After we gave him his morning medications, my daughter held him while I checked the incisions. While giving him his medications last night, one of my daughters noticed a discoloration, but he would not let her take a closer look. He was more cooperative, this morning. It looks like there may have been some fluid that leaked and got smeared on his skin. I’m only guessing, because there was no sign of swelling or leaking in the wounds at all. Just the stain on his skin.
Then my daughter sat and cuddled him, so he wouldn’t make a dash for the door while I went in and out with food for the cats, birds and deer outside.
Ginger is still not happy with getting his medications. He, of course, resists opening his mouth and tries to spit out the pills. When using the syringe to give him the liquid medication, he tries to chew on it. It’s a good thing they gave us two, because he bit a hole in the first one! Still, he’s actually really good about taking them, even if he doesn’t like it.
Ginger baby is being a good boy, and handling things very well.
I visited Ginger this morning, while starting my morning rounds and before my daughter came over with his medications and the new surgical shirt.
He enjoyed the visiting part, at least! I even managed to get several usable pictures.
Doesn’t he look completely malevolent? :-D He’s actually really enjoying the scritches.
Then he started rolling around, and managed to give me a good view of both surgical sites.
I really wasn’t that interested in the one at his nethers, to be honest, but hey; it needs to be checked, too!
Is it time to groom, or time to eat? He tried to do both at the same time. :-D
When my daughter came in with the meds, I picked him up to hold him. He knew exactly what was coming, and tried hiding his face in my arm! He’s actually really good about taking them, even if he fights us off and sometimes projectile spits a pill halfway across the room. We managed to get him medicated. He seemed very offended by the whole process when we put him down.
He was even more offended when we got the surgical shirt on him.
After we finished tying it off, he scuttled over to this spot and flumped down like a sausage. Then stayed there. He was not at all happy with us!!
My daughter stayed with him while I finished my rounds, and when she left, he’d found a different spot to flump down like a sausage.
The shirt came with what looks like a feminine hygiene product to stick to the inside over the surgical site. We used it, though about half of the incision is actually higher than the neck line on the shirt. That’s not the part we’re concerned about, since it’s the lower part that gets the brunt of it when he starts rolling. The very end of the incision has a bit of a space after the sutures end, and it looked like there was the tiniest bit of blood near the wound. It was dry, but I’m more comfortable with having it covered now. Even if he isn’t!
He would probably be just fine without it, but I hope we can leave it on him for at least a few days.
Poor baby is torn between excited to see us and craving attention, and ticked off at us for making him take medications and wear clothing! :-D
We can check on him, without disturbing him, through the bathroom window at any time. This morning, we forgot to unplug the heater bulb, and my husband found him basking under it! As the sun room warmed up during the day, however, he moved to follow the sun spots.
This morning, I went ahead of my daughter to visit with Ginger, so I could first give the outside cats some warm water.
There was a slight delay on that.
Since we took the extension cord that was providing power to the cat house, so it wouldn’t be in Ginger’s way, the heated water bowl is no longer heated. And it got chilly last night!
So I decided to quickly pop into the sun room to give Ginger some warm water first, and the little bugger actually managed to get outside!! Thankfully, he didn’t get too far, and I was able to get him back into the sun room. His food bowl was empty, so I topped that up to tempt him away from the door.
We can give him normal amounts of food and water now, too.
My daughter joined me with his medications and we took care of that, then she stayed with him to make sure he didn’t run outside while I fed the critters, returned the containers, and got her to pass me one of the 100ft extension cords, before she could finally close up the outside doors to the sun room and safely leave.
I then plugged the 100ft extension cord to the outlet on the side of the house, ran it across the entry, making sure it was tucked under the door, and plugged in the cat house.
We shouldn’t need to keep power into here for much longer!
That done, I quickly finished my rounds, then headed into town. We decided to go ahead and buy a surgical shirt for Ginger, rather than make one.
Which is when things got weird.
When I opened the door, I was immediately greeted by a dog in the doorway. His two humans were just finishing up and on their way out, so I held the door for them to come out.
The dog insisted on more pets, so that took a little while.
Which is when one of the staff came over. She had recognized me and was all “this is the person I was telling you about! The one with the poster…” They still have posters with the kittens we have for adoption on there. The woman held up a paper where I could see a hand drawn map, saying “we were just on our way over there!”
