Friday, June 06, 2008, 22:38
Torrential Rain and Wind
Thursday night, the torrential rain finally arrived that the weather forecast had been predicting for the last few days. In about 30 minutes, we got an inch of rain. Then, on and off during the night, it rained hard a few more times, and we got an additional half an inch of rain. It started raining again when I was down in the barn checking on the horses before I went to bed. Charlie and I were stuck in the barn for a while until it let up.
I realize that an inch and a half of rain is not a tremendous amount. But in a way, for us here, it is. We have had drought conditions over the last 4 years, and any time it rains an inch, it seems like a miracle.
Friday it was cloudy all day, and the wind really picked up about midmorning -- gusting to 50 mph. While I was opening the gate to let Kajun out in the little "L" pasture, I heard crr-crr-crrrr-aaack! from across the road. A tree had apparently blown down in the woods. It was loud enough to scare Kajun into coming back to the barn on the run. He stood and stared across the road for a minute or so, and then he slowly ventured out into the lane again.
It is also windy enough today to make the electricity flicker. Every once in a while, I hear the backup battery for the computer beeping because the electricity flickered.
Tornado memorial service
The dedication ceremony for the black granite bench and the memorial service for the 28 victims of the 1958 tornadoes were held Wednesday night. The gymnasium at the school in my hometown was filled with 600 to 700 people. It was an incredible and wonderful experience. People were meeting up with people they haven't seen in an awfully long time. The service was lovely. I found it haunting to listen to to more than 500 people singing "Amazing Grace" a-capella. The families of victims who were killed in other areas really appreciated having a memorial service for their loved ones. No other towns in the area held a memorial service on the 50th anniversary of the 5F tornado.
I was also privilege to witness the doctor meeting the "little boy" he had treated 50 years ago for a skull fracture. A six-week old baby had been blown out into a plowed field. His father, aunt and 3-year-old brother were all killed. His mother was severely injured. The doctor said they did not have MRIs then or CT scans or other diagnostic tools. When they x-rayed the baby's head, he said it looked like a cracked egg shell. The doctor and his colleagues did not know what to do for a six-week old baby with a skull fracture. So they decided to do nothing but take care of him and treat him with Tender Loving Care. By the next morning, the baby was doing much better and his condition was improving. After 50 years, the doctor's voice was still filled with awe when he recalled that the baby had been doing much better. He considered the baby's recovery to be a miracle.
I happened to be standing right there when the doctor met the "baby" he had treated. Chris was a classmate of mine, and since we all knew he had been blown out into the field when he was a baby, we considered him to be a miracle too. The look on the doctor's face was priceless. He hurried to get his wife and said, "This is the baby I took care of!" It was kind of comical because since Chris is taller than the doctor, the doctor had to look up at Chris to say that.
If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy of the tornado booklet that contains the stories I wrote along with the other essays submitted, plus a number of pictures (it's an 80 page booklet), the publisher of the two newspapers that I work for is selling them for $10 plus $3.50 for shipping. For more information, you can contact the Glenwood City Tribune at (715) 265-4646, or send a check to the Tribune at P.O. Box 38, Glenwood City, Wisconsin, 54013-0038.
The book has a dark blue cover and is really very simple and elegant. I like the way the graphic designer laid out the interior, as well, and the graphics she chose to illustrate those stories that did not have pictures.
Charlie
Wednesday morning when I let Charlie out of his kennel, he couldn't stand up. His hindquarters were so weak, that he would try to take a few steps, and then he would flop over. I thought maybe if he had a chance to walk around some, he would "walk out of it."
He didn't.
I was unable to get him to stand up and take more than a few steps. The night before I had been gone to a meeting, but Randy said a couple of deer had crossed the oats field and that Charlie had taken off after them, leaping and bounding.
By later in the morning Wednesday I was still unable to get Charlie to stand up and walk, so I knew I would have to take him to the vet. But how to get 70 pound Charlie into my small truck? I called Randy at work, and he left at noon.
I had made an appointment for Charlie at 1:15. Charlie perked up when he saw Randy back the truck around and open the back door. He loves to ride in the truck, and it was easier to get him into Randy's big truck than it would have been my small truck.
The vet drew some blood to check for Lyme disease, but the test came back negative. We told her about Charlie running and leaping, and she seemed to think he had over done it. He apparently has some significant arthritis in his hips. She gave him a shot of cortisone and sent some cortisone pills home with us to give to Charlie. She also said I should give him ranitidine (acid reducer) to help Charlie's stomach since prednisone and Metacam together could give him an ulcer.
Well. By that evening, Charlie was able to stand up and walk around pretty well. And by Friday, he is still walking around and doing well. He is doing so well that for the time being we have taken him off the Metacam. In a few days, he will go to a half a pill of prednisone every other day for about a month, and we shall see how he does then.
I called the vet Friday morning to tell her that Charlie had responded to the prednisone extremely well. She was delighted to hear it. She said she was worried about him. So were we. Randy and I were both afraid that Charlie would never walk again.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, June 03, 2008, 18:00
Sprouts!
I am pleasantly surprised. The garden is sprouting! I would have thought it would be too cold for the garden seeds to grow, but they are. Some of them anyway. Well, the onions are not seeds, they are sets.
Anyway, the onions, radishes, turnips, beets, peas and sunflowers are all starting to grow in the garden. I haven't seen anything yet of the sweet corn, but sweet corn usually takes quite a while to germinate and to start to grow.
I only planted the muskmelon, watermelon, giant gourds and potatoes this past weekend, so they won't be up for a while yet. Especially the melons, I think, because they like soil that is quite warm.
I am keeping my fingers crossed about the potatoes. It has been years since I grew potatoes in the garden. Since we have a large potato farm in the area, and my husband knows the owners and some of the people who work for the potato farm, we always can get all the potatoes we want. I wanted to try raising some in the garden again, though, so we can have "new potatoes" later this summer. There is nothing like new potatoes from the garden.
The last time I raised potatoes, the potato bugs ate up the plants. I went out to the garden one morning, and there was nothing but potato stems. No leaves at all. My mother used to talk about picking the potato bugs off the potatoes (potatoes were a big cash crop around here at one time) and putting the bugs in a can with some kerosene to kill them. Sure, I could sprinkle the potato plants with pesticide, but isn't that the point of growing your own food? So you don't end up with all kinds of pesticides in the food? That's why I raise a garden, at any rate. Or one of the reasons.
In addition to the garden, the oats in our field is, of course, sprouting quite nicely. But when I took a walk with Charlie around the oats field this morning, I noticed something else sprouting, too -- teeny tiny alfalfa plants! Yipee! The alfalfa is coming. Alfalfa is such a slow grower that it needs a nurse crop. That's why alfalfa is planted with oats or another similar crop. I can't tell if the timothy is sprouting. At this stage of the game, timothy and oats would look so similar it would be hard to tell the difference.
I saw something else sprouting in the oats field as well. It's a broadleaf plant. And quite a lot of it. I don't know what it is. It is too small to tell just yet. I am hoping it is not white cockle. If it is white cockle, and if there are other weeds, we will have to make sure to cut the hay early next year to kill out the broadleaf plants before they get a chance to go to seed. We have done this before, and it actually worked out quite well.
Cutting the hay before the weeds had a chance to seed cut down on the weeds in the field by about 90 percent. Some of them weren't "weeds" per se -- they were prairie plants. Sow thistle. Fleabane. Alyssum. Flowering spurge. Cinquefoil. Mullein. But when they are in the hay where they do more harm than good, they are weeds.
LeAnn R. Ralph