Sunday – was supposed to be a real day of rest from activities in town, but turned into a work day for both of us. Mine has mostly been computer work plus I washed some dishes and loaded the dishwater after several days’ build-up. Also did a load of clothes.
John is gone to take care of our neighbor’s chores. First he went to a lady down the pasture and irrigation ditch from us to check if she was finally getting water that he diverted plus cleaned the ditch up to her place over the last week. It was flowing finally and had watered an apple tree and pasture. Then he diverted it to go to our “middle ditch” and on to properties south of us (two more neighbors). Now he is across the street to pack several pickup loads of hay amounting to 2.5 tons – this from a field that heavier equipment can’t get to. The hay will go into a low shed that cannot take a Harobed load. The day started cool and shaded but got hot before he finished. He put up 63 bales in three trips.
Our kitty spent the day, till John arrived home, in the middle of the bed sleeping soundly. She spent most of her night out in the backyard prowling. No idea what she does out there, but she didn’t want to come in at 5:00 when the dogs went out. Sometime after that she came in on her own, through the doggie door.
I’m slowed down a little because of the swollen lymph gland.
Last week when it was so hot for two days, (Wednesday especially), I had an apparent heat issue or just mild dehydration related to a diuretic and the warm temperature. My blood pressure went way up (for me) and I felt lousy all over. I was feeling bad during my exercise class.
Then Friday I had a strange burning/tingling in my mouth under my tongue. Wasn’t till later I realized my lymph gland on the right side was swollen. That indicates an infection. I took some Amoxicillin I had and will continue till Monday when I am scheduled anyway to go in for a fasting blood draw for various tests, and John and I are both scheduled for physical exams on Tuesday. The swelling is a little “down” this morning, but I took another antibiotic just in case it is a bacterial infection.
We heard that our friends made it back all right to CA with their new Brittany puppy.
We ate dinner and then took all the dogs AND THE CAT for a walk. We left from our backyard and around the front of the house, leaving the cat in the backyard, but she came over the 6’ fence (on a pole setup John made for her) and followed us out the driveway into the orchard, all around the orchard where John showed me cherries on a couple of trees, a bunch more on the ground apparently blown out by the wind, and then over to where he was watering some blue spruce trees he planted near our neighbor to the North’s fence line, on back to what used to be a “nursery” and we never transplanted the trees–where there are a couple of yellow apple trees, loaded. Maybe a few peaches on a peach tree or two. Then back up to the ditch and across a little bridge to where there is quail habitat and two of our dogs were on point on a quail talking and running around on the path I was on. He flew across the fence and they watched and then were nosing all around. We continued but the cat didn’t follow us, yet heard us on the other side of the bushes and ditch and somehow came running behind us. She must have found the bridge or jumped because she wasn’t wet. We went back down the driveway after all the dogs got a soak in the ditch. By the time we got back, to the front gate, the kitty (Sunshine) was panting, because she hadn’t been in the irrigation ditch. I came on in the house with Dan (the only male we have), and the other 3 girls stayed out with John to feed the horses. The cat laid down in a hole of dirt but John said she didn’t stay there long, and came on out to help him.
Monday. We were up early to go to the hospital lab for blood draws for both of us, before our physicals tomorrow. It went well. I still have a swelled lymph gland and so I came home, ate breakfast, took all my pills, plus another antibiotic and 2 acetaminophens. It was bothering me earlier, but now is somewhat better. I’m just relaxing in my recliner.
I was going to go back in for exercise class, but I just reached up because my left ear was sort of “itching” and felt some liquid like water in my ear as from a shower (which I didn’t have). Pulled it out and looked and it was blood???? So I have been stuffing it with tissue paper. I think I will just relax today and not go in for exercise.
Whoopee – good thing I stayed home. The refrigerator freezer started its noise and I got my camera and captured an .avi (movie) of the frig, by opening the door and recording the sound that went on for 43 seconds. Very clear and a perfect solution for the repairman to hear. I scheduled an appointment for next Tuesday morning. Maybe we will get it fixed this time. They are not allowed to replace a unit/motor if it is not making the noise for them to hear. So, it will cost Sears another trip out, and we hope he has the part. I tried reaching him today just to ask him to call us so we could be sure he didn’t have to order the part. But that’s not possible; it’s not the way they do business. Their loss.
