Hello!
It's
hard to believe that we are halfway through the month of July and summer
already.
Thankfully
we got some rain as with the hot and humid weather the ground dries up quickly.
This year the roses, rainbow colored two-toned lilies, bee balm and daisies
have been blooming profusely. Now the tall phlox and rose of Sharon’s are
coming out making the bees go crazy.
I've
picked peas, green beans, and raspberries from the garden. Nothing tastes as
good as fresh veggies and fruits. Now the blackberries are ripe and I'm
impatiently waiting on my first tomato. I also dried peaches, made peach jam, and
did up 35 quarts of sauerkraut. Between trying to keep the weeds down in the
garden, I trimmed the boxwood formal garden, and mucked out the duck house
again.
Speaking
of ducks, I landed flat on my back one evening in the duck pen (I had emptied
and refilled the water bucket) while trying to corral all the small ducks back
into the duck house. I felt and smelled like a farmer as I limped back to the
house. Thankfully after a couple of weeks of herding small bodies running in
all directions, they are now filing in with the big ducks each night. I let the
grown chicks out with the big hens each day. I'm still working on getting all
nine feathery bodies back inside as they tend to run under the chicken house
when it’s time to be put up. So I get a
broom to shoo them out and around the pen we go. Who needs a gym when you can
chase little ducks and chicks around the yard each day? I am so excited that
two of my small chicks are roosters. I
have missed hearing a rooster crowing for a couple of years now. The biggest
one- white and cream- I'm calling Romeo. His crow is beginning to sound more
natural and not like a rooster with laryngitis. The other reddish/brown with
black tipped wings I've named, Rufus.
The
other month right during a hot spell- on a Saturday no less- my old frig went
out. Dwight tried to get it running again, but the compressor was gone. So
praying fervently, I went to a store to buy a frig as Dana's insulin and Dwight's
factor has to stay refrigerated. Thankfully I found a frig of the same brand
and height to fit under the kitchen cabinets. They didn't know if they could
deliver that day, but an hour later a couple guys brought the frig as another
job had fallen through. They told me that we were really lucky. I told them it was answer to prayer. I'm so
glad we have a God who answers prayer in times of trouble!
I injured my eye and ended up with an internal
eye bleed, of all things. Since I've gotten older (who me???) I am having more
internal bleeds from injuries. A couple days later my eye felt funny, but still
looked normal. Then one morning when I
woke up my left eyebrow was an inch higher than the right and my eye was
swollen. So I went around with an ice pack on my eye- nothing like trying to
get things done with only one eye and hand. Don't you know it was the very week
that the GAP team came to work at our house. Nothing like making a first great
impression. I ran around with an ice pack over one eye showing them where the
water hose and the tools they needed
were. They trimmed my long front hedge saving me a couple weeks of work, water
pressured, and painted the picket fence along the driveway making it look like
new again- after clearing out the front corners where two trees had been cut
down this spring.
By
the middle of the week, I was feeling pressure in my eye, having headaches, some blurry vision, and my
eye was watering so I landed in the recliner keeping my head up with an ice
pack day and night to try and get it under control. Dwight even called the
hemophilia center about my eye.
Over
forty years ago, I was tested and informed that I was a hemophilia carrier,
which I had already figured out from having bleeding problems growing up, but
back then the medical field didn't worry about the girls, just the guys who had
internal bleeds. Every year I took Dawn and Dwight to the hemophilia center to
be checked out and I handled my bleeding problems on my own. Now that I tend to
be getting internal bleeds as I get older, I need to get with the hemophilia
center as your clotting level fluctuates- something I said years ago that they
didn’t believe. The only problem is that I have no insurance. Here in the state
of TN unless I am pregnant, have children under eighteen, have cancer or kidney
disease, I don’t qualify. Being a
grandma the last thing I want is to get pregnant, I’m glad my kids have grown
up, and I’m very thankful I don’t have cancer or a kidney disease. So Dwight
and another fellow are trying to see what can be done as I seem to fall in the
cracks. I’d appreciate prayer for this matter.
The two Gap ladies in charge of the team asked if they could pray for
me. They were such a blessing. We prayed out in the driveway and the Lord
touched my eye. By that night my headache was gone, my eye stopped watering,
and my vision cleared up. It took another week of keeping ice on my eye for the
swelling to go down as it’s amazing how much you look down every time you do
anything. That same week Dwight was having a neck bleed as well and Dana of
course can hardly get around. I told my pastor we were like the lame, the halt,
and the blind at our house that the Bible talked about.
Dana’s
oxygen levels have been staying low even with oxygen and despite physical
therapy he remains weak and slow to get around. One day Dana passed out on the
toilet. He would take off his ox every
time he got up ignoring me telling him to keep it on. Then Dana had a seizure
in the bathroom and I had to call Dwight for help. When I checked his ox level
it was 74! I was afraid he was going to have a stroke. So I told the local doctor,
who told Dana in no uncertain terms (waving his finger in Dana’s face) that he
was to keep his ox on. Dana has been having pain in his right hip and needs
pain meds every time he lies down so they x-rayed his hip, which showed arthritis.
I took Dana to an orthopedist specialist last week, who gave Dana a shot in his
hip and has referred him to a neurologist. A male nurse from out church has
offered to come and stay with Dana when Dwight takes me out to Annette’s
wedding in a couple of weeks. It is a big relief to me as Dana isn’t able to
travel- he can barely get to the doctor’s office using his wheel chair- and
with all of Dana’s medical problems and meds he needs more care.
Dwight,
when his body and the weather cooperates, is slowly putting metal on our roof
that the Lord worked out where we were able to buy as when it rains I have to
put bowls out in my sunroom and dining room to catch all the drips. Like our
bodies, after so long, our house needs some work and repairs done.
Whew! I think I’ve gotten caught up on all the
news. Stay cool on your end!
Dorcas
