Replenishing the Flowerbed

I nearly lost all my flowers to the 5 year drought. I had a few very stout Dianthus that survived as you can see partially in this picture.

The place where I buy my horse feed is next door to a Southerlands which had a large garden section with lots of beautiful green and flower plants. After I bought feed Friday April 22nd, I found myself unable to resist going to look. Next thing I know I am carting home several plants!

We had received almost 10 inches of rain over a 3 day period last week and the ground is still very wet but there is more rain in the forecast so I decided to go ahead and plant anyway Sat April 23rd. I dug up several worms!

The flowering Dianthus are my existing flowers. I planted some Gazanias, Zinnias

Garden Phlox, Dahlias, coneflowers

and I planted a few more Dianthus since they do so well for me!


These are suppose to attract butterflies. I sure hope so! I also hope I am able to keep them alive. Even with our abundance of rain we have already been notified that minimal water restrictions will start in June.

Have a good one!

Appreciating the Little THings

With the craziness last week I still managed to get 4 days of biking in. I have found it to be very therapeutic. It's a great time to clear my thoughts and talk to God. Even though I am not riding the trails I am still finding beauty in my surroundings! These pictures were taken on Thursday April 21st.

These wine cups are so small. It is so pretty to see several of them together.

Here's a nice little groups of flowers.

I just love this picture. It just seems so peaceful to me.

I want to give you a quick update on the baby birds. On Tuesday night (April 19th) when I was putting out hay I decided to check on the little guys and discovered they had flown the coop! I was so disappointed! I didn't get a chance to show the grandkids!

Have a good one!

What An Ordeal!

I came back to see Mom on Saturday April 16th bringing items she needed from home.

The infection was sent to lab to be cultured. We were told it was staph but there are many strains of it and to best treat it the type of staph needed to be identified. In the meantime antibiotics were administered through IV.

Sunday night Mom learned that the infection was MRSA. If you don't know what it is click on the word to take you to a link that explains it. It's not good! It is very resistant to a lot of antibiotics and highly contagious!

I hadn't been to see Mom since Saturday as we were being told that she might get to go home Monday or Tuesday but once the infection was identified there was a matter of coordinating how Mom would continue receiving her antibiotics by IV.

Once all the details were worked out Mom was able to come home Wednesday April 20th.



Now every time someone went into the room there were precautions.

You had to clean your hands, put on a light weight plastic gown and rubber gloves. Do you like my attire?!

Trying to help pass the time while we wait for a wheel chair.

Mom is very eager to bust out of this place and get home!

I arrived at 4pm. We left the hospital at 5:30pm, just in time for evening traffic in Dallas and then a slow down in Arlington because of the Rangers game. We finally get home about 8:30! Buttons was beside himself!

Mom will be on IV antibiotics for 6wks. Doyle is administering them to her once a day. It takes almost 2 hours for her to get her meds.

We go for a check up with her surgeon Dr. Cook on Tuesday (April 26th). Mom follows up with Dr. Heron (infectious disease doctor) after 6 wks.

Mom feels good and is doing well!

Have a good one!

The Last of a Generation

Doyle's Uncle Joe, the last of his Dad's siblings, passed away Sunday April 10th. He lived most of his
life in Odessa in West Texas. A viewing was held there on Monday and burial was at Landreth Cemetery South of Mineral Wells off Interstate 20. Doyle's grandparents (his Dad's parents) are buried there.

Doyle was asked if he would speak which he was honored to do.

He's so handsome! I was so proud you him! He's a natural :)

Because ground was so wet the service was held close to the road and only the pall bearers were allowed to walk to the grave.

Keannon came with us and helped Doyle with the music portion of the service and then served as a pall bearer.

Keannon is wearing the blue shirt.

We spent some time afterwards visiting with family. Doyle's cousin, Rita, rescued this Jack Rabbit. I have never seen a baby before. She found him when his eyes were still closed and has bottle fed him. He seems to be doing well.

Look at those big ears!

and big feet!



It was good to see everyone.





Have a good one!

The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

That is the lyric from a very old song I learned in Sunday School but it seemed to apply to the rain event we experienced in the early morning hours of Sunday April 17th. It was similar to the rain event we had March 7th. I blogged about it here.

It was still raining when I was walking out the door to go feed then to church. This was the info my weather station reported.