Tuesday is 7-12-11 and our 42nd anniversary. Helluva a note to spend the afternoon in the Dr.’s office, where we BOTH had physicals. But, the up side was that we both took long soaking baths to be clean for the Dr. I had a really hard time getting out of the tub as that is not something I have worked into yet. I managed to turn sideways, and pull myself up with my lousy left arm & shoulder, onto my knees. Then John came in and grabbed my good right arm to help me up into a standing position. Then I was all right with stepping out over the side (that is one exercise we do in our “class”.)
My news from the doctor is all good, and tomorrow I hear back the results of the blood culture, or maybe the next day. I think it needs 48 hours (turned out to require 72 hours) to culture the blood to see if there are any bacteria in it. My doctor, John, and I feel pretty sure it is not, because I do not have ANY of the same symptoms I have had the past two times. Still for peace of mind, I wanted them to run a culture while they were doing all the other blood tests. I passed them all and my blood pressure was low and good.
The ear bleeding stopped 24 hours after it started, at noon today. My Dr. looked in the ear and said the ear canal was quite inflamed. We do not know why, but he said if I stuck something down there it would begin bleeding all over again. He prescribed an ear drop medication that has an antibiotic and soothing ointment.
The other thing, the swollen lymph gland, is an indication I have an infection somewhere. He suggested staying on the antibiotic for 2 more days, and then if it didn’t clear up, to go see my dentist in case it is a bad tooth. I have no pain anywhere, so who knows?
At least I feel better just knowing I’m okay on most accounts.
Wednesday – stayed home to rest and recover today, and John went out to assist with trimming the feet on 3 of our horses. All went well and the temperature was bearable.
Today I’m just resting and getting rid of my aches and pains (a neck ache and lack of stamina) from the excitement of the past week. I cancelled the two events I would normally do on Wednesdays.
About the blood culture drawn Monday— I called today to see how the culture was progressing. They check it every day, and nothing has been indicated yet, so that is good.
Thursday. Finally got all my high school reunion pictures together with an explanation of how to access them, and sent a link to a couple of web pages, one I created from pictures of my elementary school days, and one from part of the group at the high school 50th reunion. If you’d like to look at it, follow the link:
http://elixant.com/~nancyh/GardenHillsBrownieTroop327.html
I learned 4 chords on the mandolin from the Web on you tube beginning lessons. I was feeling some better today, and so was off to play music at the Rehab center. All was well. Saw my friend Bekah afterward, my student heading to the Marshall Islands for a job for 2 years forecasting weather for the military base on Kwajelein Island (an atoll). I had a Leavenworth tee shirt that I wanted to give her. We had spent time there to accept a $1000 award I nominated her for and she won, several years ago.
Friday. John is loading rocks and gravel into a “driveway” next to his garden. Sunshine is helping, and enjoying climbing on her jungle jims: the Rainier cherry tree and two walnut trees. Then she scoots back to the Tamaracks and Carpathian walnuts near the east side of our house and climbs there. She’s quite the acrobat. We don’t remember any of our former cats being such climbers. She goes up and down quite well, needing no help from us.
Never got the stamina to tackle the kitchen, still need to do that tonight, but put in my week’s supply of pills in the week-by-day separator, before I could take the morning meds. Then I left for town without lunch (but carried two white choc chip cookies to eat before exercise class). Dropped by a yard sale on my way there and planned to stay for Bingo after the exercise class.
Well, my Bingo day went very well. They let us play 3 cards each, and I won 8 games (more than anyone there). Everyone won at least one game, and several won 2 or 3 games. Some 45 minutes in they served us ice cream sandwiches or ice cream sundaes. I had the latter and only took vanilla ice cream and put root beer on it to make a float. Yum.
Presents I picked for my wins were a Vanilla-Honey jar of hand soap, 3 large different flavored chocolate candy bars, a nice little implement with an emery board on one side and soft brush on the other— I suppose it can be used on feet; a travel shoe polishing kit, with brown and black and a little rag in a plastic container; two nice large U.S. flags (about a foot long) with sturdy sticks about 2 feet long. The fee for 2 hours of Bingo was $5.00. It was well worth it for me today, plus I enjoyed the time. So after having all the good luck, I went to the grocery to pick up my meds and also some chicken salad that will be easy chewing with my sore mouth, and 3 things (recommended by my pharmacist) for treating my irritated mouth (beneath my tongue).
