Cop Car's Beat

Pretty Trees

REDBUD

About an hour ago, Josh and his crew showed up to plant the Oklahoma Redbud tree that I bought last November. It is to replace the redbud that was taken out, last fall, for being too close to the neighbor's fence. Below, the photo shows Josh bringing the tree from the trailer to the hole that his crew had dug.

 

The photo, below, shows the new tree in all its glory! Note the small patch of bare dirt next to the neighbor's fence, toward the left side of the photo. That is where the old redbud had been removed last fall.

DOGWOOD

While checking out my new/old camera, I snapped a couple of photos - closeups of blossoms on the two Prairie Pink Dogwood trees that are abloom. I've decided that the third tree is, alas, dead. Note the difference in color and shape between the blossoms on the two trees.

Catching up for the week - 4/9/2021

Photos of the Week

It seems that I take the same photos each spring. It's my way of capturing the beautiful blossoms and the changes that have occurred in our neck of the woods. For comparison, I'll provide links to some of Spring 2020 photos: A little (more) work done; One more time I was faked out; Dogwood Saga; It's Redbud time in south central Kansas.

The first photo shows the growth of the little clump of redbud trees, and the larger whitebud, behind them. Obvious in the foreground are the seed cones from last fall of one of our staghorn sumac plants, while, much less obvious in the background is the redbud tree that was so brutally beaten down when the neighbors trees fell across it.

The second photo shows the beaten down redbud tree. It seems healthy, but it will take several years for it to regrow some branches to take over the places of the branches that had lent height and shape to the tree, but which were split off.

The third photo shows the three dogwoods that have been planted in the past two years. The two are abloom; the third shows no signs of blooming, but seems to be alive.

Next photo: closeup of dogwood blossoms.

The blooms in the next photo are crabapple blossoms. I seem not to have photographed the whole tree.

Tulips are next. The leaves of the iris plants foretell a bountiful year for them.

Lastly, the next photo shows one of the lovely clumps of phlox that we have - transplanted from New Hampshire some years ago at the benevolence of Bogie. (Bogie probably noted that there is a larger clump of her light lilac colored phlox in the midground of the first photo at the start of this posting.) The remaining phlox (not all of the phlox that Bogie sent me survived the first couple of years - probably due to poor placement and/or lack of water) loved our wet March, this year.

 

Disappointment (4/8/2021)

The dental road down which I embarked in late December, 2020, has taken a turn for the worse. I started telling the tale of my adventure at the end of a posting, Week in Review - 10/17/2020. I told of my troubles with keeping a crown on my #9 tooth (upper, front, right-hand tooth). I had decided to try for an implanted fake tooth as it became obvious that any attempt to keep a crown on the little tooth stub that was left would be futile. (I had had four crowns on that tooth since the first one that had been installed in 1967, the first lasting for 30 years, the second for 20+ years, the third for 11 months, and the fourth for a few weeks. That was in addition to the two root canals done on that tooth.)

On January 11, 2021, Dr Omar started the process, pulling the root of my #9 tooth out. It was long, strong, and healthy looking. Dr O installed a titanium insert into the bone and measured the torque. The installation would not resist enough torque for the post to be inserted that day - my bone was not dense enough (imagine that at my age!) One week later, I returned to the dental office for removal of the sutures and evaluation of the healing process. Everything looked good in the x-rays. The x-rays taken at the next (and last) evaluation on February 8 also looked good. Today (4/8/2021) was my day to have the post installed into the implanted receptacle. Oh, joy.

Dr O had never seen me phased by the pain of any of the work he had done up to today. Today was different. He had barely gotten started when I flinched. He applied more Novocain. When he started up again, the pain was worse and I flinched even more. More Novocain. This was repeated twice more. Eventually, Dr O was able to work without causing me great pain. It turned out there was a reason things were so painful. My body had, stealthily, been rejecting the titanium insert. The insert had to be removed, the bone smoothly cupped, a bone grafting mixture inserted, and the gum sutured once more. What a disappointment.

