05

05-30-05

More of the garden is in, it will be pretty this year, I put in quite a few flower seeds. Today I added compost to the potato hills (Irish Cobbler and Yukon Gold) and turned the compost pile. We went over to my sister Sue's and picked up a truck load of grass hay for mulching. That's a lot of hay. Spread that all over. The green and wax beans I put in 7 days ago popped up like nobodies business. Later (I think), I will put in more beans on the east sides of the squash rows ( I garden intensively, harvesting and over-growing.)

Saturday Tim and I went to my other sister's who will be moving after living in the same place for 33+ years. Man alive. She's got 4 dressers she wants to get rid of, we took 3 and loaded them up. There was a garage sale across the street, so hey what the heck. That was fun, I bought a grey heron statue for $5, very nice, it scared the crap out of both dogs and the birds all did a double take. They lady was in her 80's, very sweet, I also bought a nice porcelain flower basket night light, from the 30's perhaps, it cleaned up nicely and looks nice on the old maple burl dresser from my sister's place.

We had some oranges that were a bit dry so we cut them up, tossed them in the yard. The Eastern Orioles love them, males and females swing into the yard from their nests hanging in the trees by the creek. We have a lot of doves this year and the ever present old world sparrows. I think if we put out different bird seed they would not have such a presence.

05-25-05

I've got Osteo-arthritis in my joints. Last year I had one of my knees replaced, probably will have the other one replaced this year. It's a "family tradition." I've been taking glucosamine and other stuff for years, all the cox 2 inhibitors. My knees started hurting when I was, oh I guess 42-43.So, naturally 10 years later all the cartilage is gone and I'm walking bone on bone.

I go to the gym almost every day, lifting weight's, riding a bike, walking. I also have a big garden, my husband and I cut down trees for fire-wood, we help on my sister's horse farm and I do all the household stuff. I like to can also. I don't want tog vie up anything either. Right now it's difficult for me to get into our fishing boat, and darn near impossible to walk on a moving boat dock.

Since I had my knee replaced I can't get down on them anymore, but I sure can fall on them. I suspect that I've also got Fibromyalgia which Mom also had but she never said anything about it and I won't either. The day we brought Mom home from the hospital with a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer she jumped on her stationary bike and rode for 20 minutes. Mom's memory spurs me on.

05-24-05

I'm on an anti-seizure med. for now. Now that the drug is out of my system my arthritis hurts so much that I can barley walk, and I still have some seizure activity. Not grand mal stuff but happening just the same. Still haven't found anything that works as well.

Hope all is well, think we finally caught that last dread rat rustling in the bed-room wall.

I'm writing because it's important to share what's been happening to me these past few months. I have osteo-arthritis (it's my inheritance) and have taken most if not all of the well known drugs for this ailment over the years. I've been on Bextra for probably a year, maybe two.

Last Fall, probably after Thanksgiving I started feeling ill, just vague feelings off illness, weakness, and a burning smell. I'd clamp down on my tongue at night and my husband thought I was grinding my teeth. I started using a bite guard. My left eye hurt, I went to the eye dr in December, changing my prescription for my glasses.

In April my eye started hurting again so I went back to see if anything was going on in there. The eye dr advised me to go to my regular dr and have an MRI. I made an appointment for the following week. That Saturday I felt pretty strange, but my husband and I drove into Omaha to check out a cab-over camper. As we walked across the parking lot I fell on my face. The lights just went out and I wasn't there anymore. It was only seconds and Tim helped me to my feet. I wasn't sure how to walk, where I was, what was going on. In my head I was thinking "what would Mom do?"

Back in the car I started crying, asking Tim what was going on. I'd scratched my hands and my new glasses, who were these people? What was happening?

I had an MRI and EEG, went to a neurologist and my regular dr. I was having seizures. That week a letter came from my insurance company telling me to stop taking the Bextra.

So, now I'm taking a small dose of anti-seizure medication. I walk with a cane because without the Bextra I'm in so much pain that I'm probably going to go ahead and have my knee replaced. A lot of what happened is a blur. What my Mother would have done is act like nothing happened.

So, that's what I did. I still slur my words sometimes and forget things, get confused. It could have been so much worse. So, I'm grateful, just the same.

4-19-05

We caught another rat last week, a big adult female. We live in a modular home and they have dug in from the creek and woods. There were open spots all around the perimeter where the house was attached to cement blocks, you could put your and up into the insulation. We went around the whole house with 1x2, attaching them with screws, shooting expanding foam into spaces. Quite the mess. Then we found that the dryer vent was open under the house and we closed that off as well.

What finally did it was spraying bug spray (yep) into a hole I knocked into the wall in anger, large sticky traps, regular rat traps and moth balls. I made life so miserable for them that they killed themselves. Ha. The biggest one was as large as my tom cat, longer than my arm from nose to tip of tail. Look for their runs along the outside walls, they leave a grease spot as they run. After setting traps and such it may take several days, they are very suspicious of changes. Oh, I almost forgot, we put dry dog food in the sticky traps and peanut butter in the rat traps. Happy hunting.

We want to put a fence across the front of the property, nothing fancy. Probably post and pole. Apparently termites are a problem here too. There is metal fencing in the back and I plan on covering that up with large shrubs. We'd like chickens but there is a lot of wildlife coming up from the creek in addition to our 2 dogs and the feral cats. We'll deal with that later.

This place on the edge of town is a far cry from the 6 acres we had before, but it's mostly flat and so far there are no cougars to contend with. But, there's always that creek.
Good luck with the rats, I know how awful they are and thanks for your web-page, I always enjoy it and haven't even begun to look at all the stuff you have in there.

1-27-05

Still winter here, it blazed up to 60 on the back patio for a couple of days, very nice, I bathed in the sun-light along with my pets. Back to normal, we are expecting more snow starting tonight. I think we are in a "mild-El Nino" pattern and we'll take whatever moisture we can get. I doubt we'll have the wonderful wet spring and summer of last year. Great for gardening, I'm already planning and ordering seeds. We finally moved into a very small town, 900 or less last year after living way out for a few years. Difficult in heavy snow, but, wow! so beautiful and wild. I miss parts of it.

01-24-05

I believe in living simply, using what you have, buying used before new, fixing it up, etc. and making gifts. This year I told my nieces and nephews that if they didn't get me anything, I'd love them anyway. I made home made soap and tucked them into depression glass cups I had. They loved them. I go to junk and "antique" shops and buy gently used stuff. My husband is an expert at finding the most amazing deals at Goodwill. Once I gave my sister a set of beautiful silver spoons. She loved them. I think they cost $2.00-5.00 for 6. You can find nice silver plate pieces (that don't match) and give a set very cheaply. I'm saving pieces that have the letter "D" engraved on them for whenever my 33 year old son grow up and settles down. They don't match, but are very pretty.