Update on Kate, et.al

Kate's foot was not getting better, so we took her in. Thankfully it wasn't getting any worse - but we weren't waiting any more! Some steroids and some antibiotics and TADA- All better. Mostly anyway, a huge step in the right direction. At least I don't have to feel guilty that it wasn't the right choice. She is no worse for the wear. The Dr reassured me that waiting a day as long as it wasn't painful, marking the swollen area, and benadryll were all the right steps. He also told me that he was glad I went ahead and brought her in because with bug bites (especially on extremities) it's very easy for infection to be nil one minute and raging the next.

So thanks for the comment on the post. MRSA is definatley a huge worry with a bite that doesn't heal. :-* Big ole smoochie for you!

Since i'm updating- the shed is still up in the air. No word form the county. I've called twice more but nothing.

Annah's fever never did come back, nor did she have any other syptoms so we are chalking it up to the surgery being sucessful and that it was truly an ear problem as is her m.o. for such things. 12 hours of fever versus days of fever and vomiting, and months of antibiotics - I'll take it for what it is and say thank goodness she is healed!

Pop went in for surgery for Kidney stones this week, while they were prepping him they noticed an arrythmia so now he's off to the cardiologist and has no relief on the way any time soon for the kidney issues. It wasn't a heart attack, but so far that is all I know.

My computer is - well a new computer, and still there are kinks. Files missing and things moved around. Not everything has been fixed yet - but I am now operating on Windows 7 and so far, at least I am operating. New savings fund for 1 or 2 back up drives for my pictures. I'm giving up on saving for the new (uesd) camera. I'll focus on keeping the pictures I do take safe and sound - and that includes new flash drives and SD cards as well. If anyone has a need for my CF card, I'll gladly trade or sell. It's only 2GB unfortunatley - but it's something. I'll trade for some seeds even. ;-) LOVE my seed collection.

Always something

Annah's fever broke yesterday and by the time we got home from work she was all better. But, there is Always Something!

Kate got bit by a spider last night. Not once, Not twice, THREE times!

So there is her foot this morning. The blue mark is where the swelling was last night. Kept her on benedryl both topical and by mouth to keep any histimines from interfereing with the swelling any farther. Now I'm at the place where I'm not sure. The redness and swelling has definatley grown since last night, but not exponentialy. It's not any worse than that picture now, and that was taken 6 hours ago. Do I take her in now? Wait until tomorrow? Get antibiotics profilatically? I guess that is the big worry that bites like this tend to be somewhat nephrotic... skin deadening. I don't want the little puss pockets (which I have opened up twice and need opened again now) to turn all gross and then end up getting a secondary infection that could lead to an abscess or.... yeah - this is where having all that medical stuff stuck in my head is suddenly not so useful. I know what COULD happen, and I know that the antibiotics profilactically may or may not prevent it - but I also know that if I DON'T give her antibiotics and it does happen how incredibly horrible I'd feel. And if nothing comes of it and it goes away on it's own the next few days then I'd feel guilty for giving her the meds. AYE! This isn't supposed to be the types of decisions we mothers make! It should be Ham or turkey, macaroni or potatoes. GAH!

As luck would have it.

Well, My littlest babe of all – she’s been fever free and not sick at all since her surgery in June. As of last night we can’t say that any more. As luck would have it this is playing out just like all of her other ear woes. L I’m not happy. Not at all. Fever over 103* no other symptoms makes this a FUO. Just. Like. Always. Joy.

 

She was perfectly fine last night when she went to bed. 2 hours later she was screaming and shaking and poor little baby was hallucinating, and burning up, like steam coming off of her hot! I stripped her down, got the ibuprofen, wet a washcloth and got to work. 20 minutes later 103.4. I can’t imagine how hot she was when she first woke up. Poor little B girl. She’s down when she first gets meds, then screeching hot again 2 -3 hours later. Praying for some relief tonight for her (and me, both!) and that tomorrows dawn brings her fever down and her body healed. If not we are heading to the peds for an ear check and urine check.

 

On the gardening front I have a lovely little bag of seeds that really needs to get into the ground. But, every afternoon like clockwork about 20 minutes after I get home the sky opens and we get rain and or enough lightening to keep the kids away from the windows! The seeds patiently await the promise of the new day on my kitchen counter. Seems that new day is going to have to wait even longer. Hopefully this weekend I’ll get caught up with what I want to get in the ground. The filet beans, the purple beans, the rest of the limas, the corn, the onions all need to go in soon. It will be too late if things don’t get in quick like. Well, for the longer season things like corn anyhow.