The canal was running nearly full. It had been over the bridge at the height of the rain event.

There is so much water that it's coming up through the manhole covers!

Run off just a block from Mom's house.

That's lots of water! This is looking down the street of Mom's house. Its the second on the right in this photo.

This is what 7.5 inches of rain looks like in the gauge!

I rode my bike and there was water standing in several places at the cemetery.

The canal runs through the cemetery. You can tell by how the grass is laying how high it got.

This rain event caused some damage. There is a street that runs parallel with the cemetery and another bridge. The force of the water peeled up part of the pavement. You can see the bridge in the cemetery from the previous picture.

You can tell by the trash at the fence that the water was over the road.

We aren't done with the rain yet. More is in the forecast tonight April 19th. We are already under a Thunderstorm Watch!

Have a good one!

150th Anniversary of the Goodnight-Loving Trail

Saturday April 16th was the ribbon cutting for Texas Frontier Trails Historic Walking Trail. This is the trail that I blogged about a month ago. You can see that post here.

The guy in the white shirt is the pastor of my church. He's on the board of TFT and was very instrumental in getting the trail opened. The guy in black on the opposite end and the woman next to him are friends of ours and members at my church.

Pastor Kirk shared how he got involved with Texas Frontier Trails and his vision for the walking trail.

A little live entertainment by Ike Mercer.

Left Oliver Loving (portrayed by Danny Buckalew) and Charles Goodnight (portrayed by James Friend)

One of the markers along the trail. I didn't take time to walk it as I needed to take items to Mom at the hospital in Dallas.

There were some beautiful flowers there!

My beloved Bluebonnets were there too!

There was a great turn out and the weather stayed nice even though we had a chance of rain.

Have a good one!

Wasn't Expecting That

Reader's Alert If you're the least bit squeamish you may want to scroll through a couple of the pictures.

Friday April 15th was Mom's check up with her surgeon. She's 4 weeks post-op. They planned to
remove the cast and take x-rays. Mom was in good spirits and had made out a list of errands she wanted to run and some grocery items to buy while we were out. Her appointment was at 9:15am. We were about 10 minutes late (thanks to me) but it really didn't matter as they were behind at Dr. Cook's office. First thing was to remove the cast so xrays could be taken.

This is the picture you may not want to look at.

After the cast was removed we saw this yellow spot in the middle of her incision. We all said "that's not good". Do you also notice the discoloration and swelling in her upper foot?

Do you notice the area around her ankle and heel that appears like a shadow? It's bruising I guess. I don't recall it being there last time the cast was off.

Dr. Cook comes in with his assistant. He doesn't even talk about the xrays. He is focused on the infection.

Dr. Cook pokes at the spot. He says "you've got infection in there. That's not good and it's down to the bone. I've got to do surgery."

Mom said "you're kidding!"

Dr. Cook says "No, I'm not. I need to do surgery to clean out this infection. Probably tomorrow. I'll makes some calls."

Mom and I are both in disbelief. As we're trying to wrap our brains around what he's just told us he comes back in the room and says "I'm not waiting until tomorrow. I'm going to do it today! You can tell by his face he's not happy.

Now Mom and I are in shock. We had both planned on doing things that afternoon. Now we were making an unexpected trip to the hospital in Dallas another 30 miles further East! I quickly text Doyle and some others to let them know of the drastic change in plans.

Needless to say Mom is disappointed and trying to figure out how this could have happened while the nurse rewraps her foot.

We get to Texas Presbyterian Hospital (where she had surgery initially) in Dallas. Here we are waiting in to get her admitted.

Going through all the paperwork before they take her to surgery.

They didn't get me a case number at admissions as they had before. Probably because this wasn't a scheduled surgery. By the time I got her case number she was nearly done! Her number is 602943. You may have to click on the picture to enlarge to see better.

And before I knew it she was done! It probably took less than an hour.









Dr. Cook talked to me after surgery and said everything went well. He was pleased with the healing of the initial surgery and said her bone looked healthy. Now to identify the infection. He said Mom would be in the hospital at least through the weekend.

I made plans to go home to pickup some things for Mom. Her cell phone died before I left the hospital so I took it with me to charge. I also needed to take care of her dog Buttons. I would come back the next day.

Have a good one!