Now, the first thing that came to mind is, who at the clinic knew where we lived enough to draw a map?
The next thing to come to mind was, having people suddenly show up at our gate might not work out too well. So I quickly suggested they wait until I was done, then they could follow me, which they agreed to do. As soon as I was done getting the surgical shirt, I sent a quick message to the family, letting me know someone would be following me to look at cats to adopt. I didn’t have time to tell them any more than that!
So off we went, with them following me, until we reached the gravel road. It’s incredibly dusty, as well as lots of rocks showing through the gravel, so I drove slower than usual. Even so, I noticed after a while, that they didn’t seem to be following me anymore.
I stopped on the side of the road and waited for the dust to settle and, sure enough, they were well behind, and looked like they were in the process of turning around.
??
They seemed to see that I had stopped and starting heading my way. They caught up to me and we stopped alongside each other to talk.
Her first comment was, “I think I’m following the wrong person!” They thought they were going to somewhere in town, to the humane society. That’s where their hand drawn map was for.
What we eventually worked out is that, while at the clinic, the person at the counter had told them about us having cats to adopt, as well as the humane society. I mentioned we’d never been able to get through to the humane society, and she said they’d told her that at the clinic! So it looks like they thought the staff member was telling them I was with the humane society. After confirming that yes, we do have fixed female cats up for adoption, they continued to follow along.
The gentleman was older and not up to getting out of the vehicle, so I quickly went in to talk to whatever daughter was around. Susan was near the door, so I took her out while my daughter went looking for Two Face.
Susan hasn’t been outside since she’s been fixed, other than one very brief escape attempt in the winter.
She really wanted to be outside! I ended up having to put her down, hoping she would be too nervous to go far, but nope. She was ready to explore! I managed to catch her again, but had to bring her inside at that point.
My daughter had Two Face, so I grabbed her and headed for the door.
The woman saw us through the window and her immediately response was, “oh, I like her!!” One look at that beautiful face, and she was in love.
Two Face was also a lot calmer, and we were able to bring her to the car for the gentleman to see her.
The main problem was, they had their dog in the back. I have no doubt the dog would have been fine, but Two Face would probably be too nervous.
We spoke for a while, and figured things out. Two Face is due for her annual shots, and their dog has to go back to the clinic in three weeks. They’ll make an appointment for both of them, then call us to let us know when that will be. They have a cage they can put Two Face in, so they’ll come here first, with the cage, then take her to the vet for her shots. Since the clinic has Two Face on file, they can transfer her file to them at the same time, and they will take her home from there.
Unless something happens in the between now and then, Two Face will finally be adopted out!
It was really weird, but it worked out in the end!
He seemed very happy to be out of the carrier and in familiar territory. He is quite active – a little too active! and moving around better, now that he doesn’t have that leg dangling off his shoulder.
Did I mention he’s being too active?
He’s already been caught on the shelf in front of one of the windows, about 4 ft off the ground. The girls tried moving my husband’s walker, because he was using it to climb up there. Not down, though. He was jumping straight down from the shelf.
When he was caught up there again, even after the walker was moved, the girls made it safer for him to get up and down, rather than try to stop him. The walker is back and open, with it’s nice, padded seat, and the carrier in front as a “step”.
And to think I was worried about that extension cord being in his way. That cord is for the ceramic terrarium heat bulb in the cat house outside. It should be warm enough now, that it isn’t needed, so I put the cords away. I did, however, bring the frame of the mini-greenhouse back into the sun room, and it is now holding the spare heat bulb safely above the space in front of his box nest.
Right now, he is on limited food and water, as we monitor if he starts getting sick. Tomorrow, food and water goes back to normal. He is to get the medication he was on already, once every evening, and has two other medications that he is to take twice a day, starting tonight.
Tomorrow, I’m going to go back and pick up one of those surgical shirts. We were going to make him one, but realized that the materials we have would likely get snagged on the sutures.
Speaking of which…
He is to return to the vet in 2 weeks for a follow up examination and removal of the sutures.
Until then, we keep him in the sun room, monitor him, and pamper him like crazy.
These are the bills, with a grand total of $1,316.48 Today’s bill is the two page one. Interesting to see how much the neuter cost, without anesthetic charge. The list of drugs is also interesting to see. I know people on several of them! :-D
The bill on the far right is his examination, x-rays and medications from a few days ago.
