Kittens

My grand daughter has been taking care of a pregnant stray cat. Since she already has two cats according to her apartment's rules she cannot have another. She tried to find a shelter that would take the cat ( very nice, very friendly and still quite young) but the shelters would abort the kittens and Lili would have none of that!  But they would accept the cat after the kittens were born, foster the little family and then adopt them out.

Lili was ok with that... took the cat to the vet to make sure all was well and prepared to wait. Well... she didn't have to wait long!!

The Mama cat was not happy to have Lili leave her while the kittens were being born... so there Lili sat.  There are now 6 little ones - 1 black, 2 black and white and three calicos. Mama did a great job though Lili said she was almost sick when the cat ate the placentas.  Mama cat is feeding and cleaning them now!!

 After several days of hot weather...  the temps dropped and it rained AGAIN. The lower temps will probably last through the weekend. 

A local plant grower has plants and a big tent in the parking lot of our closest grocery store ... and will be there for at least a month more. So I went out today and bought more flowers and grasses and herbs to plant in my boxes on the deck and in pots in front of our front steps.   The geranium I bought earlier is sending out loads of flowers and buds!!

Doctor's offics says "OK"!

 Bob  heard from the doctor's office this morning... his blood had been tested for tick diseases and came back negative! Hooray!   But we will keep an eye on ourselves for any new bites... it seems like there are more ticks this year.

We spent more time on our daughter's basement project this weekend.  She plans on painting the ceiling this coming weekend with a paint sprayer. She has ordered full cover Tyvek suits for herself and Bob. Will be interesting..

It has rained everyday ... sometimes heavily... sometimes just misting.  But today it was dry enough to mow our backyard.  I see trails of ants all over trying to find somewhere dry enough to put their eggs. Sometimes we even find them in the mailbox!  Bob gets rid of them there and receives thanks from the  mailman!!

Forgot to post so this is now Tuesday ( the next day)

Bob is going to finish his antibiotic prescription even though the test results were good! 

We took a trip this morning  to several thrift stores to drop off the latest "get rid ofs"!  I consider that a win!!  And with things staying dry, Bob is mowing the front yard.

We did set a "record"... this is the first year that we have turned on the air conditioner in May. It is set high but it will make things less humid/muggy!! Of course I hope that this will not jinx things and we will not get frost !

"Looking better !" he says

I have been taking daily pictures of Bob's tick bite ...He says it is looking better. I am not so sure but since we have had no follow up call from the doctor we are assuming that his tick wasn't a really bad one.  Bob is taking his pills and wearing loose socks  ( bite was where the elastic top on a sock is - above the ankle).

So fingers crossed...

tick bite

 Bob was bitten by a tick about a week ago. It was attached and sucking blood when he tried to remove it. He was not successful in getting all of it.. the head remained. He cleaned things up... added an antibiotic cream etc. But it did not get better. When I saw the large red area I insisted he go to the doctor.
The doctor and his nurse said I was right to insist. The red area was a type of blood poisoning. They took blood and prescribed an antibiotic pill  twice a day.  

When the blood tests come  back the doctor will know what type of tick and what to do next. Some are very serious... here's hoping Bob's tick was not!

BTW ... he wasn't out "in the woods" or anyplace unusual ... just in our daughter's back yard!! Her dogs are protected from ticks... Bob was not!!

All day rain... pouring !

 It poured all day long... well there were a few moments when it didn't but they were few and far between!!  The Kansas City Star sent out warnings of flash flooding!  The map showed a huge region from SW KC to the eastern edges of KC along the I-70 corridor.

Our backyard currently has what we call the "swimming pool" .... large areas of standing water !! Our property slopes from front to back so the backyard ends up with loads and loads of water.  Things are too wet for the water to soak in or flow into our neighbors' yards!!

made it to the end

 Well... made it through the three days of doubled lasiks... successfully... with many many trips to the bathroom!! The scale is happy with the results too.

Yesterday was a busy day too with Bob, my two daughters and me working on house and yard projects. They finally got all the mesh hardware cloth down at the bottom of the wooden yard fence... to keep the two dogs from digging their way out!!

I worked on cutting down all the volunteer bushes and vines growing up the walls - outside on the garage. I was going to cut and put everything into yard waste bags this morning but it has POURED  all day!

After this was done we all spent some time  getting the basement ready for spraying the ceiling... it is going to be a sewing room, laundry etc. Hopefully the white ceiling and colorful walls will make the room lighter and more inviting.

After this and some talk time out on the deck, Carolyn went home to see how her son/ our grandson tolerated his first covid vaccine. Dom is almost 15 and the CDC opened vaccinations up to those over 12.  He has been waiting ... being the last one in the family to be able to receive the vaccination!!

Laurel made dinner and after eating we headed home ready to collapse!  There were texts going back and forth this morning on all our aches and pains!!

dreams

I have aphib and other heart issues so I keep track of my weight... if it makes a 5 lb jump I assume I am retaining water. Well it did and I was also getting out of breath when walking into a store etc. My cardiologist upped my lasik, metropolol and potassium for three days....leads to lots of "peeing" and dreams.... finally got to the point, right?  

