Sunday, May 6 This was a quiet day, home alone, the two of us; John in the yard and me in the house much of the day. Finally, late in the afternoon, I joined him to go see his work over the past day and today. I knew he had been building fence sections with poles from aspen trees he cut down on the edge of the pasture between it and the riparian land. He put them up for moving the horses into different parts of the acreage, as mentioned in last week’s blog, which was now just yesterday. He walked me back to see the gate and clearing and another gate on the backside of our house (the west side that has a roaring creek right now). He fixed it so the horses could drink from the edge of the creek, but not cross it to escape our property. We actually own part of the opposite side of the creek, but it is not fenced.
I spent most of the day first on the computer, but then turned it off and started tackling the tables and counters in the den. I made incredible progress, but I am by no means done. In fact, if someone else besides John walked in, they would have no clue that anything had been organized, cleaned, or tossed. That’s the way it will be for awhile until we truly make a dent in the build-up of several years. I did find some bills needing paid, so I started a stack of those. I received a few phone calls that took up a fair amount of time, but gave me a chance to get off my feet.
One of the early things I did was to search for a D string for John’s “new” guitar. I checked our roll-top desk drawer where I had seen one in with our cards, recently, but it was an E string. Then I looked in my own Garcia classical guitar case and found several strings, but the D only had the wrapper and the string was gone. I was on the computer searching for strings and for a case for him.
I can pay my Costco bill on the web, so I’m ready to do that, after I put his and my driver’s licenses into the application for our horse trailer’s tag that expired in Feb. We really haven’t needed to use it. (I am looking over this on Saturday, and I don’t believe I ever did that.) The trailer has become the parking garage for a used riding mower purchased last fall.
Monday, May 7 We had many things going on today. Up at 6:30 to find we had captured two of the feral cats (one, the mother of the recent kitties); the other, a yearling we thought was male. Woody turns out to be a female, and she was found to have pyometra. Pyometra (pus filled uterus) is a serious and life-threatening infection. I am happy we trapped her and got her to the vet when we did. We set the traps last night, and first caught our inside/outside cat. Then overnight we caught two, one in the barn where she had the kittens and the other in the haymow where the two yearlings have been eating. We had to get them to the vet at 7:30 a.m., and then we went for breakfast (Carl’s Jr) for two sausage, cheese, egg, on biscuits. Had a coupon for both for $1.88, which with tax was only $2.03. That was a good deal. I don’t know what the usual cost is. We both were impressed with the biscuits. They were as large as a hamburger bun and very tasty. Then across the main N-S street and on to the grocery store and to the pharmacy to pick up my meds. Home for awhile to take care of more chores. Now we need to catch little Sioux (gender unknown but suspect a male). “It” just came to the back door and talked to me through the glass patio door. Yesterday John was throwing horse manure on the compost pile and that same cat talked to him. (I hope it is a male). Has the prettiest big yellow eyes like his mom. We were supposed to call at 1:00 p.m. to see about picking up the cats. I thought it would be around 2:30 and I needed John along with me to carry the crates and traps. Turns out, they didn’t want us to come until 4:30. We did, and carried in John’s guitar because a friend thought she had an old guitar case to give him. She didn’t answer their phone, because they charged it but forgot to turn it back on. We decided to go visit anyway, knowing they planned to be home after 1:00. We picked up a Pizza Hut pizza using a coupon I had for a free large one. We requested three different toppings on each half. Had a nice visit but she had not been able to find the guitar case, so figured it must no longer be in her house, and perhaps she gave it back to her son.
Finally, we got home and set up the cats in their crates in the barn, with a bowl of water. We cannot let either of them out for at least a week. If they have sex, after the spay operation, it can be fatal, because of the sutures – that would likely burst open. They still attract for several days. We are going to figure out something in the house to keep them locked in, and that should also allow us to get to know them better and them us, all the while protecting them and giving us insight into how they are doing.
