I'm speechless

Busy day

Praise God! Today was a good day that started out a little on the wobbly side. DH has been suffering from some serious 'flank' pain for the last couple of weeks. Our natural assumption was that his old cyst-filled kidneys were the culprit. He had a kidney transplant on Thanksgiving Day in 2004 due to Polycystic Kidney Disease which is a genetic disease that causes cysts to fill and eventually overcome the kidneys, i.e., renal failure. The new kidney has always been tip-top, but the old ones have been basically anonymous and silent since the transplant - out of sight, out of mind until recently.

We jumped to the conclusion that some of the multitude of cysts had become huge and that the kidney itself had overgrown the space allotted to it, causing the pain. I must admit that I can be a tad reactive in such situations, always wanting to fix it, to do something, trying to be rational and clear. DH on the other hand is cool and non-reactive. A disgusting trait for which I'm very thankful. Yesterday he finally heard back from his local nephrologist (rather than the transplant doctors that I wanted him to call) and was told to get an ultrasound and come in to see the PA today. Last night I googled images of kidney cysts along with treatment for the resulting pain. OMG, it was a horror show!!

This is where the praise comes in. His urinalysis was normal - no blood, no infection. (When infected cysts rupture, there's a risk of peritonitis.) The ultrasound showed that his old left kidney is only 12 cm long which is not real large (18-20 cm is large). (Why do they say 'sontameters' and not 'sentameters'???) Plus his pain is located lower than true kidney pain, being just above his waist way to the left. The PA ruled out the native kidney being the problem. Examining him, she thought it was "soft tissue" like muscle strain and asked if he had fallen or bumped hard into something recently. DH remembered diving out of bed one night several weeks back. He does that in his dreams, so we bought a bed rail, fearing he would go bunker-diving one night and break something. Now he just 'rattles his cage' occasionally. Well, it may be that between the fall and squirming to get out of bed in the morning without dropping the rail, he may have pulled something. And each morning he aggravates it. So probably tomorrow he will have a couple of x-rays of his lower back and start dropping the bed rail. Hopefully, it will get better. He's been told in the past he has arthritis in his lower back (don't remember which vertebrae) and it's inoperable. We're just happy it's not his old kidneys and he won't need any of those surgeries I was reading about - and also see some hope that he won't have to continue on the oxycodone for long. I asked her if there were other choices besides oxycodone. She said, "Not if you want a healthy kidney."

All this came on a day when the office was short staffed and the boss was on vacation, and every possible unexpected event that could come up did come up. My capable co-worker took the brunt of it. I sure hope she went to bed early and is sleeping soundly. She deserves it! Both of us had to leave early (she for business and me to accompany DH to the doctor), so the office was locked up before normal closing time.

And finally, this evening I made 5 quarts of Ellie's food. (Ellie is a Brittany dog.) Oh, she loves it!!! She knows I'm cooking her food, and she hovers around me - nicely. Tonight I tasted it. Pretty yummy though bland. It contains 2 lbs of ground turkey, about 1-1/3 lbs chicken livers, about 3 cups brown rice, a bag of turnip greens (they didn't have kale today), almost 2 lbs of carrots & 2 lbs of green beans - boiled in 2 pots, put through the food processor and made into a wet (not drippy) mush. Good stuff!

And I'm kinda tired. No visiting the roses this evening so no photos to share. Only this photo of the product of my labor. Probably DH wishes I cooked so eagerly for him.

I'm headed for bed.

Garden decor - kind of

My garden is pretty un-decorated. No statuary, no angels or garden gnomes (pa-lease!). There are several reasons for that. Lack of confidence, lack of ideas, lack of money, lack of space. I never did get that big birdbath from Lowe's. I couldn't commit because I wasn't sure I really loved it. I have a gazing ball that my neighbor gave me and a few other really small things. The two most notable items of decoration in my garden were gifts from my sister, and I wholeheartedly love them.

Mr. Frog arrived last week for my birthday. How cute is he?

A few years ago she gave me a beautiful ceramic pot with a flat side. I chose to make a spilling fountain of it with a pump and a hidden basin under it.

The summer heat was a problem, because the water evaporated out of it quickly, leaving the pump running dry, so eventually I turned off the pump and enjoyed the pot strictly for its vivid colors.

Three and a half years later... If I can't keep my house vacuumed, do you really think I'm going to keep the rocks swept clean of leaves?

The man who sold the pot to my sister told her that cold weather wouldn't harm this pot - and she lives in Ohio. I didn't give it another thought until I was standing near it one cold day and heard a pop! and then a tinkle. Looking around, I discovered a chip of colored ceramic on the ground and pieces missing from the glaze of the pot. Oh, waaaa! My beautiful pot was coming apart! Even in Florida!!

Well, the pot has shivered and popped through three winters, losing more of its glaze with each freezing night. The bare ceramic has become mildewed and probably provides a comfortable home for a clan of algae. I wish I had had the good sense to bring it indoors for the winter when it first happened, but really, that's a lot to expect of my brain.

It's still pretty to me. Perhaps I can find one at a scratch-and-dent sale. The new one will fit right in.

Coneflowers, etc.

Faded glory. I deadheaded it today.

I love echinacea!!!