Seeing how Ginger is acting right now, I think he’s going to do really well. I think, in the time it took to get him to surgery, he already got used to using only three legs, and this amputation is just making it easier on him.
The girls have been to check on him several times already, arranged things a bit as they felt he needed, and plugged in the heater bulb. It’s not particularly cold in there yet, but the surgical site and shaved areas would still get colder, faster.
This post falls into the full disclosure and transparency zone.
I just got a call from the vet clinic, this time about the bill.
They were able to give us two estimates, depending on how long the surgery took and how complicated it might get. Those estimates included the examination and x-rays we’d brought him in for, which we had to pay before bringing him home (just over $230). What neither estimate included was the cost of having him neutered at the same time, since we requested that later.
So we were hoping for things to be at the low end, plus the cost of neuter. Thanks to the generosity of those who donated through the Ko-fi page, and through direct donations, we had that covered. The transfers are still incomplete, and one of the donations is still on hold, but we could use the funds from my tax return, set aside for garden soil and chainsaw purchase/repair, as a buffer until they came through. If it was on the high end, it would have been a bit harder to come up with the total, but we would have found a way.
Well, it turned out to be on the low end of the estimate – and that was even with the neuter! Which, of course, would not have cost as much as usual, since he was already there for surgery. The total bill for the amputation and neuter will be a little over $1000.
At that amount, we’ll only need to use the chainsaw purchase/repair money as a buffer, and not touch the garden soil money, until the transfers are complete.
One of the things that was brought up during the call is that he might want to scratch at the wound. There are medical “sweaters” available for sale. We will look at some, but we could also just make him one. My daughter and I both crochet, and we could whip some something like that in very short time. If nothing else, it’ll keep the shaved area and wound warm and dry.
With this good news, I’ve made some changes to the Ko-fi page. To start, the fundraiser goal graph is removed, now that the surgery is complete.
For quite some time, I have had people suggest I include a donation button, and some have even offered to make donations, to help with the kitties. I resisted, because I have a really hard time asking people for money! I know how tight times are, but for Ginger’s injury, we had no choice, and the kindness and assistance offered has been humbling and generous. We will leave the donation buttons up and the donation page active. If anyone wishes to help with the kitties, these donations will be used to help buy cat food and litter, pay for spaying and neutering, and any other vet bills that come up. Nothing else.
I will be sure to post photos and more updates when we bring Ginger home, and during his recovery.
We just got a call from the surgeon at the vet clinic.
The surgery went very well. His heart rate was steady the whole time, and there was minimal bleeding. When she called, he was starting to try and lift his head.
And yes, he got snipped too, so when he is all healed up, he will also be safe around the ladies.
We will get more instructions when we pick him up, which should be about 4 hours from the time I am writing this. I mentioned that we will be keeping him isolated in the sun room and asked for how long we should do that, before bringing him in with the other cats. She said to wait until the wound is fully healed, which should be about 2 weeks. That will give him time to get used to the leg not being there anymore, and puts him at less risk if there are any altercations with other cats. I mentioned we were thinking of slowly introducing other cats to him, in the sun room, and she thought that was a good idea.
He will be coming home with more the pain killers we have already been giving him, plus another that had me laughing. My husband is on the same medication! She said it might make him groggy, and I just had to add, “it does that to humans, too.”
We will be getting another call with what the final bill will be (it wasn’t finished at the time she was calling me), so we know what to expect when we come to get him at the end of the clinic’s day. It sounds like they have just started to open on Sundays, because the doctor had to actually look up what the “end of the day” meant. :-D
The main thing is that all is well with the Ginger bug!
First up, I want to say how much we all appreciate the wonderful comments, feedback, support and reblogs we about poor little Ginger!
If you click on the button on the top of the right hand column, or click here, you can see the current fundraising status. At the time of this writing, 20% of the goal has already been reached, just overnight! We are so thankful. <3
I had checked on Ginger last night, just through the door from the old kitchen, so as not to disturb him too much. It took me a while to spot him! Then I realized there was this little nose peeking out from under the flap of the “nest” we made in a box, back when Potato Beetle was convalescing in the sun room. He had a nice, soft pillow for a bed in a nice warm nest.
