Saturday, April 05, 2008, 14:15
A Meteorological April Fools Joke
This is ridiculous. I have been trying all week to find the time and energy to post a blog. So here it is, finally —
If the physical evidence were not right in front of my eyes, I would have thought it was an April Fools joke Tuesday morning.
But no. It was real. When I got up on Tuesday morning, the world was covered in white. The small cedar tree in the yard was heavy with snow. And this was after Randy had knocked the snow off it the night before.
The sun was just starting to shine through the trees while I was taking pictures, so the trees around the driveway and across the road looked rather enchanting -- a different world all together.
Pixie thought the snow was kind of fun, too. She likes to eat fresh snow. Her version of a "doggy snowmen" I think. But she's also beginning to wonder, too, if it is ever going to warm up. (Just like the rest of us!)
All day Monday, it snowed so hard I could barely see the end of our five-acre hayfield. The snow was melting at about half the rate it was falling, however, so the accumulation was lower than it would have been if the temperature was colder. Monday night, the temperature dropped, and then the snow started sticking to the trees.
Tuesday morning I found out just how heavy and wet the snow was when I shoveled my paths. The forecast said the temperature would drop to 15 degrees overnight (it was actually 14 degrees Wednesday morning), so I knew that if I did not get at least some of the snow off the paths, I would be trying to walk on frozen tracks in the snow on Wednesday. And that wouldn't be any fun at all. Not when I was trying to carry horse buckets and get hay out for Isabelle and Kajun.
And all of that just when it was starting to look a little bit like spring, too.
Then again, I was pretty well convinced we would not get any March snowstorms this year. But on the last possible day for a March snowstorm, there it was. Certainly not the worst March snowstorm I've ever seen, but enough snow to qualify as a March snowstorm.
I kept waiting for the township truck to come through on Tuesday to plow the snow. But it never did.
No, the patrolman waited until Wednesday morning, when most of the snow had melted off the dirt road and had turned to ice. I could hear the truck coming for two miles. The blade was down, and it was pushing against ice and frozen mud. The noise was incredible. Didn't make any sense to me. Why come along with the snowplow at that point? Perhaps it was just another example of "our tax dollars at work." All I know is that Isabelle wasn't very frightened of the town truck, but later on, when I took grain in the barn for Kajun, he was STILL shook up over it. (sigh)
UPDATE: The fresh snow we got on Monday is all gone now on Saturday. We are back to where we were before it snowed. There's still snow in the woods, but the fields are fairly well cleared off. The weather forecast, however, says it might snow more on Sunday. A squall came through Friday night about 5 p.m. and it rained really hard for about 10 minutes and was very windy. Then the sky cleared off and it was sunny again -- although somewhat colder than it was before the squall came through.
Clinic
I went to the clinic again on Wednesday (third time's a charm, they say) and finally was able to get some antibiotic for my sinus infection. Not that I wanted to rush anything, you understand. I've only been sick for six weeks. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the antibiotic will take care of the sinus infection so I can finally get my energy back.
Duke
I took Duke to the vet clinic Wednesday to get blood tests done to check on his red blood cells and his kidney and liver function.
Good news! Everything was pretty much in the normal range. We can now go to shots of Procrit for Duke two times per week instead of three.
The bad news is that Duke has lost more weight over the last few weeks. The vet wants him to eat the Science Diet Kidney Diet cat food but he's not very crazy about it. None of the cats are. The vet also told me, however, it is important for Duke to eat. So I'm going to try mixing some Senior kitty food with the KD to see if he will eat it better that way.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, March 31, 2008, 13:51
Smashed to Smithereens
My green bowl is gone. The heavy green glass bowl with the fluted edge and the three feet extending out from the bottom. The green vintage -- if not outright antique-- bowl that I used to take salads to church events or family gatherings. It's gone. Smashed. Broken into four thousand fine shards of green glass.
Henry-the-kitten did it.
I was getting ready Friday morning to feed the horses but decided I ought to call my sister first to ask her a question about how a name was spelled for a newspaper story. It had to do with a tornado interview I had done for the 50th anniversary story series about the F5 tornado that destroyed my hometown and much of the surrounding countryside.