'Pink Parasol' - This is a single plant grown from seed.

More daylilies are coming! Love those rebloomers!

 

Another foxglove blooming. Hurray!

My neighbor loves my 'Red Cascade' pouring over the fence.

My new rain gauge has 1.65 inches of rain in it since Thursday evening. Double hurray!!

Rain and Rocketmen (and women)

The last space shuttle of all time is scheduled to take off tomorrow morning at 11:26 unless the rain that started falling late this afternoon is still falling tomorrow morning. The weatherman says it probably will be and also on Saturday and Sunday. I think I heard Sunday's chance was 50-50 - as of this evening. You know how precious rain is. We want the rain, but here's to the astronauts on the shuttle and a break in the weather late tomorrow morning long enough so they can safely lift off and wide enough so we can see them go.

My new rain gauge - a birthday present.

It works!

Just as an FYI even though Ocala is pretty far from Cape Canaveral, if the shuttle takes a northern flight path - either taking off or landing, we can see the exhaust flame and contrail on take off and hear the sonic booms on landing. Very cool!! When DH and I lived in Orlando in eastern Orange County in a subdivision originally named Rocket City in the 60's, we could look out our front door, see that giant flame and hear and feel the rumble of those monster engines in our chests. When at work, DH would go up on the roof of his building which was closer to Disney and probably 25 miles farther away and still see, hear and feel the same thing.

'Souv de la Malmaison'

Once we were able to get VIP tickets and watch a launch from the causeway out on the Cape. Awesome! Magnificent!  

A wet 'White Maman Cochet' - my latest favorite

 

While we were living in Sarasota and DH was in Orlando for his job interview, I remember I was in the kitchen watching the landing of the first shuttle mission on April 12, 1981, filled with emotion, awe and pride that spilled out in my tears. Miraculous! I also remember a day of different tears after coming out of my bible study on that cold January morning in 1986, hearing that the Challenger had exploded and then living through the horrible depression that fell upon Central Florida and probably the whole country. What had been wonderfully thrilling launches and landings for the previous five years became terrifying and gut-wrenching for me when flights began again.

Our astronauts have been and still are incredibly brave and strong pioneers, and the scientists who are responsible for getting them into space are smart far beyond my comprehension. It's hard to believe there will be no more shuttle launches, and American ingenuity and capabilities will no longer be on display in such a grand way. Maybe they have not been big news in recent years, but I think the people of Central Florida have always held these men and women dear and taken great pride in them.

Godspeed, STS-135!

Final flight: Atlantis, July 8, 2011 11:26am

'Maman Cochet'

This is the rose that the French third-generation nurseryman and breeder, Scipion Cochet, named for his mother, so you have to figure that he was pretty pleased with it. In English the name would be Mama Cochet or Mummy Cochet.

She is a Tea rose from 1892, the offspring of the Teas, 'Marie Van Houte' and 'Mme Lambard'. I have read that she was the 'Peace' of her day, winning many prizes and setting the standard of rose beauty.

'Maman Cochet' is described as having large flowers, very double, with from 80-150 petals. That's a lot of petals!! Opening buds have classic high-centered form and open into full cups that are rather flat. Sometimes the many inner petals do not open properly, forming a confused knot, and sometimes when they all open correctly, there is a regularly quartered bloom. She has a tendency to have a weak neck, that is, the short stems to which the flower is attached are not strong enough to hold up its heavy weight, so she "nods".  In a climber this is a good trait because the beautiful flowers facing downwards are more easily seen.

'Maman Cochet' was not very good at producing offspring from seed or pollen, but she was great at producing sports, that is, mutations of herself, new varieties. She sported a climbing version of herself, and a white version, 'White Maman Cochet', which itself sported a climber, and a red version, 'Niles Cochet'.

'White Maman Cochet' is tinged with deep pink on the outer petals.

 

Interestingly, these same sports were occurring at about the same time in Australia.

'Maman Cochet'

 

 A few breeders were rewarded for their perseverence with actual offspring. Those roses are 'William R. Smith' also called 'Blush Maman Cochet' and 'Souvenir de Pierre Notting' also referred to as 'Yellow Maman Cochet'. I don't grow 'William R. Smith', but I have or have had all the other Cochets. 'White Maman Cochet, Climbing' had to go live with a friend who has more room than I do. The Cochet climbers are very big.

'Maman Cochet' is a vigorous grower, able to reach seven feet across and high in the warm southern states and California. Very old plants have been found on abandoned homesteads that were/are much larger. It is truly a sturdy rose bush, growing upright with side shoots growing at right angles to the main canes. Tea roses generally to not like to be pruned much if at all, although I have been keeping mine narrower than she would choose to be, and so far it hasn't bothered her. They can sulk, that is, not bloom, for an extended period if pruned like other roses by one-third - at most, trim between flushes by cutting the flowers long enough for a vase. If you grow these roses, you need to have enough room to let them be themselves. They don't belong under windows or planted close to the house. Plant them at least five to six feet on center which means if she gets eight feet wide, you'll have room to move around her for maintenance. Of course, I haven't met a rosarian yet who didn't fudge on these numbers - and live to regret it.

As you can see, we've had some blessed rain in the last few days. None today though.