I have also been taking my Blood Pressure several times a day to give the record to my Cardiologist to combine with the information from my BMP (for electrolytes) lab test, to see if he can “up” the Losartan dosage I’m taking to be closer to the clinical tests for good mortality. I’m all in favor of that!! He already increased my Metoprolol to a higher dosage to reach the same goal.
Tuesday, May 8 Rather amazing what John and I accomplished today in the den; cleaned everything (piled 3 ft high in places) off a very large sturdy wooden table. He built a wood-frame structure with an opening to put in the litter box, and to clean it out. Has a door to put the cats in and out of the enclosure. In addition, he will cover it with chicken wire tomorrow. Went to have foot care at 2:00; called about acupuncture; only got four appointments approved, and nothing heard yet about massage appointments that were previously denied. Cancelled this week’s massage because I refuse to pay $60 / hr, regardless of how much it helps my shoulders and the scar tissue to reconnect the nerves treatment. In the evening, I went with my neighbor back to town to hear a talk by our Attorney about “Getting your Affairs in Order,” which was about planning for your financial future (writing wills, living trusts, etc.).
Wednesday, May 9 John is finishing the cat motel. Final part is a door for access with width and height just a bit larger than the plastic shipping crates we are using. Now they have a piece of Aspen for sharpening claws, a wicker basket bed with towel and cardboard box for hiding in or laying on. We were successful in capturing Little Sioux (Woody’s brother, we think, unless she is also a female) who entered the trap sometime after a morning check. John found him in the trap this afternoon, and we’ll take him in the morning.
I have been very busy too. This morning I got up early and was at school at 8:05. I handled Jennifer Hackett’s Intermediate GIS lab and gave them the lab, introduced it and myself and stayed with them from 8:30 until 10:50. Long lab, but we all did fine. I hadn’t been in that GIS lab in Dean Hall in 2.5 years. My account was still there, so I could access the Internet during class while the students worked. If they had questions, then I would go help. It was a lot of fun for me!! Although, I DO NOT want to be back there teaching anymore!
I left the University after the long lab and went directly to the Food Bank Soup Kitchen to play music. After we played, they fed us a nice meal: chicken breast parts wrapped in a great crunchy crust, asparagus (which I found is another veggie I like and cannot eat while on the medication, Coumadin. With that was a slice of Brie cheese, some pasta salad, and a rhubarb cobbler for dessert. I left off the ice cream.
Sue and Woody (shall we call her Woodee?) are in the house now, still in their dog crates, but on the table, and John is working on finishing putting up the sides and the sliding door. We hope (& pray) they will get along together when we move them out of their crates. I don’t know why they wouldn’t as they have co-existed a year in the haymow and cat house. Sue is Woody’s mom.
Thursday, May 10 The last one IS AN orange male, now neutered. We picked him up at the vet today at 3:15 p.m. and dropped off the 4 traps we have used over the past couple weeks. The girls, Mama Sue and Woodee are resting together well, in their new environment. They are in front of me as I work on my laptop in my lap from my recliner. Now they are sleeping, but they have an area about 5.5 by 3 feet with litter box, food, and water bowls, and a towel that occasionally they lay on, but just now they are side by side on the paper, which covers plastic. So Little Sioux is a “Boy named Sue” . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Sue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1BJfDvSITY
. . . but seems not to have a mean thought in his handsome head. Perhaps, we’ll call him Johnny Cash or just JC (jaysee). [BTW – the song came out the year we were married.] At the moment Johnny Cash is in a large dog crate in the back computer room, where our big pc-tower with double monitors resides. He has a very deep voice and continually tells us how unhappy and upset he is. I wish he would calm down as well as the girls now have. Finally finished taking my blood pressure and pulse for a week, and sent off the report (by email) to my Cardiologist’s nurse.
