Update on Maggie

Well, it isn't good news. The doctor found two tumors in her bladder. They are taking up 1/3 of her bladder. He felt that they would eventually grow and cover the opening in the bladder so she couldn't pee. He could operate and leave her with half a bladder but that would be very expensive. We would consider having it done if she were younger, but she is 11 years old and has that eye problem and the muscle in her jaw atrophied. So we are just going to make her as comfy as possible and put  up with her pee problems. The dr. is going to see if he can order some meds that will help her bladder to not be so irritated . The tumors are causing the bleeding. And she is still on Amoxicillan for infection. In my eyes, she is still young since my last Scottie wasn't put to sleep until she was 18 years old and the one before that died at the age of 15. At least now she can eat what she wants. She hasn't had her favorite food, broccoli since her first visit to the vet. When the time comes, Pa will have to take her in to be put to sleep. I'd be bawling so hard, I wouldn't be able to see to drive.

Rocky Adventure

 We grabbed our pal, Tom, on Saturday along with his trusty companion, Max and went exploring around the ranch. We meandered up to the top of a mesa and saw this rock which had been split into 3 sections. Those of you who know me well, know that I am addicted to rocks of all shapes and sizes. I wanted to take this one home but it wouldn't fit in my pocket.

 This is looking down from the mesa, into the canyon. There are so many pretty places to explore out here. There is still a patch of snow down there.

 This is the edge of the mesa.

 Here are Tom and Pa contemplating the awesomeness of Mother Nature. " On a clear day......." Notice all the different colors down below.

 I'll bet this tree is ancient!

 My buddy, Max. He is such a great dog. His one bad trait is he is kinda hyper. He's about 2 years old so we are hoping he grows out of it. After running almost 2 miles to get to our house, he wasn't even winded, just thirsty.

 On the top of the mesa, there are these little natural indents where snow and rain collect. The wild life takes advantage of these mini water holes as you can tell by the bird splat.

 What a magnificent view! We know the owners of the property below so I am going to ask them if we can park our car in their driveway and hike thru the canyon before it gets too hot.

 Due to lack of rain, a lot of trees die thru out the ages. I think they are artistic.

 I found this strange conglomeration of sandstone. Originally it was on a stem so it looked like a mushroom.

 Rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks !  Ya gotta admit, they look pretty interesting.

 The wind is blowing so hard today, it could blow your socks off. It might rain with a bit of snow later. I decided today would be a good day to make bread. This looks too pretty to eat and smells WONDERFUL!

It is a 9 grain, wheat bread and has molasses in it. I use molasses so seldom, it took me forever to find it in the pantry.
Tomorrow, Maggie, the Scottie goes back to the vet for more tests and x-rays. There goes the money I got for my birthday! Oh well, nowhere to spend it around here altho I was looking forward to a shopping trip to Flagstaff to hit the thrift stores, darn it! Especially before the gas prices go up to $5.00 a gallon. Then I'm not going anywhere!
Tom came over for dinner last night. Pa made Apple Enchiladas for dessert . We had tri-tip steak, twice baked potatoes and grilled asparagus with onions and orange peppers and garlic bread. Gotta keep those old bachelors fed. Heck,gotta keep us old people fed! I've got to remember to take my camera to Tom's to take some pictures of the Indian baskets he weaves. It's not enough to weave one, he also beads them. They are beautiful!
Opps! I think some of my onions just blew away!

Foggy morning

 We woke up this morning to fog! Fog to the right of us, fog to the left of us, fog everywhere! Pa went to town to get a load of water while I stayed home and did domestic stuff.

 Yesterday or the day before I made this coupon holder so I could organize my grocery store coupons.

 This is the fog from the kitchen window, looking out to the back yard.

 This is looking out toward the driveway. See the frost on my truck?