The mom, the dad and the son took refuge in a poured concrete silo. The silo came down. The father had a three-foot stick driven through his neck. Missed the jugular vein by millimeters. The 17-year-old son pulled it out. Then they carried the Mrs. out of the silo, or what was left of it. They thought she was dead, but she wasn't. Just knocked unconscious.
The hired man got hit on top of the head with a chunk of concrete the size of a basketball. It only split his scalp open -- didn't crush his skull. Later on, the local cattle hauler used his cattle truck to transport the injured to the Municipal Building in my hometown that was being used as a triage center. The Municipal Building was in a part of the village that the tornado missed. I wasn't sure of the spelling of the cattle hauler's name.
Any who. . .
As I was on the phone, I was aware that Henry-the-kitten was on top of the microwave where the green bowl had been placed after it was washed. I took it to my nephew's house on Easter Sunday with Heavenly Apple Salad.
And then . . . KA-CRASH!
Gotta Go!
"Uh-oh," I said to my sister. "My big green bowl just bit the dust. It's in 4,000 pieces. Gotta go."
The green bowl was, indeed, in 4,000 pieces. Maybe more. There was green glass everywhere: countertop, kitty food dish, floor.
Henry, Katerina and Dora -- after running away as if I were chasing them with the vacuum cleaner -- came creeping back into the kitchen. They seem to think the vacuum cleaner is a monster that is going to suck them up and not spit them out again.
"Come on," I said to the kitties. "Down to the basement with you, before you get glass in your feet."
Henry, his eyes as big around as 50-cent pieces, was not hard to convince. Dora and Katerina were right on his heels.
When the kittens were safely downstairs, Pixie came out to the kitchen to see what had happened.
"Sit! Stay!" I said. I did not want Pixie to get glass in her feet, either. She took the hint and retreated to the living room.
I grabbed the broom and started sweeping shards of glass off the floor. Then I got the dust pan and a whisk broom to sweep glass off the counter. I had to throw away the large yellow dish of dry kitty food that was sitting by the microwave because it had glass in it.
Then I got out the stick vac to pick up more of what the broom had missed.
After that, I scrubbed down the counter top and found more glass. And washed the floor -- and found MORE glass. I suppose there is glass I missed somewhere. I hope not. But I suppose there is.
Safe Again
"Okay, kittens," I said, opening the basement door. "It's safe to come up now."
Katerina and Dora were ready and waiting. Henry was nowhere to be seen.
Later on while I was feeing the horses, I went into the basement to get water for the horses. Henry was lying in the window sill, in the sun, looking as if he felt very sorry for himself.
"It's okay, Henry," I said. "It was an accident."
Henry gazed at me, blinked, and went back to staring out the window again. Usually when I talk to him, Henry has something to say back -- a chirp, a meow, or even a yawn. And he often comes to me and puts his paws on my legs and wants to be picked up and petted. But Henry did not move.
For most of the rest of the day, Henry stayed downstairs. He did not meow at the door to be let in the house, not even once. It was only much later in the afternoon that I was able to coax him upstairs again. And when he finally came through the door, he stopped and looked around, weasel-necked, as if he were afraid something was going to go KA-CRASH! again.
I'm going to miss my heavy dark-green glass bowl. It was so pretty to take salads in, and over the years, I got a lot of compliments on it.
On the other hand, if I had my choice between the green bowl getting smashed to smithereens and Henry getting hurt, I'd rather lose the bowl. After all, the bowl can be replaced. But not Henry. He is one-of-a-kind. A dear, sweet -- even if klutzy -- one-of-a-kind who purrs in my ear and gives me head-bump kitty-hugs and curls up on my legs to keep me company when I lie down on the couch to rest and sits on my lap to help me type on the computer and makes me laugh when he plays in the laundry basket and chases his tail or fights with Pixie's pink dolly and makes it squeak.
There's no green glass bowl anywhere in the world that's worth more than that.
LeAnn R. Ralph
