Mountain Mama's Point Of View

  You may remember that I was making vanilla extract a couple of months ago. I ordered the vanilla beans for $13 and bought a bottle of Vodka for $14. The beans went into a 24 oz bottle and topped off with 2 cups of vodka to be shaken daily. I finally found some bottles with tight lids and have filled them. I got 5 full 2oz bottles and a partial bottle that I will use myself. Have you priced it recently? McCormick 2oz bottles go for over $8. I have 5 full bottles, that would be $45. I spent $27 on the vodka and beans, so I saved $18. I bought a case (12) of the 2 oz bottles and they were $1.08 each. Well, there goes that business! Not that I want to sell it. I will just give it away to family. The little bottles are cute, don't you think?  This is what is left. I will need to strain all the liquid and let the beans dry so I can flavor some sugar. I will report back after I use it in a recipe. The Patient scheduled his right leg surgery today. January 25, 2023. Oh, looks like w...

  I am not a dog, but I have a story, too. I am Dora, the red bellied slider. I was having a chat with my Mom and she took my picture. I would have struck a more flattering pose had she warned me! I am going on 2 years old. No one knows the exact date that I broke out of the egg I was in. I will tell you that I fell into some very cold water. Cold and very nasty. I could not see anything! One day the nasty water got shallower and shallower until there was just a small puddle.  I was just about to take a walk about and scope out my situation when a huge hand grabbed me! I have instincts for survival, so I quickly withdrew my head and appendages into my shell. The hand was warm and just as I was about to stick my head out, I was flipped over. Not only was I fipped over, the fingers on that huge hand squished me! I had no choice but to stick out all my legs and my head. The huge hand had a face and it was looking at me. He smiled a big smile and then yelled that it was alive. It?...

  Hi Everybody! I am Mr.BoJangles. I am, by far, the cutest little dog ever. I know this because I heard my Mommy say so! She told me not to tell the others. She was holding me still and scratching my belly when she told me. I have a secret, I already knew this. I saw myself in a mirror. At first I thought another dog as cute as me had come to see me, like maybe I could be a twin. I tried to talk to the other dog, but he kept moving and talking exactly the same time I did. That made me think I was right about having a twin. I told Toni Louise and showed her the mirror. She called me a big dummie! I didn't know what a dummie was, so I asked Eddie. He scolded Toni for being mean, but I don't think she even cared. He explained the mirror and told me I wasn't dumb, just a puppy.  I really miss my cat, Martha. Martha would have taken Toni down for being mean to me. Martha loved me, my mommy said so. She told me that when I was such a tiny little puppy that Martha would help take...

  The temperature is rising! Tomorrow I will be putting up a plastic barrier on the inside of the porch. I am hoping this will keep the cold at bay until Spring. I am not a fan of plastic in windows, but the wind that whips through is breath taking! It will prevent that wind from coming inside when we open the door. HeWho has been complaining that his recliner is next to the door and too cold for him to sit there. At 6:48 last night he went to bed! I don't want to go to bed that early, so I rearranged the furniture and got his recliner moved to a warmer(?) location. That was my old location and when that door opens for the dogs, the chill hits me, too. I do not plan to share that with him, though. Moving around stuff is not easy in this small space and I got tired before I finished. Being the selfless being that I am, I made sure all of his stuff was ready for his keester to sit in his new location. This morning I removed the obstacle course that was in the way before I even had co...

  Where was I? Oh, yes. Leaving Walgreens and driving that last leg of the trip back home. I drove, he complained like a toddler who had had their tonsils removed. As I drove up the side of the mountain, I gave instructions to him. "Stay in the car until I get inside and remove the pee pads and any obstacles you could trip on. I will come back and get you with your cane and slippers." He said something about getting cold in the car and I assured him I would be quick and to keep the doors closed. One would assume that last statement should not have been neccessary, but some of the food we buy has instructions on the front to remove the packaging before eating, so .... I heard my babies as I walked to the door, barking, howling and singing. They were so happy to see me and I was equally happy to see them. I quickly removed all the pee pads and had to do a quick mop up of what didn't quite make it on the pee pad. Then I grabbed the slippers with the thick rubber soles and wh...

  We have been inside for the last 12 days. Well, with one exception and that was for a post surgical visit to our favorite nurse practitioner. She declared the surgery to be a great success and also said that he could drive 10 days post-op. I might have mentioned that HeWho has a VERY low tolerance for pain. He made great use of the morphine while in the hospital, even asked for it the morning we were to go home. I quickly vetoed that request, much to his dismay. I told them to bring him the pain pill. He stared at me until the nurse left and I told him they wold not discharge him with morphine on board. I am the brains in our union. They gave us a prescription for the hydrocodone to be picked up on the way home. It was a long drive and I was not too happy with his critique of my driving. He swears I was slamming on my brakes. I was not. He is so used to driving and when you have the steering wheel to hold onto it feels totally different. Next time he drives, I am going to grab th...