When I checked through the bathroom window this morning, I found him sitting in front of the door to the old kitchen, oddly curled up with his forehead on the floor. ??? A few moments later, he started to tip over, then jarred himself awake. :-D It was like one of those videos you see, where a kitten is so tired, it falls asleep while sitting up and starts to fall over.
When I checked on Ginger this morning, he was still by the door and didn’t want to move, even as I had to open the door over him! He just squished down, then became very interested in the old kitchen! Which we are not going to let him into, right now.
I’m happy to say that Ginger was looking really good this morning. He was moving around, wanting attention and pets (!!) and meowing at me. I actually wish he wasn’t moving around quite so much. Seeing that leg flopping around the way it does is rather horrific. It isn’t stopping him, though!
He also seems to have a very good appetite. The dry kibble bowl was empty. He didn’t seem to have eaten any of the wet cat food we’d also left for him. I thought maybe he didn’t like the pate, so I brought a can of shredded cat food for him. He still preferred the dry kibble.
While the sun room is warmer than outside, I had considered turning on the terrarium heater bulb we had set up for Potato Beetle, when it was still much colder. Unfortunately, we have no way to set it higher. I didn’t want to risk him stumbling and falling against it, so for now, there’s no heat source for him. Thankfully, the weather is getting warmer every day for the next while, so he should be just fine.
The sun room is where the cat, bird and deer food is stored, and normally I’d be going in and out through the outside doors. We don’t want other cats running in with Ginger right now, so the plan was to do things the long way around; go into the sun room through the old kitchen, collect the containers of feed, take them through the house to the main entry, then head outside with the warm water.
That’s a lot of containers to get through the door, while trying to make sure none of the inside cats make a run for it!
I did the short version of my morning rounds, because I wanted to call the vet clinic when they opened.
I had company.
Ginger’s brothers, Nutmeg (camouflaged in the grass) and Creamsicle Jr. followed along. Butterscotch did, too, but she stayed well back in the trees.
Potato Beetle emerged as well, and paused to say hello to Nutmeg. :-)
I had a chance to check his back leg. The wound is still quite visible, but all closed up and the fur the vet shaved away is starting to grow back. There is no sign of a limp, and he doesn’t seem to be favoring the leg in any way, so all seems very well.
For those new to this blog, Butterscotch and Potato Beetle both had trips to the vet this winter. We found a gash inside one of Butterscotch’s back legs. While she is one of the friendlier yard cats, she does not like to be indoors, and doesn’t even like to be in the sun room. We’d converted the sun room into a maternity ward a couple of years back, in hopes of socializing and adopting out kittens, but once those babies were born, she kept breaking out. She tore right through the screen at the top of the door that was there at the time. So while we were eventually able to get her into a cat carrier and get her to the vet for some stitches, we were not able to keep her isolated as she healed. Her wound was a clean cut, so it is likely she had fallen over something sharp. Sadly, there are lots of sharp things all over the farm! It may not have even happened here, as she does visit the neighbouring farms.
Potato Beetle then showed up with blood on his fur one day, but it took us a couple of days before we could find where it was from. He had clearly been in a fight. By the time we could get him to the vet, the wound had already started to heal. He did not need stitches, but he did get cleaned up and was given some antibiotics. We set him up in the sun room for a few days to heal, with a nice warm nest to sleep in, and the terrarium heater bulb nearby. Which also kept his water from freezing! Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that now. The outside water bowls still freeze over, but in the sun room, Ginger’s water bowl was just fine.
When I got back to the house, I found Rosencrantz (on the right, drinking water) had come out. She’s been hanging around more often lately, which is good. Junk Pile cat (with Potato Beetle, in the kibble house) doesn’t seem to wander off like Rosencrantz, her mother, but she still won’t let us anywhere near her. Her mystery baby is even shier, but at least we see her? him? in the cat house, snuggling with Nostrildamus (aka: Nosey).
I haven’t seen Nosey for several days. I am concerned. Hopefully, he’s just out visiting the neighbouring farms and discovering some lady cats.
For those who are new, you can read up about how we got our current cat house here and here. It now has a ceramic terrarium heater bulb to keep the kitties warm in winter. You can also read about the kibble house we built, here and here. (All links should open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place. :-) )
I just got a call from the vet while I was writing this!
I’d called after I finished my rounds and talked about booking the surgery and payment options. They just called back and the surgery is going to happen on Sunday, three days from now.
