am sure it still holds those bills..bad part is mom says she thinks it was over 10k..he would cash all his soc sec checks and just hold them in 100dol bills forever. plus we found an envelope with 26k in his gun safe with a message for my son..he saved this money for him over the yrs..awwww...sorry we are off topic here again,,, divvi