 

Soon all the autumn seedlings will be racing time and I’ll be ever so Impatiently awaiting their harvest. Meanwhile, I check my mail eagerly for the next seed catalog so I can diligently drool over all the varieties that are still out there to be tried. Somewhere in those scrumptious pages lies my perfect tomato, pumpkin, winter squash, bean, broccoli….you get the picture.

 

On the shed front, the county has officially sent us a summons. We took the stupid thing down within 24 hours of speaking to the code enforcement guy and called him twice more to make sure he knew it was gone. Yet, somehow, someway he managed to lose our paperwork. Grrr….rrr… I’m not happy at all.  I’m also beginning to wonder if there is a county ordinance against roosters in the garage? Teehee… THAT would get the attention of our neighbors who turned us in for that tiny little lawnmower hider. Now, seriously! Just what am I supposed to do with my lawn equipment? I can’t keep it in the garage as the kids playroom and Troy’s room are right above and the fumes from the gasoline penetrate the walls. UGH! I’m also considering picking up a used and busted lawnmower to let sit in my yard to show whoever decided they didn’t want me to have that little shed what it was I was trying to keep out of sight. Let that bad boy rust on my front lawn for a few months and I bet they’d be GLAD if I had a little shed again. Sheesh!

 

OK rant over, for now.

 

Barbie

 

Harvest Monday

Well, I have a dead PC but I just can't ignore harvest Monday. Do I have much to show for it? Nooo... But that is not the point. It is dead of summer beyond hot and muggy - but we were able to eat some things from our garden this week. A small pot of cowpeas made a nice meal for 2, I threw in some extra okra cause we seem to have it coming out our ears as well. Found out something I am not thrilled with. Turns out okra is one of those veggies you have to flash before freezing. Guess its a good thing gumbo is the main reason for growing it. We can use the fresh for frying I suppose.
Thumbs are tiring out so have a great day, I can't wait to catch up on all the gardens bounties when I get up and running again.

Stupid computer

I have a black screen of death. Thank goodness for my phone it means I can at least send a quick post to say that I am MIA. Wish me luck, hopefully the IT guys will get me all fixed up soon.

ARGH- had to come back to put in the pics. Still a bug or two to work out - need to figure out how to get th epics in my email post, and I need to remember to delete my auto siggy on them HAHA.

Harvest...Tuesday?

Well, it’s not Monday but here are a few pics of this week’s goods from the garden. It’s been decided that starting with the fall crops that I am planting now I will measure what I bring in to try to keep a tally of the types of veggies and fruits, the days to harvest and the weights of harvests. I’d like to get some true comparisons and see what types of veggies do best for flavor , vigor, production. Right now production is key because we will be stocking an entirely empty freezer. But, next year I believe that flavor and production will be a battle. J

These pictures actually span about 10 days. The Sunflower was brought in and dried first. The carrots are pathetic, I just needed the room and finished clearing out their space. Loads of okra, some PEPH trailing in still, the new plantings will be putting on soon as well so I expect that harvest to ramp up this month Tobasco peppers come in 10 or 12 at a time every couple days, and a cucumber every few days as well. Sometimes they go into our salads and other times fridge pickles. J

Speaking of freezer… So my freezer is on the fritz. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. It’s an old 6’ stand up with the wire shelves that have the refrigerant run through them. We bought it not long after we got our first house, and subsequently boat. Original purpose for it was bait, fish filets, crab. It’s been repurposed a few times now. I have fixed it twice on my own. Once was a simple reset fuse thing, and the other was a problem with the seal. This time I’m just not sure. In 4 months it’s completely iced over. The freezer used to vacuum seal when I closed the door and for the past 2 months it hasn’t been doing that at all. Then the past 2 weeks it started doing it again! I don’t know what to think. I know the freezer is somewhere between 12 and 15 years old – I know we should probably just go and get a new freezer lest we lose everything at once. It’s happened before. Twice. Once fully - completely stocked, with venison, beef, chicken, veggies…it was devastating. I can’t imagine that happening again. Thankfully it was due to a hurricane and not the freezers malfunction but still! Ah, but there is this extremely frugal side of me that says just defrost it again and see what you can do with it. I’ve also recently heard that a ‘frost free’ freezer won’t keep meats and veggies nearly as long. I need the dependability of keeping our meats for a year. We hunt only in the winter for deer, and while we might take a hog in the summer we certainly do not count on it. It’s just to blazing hot to be sitting on stalk. We don’t have our dog anymore so we can’t go to the pigs, we have to wait for them. We tend to also only purchase large quantities of chickens in the fall/winter as their production slows down so we are able to swoop up 40 chickens for $60 or $70 – cleaned! So anyone with info on the whole freezer thing- I need help! LOL