  I looked out the window from our 8th floor hospital room at 3 am the night I spent there. Looks like I wasn't the only one awake. A different angle. Look way into the horizon ..... I am homesick. I suppose I should warn you about the disturbing image of the surgery site. Let me just say, it looks very good. No stitches, all glue. So, not only is my husband part cow now, they superglued him back together! He is walking much better today. The wounds look about the same. His left foot tends to swell, but this is to be expected. The blood is flowing so much better now. He is navigating with only a cane and is becoming a little more impatient. He is healing and I am looking forward to telling him to get it himself!

  My name is Toni. They also call me Toni Louise, TL, and sometimes my lady human calls me TL-zebub. That is when she is mad at me for breaking her rules. She is big on rules and I don't really care about rules so much. I think I should make some rules for her! Rule number one would be not to leave me here with Mr. BoJangles! She is not the boss of me, I am a man human's girl! He doesn't do rules, either and we get along just fine! She sat us dogs down to have a talk. Unless there are treats involved, I am not prepared to listen. She will take our faces in her hands and look into our eyes and tell us stuff. Eddie is such a kiss-up. He actually likes it when she does this and he will sit quietly and listen to what she has to say. Bo will listen a little, but if she gets too close he will stick his tongue out and give her a big lick on her nose. She will laugh at him, but she gets annoyed with me. A few days ago, I am not sure how many, she sat us down and I immediately left ...

  You might be wondering about the dogs and Dora the turtle. When we discovered we would have to go a day early, I didn't have time to arrange boarding. Not only that, my dogs have never been boarded and have not had the kennel cough vaccine. We tossed ideas around. Should we take the motorhome? Could we find a park close by? I started researching possibilities while HeWho was pondering about things like cameras and such. I was only half listening. I was trying to find something close enough to be able to navigate from the hospital and back easily enough. HeWho loves his new RING. So much so that he bought a second unit for the back yard. Why? I suppose he is easily entertained and he could watch the dogs do their business. He set the unit up in the house and connected the feed to his phone and was excited to show me footage of me sitting with my dogs. He showed me how we could watch and listen to them in our abscence. I was looking into hotels that accepted pets. Then we talked ab...

  The surgery was a success and we will be heading home tomorrow. We have a nice warm foot with good pulses and the patient is a bit grumpy with his pain level. We had to come a day early and spend the night in order to arrive at the hospital at 6 this morning. The time for the surgery changed from 1 pm to 7:30 am on Saturday and we had to scramble to change our plans. I was still recovering from my bout of flu and not looking forward to any of it. I still have that dog bark cough lingering. I kept thinking that I was taking so long to recover, but really it has only been 10 days, so I can say with conviction that the Tamiflu does a good job. But you know how it is when you are sick. I slept with my neck hyper extended to the right and now I can't turn my head freely. It was really painful yesterday as we drove to Atlanta and got worse as the day progressed. About halfway to our destination I discovered the one thing I forgot to toss in my purse ..... Tylenol. We stayed at a hotel ...

  I have been so sick for almost seven days now. I am dutifully swallowing the Tamiflu morning and night. Drinking fluids and eating very little. I am still coughing almost non-stop, but the headache that plagued me in the beginning will succumb to Tylenol. I have not been able to sleep. Just little dozes between fits of coughing. I am dizzy and nauseous and very irritable. It has been raining and dreary and I am stuck in this inadequate square footage with a man oblivious to the most obvious things. Yesterday was just awful. I decided I might be able to sleep and I went to take a nap. With a stack of three pillows elevating my head (aka: the snot factory) I was able to sleep for about 4 hours. That is the longest continuous stretch of sleep I have gotten since I got sick. Sleep deprivation makes me less than pleasant to be around. So, why would you want to argue with me when I am explaining your misuse of my kitchen equipment? I don't want to be cranky any more than I want to be s...

  Black is not the best color for Eddie, what with him being a black dog. I bought a hoodie for him. I don't think he is impressed. With his legs being so short, he had taken it off and climbed out of it when I turned around. He is not fond of clothes or accessories. Dora, the exploring turtle continues to grow and develop her personality. She is in the hand of HeWho, and his hands are considerably bigger than mine. Awhile back I purchased some pellets mixed with dried shrimp. She does not like them. She has made this quite clear to me, but HeWho holds out hope that she will eat them eventually. They dissolve in the water and make it stinky and murky. She likes cabbage, but not lettuce. She prefers night crawlers to anything we have offered so far. As I write this, I looked up at her habitat to see the ever hopeful man in my life has given her more of the pellets she hates. Why? I do not know. Her skin is coming off as she grows. The shell is molting, too. But, by far the cutest th...