Round 1 of today's lawn mower fight at 10:00 a.m. The yard is full of water; the ground is mud, and he's insisting the yard needs mowing.

Went to the grocery store and got groceries. Saw the storm-damaged buildings in Bardwell.  Pity they were so badly damaged they had to be razed. The church across the street fared better with a loss of just the roof, not the whole building.

Round 2 of today's lawn mower fight at 3:00 p.m.

Thunder and grey skies rolling in again.  Round 3 of today's lawn mower fight at 5:00 p.m.

At 10:20 p.m. Joe was up looking for his cat. He went into the den, picked the cat up, took it back to his bedroom.  In a minute, the cat came scooting back through the living room to get to his normal sleeping space in the den.  Dad is so determined that the cat sleep with him, but most of the time, the cat does not want to.

I talked to Mom tonight about putting Dad in a home. He's becoming so belligerent that taking care of him is becoming an issue.  I was surprised that she didn't totally freak out over this.  She just said he's losing his mind.

I can take care of Mom. I can take care of Dad. I'm reaching the point that I think that I can't take of Mom and Dad and 7 acres of land.

I can sell off some of the land. The neighbors definitely want it. Our land L's behind the neighbor's land. I don't blame them for wanting it. If I do, however,  I have to do it on Power of Attorney, and we have to pretend to Dad that nothing has changed. Can they hang with that until Dad's no longer an issue?  Doesn't that sound cold? But it's what it is.

The neighbor has told me that they can bring a tractor in and get the back acreage mowed. That's a heaven send. Frankly, though, I don't see an end to this issue over the mowing. Joe is not of sound enough mind to realize when mowing is impossible. The rain of the last week has turned the land into a freaking bog. He cannot realize nor accept this. He's so aggressive over it. I can deal with this, but I need some breaks in taking care of them. In the 4 days of the sitter taking care of him, is it right or fair to ask the sitter to try to deal with this? Is it even safe?

So it appears that I'm coming to a cross road of decision. We'll probably push it until Joe is totally uncontrollable. I'm going to make an appointment to talk with the local doc about some kind of medication to calm Joe down. It's not an ideal solution on the one hand; on the other it may be totally ideal.