Update on Don's condition

Last Thursday Don had his first follow-up appointment since he was hospitalized for acute kidney failure a couple weeks ago. Thankfully his kidneys are working fine now, but he spent the last two weeks with a catheter and catheter bag. Not fun. He's also been on medication to shrink the prostate, which is at the root of all these issues.

So on Thursday morning, we were instructed to remove the catheter six hours before his appointment (meaning, about 8 am), which we did. It rapidly became apparent that the catheter was still necessary because he was still blocked from urinating. What fun.

Several calls to the urologist's office followed, and it was determined that he needed to come in earlier than his scheduled appointment. I drove him in to Coeur d'Alene, he disappeared behind closed doors, and they withdrew a quart and a half of urine from his bladder. He felt MUCH better afterwards.

So obviously the problem is persisting. The urologist determined that the prostate is still grossly enlarged and had been slowly enlarging over several years. It just reached the tipping point in early April when all this started. The medication is taking so long to be effective that we'll have to see how things are in another two weeks or so.

Meanwhile they taught Don how to self-catheter. Yes, you heard that right. He's been an absolute trooper about this procedure, and in fact is quite cheerful about it, especially since he doesn't have to wear a bag or have the catheter tube in all the time. "Hey, urination is good!" he says jauntily. That's my man!

Bottom line, we're strongly considering some laser therapy treatment at some point in order to permanently shrink the prostate and keep this problem from periodically flaring up. We're also thinking about the long-term outlook. If Don had not had prompt access to hospital care when he did, this situation could have turned out far, far differently. We don't want the prostate to keep causing him difficulties which could prove grave if immediate medical care isn't available at some future point.

One outstandingly phenomenal piece of news -- thanks be to God! -- is there is no cancer in the prostate. That had us deeply concerned for awhile.

So that's the skinny so far. I want to thank everyone once again, from the bottom of our hearts, for your prayers and well-wishes, your get-well cards and emails, and your overall support. It means more to us than we can say.

UPDATE: A reader sent this, which I thought was remarkably apt.

Tattler lid sale

You folks know how much I love my Tattler reusable canning lids.

Well I just word that Tattler is having a sale on their lids. Here's their announcement:

Effective immediately, TATTLER is offering two dozen FREE LIDS with every order over $75.

Additionally, EVERY ORDER OVER $250 will be entered to win an All American model 915 pressure canner!

To make it EVEN BETTER, (1) All American pressure canner will be given away for every 25 orders over $250, which means the ODDS OF WINNING are 1 in 25!

There are no codes to enter, everything is automatic and based on the final sale price. This is an extended offer for which an end date has not been set.

Act now to take advantage of this great promotion AND get your name entered to win one of the best pressure canners on the market courtesy of TATTLER Reusable Canning Lids, THE ORIGINAL, since 1976!

Thanks,
Loren C. Stieg

All American canners are the best on the market, IMHO, so this is a heck of a deal all the way around. If you've been toying with the idea of getting Tattlers, here's your chance!

Of tractors and gardens

We've been doing a tremendous amount of work in the garden lately.

A lot of this work involves moving large amounts of heavy things: gravel, tractor tires, compost... And, since Don and I aren't getting any younger, we're unashamedly making use of our neighbor's tractor. I can't even begin to describe how much time this has saved -- as well as pulled muscles.

Nearly every day, the girls and I go out and spread some more billboard tarps, then I bucket some gravel on them while the girls rake and shovel it around until it's roughly even. We'll "prettify" things later. Right now we have to get the infrastructure in place.

Here the girls choose a tarp...

...and carry it out to the garden.

Gust of wind!

That's why we're anchoring the tarps with gravel.

More tarps.

More spreading across the ground for weed control.

Don came out to enjoy the sunshine and help spread tarps and shovel gravel.

It seems like things are going slow, but we're definitely making progress! If you could see the waist-high weeds that were in this space last summer, you'll understand why we're going through all this work.

Meanwhile, the girls and I had moved these enormously heavy tractor tire halves (destined for strawberries) aside in order to put gravel on the tarps. Now it was time to move them back.

Here's where they're going, right next to one of the raised strawberry beds.

Originally I was going to slice the vinyl down to bare ground in order to allow proper drainage... but then Don suggested it may not be necessary because the gravel will provide suitable drainage and the tire is deep enough for the strawberry roots.

It's the same principle as putting a bit of gravel at the bottom of a flower pot and then putting the pot on a tray. The gravel ensures drainage, and the "tray" (the tarp, in this case) just funnels the water away. So I back-filled the tire centers with travel to support the hardware cloth.

I like putting hardware cloth on the bottoms of the tires to keep voles from tunneling up.

Anchored down with compost, the voles shouldn't be able to come up from the bottom.

