Chessie

I've done a couple of posts with Gracie. Now, it is Chessie's turn. Chessie is our elderly cat. She's going on 13 years of age and is a Maine Coon. We've had her since she was 12 weeks old.

The biggest problem with Chessie is that she's tough to take pictures of - very uncooperative. In spite of this, I've managed to get a few pictures recently that were okay. One of these days real soon, I'm going to just focus on her and hope I get a couple decent pictures out of thousands I probably will take. Ha!


April 4, 2010. Kodak EasyShare DX4530

As you can see here, Gracie is NOT alone is demanding attention by getting on the laptop. (picture of Gracie on laptop) Chessie does the same thing. She refused to look at me when I had the camera. Typical.

The following pictures were taken with Dan's camera (a Canon Rebel EOS using a wide angle lens) on the same day I took pictures of Gracie exploring the great outdoors, which was back in January. It was blustery day and she didn't like the wind one bit. So, she stayed inside.


Here she is gazing out the window. I slowly sneaked up on her and then snapped this picture. I was amazed at how well it turned out.

By the way, that is not the windowsill of the house. Chessie does not fit on normal sized windowsills as she is a BIG cat. She's not fat by any means - just big. I talked Dan into making a wider perch for her to lay on. It's basically a nice wide board resting on the windowsill with supports. She loves being in that window the most for obvious reasons.


I turned this into a black and white picture and loved it!


"Put... the camera.... down...........now."

Chessie quickly got annoyed with my presence and/or with the fact that I had a camera. She's looking mighty mean here, isn't she? I dubbed this picture "Evil Cat". Seriously though, she's a very sweet, loving and gentle giant. :-)


This is a very old picture of Chessie -- a signature artist begged me to let her turn into a signature.

Pictures posted from Our Long Weekend

I wrote about our long weekend here.

I have updated Pictorial Reminiscence blog with pictures from that weekend. So, if you’re interested, check them out.

Wildflower Drive

Poteet Strawberry Festival

Update on Mother

Mother is having her ups and downs. The last you heard was that she was doing well in physical therapy. Well, she got sick again and did not make any progress. So, her last day of physical therapy was last Friday. She is now in restorative therapy. Most of her therapy will now be done in her room and if she can walk, the therapist will help.

The way I understand it is that if she progresses to a certain point in restorative therapy, they’ll start her up again in Physical therapy.

Anyway, we showed up Saturday and apparently, they’re going to have her walk a bit on the weekends too. They’re getting her to walk in her room and sit in her chair for dinner.

They are also getting her up for both lunch and dinner during the week. She sits in her chair. Let me tell you, she’s a picky eater. So, some times, she’ll eat quite a bit, sometimes a little, and other times, not at all. She was not doing well Sunday morning. I thought maybe it’s because she’s didn’t eat much for lunch and dinner on Saturday. It’s unusual for her to not like anything provided two meals in a row. I know that when I don’t eat properly, I don’t feel well either.

Dan and I got her a tater from Jason’s deli for lunch on Sunday. I was surprised. She ate pretty much the whole thing! She looked and felt better soon afterward. She did real well walking in her room before dinner and sat in her chair for a bit. My brother and his wife took her a sandwich that night for dinner and she ate all that too! I am hoping her appetite is returning because she didn’t want to eat much of anything before – even the stuff from home or from one of her favorite restaurants.

She had a good day Monday -- walked a little. But, today was a bad day. She couldn’t walk much. She got weak and dizzy all of a sudden (while up walking) and felt like throwing up. We have no clue to what’s going on with her. My brother has been trying to get her in to see a cardiologist and see if there is anything he (or she) can do for her. But, as of right now, there is nothing more we can do.

So anyway, I guess she’s going to have good days and bad days. I just hope that she’ll have more good days and less bad days in the near future because I’m still clinging to hope that she’ll return back home.

Mother likes having me there with her in her room. She wants me there most of the day as she hates being left all alone. My brother and/or his wife visit her practically every night. It’s not like she’s there alone all the time. She has people checking up on her. But, I don’t mind because there isn’t much for me to do here anyway. It just concerns me because she doesn’t like me to go anywhere at any time.