Dr O offered to try implanting, again, once the surgical site had healed (maybe up to six months). As Dr O and Sheri were working on me, I thought, coming up with the working theory that the insert is machined from a titanium alloy that includes nickel - to which I happen to be sensitive. I told Dr O, "No, let's not try that, again." and told him that I saw no reason to expect different results for the same procedure (I'm not insane!) When I explained my working theory, Dr O started to object, "But...it's titanium...." Finally agreeing that the hardware had to have been formed from an alloy (that he could not identify), he agreed that we should move on to the next option - a bridge. In his lexicon, a bridge is when three crowns are made as one structure and installed with the two "good" teeth as the support for the fake tooth that fills in for the missing tooth.

Last night was the pits - today is better (4/9/2021)

I made a rookie error, yesterday. When Dr O prescribed an antibiotic, I picked it up on my way home. As soon as I got home, I took the first dose (2 tablets). I was to take a dose (1 tablet) on each of the succeeding four days. My error was in taking that first dose before finding the information sheet in the pharmacy's bag. I know that the pharmaceutical companies write those sheets to cover their asses; but, in the process they can scare a person to death. There were a couple of "pucker" statements: 1) that those with kidney or liver disfunctions might have a problem and 2) that anyone over age 65 should think again. Yikes! That was in addition to all of the horrible, possible side effects.

Immediately, of course, I started experiencing stomach pains and twitches in the left side of my chest. (Abnormal heart beats - long QT syndrome - were a side effect. A QT interval is the time from the beginning of electrical activation of the heart to the end of electrical relaxation.) In addition, I felt lousy and I developed a semi-severe headache that was still with me this morning. Was I being panicky or was the antibiotic a real problem? This question haunted me all night.

This morning, I was at my primary care physician's office at 8am. She and her staff, as it happened, were not in office, today; but, Hunky Husband's primary care physician, a partner in the same office, was seeing walk-ins. My wait was but five minutes. He listened to my sad tale - that I was concerned because Dr A had told me a couple of months ago that my kidney function was failing, and I don't need any medication contributing to its problems. Not having seen me before, and it's being faster to ask than to look at my chart, Dr N asked if I took other medications. Yes, I take a statin. Well...it turns out that there are bad interactions between the prescribed antibiotic and the particular statin prescribed for me. Dr N wrote me a prescription for a different antibiotic - one that I had taken six times within the past 15 years. I asked the pharmacy to destroy the four unused antibiotic tablets and bought the newly prescribed antibiotic.

At noon, I took my first dose of the new antibiotic and I can tell you: Whether I was panicky or whether there really was a problem, I feel much better. The headache is gone, no further stomach problems, and no twitching in my chest. Of course, part of my improvement must be attributed to the surgery's now being about 30 hours behind me. The swelling in the gum and my upper lip is down enough that I no longer resemble a snapping turtle but a more friendly sort of turtle.

What has happened this week?

Safety Deposit Box Project:

The big thing that happened was that Dudette met Hunky Husband and me at the credit union so that we could get her onto our safety deposit box as a co-owner. Yay! She and Bogie will need to be able to access the stuff in that box, eventually. Unfortunately, despite what I had been told, they would not issue another key for Dudette.

In order to have Dudette put on as a co-owner, she had to provide a photo ID (her driver's license did nicely) and her Social Security card. As happened, Dudette could not find her Social Security card. She, instead, brought her birth certificate and her marriage license (to show her name change), knowing that her original Social Security card is among the papers that we do keep in the safety deposit box. That worked nicely, too. Why we still have Dudette's and Bogie's original Social Security cards is beyond me; but, there they are - and Dudette chose to place hers back into our safety deposit box when the paperwork was all done.

Come to think of it, Dudette also used the opportunity to return the Half-Pint microwave oven that we had loaned the girls. I need to retrieve it from HH's car trunk. [I got it, only to find that Dudette or Wonderful GrandDaughter had slipped a pint container of home made cookies into it. It's a wonder that I opened the door of the microwave. Otherwise, who knows how many years the cookies would have stayed there?]

Similarly, I used the opportunity to take a twig, that is to become an oak tree, that I had potted up a year or two ago - for Dudette & Wichidude or for the girls (Wonderful GrandDaughter and Rachie).

Yard Work:

Slowly, maybe not so surely, I am making progress on yard work. A week ago yesterday, I mowed the good grass. I had actually been checking the status of the mower battery; but, when it proved to be alive and well, I went ahead and used the mower - thinking that Jim's Tire & Auto would be picking it up that day for its 1st annual servicing. As it turned out, Jim's was swamped. They will call us when they have time to do the servicing - in about three or four weeks, they thought.

 

 

Trees:

Our crabapple tree that was planted last May is showing some color. The tiny leaves are unfurled.

The weather has provided so much moisture in March (yes, we're supposed to have rain in April) that the nursery has been unable to get their trees out of the ground on their tree farm; thus, the two trees that I bought last fall will not be planted in March - maybe April. The first photo shows, in the foreground, a yellow flag marking the spot in which the new cherry tree is to be planted, eventually replacing the North Star Cherry tree that is enveloped in yellow, in the background. The second photo shows the location at which the new Oklahoma Redbud tree is to be planted, replacing the redbud that had been encroaching on the neighbor's fence.

And then there are narcissi:

 

Spring is nearly here & I'm spring cleaning

First bouquet of the (almost spring) season

Although most of our bouquets are placed where Hunky Husband can enjoy them from "the master's chair", this particular bouquet should be dedicated to Elder Brother (EB) whose 85th birthday is today. Nineteen thirty-six was a banner year. Not only was EB born in 1936, but each of us three siblings (who survived infancy) married a spouse who was born in 1936. I'm remembering, though, that EB's wife succumbed to pancreatic cancer eight years ago. We miss her. She would have turned 85 in mid-February.

My birthday present to EB was foregoing singing "Happy Birthday" to him when we called him. He had two feet of snow on the ground. We had received heavy blobs of snow for several hours, yesterday; but, only a smattering had stuck (to bare ground areas) when we retired last night and nothing was left this morning. We have received about 2.2" of liquid moisture in the past 48 hours.

Spring cleaning our safety deposit box

About a week ago, I removed nearly everything from the safety deposit box that we keep at a local financial institution, bringing it home to sort out and update our inventory listing. Oh, my! We are pretty good about stuffing papers & items into the box; but, we're not good at shredding old papers and keeping the inventory listing updated. The biggest mess was our accordion file labeled "Isurance" (well...Hunky Husband was having a bad day with the labeler, I guess.) That file contained insurance papers dating back to 2007. I culled out more than half of the papers before throwing the rest into a bag to take to our agent's office. Our agent, Ron, wasn't in the office; but, in response to my crying and begging, his right hand assistant Monica replied, "You know we love you!" She would sort through to see if she agreed with me that most of the papers could be shredded.

An hour later, when we stopped by again, Ron showed us the large bunch of papers that were ready to shred and gave me the bag. It now contained four pristine envelopes - each labeled with the insurance policy and date in Monica's handwriting. Monica had also found an envelope containing the title to HH's car which I had noted as missing from the accordion file labeled "Car & Home Papers". Ron & Monica give service well above and beyond duty. Ron even offered to shred the unneeded papers for me.

Now, I need to take a fistful of EE bonds, that I had purchased through paycheck withholding before retirement, to the credit union for cashing in. According to the treasury website, the bonds haven't drawn interest in several years, despite my note that EEs didn't stop drawing interest until they were at least 30 years old and these had not yet reached that limit. Laws/policies must have changed in the meantime.

It's a good thing to get the excess paper out of the box to make room for the new. I am putting into the box the originals of the legal documents that our lawyer drew up for us in May 2020 - general and healthcare durable powers of attorney for each of us, plus a power of attorney for both of us on our house and lots - a total of about 80 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper.

Yard work progress report

The photo, below, shows an area of our yard/woods abutment - before recent rework. The photo was taken a year ago.

 
The photo, below, shows the same area of our yard/woods abutment - after some rework - as it appears, now. Many of the spindly trees have been removed and one can now more plainly see our neighbor's brush pile beyond the concrete blocks that I piled up for temporary storage. (Some years ago I had used the blocks to effect a rough retaining wall at the bottom of the small hill.) Brush piles are "illegal" in our city; but, birds love 'em, so I shan't complain. As birds fly from our feeders it is frequently to the refuge of the brush pile that is shown, or to the refuge of another.

The green cart on its side, and the leaf rake, are tools that I've quit pulling out of and replacing into the garage each time I've gone out to rake/move the leaves that have piled up in the area over the years. (That task is nearly completed.) My tools are not visible from the street and by leaving them out I prevent leaves' blowing into the garage while the door is open.

I had planned to construct a sitting area among those three largest/nearest trees, providing a safe place for local family to visit us. Silly me. What was I thinking? The neighbor's dogs have barked and growled at me every minute during which I've worked in that area - whenever they have been outside. Not a good atmosphere for a sitting area; thus, I've rather lost some of my enthusiasm for my tasking. I'll complete leaf removal and have dirt hauled in to smooth out that area. I had thought to have handyman Cecil build a retaining wall at the bottom of that small hill; but, now I am considering plantings to retain the dirt. Big question is: terraced small hill or smooth small hill?

Just enough snow to beautify

We had received nearly an inch of rain in the hours preceding the temperature's finally dropping below freezing; thus, the snow was too sparse and too icy to provide that needed for snow ice cream for breakfast.

Our poor trees are confused

October was cooler than normal in our neck of the woods, while November has been warmer; thus, the trees are confused. Some of them have broken dormancy enough to have budded out. The first photo shows buds on our little North Star cherry tree (I think they are mostly blossom buds) that I planted, bare root, in April 2003.

 

 The next photo is of buds on our white bud tree that was transplanted into our yard in April 2019. They are probably all blossom buds.

Blossom production (and thus fruit on the cherry tree) will probably be sparser than normal this coming spring; but, as long as I keep the trees well watered throughout the winter, the trees should recover from the experience, nicely.

ADDITION OF 12/2/2020 10:59am - Leather Leaf Viburnum

Perhaps you can see the few dozen blossom heads in the photo, below. The second photo shows a closeup of one blossom head.

 

11/17/2020 - What to do first

 

Last evening, Hunky Husband got something in his left eye. I couldn't see anything and suspected he had a scratch; but, this morning, I called around trying to get him in to see an eye doctor. My eye doctor's office, about 1.25 miles from our house, was booked up into December and would not take a walk-in. However, HH's eye doctor (in Wichita) is now in the same network and the woman on the phone told me that Dr McCormick had had a few cancellations. I booked HH for 10am.

After Dr McCormick assured HH that there was no foreign body in his eye and prescribed some antibiotic eye drops for him, HH dropped me off to pick up my car. Super! I told HH that I would meet him at home. I stopped by Hillside Nursery to order a new redbud tree and a new semi-dwarf cherry tree for our back yard. John said that they would bring the trees and plant them next spring - the best season for their being planted. Yay! That's off of my "to do" phone call list. John also let me know that he and his wife had had COVID-19 in July, fortunately with minimal symptoms. They suspect that they (10 years my junior) had caught the virus at the wake for a fellow employee who had died of the disease, thinking that some of his relatives were probably asymptomatic. I don't think that I have mentioned the death of a former co-worker, also about 10-15 years my junior. Kansas is a cauldron of COVID-19 these days.

Week in Review - 10/30/2020

Our family members do not normally exchange greeting cards for Halloween. However, 2020 is not normal. I blame that fact for WichiDude's and Dudette's having sent Hunky Husband and me a really cute card. It lights up and it plays a recording; but, I did not make a video. A still photo (below) will have to do.

Within the past couple of years, our neighborhood has been gifted with a couple of new neighbors whom I've mentioned in previous postings. They are welcome additions to the neighborhood and have gone out of their way to bring a sense of community to it. For instance, Adam & Krista (next door - with the new fence) and their small children, distributed pumpkins throughout the neighborhood about 10 days ago. Krista's parents live on a not-far-distant farm and had grown the pumpkins, bringing them to town to share.

Unfortunately, I did not think to take a photo of the pumpkin sitting on our front steps, where the neighbors placed it; but, I did take a photo of some of the pumpkin sauce that I made from half of it. The other half has been cooked up and is being/will be used in various casseroles and breads. I cannot tolerate wasting food and the hard freeze that arrived last night was forecasted, so I beat it to the punch.

As you can tell by the update of contents and date on the lid, I am not only frugal when it comes to food, but also frugal with things. I re-use lids on jars of foods that I expect to use within a few weeks and to keep refrigerated until use, not really caring that the seal may fail.

