Hello!
The hot and humid days of summer have arrived with
thankfully some showers to cool things down still. The roses are blooming and
soon I shall be harvesting peas and cherries. The green beans have started
budding out and some of the corn is up. I've planted squash, cucumbers,
pumpkins, and sunflowers. The tomatoes are rapidly growing and my mouth is
watering in anticipation. Meanwhile the lilies and early summer flowers are
adding color to the delightful green everywhere.
I've been battling rats under the hen house setting
traps and putting out poison. The ratty things have dug tunnels everywhere. I
was letting the four chicks out during the day, but wasn't able to get them put
up one night back in the brooder and lost three more. So I'm calling the lone
survivor Princess and keeping a careful eye on her. It was in fact late one
afternoon as I was in the chicken yard rounding up the chicks- its amazing how
fast those little things are- that I fell losing my balance as I lunged for the
last chick. Thankfully I didn't break any bones, although it felt like I had
broken my big toe. I limped back to the house and when I checked my toe I had
ripped the toenail back and it was sticking straight up. Shudder. I taped it
back down and after putting a thawed out rooster in my mother's old pressure
cooker for supper, I sat in the recliner keeping my hurting foot elevated. I
had just relaxed when a loud boom was heard in the kitchen scaring me silly.
Evidently the old seal had given way and the pressure cooker had exploded! Talk
about a mess. Thinking I had had more
than enough "excitement" in one day I took it easy that night. I was
just getting ready to head for bed around 10:30 pm when I heard Dana in the
bedroom sounding like he was having a nightmare. Before I could get there I
heard a crash. Dana had thrashed around cutting his head on the wooden stand
beside the bed before falling to the floor. He was dazed and confused
complaining that he had a bad headache as blood ran down the side of his face.
I was having trouble stopping the bleeding as Dana is on blood thinners so I
called the home health office on-call nurse thinking he probably needed
checking out
The nurse told me I needed to take Dana to the ER to
rule out a concussion. Normally, I would drive, but with my bad toe (my right
foot) I knew I couldn’t. So I called Dwight, who happened of all nights to have
his cell phone off. Not knowing what else to do- it now was 11 pm- I called my
Pastor, who came and helped me get Dana to the ER. They ran tests, his long cut
finally clotted, and ruled out a concussion. We got home at 2:30 am quite worn
out.
A couple days later, I lost my toenail, but
thankfully it is healing. We had some stormy weather, which upped my bone pain
so I was down for a couple of days. Thankfully I am back up on my feet again.
I took Dana to a new neurologist as the one we had
that really helped Dana was no longer available. We spent 4½ hrs in the office!
First we waited two hrs to finally get to see the guy. The doctor was older and
wouldn’t believe us when we told him that Dana had a previous stroke, lung
problems, dementia, etc. It was so frustrating. The doctor wanted to do all
kinds of tests that had already been done and changed some of Dana’s meds that
had nothing to do with neurology. This guy declared that Dana was dizzy because
he was low in iron and short of breath due to being overweight despite us
telling him that Dana had these problems for seven years now since he had a
stroke. We ended up going back to the local doctor, who was quite alarmed when
I told him that Dana was starting to have problems due to med changes, told me
to go back the way we were giving Dana his meds, and he said he would get us
another neurologist. Just when you think everything is set up right someone
comes along to upset everything again.
Then last week Tex and the neighbor’s dog was
barking at night and really having fits. In the morning there was bear tracks
in my driveway. The next day around suppertime someone started running a
4-wheeler up and down our road so all the dogs were barking. Then I realized
that Tex was still barking even though the 4-wheeler had stopped and it sounded
like he was down at the woods. So I went to the back window looked out and lo
and behold if there wasn’t a almost full grown black bear up on the top of the
chicken pen!!! I watched as it got down and tried to get in the door with Tex
nipping at its heels so it turned and headed around the henhouse. I quickly
called my neighbor and called Dwight, who was heading home, grabbed a broom and
ran outside. By the time Scotty and his dad came over with guns the bear had
climbed over the fence and was down in the woods behind us. Dwight arrived and
the fellows caught up on the news about the bear while I made Dwight supper.
Not an hour later after my neighbors went back home, Tex was making a racket at
the front fence so I went out on the porch to see what was going on and over
the fence in the woods across from us was a large full grown bear walking
around. The phone rang and my neighbor was calling to say watch out for another
bear as it had just crossed his property. Dwight and the guys took off after
the bear, which disappeared in the woods in the other direction. The
blackberries aren’t ripe yet so the bears are wandering around hunting for
food. So if Tex gets barking in the night I get up to make sure nothing is
getting my chickens. Such a crazy time!
Maybe I just ought to write a book, huh?
Well I shall hush up for now. Take care on your end
while I keep an eye out for the bears.
dorcas