That addition of pills leads to weird dreams. In the last dream I spent what seemed like hours trying to peel hard boiled eggs  and chop black olives to make egg and black olive salad sandwiches. To add to it all I wasn't sure the eggs were hard boiled!  I finally told myself that everything was fine and that was the end of the dream!!

Lo-o-ong day

 Our trip to El Dorado, Kansas and back made for a long day ... about 7 hours!!

 Part of our trip went through the Flint Hills.... about 50 miles worth ! The Flint Hills are different . Rolling hills of green this time of the year. The soil is thin and tends to slide making small gullies with crumbled limestone being revealed. Very little water except for man-made ponds but where there are streams cottonwood trees are too.

Lots and lots of cattle spread out all over. I heard that this land can only support one head per acre... but with all the spring grass more cattle have been brought in.  One ranch has made a scenic outlook where  the trucks come into pick up cattle from many many pens!!

The last time we drove through the Flint Hills it was late in the summer and everything was brown and all the rock was evident..... and fewer cattle roamed!!  By the way ... in all those 50 miles I saw only three houses!!

Glad to make it home where both of us settled into our recliners for a nap!!

aches and pains

 Scout, my elder daughter's  little black puppy, decided to dig her way out of the backyard on Saturday so we all went to work!!  My daughter bought rolls of mesh screening to go at the bottom of the wooden fence.  It goes to on the grass up to the fence and is held down with long u-shaped metal rods. The grass grows through the metal mesh but the dogs don't like to dig through it. So I weed whacked along the fence so my daughter and husband could lay the metal mesh in place and hold it down.... whew... We managed about half the fence. 

The hole Scout dug was filled it !! It was almost deep enough that she could have wiggled through to the neighbor's yard!!

Teeny tiny Scout now weighs 28 lbs.... still hungry all the time ... the vet says she will probably double that !

This is how small she was!!

We were all exhausted  ( and with aches and pains) on Sunday so Mother's Day was a quiet one!!

busy... busy

 Today my latest online bear show opened!! And so I spent quite a bit of time packing up bears and adding "click and ship" labels!!  Then I pile the boxes on our front steps and leave a note in the mailbox for our postal carrier ( some days its woman some days a man).... that person gets out of the delivery jeep and walks up to my front steps and takes the boxes!!  In the jeep the boxes are checked in with a hand held screening device which reads the barcode on the "click and ship" label! All very easy peasy.

My online show bears are bought using PayPal and the "click and ship" labels are printed through the PayPal site!!

So there went my morning!!   It's nice to see the bears leaving and letting the buyers know that their purchase is on its way ( I send an email).

We went out for a short visit to my elder daughter's house later in the afternoon.  Scout and Harper were very glad to see us!  As was my daughter...lol    Tomorrow we go back for some house chores and our daughter will "reimburse" us by making dinner. Fair exchange don't you think??  

  Here's one of the bears that left today....  She's wearing one of the covid vaccine buttons I received - one for each shot!!

  BTW... our grocery store had signs up about the lack of wet ( or canned or tinned) cat food... evidently due to the manufacturer.  So we are going on  a  hunt tomorrow... Can't have Jack , the gray/black striped one, not have his food. Tigger eats dry ... Jack eats the wet.

temps back down

 I woke up in the middle of the night cold!! I have been sleeping with just a sheet for the past week or so but that just wasn't enough last night!! And the daytime temperature hasn't gotten above the mid 50's!!

Fingers crossed that it will warm up again very very soon!!

Bob had an appointment for a sonogram of the arteries in his neck this morning... no symptoms but his doctor wanted a "look see" when he went for his annual checkup last week.  He went to our local hospital's radiology dept.... in and out in less than a half hour. He said the co-payment part took the longest ! The hospital called this afternoon to tell him he had minimal plaque and to keep watching his cholesterol !

Bob's been fixing our grand daughter's coffee table... I think "someone" sat or stood on it and broke the legs. Well... it's fixed and tonight Lili came by to pick it up. She's had her two vaccines as we have so it was really nice to see her and to sit around and talk. She bought a toy for the cats... a fish that wiggles and has catnip in it.  The wiggle part is charging so we will see if the cats find it intriguing when Bob puts the wiggle part into the fish ( after it is charged )!!

Our grandson is in the 12 - 16 age range and will be able to be vaccinated shortly according to CDC guidelines!! Hooray! He's the last in our family...

not a quiet day

 Even though Bob wanted a quiet day for his birthday... it didn't work out that way. HE decided to work outside some more.... cutting up this winter's fallen branches so that they would fit in the large brown kraft paper bags the garbage company requires. Garden waste must be separated and put into a different area by the trash companies so that it can be composted -- State law. Bob has been putting the branches aside just for this "event" .. the cutting!  

Better than the outside stuff was the many phone calls he received!!  Much to his delight !!

But he was tired enough to go to bed much earlier than usual!!