Friday, May 11 John’s building a fence out the back patio door to protect the raspberries, patio, and heat pump from the horses, for when he lets them into the back yard to “mow” the grass. Heat pumps are costly and so are fresh raspberries (these are an old un-named red; new Yellow Anne planted this spring has one green leaf!). Unlike the Golden Currents (mentioned a few weeks ago) – horses will eat shoots of red raspberries. I spent time this morning putting in my volunteer hours and mileage for the RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) in Kittitas County. I only recently joined, because they wanted me to report hours for their funding requests. I had for April 256 miles and 11.5 hours of volunteering time (all music at different places around town). Then went to exercise class and on to a volunteer appreciation at the Rehab place where I spent 2 months in 2010, recovering, with physical therapy to learn to walk again and get in and out of bed and a chair. It was a nice celebration of thanks to many volunteers there at the Rehab. Three members of our fiddlers & friends group went. They provided make your own sundaes with toppings such as strawberries, walnuts, small Oreo cookie pieces, little colorful sweet things, and sauces (caramel & chocolate). Then they gave each of us a flower pot of Celosia flowers (blooming), with a number on the bottom. (John planted it in our planter in the front yard with the pansies and marigolds, and the frost last night, killed everything except the pansies.) That number on the bottom of the plant container was for a raffle for the Tiger Lilies on the tables, and for a drawing for four baskets of goodies. I didn’t win anything this time. John drove into town and brought my violin, picked me up at the Rehab, and we drove down the Yakima Canyon to a Bluegrass Camp Out Jam Session that goes from Wed the 9th through Mother’s Day, located at the Big Pines Campground. (It’s free until the season begins May 15.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5222/5613501525_d054bc6c2d_z.jpg
http://www.ycda.com/wp-content/gallery/visual-tour/6-yakima-river-canyon-cliffs.jpg
Our friends are camping there all the days in their RV. I may go back tomorrow, but definitely will go back on Sunday when there is a potluck from 2:00 to 5:00. I jammed with a few others for a little over an hour. John listened and visited with my fiddling friend’s husband and their dog. The other thing I honchoed this morning was finding a buyer for my friend’s truck. That was my good deed for the day.
Saturday, May 12 John started the morning with feeding neighbor’s horses & bull, moving ours into the back yard where he built a fence yesterday already described, cleaned out all the litter boxes of the 3 feral cats, now in the house. They are using them and eating food. Then he took the dogs for a run, unfortunately one of the mutts returned smelling of skunk. When the 4 dogs came back into the house I almost died from the scent. It is incredibly overpowering. John ushered them back to the front yard, and later sprayed all soiled parts of them with ‘409’ cleaner and took them to the irrigation ditch to wash off the oil. I hope that that will work.
Then my day continued with a trip to town to fill a medications I had run out of. While there, I was considering going to the canyon for more jamming, and had taken my violin along. Once through the pharmacy, I called my friend’s wife to see how he was proceeding from a probe yesterday into his lung to remove a wedge of a suspected cancerous nodule. I am almost to Yakima at that end of the canyon, so figured I could drive to Costco for gasoline and get something for the potluck tomorrow, and come back by the hospital for a visit if he was willing. He was and I visited almost an hour. I lost track of time. His attitude is good and he is looking well, but wants out of there ASAP. On up the canyon to visit again with friends and their friends who had joined them. I went over and joined a group with one Double Bass,
http://www.guitarrepairsuk.com/double_bass_on_bike.jpg
one mandolin, one guitar, and another fiddler. We played for an hour, and I drove the 32 miles home. John had cream-corn-corn-cake (aka corn pone or Johnny Cake) –made with a can of cream style corn. “Pone” apparently is a Powhatan word meaning bread from the area we now call Virginia. This was to accompany chili.
http://www.andfam.net/kimblog/blogpix/pone.jpg
We cut up one of our large Honeycrisp apples to have along with it. We only had a few slices each and that was a lot of apple! And there is a lot left. I’m late getting this to John to design for the blog and submit. Most of you won’t likely see this until Mother’s Day or after. So Happy Mother’s Day.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan