Recovery Progress: Erika update/Old Kitties etc.

Pippy has given me a scare this week. I'm hoping he'll be okay but we'll see. :( It appears that he's ability to smell is starting to go. I try a new food and he's good for about a day and a half and then he's flat not interested. He's weight has dropped to 10 pounds! He's a big kitty and at his top weight he was 16 pounds. He's also now 16 years old! I took him to the vet and they took a blood test and looked at his teeth. Both show he's just fine. He's slightly anemic due to age but other then that the doctor said he's a very healthy 16 year old. So apparently when a cat can't smell, the cat won't eat. I'm thinking he gets used to the smell after a couple of days so it just doesn't register and thus loses interest. It'd be the pits to have a healthy cat go due to his sense of smell going. 😢 Mia at this point seems to be doing just fine. She's now 15!

Aunt Nancy and Christina have been here for the last week and will leave Thursday for Parma preps. It's been good to have the time with them! Christina is making a baby blanket for her new niece or nephew. Erika and her fiance are expecting the end of November. She hasn't been as sick with this baby as she was with the girls so that's been nice for them!! The girls are so adorable! I'll get random text saying they miss me and that they love me to the moon and back (using Erika's phone). It sure means a lot to this grandma!! I'm hoping to meet up with them this summer at a place they'll be going. It'll be for three days so we'll get some good time together! Permission has been given by my boss so unless something happens I'll be going! Pretty excited to see them again!!

The fence is coming right along! I meant to get an update photo today but forgot so may add it later. The posts are in and the boards going across are all on as of today! I'm pretty excited!! Then the end of June the shed will most likely be started, if not earlier. I've asked a guy to come and take the sod up from around the fence and from the area I want to turn into a garden area. I was hoping by the first of June that would happen but with all the rain we've been having I'm not sure it'll get done by then! I'm going to be putting flowers etc around the perimeter of the fence. Maybe even some hanging baskets since they should be able to go on the posts. I do have a cool weather garden that has lettuce, mustard greens, swiss chard, carrots, broccoli and peas so at least they are loving this weather! Just over a week ago it reached 82*! Thus my sunburn but I found out that Chamomile works awesome in healing bad sunburns. I didn't even think about it until my face started feeling a bit tight near the end of the day. Whoops! The first sunburn picture was that evening. The second was the next day. It was already feeling pretty much okay but is just a little lighter red. It only took about 4 days for it to completely disappear. I'm thankful I don't have true redhead skin!! The rest of the summer it'll just tan.

It was quite and experience getting the sprinkler system up and going this year! First I couldn't get the water turned on because I couldn't get a piece screwed back on that needed to be attached for the water to be turned on. So I called the guy who had winterized the sprinkler system and he had to cut away some plastic on the side to get the piece attached. He turned the water on and was getting ready to leave when I lifted the lid off where the system is housed and it was leaking (leaky gasket) so managed to stop them before they drove away. Good thing! Ended up having a clamp come off a pipe in the middle of the sprinkler system (see picture), that got fixed then the sprinkler head needed fixed and just as we started to think it was fixed two stations in the system stopped working. So called the sprinkler guy AGAIN. Poor guy. Turns out one of the stations in the sprinkler system stopped transmitting and he fixed it so that it skips that station and now all are working. Whew! Pretty crazy. Hope next year goes better!

I also went over to Idaho Falls the weekend before Mother's Day and spent a few days with Christina and Aunt Nancy! We went to a garden nursery so I could do some plant shopping (my Mother's Day present)! The potted petunia pictures are flowers I got there. Also got a Lilac, Cat mint, Coreopsis, tomatoes (very cool thing, this nursery has 4 different types together at a $1 a plant), peppers, basil, snap dragons, plus a couple of more. Then the place we stayed gave me Iris starts, Hens and Chicks starts, chives starts and yarrow starts. Looking forward to that sod coming up so I can plant them!!