Sunday Thoughts

Today after church, Keith took down the big Christmas tree on the porch, while I drove down to see my oldest grandson Chris in Garnett, about 65 miles from us.

Chris and his old gran!

 Keith packed away the big artificial tree which we put on the porch so the kittens could not climb in it constantly before Christmas, where Nathan dressed it with plastic balls in case it came to harm outside.  In fact, it DID fall over twice in heavy winds despite a sack of gravel at it's feet.  Yesterday I took down the inside decorations from the Gatlinburg pine that also was dressed in plastic this year (same reason!).  We packed them away in bins and tomorrow they will go out to the storage building to wait until next season.  By then, the kittens - or Josie, at least - will be old enough that climbing the tree won't be so tempting.

Jenny, an hour ago... she still tries sometimes to stay near Keith, who was on the couch

Our little Jenny tonight is still very ill.  We have decided that she will go again to Dr. Tom tomorrow morning, and have him give us an honest assessment of her chances.  He and we hoped that she would be able to grow out of this upper respiratory infection, but the last week has been horrible.  We have seen this before... last year, our Nick wasted away before our eyes, and Dr. Tom was unable to diagnose what caused it exactly.  We see this same condition now in Jenny, the wasting of the back and thigh muscles.  I tried dropping some plain bouillon down her throat tonight, but she struggled so against it that we stopped.  She has had her antibiotics faithfully, and we have tried to keep her nose clear, but she is even now laboring as she breathes.  She can still get up on the table where her food is out of reach of the dogs... but does not eat, and we have not seen her eat for four days now.  She is still drinking water, but sleeping almost all the time.  We let it drag on with Nickie for almost a month, and we regretted it... thinking the rest and sleep would do him well.... we will not make the same mistake with this sweet little girl who deserves better, and never had a real chance.

On a happier note, Keith ordered our vegetable seeds from Burpee today for the vegetable garden.  We are going to try putting the tomatos in containers again this year, as we have had wonderful success with this in the past, but the bulk of the garden will be in the ground, in the new layered beds.  We have (Keith decided!) decided to fence the vegetable garden to keep Lilly the Mole Digger out of it, and to keep her away from the paper layers  - which tend to end up in the far corners of the yard when she decides to play.  We'll use cattle panels and t posts, as I used to at the old Calamity Acres to make pens there for my chickens.

Gardens in winter

I am still pouring over catalogs myself, to order flowers and a few special perennials for the gardens, and then we'll buy whatever we don't order from a couple of well-liked local nurseries. Tomorrow I am off, so after a few necessary errands and a trip to the vet in the morning, I'll put away the last of the Christmas things, spruce the house up, and get ready to tackle the new year at the office on Tuesday.