Getting Ready

I am more than ready for summer.  Trust me on that one.  But that’s not what this post is about.  Remember all those things I said I had to do this summer.  Well, that’s what I’m getting ready to do.

I couldn’t resist getting a house plant when I got my garden plants.

One thing that put me behind was my Ranger not running.  It would start and then die, like it wasn’t getting gas.  So my dad came out yesterday morning to load it up and haul it to the shop.  (Thanks to Dad for the pictures)

Um. It didn’t go quite as planned.

He had to get a loader and pull it out of the floor and back onto solid wood.  Oops.

On the way back from dropping it off, he picked up my panels and boards so that I can start fixing the chicken/peacock/goose outdoor pen.

As if that wasn’t enough to keep me busy this weekend, I also stopped on my way home from work to pick up the stuff to seal/finish the deck.

Now I just need sunshine and a plan to keep the dog from tromping through my work.  He seems to think it’s time to play.

Sky with his Jolly Ball

My mom came out last Monday, and we planted garden.  I got as much done as I could before the next two days of rain.

Mom in the garden

I have just a few things left to plant, and then the garden is ready for summer!

cucumbers and celery (with strawberries in the back)

I am soooooo ready for summer!

Cell Phone Pics

I’ve been playing with the camera on the new phone.  I’m not very good with it yet.

Rocky napping

Sky cracks me up the way he sits on the couch.

Sky and Mom

He just flops his butt down next to you.  He never gets “on” the couch like a dog.  He just sits like a person.

I think it’s funny that the vegetarian in the family is the one who gets to make the pulled pork.  I guess I’ll take it as a compliment to my cooking.

Maisie’s triplets were all hanging out by the salt/mineral block and they just snuggled together when they got done licking it.

Tara and Tippy lying with Tawny standing

Cutie’s girls are really big.  She makes so much milk that her kids always look good.

Sylvia

I don’t know how Bob could sleep with his face planted in the chair like that.

Bubbles is a really good mom.  And she’s so beautiful.

Missy and Bubbles

Sonny and Nestle are doing well. They have truly embraced coming into the milk room for sweet feed with their mom.

I really need to figure out how to do a good moon shot.  This was last month’s “super moon” when I was leaving my mother’s house.

I finally finished the baby blanket I’ve been working on for quite a long time.

Our dry weather was upgraded to a moderate drought last week.  We had a few sprinkles the day I took this picture, and there was more over the weekend, but we are still too dry.

Hopefully, the weather pattern will change.  My pastures need some rain.

The Next Morning

After a sleepless night because of stress and worry and no air conditioning, I got up to milk.  After I finished with the girls, I decided I really needed coffee.  It took me a minute to get Sky to come back in because he doesn’t like the back door.  I had a hard time convincing him that I couldn’t let him in the front door.

Sky

Finally, I got him to come in and I tried making coffee.  It wasn’t even too horrible–a bit weak.

Anyhow, as I was finishing my cup of coffee, I got a call.  It was my son and nephew telling me I needed to get in to my mom’s house.  She needed to go to the doctor.  I asked if I was taking the Ranger and waiting for the ambulance or if I needed my car to drive her.  I was driving.  So, it was a good thing I figured out how to get the garage door open without electricity the day before.  It was a bit of a more nerve-wracking driving through the debris at the end of the driveway in my new car, but I made it! I even remembered to go around the block to park so I could get closer to her front door.

When I got to her house, she was still not dressed, and she said she was waiting for the doctor’s office to open so she could call him.   I told her to get dressed; she could call from the car.  Of course, with the storm, everything was down, and it went to the answering service that they should call 9-1-1 if it was an emergency.  I told her to just hang up because we were already headed there.

Mom from 2014 when I was practicing portraits

When we got to the ER, I told them she’d been having chest pains all night.  They took her back immediately. Of course, I couldn’t go with her because of Covid-19, but it wasn’t a real long time before they came out and told me that they were going to admit her.  I could go home.  When I got back to my house, I saw that my son and nephew had gotten the generator hooked up to my freezers and refrigerators.  Thankfully, there were several generators they kept shuffling between all the family and some of the other people in town.

It was getting fairly warm in the house, even with the windows open, and Sky was not happy that the cold air wasn’t coming out from any of the usual places.

I couldn’t just sit there though and worry about  my mom, so I went back into town to help with the cleanup of her maple tree.

using the backhoe to move it

my second nephew bringing back the wagon after emptying debris

two men and their chainsaws

my nephew using his backhoe to move the stump

sawing it while the backhoe holds it up

my son, dad, and nephew; my mom’s neighbor sawing; my niece-in-law hauling wood

I did ask them to take the dead branch out of the other maple tree.  It’s been hanging for years, and I knew she would appreciate it being removed.  Because there was nothing else I could do.

my son in the bucket

Late in the afternoon, I got a call from a nurse telling me they were in the procedure room and going to do the procedure, and she’d let me know how the procedure went once they were done with the procedure.  Did I have any questions?  “Yes, what procedure?”  She didn’t realize I hadn’t heard from anyone since I had been told they were keeping her.  They were doing an angioplasty because her blood work had indicated she had probably had a heart attack two or three days earlier.  After the procedure they did call me back and let me know that she had one main artery in the front of the heart completely blocked.  They also found a blood clot in one ventricle, which was also an indicator that she had had a heart attack.  It’s a very good thing that she went to the ER that morning.  She’s out of the hospital and doing well, staying with my sister out of all the storm mess.