More Summer, 2023

Maggie

Our Maggie Mae was about nine months old when we got home from last winter in May. We talked to her Vet about getting her spayed. Their schedule put that out into early July. Just a day or two later she went into heat. We had her in lady doggie diapers for about three weeks. The Vet said Maggie needed to wait until August. We got her on their schedule for then.

In the meantime, she was on a short leash on walks and a close watch when she was out. We wanted no mishaps, there were none.

I was a bit anxious the day of her surgery. There was no real reason to be I guess, just the pre-surgery flutters. Maggie had a big patch of her tummy shaved for surgery.

The stitches were not dainty but functional. Maggie left them alone so no “cone of shame” was needed. We did take an old Tshirt and made a snug tube top for her to cover the stitches. It was all she needed.

In two weeks the stitches were out and Maggie was just fine.

And just up the hill, Maggie has a best friend, Scooter. He is about 3 months older than Maggie, has a curlier coat, and weighs about a pound more then Maggie. They have very similar color coats.

Maggie has a red collar. The two of them have an off-leash play time four or five days a week. They run and wrestle until they are worn out and have to stop for a break and then they do it some more.

Sometimes it is wet and a bit muddy. No matter, they just get dirty.

No problem, Maggie gets an outside bath in her wading pool.

These play dates always wear Maggie out. You can see here that her tummy is back to normal.

Roger

After riding my three-wheeled bike last winter and trying out Susans’s electric one, I decided to add an electric assist to mine. I got it done in early July and then rode about 60 miles a month. I like it a lot.

There is a bike trail that runs near our home and it leads West out to Schaar’s Bluff Park overlooking the Mississippi River and then further to the trailheads at Spring Lake Park. It is about 8 miles one way and if you add up all of the ups and downs, it has about 800 ft of elevation change each way. It is some work to ride but it is a beautiful trail. Near the trailhead, Dakota County has a small but growing bison herd.

There are about a dozen bison now and the herd will grow to about twice that.

Several cows and calves.

And a single bull.

I enjoy riding. This winter in Orange Beach I am hoping to ride perhaps 150 miles a month. We will see.

Good news on the medical front. In the Spring and again in the Fall, lab tests and physical exams show no return of the lymphoma from 20 months ago. Six PSA tests in a row indicating undetectable mean that surgery, 6 months of drug treatments, and 8 weeks of radiation treatments have done what we hoped for, the prostate cancer is in full remission. I am on a 12-month check-up schedule for lymphoma and a six-month (up from three) PSA test schedule. Good news indeed.

Ribs

I like smoking and eating ribs but in a moment of very little grace, I got tangled up in my own feet and fell over into the grass. I landed on my right side and without thinking tucked my arm in tight perhaps to protect my shoulder which had been damaged and repaired about 9 years ago. I don’t know the mechanics of what happened but it hurt quite a bit and when I went to see the Doc the next morning the X-rays showed three broken ribs on the upper right back side.

They gave me enough Rx drugs for about 6 days. Believe me, it was not enough. I had to get by on Tylenol and ibuprofen. I also tried the pain relief patches and cold packs. It all helped some. I slept in a chair for almost a week and then finally got back into bed at night.

By three weeks I was doing some easier tasks. I got back to Habitat in the fifth week. That was a tough day. I was back at it the next week.

The Docs told me six weeks to heal up. Maybe for 30-year-olds. For me, it was longer. I had another broken rib and some other internal damage from a car crash 20 years ago. They seem to be back to haunt me as well. But now most is all well and good. My best advice? Don’t break your ribs. Don’t fall. We are old and much more fragile than we were 40 years ago.

Garden Projects

We refinished the bridge over our front yard dry creek bed. It is a task done every 4-5 years. The bridge is over 20 years old now and holding up well with regular maintenance.

It looks good after a good cleaning and a coat of oil-based finish. Once it was all dried up we replaced the anti-slip runner (which fits over the darker color on the bridge deck).

It was somewhat dry this summer but the gardens looked very nice with Susan’s care.

We added a wooden screen in front of the electrical boxes, switches, and meters next to the garage door.

It looks good and Susan found plant holders that hang on it.

We added roll-up screens to the garden deck on the back side of the shop. They hide the view of the garden bench and equipment from the house and provide some afternoon shade. These were inexpensive and very functional.

We added steel roofing below the solar panels on the garage so that snow will just slide off the panels into the steel roof and off the roof. I think it will work, we hope we won’t be here to see it.

It was a busy summer. We stayed home to get projects done. There were other projects, too many to list them all. We had a great 4th of July Picnic with long-time friends. Busted ribs threw a curve ball at us but we worked through it. Once again Susan’s care and help made all the difference.

Fall is upon us. I am quite sure the number of leaves falling from our forest is in the billions. It sure seems like it blowing them all back into the woods where they belong. We had our big oak trees trimmed as we were getting ready to head south. A final grass mowing and winter fertilizer and seed were laid down. Our lists of get-ready-to-leave tasks came out and are getting checked off, one task at a time.

The time to head south one more time is close.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger, Susan, and Maggie