On the way to the AAC today, I stopped at a yard sale (in a storage locker). They had tons of hardback and paperback books, priced only at a quarter each. They have prices inside marked as high as $39. I bought 4 for John, the reader in the house.
Then I got to the AAC for my exercise class a little early and looked in the Library. The shelves were full of books, but there was a straw basket on the floor with a large hardback book of five of Louis Lamour novels. I walked back out and asked the director if I could check it out to bring home to John to read. She said, “If it is in the basket, just take it.” So, I did.
I figured with my good luck, I would buy some lotto tickets while at the store. John just laughed when I told him I bought 2 at the checkout, and then bought two scratch tickets from a machine by the door on my way out. I haven’t scratched them yet to see if I won. I bought a Bingo scratch and a Dog scratch. I did scratch them before going to bed, and while I came very close to winning something, I didn’t. I NEVER buy these things and John, when he buys, only buys a ticket that–if the big winner–will change his lifestyle. He claims buying is equivalent to paying taxes to the State except for the very remote chance of winning something. Of course, half of big winnings go to taxes and that’s why the amount won has to be about $5 Million to make any difference—that is, change your lifestyle.
Got home and John was in the driveway headed home after two hours of working on 100′ of fence the horses managed to take out. He learned about it while sitting at his computer and looked out the window and saw Jazz, one of the horses, in a place right by the house where he shouldn’t have been. He went to check and as he did Jazz found his way back to the pasture. This was a two-strand wire fence and the posts had to be bent back to vertical and everything had to be reattached. Years of brush made the task more difficult so he cleared that too – it being part of the reason the horses get into positions they ought not to. He suspects the escape was more of a herd thing where Jazz got trapped against the fence and went through it rather than argue position with one of the others.
Saturday. Well we both were tired and slept in this morning. Decided to walk to the road for the papers and stopped to check out the garden growth. It’s really looking healthy. The tomato plants are beautiful, but there are not yet any blossoms. Tomatoes need night temperatures above 50 degrees to set fruit and we are only getting that about every other night, and just barely. The strawberries are beautiful too, and the yellow straight neck squash. There are 3 little squash viewable. There are lots of cherries on several trees. They are not really loaded like some years, but still we have many almost ripe. We share with the birds but the trees haven’t had any fruit in about 3 years (cold, wet, windy) and the local bird knowledge isn’t what it was when we had fruit several years running. Hope so.
A number of years ago we had a Black-billed Magpie couple with a nest in a tree just 30 feet from our largest cherry tree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-billed_Magpie
[Under ‘Reproduction’ read about the nest.] That fall, John cut the tree down and cleaned up the fence row there and the next spring the birds did not return. We still have Magpies around but not raising young next to the cherries.
It was threatening rain while we were in the garden, but we walked on up the driveway, picking Western Salsify (Goat’s beard) blooms along the way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragopogon_dubius
John has done a nice job of getting rid of most of those weeds that eventually develop into puff balls to spread their seeds. At the link, click on the photo near the bottom with the caption “Wishie or Clock of the Salsify.” When the wind hits the wishie (Don’t you just love that term?) it explodes and each one of those little stemmed parts floats and twirls while it searches for a home. Too bad they are of so little use.
We got dumped on within 50’ of the front door. It rained for awhile and now is clearing and sunny but humidity is up. John went out with two dogs (Shay and Annie) and Sunshine joined them to help him empty the rain barrels. He is taking buckets of water from them to put on his blueberries. These need a very acidic soil. The rainwater is neutral (pH~ =7) but doesn’t have the minerals in it that the creek water does and so doesn’t produce the “buffering” action:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_7719550_buffering-capacity-soils.html
Using water from the ditch just makes it much harder to get the soil amenable for blueberries. Rainwater doesn’t solve the problem – but doesn’t make it worse either.
Before I take an afternoon nap, I need to get on line and renew the tab on my Subaru. In looking for our license information I found that I need to renew my 5-year driver’s license by 9-1-11. If you forget and wait too long then you have to go visit the driver’s license bureau and take a test.
We found a small snake, dead, on the patio this afternoon. Don’t know if Sunshine or one of the dogs killed it. It was about a foot long, had a silver underside, a dark top, and a light thin line the full length of the back. We threw it in the compost pile. Then found this link regarding Northwestern Garter Snakes:
http://www1.dnr.wa.gov/nhp/refdesk/herp/html/4thor.html
Too late for a close inspection unless we dig it out again.
Best to all
Nancy and John
from mid-summer