Ah, that brings up something that I’ve been longing to do. My old crab traps are long gone and I didn’t really realize that I missed them until now. Actually the ocean itself. That salt air, the sticky sweat, the slime of the fish, the stench of the mud…. Oh so delightful. It’s time for these old memories to be made with my children. At nearly 4 years old the twins are well past due for the first squeals of delight that a blue crab scuttering away bring. Of course I’m well aware that with that comes the inevitable screams of terror when after telling them for the millionth time not to get too close they get a finger pinched and it scares the living daylights out of them… teehee. Yes, these are the memories I want to make with my kids. We’ve found a nice little fishing spot this summer that we frequent. It’s time to expand their horizons a bit more. I’m thinking this fall we may just need to make a little trip out to hangover island. It’s time to do some good old fashioned camping, FLORIDA style! :-D

Email Blog?

Just making sure. This can sure come in handy. I’ve had to worry about certain sites being taken away from work lately. Which, in all honesty I don’t really mind. I do prefer to keep up with certain people, and I have specific places I visit but I don’t have internet access at home. So, I know full well that there are times (*ahem* like right now) that I take advantage of the system and do things at work that I really should be saving for my own time. Thus it seems only right that the Company is closing down certain sites. FB and MS are missing among others. So – if you manage to find me you know why I haven’t been around those parts. Not that I post much on FB or at all on MS but I do keep up with people there.

At any rate – I’m setting up email capabilities now so at the very least I can post and know that others can find it even if I can’t find them.

Wondering out loud here....

My other blog has a counter - so I can see how many views I get... but I cna't seeme to find one built in nor find one in the tools to put on my posts. Anyone out there at all? Anyone know where I could find one? My other blog also has stats as to what state or province the views are from and I find that fascinating as well... Hmmm.. I like the format here better, but some of the perkes 'over there' are better... I just don't know what to do!

Busy weekend

It seems that all through the year my calendar is chock full of things to do on the weekends. Then, all of a sudden it's August and I'm flying by the seat of my pants! I'm much more of the schedule as much of possible type so this of course is concerning to me. It helps me remember that I can and SHOULD occasionally let go of control and wait. Wait to see what happens. This weekend was the first unplanned weekend and instead of being able to catch up on some organization projects that I'd like to have tackled I seem to have managed to get company instead. Friends that I dearly love. People I cherish in my life, but rarely get to spend real time with. This weekend? Now it's all about the GIRLS! WHOOHOO! Saturday is now full of promises of sunkissed skin and refreshing dips in the pool. Good conversation and (hopefully) good food, too. So, here's to throwing the schedule out the window and waiting. It only took a couple days to find me, and I'm SO glad it (they) did!

On the garden front I have new babies! Here is the roll call: Lakota squash is up! Autumn Gold (Squash) is up! Pickalot cucumbers up! Sierra Gold Canteloupe is present! Crimson Sweet - only 1, so I need to replant (not sure what happened there!)
Black beans are into 2nd true leaves. That is it for the newest. Planting again this weekend so I'm sure I'll have more to report in another week - 10 days.
The pumpkins for October are starting to finally get going well. They are 35 days in so I was hoping for just a little more growth. They are still only about 18" long. So I decided to go feed the garden last night. Cowpeas are pushing up the first blossoms. I've never seen such a timid blossoming. I'll presume that the next 2 weeks will begin churning out the pods. Sure hope so. I'd hate to think I wasted that space on the fence. I could have used that for cukes!
Mostly the garden is looking bare. I have a new bed to finish soon. We were ticketed by the county because we had a plastic storage building 3'x5' and they don't allow - can you imagine? UGH. We took it down so the space it occupied will be turned over and added to the vine patch. :-) I had plans brewing for that space long before the county came out. LOL - It made Rich upset but I was grinning ear to ear when we were told to take it down. Priorities differ I suppose. We will need something to house the lawn mower and such after all! (here it is all the way to the right. So now the area from the wooden playhouse to the fence will be my vining patch. I've learned my lesson. No more vines over 4' in the main garden! I was devestated when I lost my pumpkins a few weeks ago. I've started fresh with them, but the wait is sure to do me in. They'll never be ready before the girls birthday. *pout* Oh well, I should still have them before Thanksgiving! :-D