And now for the hard part: I had to trundle composted manure in the garden cart from the compost pile to the garden. This is harder than it sounds. Not only is compost heavy (it's still wet from spring rains), but the good stuff is buried at the bottom of this seemingly bottomless mound of barn waste.

It would take at least seven or eight cartloads of compost to fill one of those enormous tire halves. Essentially, an all-day project since forking the manure into the cart takes about half an hour (because I have to push the top uncomposted waste aside in order to reach the composted stuff at the bottom). My back ached at the mere thought.

Ah, but I hadn't figured on the tractor. Don, bless his heart, did something we'd been needing to do for years anyway: turn the compost pile. He revved up and started pushing.

It literally took him ten minutes to do what would have taken me weeks to do by hand. What a blessing tractors are!

Almost finished. Can you see all that beautiful black gold that had been hidden at the bottom?

The chickens, of course, though we had done this solely for their benefit.

Ah, but the blessings of the tractor weren't finished yet. Don offered to scoop up and move the compost for me. YES!!

It took two scoops to fill that tire half... in only fifteen minutes or so. By hand, I'm estimating it would have taken four hours of back-breaking work.

Then I took over the tractor and started shunting and spreading more gravel.

But then it occurred to me. Before I had to return the tractor, what if we used it to fill yet more tractor tires? For we had two tires yet uncut.

So Don, good sport that he is, took the Saws-All and got busy. We tie the tire halves together so they won't flop open uncontrollably as he cuts his way around the circumference. These tires weigh upwards of 300 lbs., and have 150-lb. halves flopping down on us wouldn't be fun.

Ready to move. And how did we move it?

With the tractor!

In short order we had the first two tire halves down.

And then the second.

And then -- you guessed it -- he used the tractor to fill them with compost.

Altogether today Don filled six tractor tire halves and I moved at least twelve or fifteen loads of gravel. With a total of about one solid hour of tractor work (not counting ancillary work), that tractor has saved us untold hours of hard hard physical labor. God bless tractors as well as the friends who let us use them!

We have lots and lots of work left to do to get the garden into full capacity, complete with weed control and deer-proofing. Without the tractor, it would take weeks longer than it is.

Another geek-day celebration

Coming as I do from a family of geeks, I'm surprised I never heard of this until I heard of it from a friend. But apparently today is International Star Wars Day because -- are you ready? -- it's May 4th. As in, "May the fourth be with you."

So Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!

UPDATE: Oops. Today is May the Third. That's what happens when you work at home -- you totally lose track of the calendar.

Fight or flight?

A reader named Heather sent an email as follows:

I wonder why more people - especially Christians, aren't considering fleeing the country. Personally, I don't have any hope in the future of this country, and I don't have any hope that we will be able to defend ourselves when push comes to shove with the government. Guns or no guns, they have bombs, tanks, and chemical means.

I often think of Hitler and the way he slowly took away freedoms. How some Jewish families left and for others, by the time they realized the need to leave, it was too late and they weren't allowed to. Should we leave before it's too late?

Would you consider addressing this on your blog? I'm really interested to know that other people think. I realize that our country has been the best in the world for so long but it isn't any more.

Heather raises an interesting point. I'm certain the notion of "flight" has occurred to a lot of people. But the big question remains, flight to... where?

I'm reminded of the slogan from the Canada Free Press: "Because without America there is no free world."

In many respects, America is the last frontier for liberty. This doesn't mean I haven't trolled Google Earth looking for uninhabited islands where we could be left in peace; but for the time being, we'll bide here because I can't think of anywhere else that's better for personal freedoms (despite our government's attempts to limit them).

Thoughts?

Sad loss

I heard a lot of bellowing coming from down in our woods this evening. That often indicates a cow jumped a fence or something is otherwise amiss. I decided to investigate.

Sadly, I saw this:

One of our heifers gave birth some time today and the calf died. He -- for it was a little bull calf -- was already cold and stiff when we found him. We have no idea why he didn't make it. He didn't have any obvious birth defects and there were no indications of trauma.

This is Shadow, the mother. She's young, and this is her first calf. Could there have been birthing difficulties? Could she have rejected him? We weren't home this afternoon, so we simply don't know. At any rate, Shadow is understandably distressed.

You know, we've raised cattle since 1999, and this is the first calf we've ever lost. The first.

Don and I double-bagged the poor baby and put him in the back of the truck. We'll take him to the dump tomorrow. We can't leave him out in the woods since there's too much of a chance a carnivore may be attracted.

Sigh.

Shell-less egg

If you keep chickens for any length of time, once in awhile you'll come across a shell-less egg.

Take this one, for example. Looks pretty ordinary, doesn't it?

But it has no shell, only the inside membrane keeping it together.

The membrane is actually surprisingly tough. It hardens up a bit when exposed to air, and this egg was sitting in the coop all night.

The egg inside is perfectly fine. I just tore the membrane open.

It's fun to have a little variety once in awhile.