 This is a view out the front window looking at the garden. I ordered 14 pounds each of blueberries, blackberries and boysenberrys. My freezer is jam packed full so I have till the first of March to make room for 3 boxes of fruit. Someone in SnowFlake orders from Bithel Farms in Oregon and then a truck rolls up at this persons house and we are all waiting in line to get our berries. They order three times a year. I still had peaches and apples from the previous order last fall. Sooooooo, I decided to do something with the apples.

 I made an apple pie but that didn't make too much room in the freezer so I proceeded to make applesauce and the can it in my new waterbath canner.

 Bubble, bubble, toil and touble..wait, I think it's the wrong season for that saying.

 The peaches soon met the same fate.

and there ya have it. 4 quarts of apple sauce, 2 quarts and 1 pint of peach sauce. The recipe called for all spice and all I had was whole all spice. I got out my handy little food processor and made all spice powder. When you live in the boonies, ya have to do with what ya got. By the time I was done, 4 hours or more had gone by and I was exhausted being on my feet for so long. I made chocolate chip cookies yesterday. A couple of days before I made chocolate chip oatmeal ones but Pa didn't like them and if he doesn't like some kind of food, it will just sit there. I threw them away. He was very pleased with the chocolate chip ones. I've switched from Nestle Chocolate chips to Hershey chocolate chips. They are so much better and the recipe on the back makes better chocolate chip cookies than the Nestle recipe.
My back is slowly getting better, hardly any pain but my hips still feel jammed into my lower back. At least I won't have to go to the bone crusher and deposit my hard earned money into his pocket.
My friend, Pam sent me the most yummy bar of soap that she made. I emailed all of you the brochure so you should really order something from her. You won't be disappointed!

Thunder and Snow

We invited Lil Abner and Daisy Mae over for dinner Monday night. Pa did the cooking and made a chocolate meringue pie, from scratch, no less!

 He also made Swiss Steak, a huge pan of it. He wanted to make sure there was plenty left over for us the next day. It's always better the second and third day. Boy, was it tasty! I love it when Pa cooks. I wish he would do it more often because I get so tired of having to figure out what to cook for dinner every night. I'd much rather do the dishes.

 We got two or more inches of snow yesterday. Very unusual to get a snow storm with thunder. Tilly decided to take advantage of the sun coming in thru the kitchen window.

 Here is the snow coming down. Pa made it to town and back to get the mail and a load of water. It sure would be nice to have a well so we didn't have to make water runs. But they are very expensive and water from the ice plant where we get water is 2 cents a gallon so we can make a lot of water runs for what it would cost to put in a well.

 This is looking out the kitchen window. After living in Illinois for 15 years and surviving the "Winter of "78" I swore I would never get near snow again. Old age must have mellowed me because I don't mind it at all now. It makes a difference not having to go out in it.

 The Bronco might think differently about the situation tho.

It's so pretty with the sun shining on the snow. I saw a couple of bunnies in the driveway, frolicking in the snow. Good thing Pa doesn't have his pellet gun at the ready. We are supposed to have a couple of  nice days and more rain or snow for a couple days after that. At least my onions are getting watered! It's all I can do to keep from starting my seeds indoors for this years garden. I need to wait for at least two or three weeks unless I want them to start producing in the guest bedroom. Last year, I was getting peppers while the plants were still in the house.
I asked Pa what his plans were for today. I slept in till 8 so my plans are to make no plans at all! I think he is leaning in the same direction. I wish he would find a hobby to keep him busy. Me? I just hang out in my craft room and play with paper. It is so nice being retired. I recommend it for every one. I've been reading Acts in the Living Bible. You could be reading about modern man, people never change down thru the ages.
That catches us up for now. Thanks for hanging out with me.

Maggie Miss Behavin'

My Scottie, Maggie who is 11 years old had to go to the vet last week while Pa was out of town. She didn't act sick in the least way. Her appetite was good, she was sprightly and active, did I mention her appetite? She will be just like me and raise up off her death bed and ask for pizza! She was peeing blood and drinking huge amounts of water. The vet said she had a bad bladder infection and was very surprised she acted like she felt so good . Turns out she also has cataracts and the muscle on one side of her jaw has atrophied, causing her eye to sink into her skull a bit. Can't do anything about those but she is now on antibiotics and something to get rid of the ash in her blood. We've been feeding the dogs Walmart's Old Roy and the vet says it has a lot of ash in it which can irritate the bladder and cause crystals in their urine. I have 25 pounds of dry Old Roy but have switched the dogs to Purina Smartblend until I can get to Show Low and get them something better.  I have spent more on my four dogs in the last 6 or 7 years than I did on my three children in their entire lives!