Not failing, was another new neighbor from a bit farther down the street, Cathy. It was she who picked most of the cherries off of our little cherry tree this year. At the time, she left a lovely cherry cobbler on our front porch for us. Saturday, she left us a jar of cherry jelly and a loaf of her home-made, whole-grain bread on which to smear the jelly.

Although I have not usually eaten breakfast for the past several years, her bread and cherry jelly just could not be resisted. Sunday morning, I spread a little butter on a couple of slices of the bread, gently warmed them in a skillet to a nice, lightly-toasted state, and spooned jelly onto them. The bread tasted fresh-from-the-oven.

As we were expecting the deep freeze to move in, last night, I took a photo (below) of the tropical plants that had taken root from the pot I had over-summered in the basement escape window well. The photo also includes a volunteer redbud seedling and the two hostas that I had planted there in 2019.

This morning, the scene was captured in the photo, below. Soon, the leaves will die - as will the roots of the tropical plant, in all likelihood. The toads and frogs have burrowed into the sand for the winter.

Unexpectedly, we had just enough snow for me to be able to gather enough from our patio table for a bowl of snow ice cream. It was rather icy, so not the best; but, at least I got a bowl! (When I thawed the snow/ice in the rain gage, I measured 0.51" of liquid. We've had another two inches of rain since then.)

Speaking of beating the weather to the punch, I also gathered in our last two tomato plants during the past few days, placing them in the garden cart in the garage until I had time to strip the green tomatoes from those vines. I used very nearly all of those green tomatoes in putting together a batch of green tomato relish. Below is a photo of the three full 1/2-pint jars of relish. There was a fourth 1/2-pint jar that was nearly filled; but, I started using it at dinner, this evening (Monday).

Having never before made green tomato relish, I pulled two recipes from the internet and used them as a guide. Since it will be at least eight more days until I will make it to the grocery store (it only has special old-people hours on Tuesday mornings and the streets are rutted ice at this point), I had to make do with what I had on hand - part of a green pepper (substituting three banana peppers from our garden for the rest), for instance.

I was pleased to note that the relish is delicious!

Week in Review - 10/22/2020

Last October I spotted a large, brown spider in the basement escape window well and posted its photo. A couple of days ago I think I found the carcass of a relative. It (shown, below) was near the basement escape window on the floor of my sewing room. I've never seen a brown, hairy spider that large in our house. In fact, I don't recall seeing brown hairy spiders in our house, at all.

Last week I included photos of many of our redbud trees in Week in Review - 10/17/2020, and included the fact that our largest, prettiest redbud would be taken out. Benny and his crew, of JoJac's, came out on Monday to do their annual bout of tree work for us. Below is a farewell photo of the redbud they took out. I failed to dig out a camera soon enough, so most of the tree has already been dragged away.

As can be seen in the photo, Benny ground out most of the roots and stump; but, had to leave a bit of the stump - to the left of the log nearest the fence. His grinding machine was too bulky to be able to grind that near the fence without possibly damaging the fence. (I'll wield an axe to finish the job.) The yellow flag in the foreground marks the spot where I plan to have a new redbud planted.

While I'm on the subject of tree work, here are a couple of photos of Benny and his crew at work. The first photo shows the crew bringing up some of the downed tree parts, for chipping, while Benny takes his chain saw back to wreak more havoc.

This photo shows the size of the grinding machine that Benny uses. He is grinding out stumps of about 15 trees removed from a slope. I'm hoping to build a sitting area by putting in a wall and hauling in dirt to level. It will provide a shady place for our loved ones to come visit us in the spring - where we can be outside, but in the shade.I'm including the next photo because I love that the guy's smiling while he's working. (I think he's laughing at the way his buddy is laboring, truth be told.)

Yesterday, Tendercare came out to winterize our irrigation system. Just in time. We're to have a hard freeze over the weekend. Yesterday, the only warm day this week, we awoke to a temperature that was at least 10 F degrees warmer than had been the temperature when we went to bed Wednesday night. Yesterday, we tied the record high temperature on October 22 at 97 degrees F. A cold front came through at about 9pm, yesterday. I deliberately made sure that we scheduled them a little earlier this fall. I'm tired of having to pack the backflow valve and/or replacing the thing when it freezes and breaks, spraying me with cold water when it thaws.