Gosh, that’s a long time for Ginger, but it’s the earliest they can do. We’ll be dropping him off at 8:15 in the morning.
Ginger will be staying in the sun room, of course, which will make it much easier to have him fasting for the required 8 hours before surgery.
As for payments, they don’t do it themselves, but contract out to another company. It’s all on a pre-approved basis, so they would have paperwork for us to fill out, they do the surgery, and then we’d make arrangements with this company.
:-/
With that in mind, if you wish to help with Ginger’s vet bills, you can do so by going to the Ko-fi page, or even just reblogging and sharing this post or sharing the Ko-fi page.
Meanwhile, Ginger is going to be pampered as much as possible!
Poor baby!
The Re-Farmer
ps: my husband is hilarious. He just came over and suggested a name change for Ginger.
This morning, while doing my morning rounds, the kitties all came out to say hello.
Then I saw Ginger.
Walking on three legs.
His right front leg was dangling and swinging in a most unfortunate way.
I tried to go to him, but he “ran” away. I didn’t want to risk losing track of him or hurting him more, so I went inside. My younger daughter was handy, so I told her about it, and she went outside with the cat carrier to try and catch him, while I called the vet clinic.
The doctor was in surgery at the time, so we were told to bring him in for 3pm. My daughter had caught Ginger, and we had a few hours, so we set him up in the sun room, where he would be safe and we could check on him through the bathroom window.
It was encouraging to see that he had jumped up onto the swing bench to nap in a sun spot. Also, his injured leg is not visible in the photo. He’s lying on that shoulder.
I had hopes that it might not be too bad. After all, he wouldn’t be lying on the injury if it was really bad, right?
So we brought him to the vet and my daughter went in, because she can wear a mask. She texted me updates whenever she was able. At first, the doctor thought there might be a dislocation, but they had to sedate him to take x-rays. He is the friendlier of the litter, but he’s not fully socialized, by any means, so it took a bit longer for them to examine him.
What the x-rays revealed was a badly broken elbow. What the doctor thought was a dislocation was a broken bone, sitting on top of another bone.
Not only was it a very bad break, but in a very bad spot.
We were presented with two options. One was a surgical repair. The last time the doctor had gone that route, it ended up costing $2200. The other option was amputation. My daughter texted me while they looked up the cost of that, but my immediate reaction was that an amputation would be far less traumatic.
For the amputation, we got two estimates. Which it would be depends on if it takes 2 or 3 hours to amputate, and how difficult things turn out to be. The price range was just over $1300, to just over $2000.
Ouch.
At that point, they woke him up to give him more pain killers so we could take him home and talk about it. Once in the vehicle, my daughter was able to give me more information. The surgical repair is something they couldn’t even be sure would work, largely due to the placement of the break and how bad it is.
Oh, and we did ask what they thought might have caused the injury. He clearly had not been in any sort of fight. They think it was most likely a really bad fall. :-(
The problem isn’t deciding what action to take, but how to pay for it. Even the money set aside for the garden soil and the emergency fund together would cover the lower amount, but that would screw us over for all our gardening, repair and maintenance plans over the summer. I don’t think I’ll even tell my family about it. Their response would be to have him put down – and not necessarily having the vet do it, for the gun owners.
We’re not going to do that.
In fact, what we’re likely going to do is have him fixed and, after the surgery, turn him into an indoor cat.
Hopefully, the vet will let us make monthly payments. However, I have also done something I have had quite a few people recommend I do over the past several years. I’m loath to do it, but for the kitties, I will.
You may have noticed a new button at the top of the column on the right. We now have a donation page set up with Ko-fi. Anyone who would like to support taking care of the kitties can click and donate any amount they wish.
Currently, I’ve got a fundraising goal of $1300. If it costs more, we should be able to cover it. If we raise more than the goal, it will go towards getting Ginger fixed so we can bring him inside. My older daughter tells me she’s planning to open up to more commissions to raise funds, too. There are only so many she can take at the same time, though.
Tomorrow, we call the vet back and talk about setting up the amputation and payment options. Until then, we’ve set up the sun room for Ginger’s convalescence, and he is there now. In fact, my daughter just have him the first of the treat flavoured painkillers we brought home with him, which he is to get every 24 hours.
Because the swing bench is a favourite place for the cats to nap, we moved it around and set up “stairs” for him to use, so he doesn’t have to jump up onto it, as he had in the earlier photo I took.