Pa made it home from Vegas in good shape with a new mother board in the generator. The generator guys know where the problem is but don't know why the problem is. Not even the engineers for Generac know why the mother board keeps going bad. Seems to me they would come to the conclusion that we got a lemon and offer us a new generator. The guy in Vegas said next time bring it back and he will replace it again but he doesn't seem to realize that it is expensive to go to Vegas for repairs every six months. Pa did have to go back on his eye drops tho.

I am so glad that I brought my geraniums inside for the winter. Aren't they pretty? Even the petunias that reseeded themselves in the same pot are doing great. Vegas about killed my green thumb but it has come back since moving here. I love plants and wish I had more windows to fill with them.

While Pa was gone, I had to haul in wood for the stove. We use a laundry basket. When I woke up yesterday, I could barely get out of bed. My lower back is sooooooo sore. I spent most of yesterday with the heat pad on my back and from time to time would go hang upside down on my reclining board. I couldn't get it to pop. I'm still lame today so I am not doing much. I told Pa he would have to get the neighbor to come down and help him unload the generator. I really hurt!!!!!

One of the things we are blessed with out here at the ranch is beautiful sunsets. We need to spend more time outside in the evening instead of watch TV. Really, is there anything worth watching anymore? I am so sick and tired of politics. While Pa watches O'Riley and Hannity, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, I play in my craft  room. We got our ballots to mail in early and will mail them tomorrow.

Pa put up Old Glory. Beautiful, isn't she? I hope and pray she will be able to fly after the election. It seems our current prez, isn't too proud of our country and what she stands for.

I'm sorry I don't blog more often but really, not much happens out here. Then it seems when I do have something to say, I don't have enough megabytes left with Verizon to be on the internet. I will be so glad with our contract with Verizon is over. I really have no complaints about Verizon. We always get good connections but to get more megabytes each month would cost an arm and a leg and we've already given them our firstborn.

Guess that covers it for now. If any of you have any specific questions you would like answered, let me know and I will answer them next time.

Onions

Yesterday, Pa tilled the garden again and I planted onions, about 50 of them. Half red and half yellow. It seems kind of early but it was 68 degrees yesterday. A regular heat wave! I put a sheet of plastic over them to keep them from getting frost bit. I can't believe the great weather we've been having. Even if it snows a foot, being this late in the winter season, we know it won't last but a day. I can hardly wait to really get started on the garden. I have my 100 jiffy pots, my shelves to put in the guest bedroom to put my starter plants on, my seeds, fertilizer and I am ready!

 We've had a variety of birds visit our bird bath and to munch on the bird feed we put out. Altho we have seen Mountain Bluebirds at the ranch, they've never visited our property before. Until now! They are so pretty and sooooo blue!

 Various finches. They have red on their breasts.

 The female Mountain bluebirds are not blue but brown. So are the immature ones.

 I was really excited to have these visitors. They are bug eaters, not seed eaters so they only come to drink.

Here is one of the two Scrub Blue Jays that come to eat. They are such pigs! They stuff themselves with seeds. I'm thinking they take them back to where ever they are living and store them there and then come back for more. They make the phrase "eat like a bird" have a totally different meaning because boy can they eat! They can make a slice of bread disappear in two seconds flat.