I can see that she’s treated well by most everyone at the place she’s in. She’s developed a rapport with a few of the caretakers and even talked to one of them about me “behind my back” while I was there! The way Mom does this is by covering her mouth so that I can’t read her lips. I KNEW they were talking about me and I exclaimed, “are you guys talking about me?!?!?” They were both laughing and having a good time. Angie (the caretaker) refused to look at me but she nodded her head. Mom looked at me and said “nothing, never mind!” Sheesh!

Anyway, I’ll be here the rest of this week and will return home with Dan on Sunday.

Our Long Weekend (April 9 - April 11)

Pictures from the weekend are not quite ready yet. However, I thought I write a short note about it.

We went for a drive last Friday to see wildflowers and ended up at Wildseed Farms. I love that place. We were there between 1½ to 2 hours just exploring and taking pictures. The best time to go is in the spring and early summer. This place has all kinds of things a gardener may want including food such as jams, jellies, sauces, etc., & etc. I think they are on the pricey side, though. You can also buy seeds via catalog, which is currently free. You can quite a variety, including bluebonnets, paintbrushes, sunflowers, and poppies.

We also went for a drive along Willow City Loop. I have to tell you. If you ever get a chance to take a drive along this loop in the springtime when the wildflowers are in full bloom, you have to do it. It’s absolutely mind boggling – thousands and thousands of bluebonnets (not to mention other flowers) in fields, among rocks, along streams, and among cacti. It is absolutely beautiful. The scenery is constantly changing. I’ve never seen anything like that before.

The one thing that was annoying, but I didn’t blame them, is people were stopping, getting out, and taking pictures. This road often passes through private properties and owners ask that you don’t stop or pull over. These people were disrespectful of their requests. You will also need to drive slowly as you may encounter live cattle (we saw some right on the edge of the road).

We went to the Poteet Strawberry Festival Saturday. As always, we left to arrive when the gates open. And, as always, we’re glad we did because the lines of cars to park was awful as the day progressed. I don’t know about you; but, I don’t like sitting in long slow moving lines just to get somewhere.

We had a very good time roaming around on the grounds. We attended a few events such as the fiddle (kids) contest, belly dancing, and pig races. There were quite a few booths selling goods including strawberries. We saw raptors on display and of course, there was the carnival.

We did end up ordering some new Cutco knives. We rarely buy them directly from the website or a seller. We usually buy them via booths and/or vendors. Why? Because you can often get deals and steals via booths and/or vendors. These people want to make sales.

In this case, we purchased red handled kitchen shears, a petite Chefs (Santoku) knife, and a cheese knife. The deal? We got the cheese knife free. This completes my whole wish list collection. Well, I did want the silverware; but, I’m not going to spend that kind of money just for silverware! I am happy with all the knives and related accessories that I have now. I just pray that Cutco doesn’t come out with anything new.

We also purchased a small basket of strawberries before leaving. We just had to get some. Why go to a strawberry festival without getting strawberries? They were delicious.

We mostly relaxed on Sunday and did some cooking in the afternoon. We made pizza dough (Dan took photos) and stored those away in both refrigerator and freezer. We also made Maple Chicken with Skillet Potatoes for dinner.

Overall, I had a very nice long weekend!

Random Pictures from Walking

These pictures were taken with my ancient rinky dinky Kodak EasyShare DX4530 camera while I was out and about walking this past Wednesday and Thursday.


This is in the first alley near our house.


This is my favorite alley/gully to explore on the days when it's dry. They will be turning this into a divided road someday (extending the existing road). There is a vast huge field back behind all the houses. It was wet and overcast on this particular day; so, I didn't go exploring. Instead, I turned around and went walking along the road towards a major Farm Market street. Most of the following pictures were snapped along this road.


A closeup shot of my favorite gully / alley.



Texas Thistle

Primrose Wildflowers

Prairie Verbena

A shot of various flowers near the Farm Market street

I went exploring the neighborhood on Thursday and I came across this house with climbing flowering vines. I was a little nervous taking a picture as there are some paranoid people that don't like seeing people like me with cameras. But, I just had to snap a picture of this one.