The poor broken baby! He’s being remarkably calm and stoic about the whole thing.
Pretty soon, we might have to consider changing his name from Ginger to Tripod! ;-)
I did some unexpected running around yesterday and didn’t have a chance to post. Now that I am, I’m seeing that the title font in my editor has changed. I did not change the default font. I’m not even sure how I would do that!
Well, we’ll see if anything is different after I hit “publish”. So far, it looks the same as always when I hit “preview”.
WordPress gets weird at times!
Anyhow.
For the last couple of mornings, I have been happy to see that the outside cats are using the cat house again. When I head out, I’ve been seeing a big mass of orange in the window and, as I come closer, three heads will pop out to look at me! Unfortunately, when I try to get closer to get a picture, Creamsicle Jr. gets spooked and runs off.
I’m still heating up water for them, which they really seem to appreciate!
Yesterday, the plan was to drive my husband to the clinic to get some blood work done. Unfortunately, he had another really bad pain day, and could not handle the trip. I should see if they will fax the requisition to the lab in the town closer to us. I think he would better handle a 15-20 minute drive, over a 40-45 minute drive!
I still wanted to take the van out on the highway, though, and see about blowing more carbon out of the lines at highway speeds. So I headed out to the Walmart in the small, nearer city to finally pick up the rest of the month’s supply of cat litter and dry kibble.
You can tell that spring is in the air, though, when you start seeing birds in the Walmart!
This little guy was checking out the bird seed aisle, and finding stray seeds to eat! :-D
While there, I hoped to pick up more 750ml canning jars, but there weren’t any. I’d picked up the last one, previously, and it doesn’t look like they got more. So I got more wide mouth 500ml jars (2 cups/half a quart). I think these are the two sizes that will be the most useful for us. The plan is to pick up a case or two every month over the summer, so that we’ll have a good stock available by the time we are harvesting from the garden. Assuming everything goes well and we actually have enough to preserve. I usually go with “hope for the best, plan for the worst” but in this case, we’re also planning for the best!
The van, I’m happy to say, ran well. I even loaded the heavy stuff in the back, rather than the middle, and didn’t feel any of the issues I’d noticed before, that had us splitting our trips and loading the heaviest things in the middle of the van.
Later on, I made sure to call my mother to arrange a grocery shopping trip for her. That was set for this afternoon.
If all had gone to plan, I’d be on the road to her place right now.
Does anything go to plan? :-D
It was quite late when I got a call from my mother. She had suddenly developed pain in her bones. Especially her already damaged knees.
My mother had received the vaccine for Schrodinger’s virus a couple of days before.
She was obviously quite concerned, but as we talked I suggested it might also be because of the fluctuating temperatures. That calmed her down, and she decided she would take some Tylenol, bundle up for the night, and keep the cordless phone by her bedside, just in case.
I’m happy to say she was feeling better today. When she got the shot, she had the usual adverse reactions everyone seems to be getting; her arm was sore, redness and swelling. Fatigue, as well. No allergic reactions, but I wouldn’t expect any from her. She has an iron constitution. Muscle and joint pain, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting are all on the list of adverse reactions that are being reported. We will have to keep an eye on her after the second shot, as reactions are reportedly worse after that one.
Though she was feeling better, she wasn’t up to actually going out, so I was going to do her shopping for her. We had a bit of a snow storm happening this morning; not unusually cold, but colder, with blowing snow, low visibility, etc. It was supposed to get worse in the afternoon, so I headed out in the morning. I popped in to go over her list with her and be really clear on what she wanted. I noticed things that were not on the list and asked her about them. It’s always hard to shop for someone else. Especially when shopping is often a “see what’s good” or “whatever’s on sale” situation.
There were a few things on her list she would have picked up at the pharmacy, but the pharmacy kicked me out because they don’t honour medical mask exemptions, so she said she would get those items, later. She’s not willing to pay the grocery store prices for the same things. :-D
Just me and her list did make for a very quick trip! I was even able to stay for a short visit, which I haven’t been able to do for a while.
So she is doing all right, but is very tired and will be getting lots of rest for the next while. My siblings and I are going to have to watch not to pester her with phone calls to check up on her! :-D
Thankfully, the local weather has actually improved; whatever was being forecast for this afternoon seems to be missing up.
The Re-Farmer 