I forgot to show you what Pa got me for Christmas. It is a Silhouette Cameo digital cutter. It can do so much more than my old Cricut cutting machine. It can do a feature called Print and Cut where I can print out a graphic and the machine will cut it out perfectly around the edges. It sends the picture to you printer and includes registration marks that the Cameo can read so when you put it in the cutter, it reads those marks so it can find the image to cut. It is so cool! I'm going to keep the Cricut and use them both. The Cameo hooks up to your computer so you can get images to cut right from there. I'm so blessed to have my own craft room. I have a place to hide while Pa watches O'Riley and Hannity every single blasted night! I AM SO SICK OF POLITICS! and we only have 11 months to go!

We have decided to sell the water truck. Now that the water tank is full and we go to town often enough to keep it filled using our 250 gallon water tank, we can't see paying insurance on it just so it can sit there. And whether you use it or now, you still have to have it insured. Hopefully it will sell soon.
That's about it for now. I think I'll go out to the garden and see if my onions have grown since yesterday.

Interesting Week

   Just a quickie to fill you in on this weeks activities. Monday started out with a mouse doing the back stroke in the toilet. There is no way he could have climbed into there so we were thinking he might have climbed up the shower curtain and then did a swan dive into the toilet. I took pity on him (yeah, right) and flushed him down. Now he has a big swimming pool to exercise in. Every time I used the facilities, I worried that he would swim back up and bite me in the butt! Remember when we were young and we would worry that a snake would swim up the toilet and attack us? Ok, maybe you didn't think along those lines, but I did.

   Tuesday, I set a tree on fire. Monday night I cleaned out the wood stove and set the ashes outside to cool before tossing them out. Pa had mentioned that he had dumped some out by some trees so Tuesday in the late morning, I took the cold ashes and dumped them in the middle of a hollow tree. Tom came over later and as I was outside talking to him I looked over and noticed smoke coming out of the tree. Pa, Tom and I managed to put it out using buckets and a squirt bottle. Flames were clear up in the top of the tree. Luckily there was no wind. Usually Juniper burns quick and hot. Most of the tree was hollow and filled with a sawdust type of stuff so I dug that all out. It was hot so would have started up again eventually. I'm telling ya, we were so blessed and God was watching out for us because the surrounding grass could have ignited and burned the whole place down or the wind could have kicked up and set other trees on fire. Obviously the ashes weren't as cold as I thought they were. I had been dumping ashes in the garden but thought there was enough ash in there. Pa forgot to mention that when he dumped ashes around the trees that he had watered them down a lot. Tell me the whole story, Pa!!!!!

Thursday, we picked up Tom bright and early and went to Gallup to check things out. We found a nice Goodwill and had fun poking around in there. We checked out the Ace hardware, Safeway, Big Lots, Home Depot, Walmart. We ate lunch at Golden Corral. As we were sitting there eating, a couple walked in with an old Indian woman, She looked ancient with all kinds of wrinkles and in a calico skirt. Typical of what you would picture in your mind. She was so fascinating to look at but I didn't want to stare. I finally asked the younger woman if that was her grandmother. She said it was her mother in law. I told her that she was so beautiful. And she was. Her entire life was etched on her face. The majority of people you see in Gallup are Indians.

  Yesterday I ran into town and got a load of water and the mail. I usually make Pa go since I don't like going into town. I've become a regular hermit. Next thing you know, I'll be walking around in clothes made of bark and my skin will be weather beaten and the texture of petrified wood. Oh, and my teeth will be all black and chipped and I'll walk with a hunched back and have a runny eye that looks a different direction than the other one. Ain't I pretty?

   Plans for today include loading up another load of horse poo from down the road and till it in the garden. Our big generator blew the mother board again so Pa has to haul it to Vegas for repairs. We can't figure out why it keeps doing that, 2 in a year so far. We don't use it very much so it is very discouraging. I'm hoping we can fix it, then sell it and get another brand.

  One morning Pa took a shot at a rabbit with the pellet gun. He hit the dirt right under the bunnies tail, the tail flew up and the rabbit didn't even know he had been shot at. It was the funniest sight I ever saw. The bunny continued to sit there and then ambled off like all was right with the world. I saw an eagle on my way to town yesterday. It flew right in front of my truck window. So beautiful!