My Bro May Be Older Than Me…

But, dang, he has great eyes!  I think all three of my brothers are far sighted.  I’m so nearsighted I put my glasses on as soon as I get up and don’t take them off, except to wipe the sweat off my face, until I go to bed at night.

I tried to crop the photo in closer, but it is one off my old laptop and the windows photo program won’t do it for me.  And I haven’t installed anything else to try…

But back to my story.  My middle brother and I have a lot in common besides our parents.  We both love flowers. Bro spotted a flower yesterday on a vine growing up a dead tree out back.

If I knew how to draw an arrow I’d point to the white flowers in the middle of the photo.  The dead tree that the vine with the flowers was growing up into is behind the back fence and there is poison ivy all around.  He is highly allergic and I told him that I’d put on my old jeans and boots and weedeat my way in to locate the base of the vine and clear out around it to possibly dig it  up and replant it where it would be safer to enjoy  and I was going to do that tomorrow.

Bro thought it my be an egret flower.  These egret flowers look somewhat like their name and Bro had purchased them for me this past spring.  I planted them but as to date we’ve not even seen a sign of them. 

I thought it was a passion flower or passiflora, a passion vine. In searching for information I found out that another common name for passion flowers is Maypops.

There are passifloras in many colors.  They are an absolutely beautiful flower and I’ve tried once before to try to raise one when we lived farther north in Bartlesville, OK, and didn’t have any luck.

My Bro is, if nothing else, not afraid to admit when he’s wrong…at least to me… and I’d be the first to say that about flowers he is rarely wrong.  He went out to smoke late this afternoon and came back in and handed me this flower…  with a big smile, ‘cause he knew I was right and he also knew that as far as plants and flowers I’m not often right.  And that it was more important to him to figure out what the flower was rather than to be right. He spotted another vine that wasn’t so deep into the brushy, poison ivy laden area, broke off a piece of vine with a bloom on it and brought it in to me. 

I love my Bro.

No More Knee Jerk Reactions…

But the good news is no fractures and no bone chips floating around according to the x-rays. The doctor had to laugh when I told him about stepping on SueSue when she was wanting to play the ‘ice game’.  Turns out that my doctor has two mini-schnauzers also and his not quite one year old little girl schnauzer likes to play the ice game, too. While being understanding and empathetic, he also chastised me a bit for not coming in last week.  While he acknowledges that I know my body he said he has seen hairline fractures in the kneecap and the leg bone that have not caused sharp pain.  So if there is a next time, which I will try to avoid, I promised him I wouldn’t wait a week to come in and let him check things out.

So for all of you that yelled at me to go to the doctor… You were right and, although I will try to avoid any more injuries, if I have anything else happen to me you all have my permission to yell at me again. And again if need be.

Thank all of you for your concerns, prayers and admonitions.  I will try to remind myself to listen.

Ya-Da-Da—Ta-Da-Da-Da…

If I knew how to add music I could add music “The Stripper” to this post but I’m afraid the knee doesn’t look the part.  But you know you need to  have something to start off the post.

Lookin’ kind of ugly.

A bit lot misshapen.

I’ve had bruising about 1/2 the way down my shin. 

Wrapping from the middle of the knee from the inside to the outside. I’ve kept it wrapped pretty snug to help keep the swelling down.

If I knew how to photoshop I could really make the colors vivid.

But there is still a pretty good lump still so I bit the bullet and called and made an appointment with the doc.  I’ll see him tomorrow and he will probably fuss at me for waiting over a week.  I swear I have had very little pain since I got the swelling under control with the dreaded ice packs.  It has ached enough at times that I’ve taken mild pain pills drugs to keep it in check but it seems to be when I’ve been on it too much.

So I'll let you all know what my doctor says about my greenish purple gor-ge-ous  gam tomorrow night.

Shaaaaa-BOOM!

Corn On The Cob, Creamed Corn…

Corn casserole, corn bread, corny jokes, corn pone, corn crib, well, you get the corny idea.  Another day, another corn report.

My huge corn field. Since I crapped my knee up the grass and weeds are trying to sneak in but if it’s not raining tomorrow the mower is going in to help with weed control.

Five good day corn stalks and three bad day corn stalks.

Bad day corn.

Another bad day corn.

Good day corn. They are kind of lording it over the bad day corn.  I tried to tell them that could have been them but I don’t think they listened.

The tallest bad day corn.  That is about 6 inches above my knee. I don’t know if you can see that mark on my index finger… that’s a broken blister from pulling weeds and grass.  It’s almost healed.  It was so sore that I remembered to start wearing my gloves.

The tallest good day corn.  About even with the bend in my elbow.  About 3’9’. Next week I will take a tape measure with me and measure so you can see for yourself.   I figure that it will be about as tall as Dar.  I’m excited to see, but then we all know it takes so little to entertain me.

And look at these!!! Corn is trying to make on the good day corn.  I looked real close at the bad day corn, but didn’t see any sign on them yet. I do need to clarify that this is only on three of the good day corn.  I don’t want you to think that all of the good day corn is at this point. This is, after all, a very scientific study.

Tomorrow, if you are all lucky, I’ll take a picture of my knee in it’s glorious color.  I just wanted to give you something to look forward to seeing.

Have a great Sunday.

Let’s Look At Pretty Things…

For a change.  I’m tired of whacked knee pictures. I would much rather look at pretty pictures of anything rather than old bunged up knees.

I took a bit of a walk around last night because I was getting cabin fever.  So I grabbed up the camera and gimped out the door.

 A baby gourd.

It’s bigger sibling. This is so exciting. We have tried to grow gourds before and for some reason have had no luck.  Carol started this gourd plant from seed and then put the plant in one of her barrels. Might have something to do with good soil, do you think?

A bright canna caught my eye and when I walked over closer…

I found this… the birth of a canna bloom.  I really liked how the sun, coming from behind the plant, looked trying to almost come through the leaves.

Our pink hibiscus. Like me, a late bloomer.

A butterfly visiting the zinnias.

Some more zinnias.

Blanket flowers. I love these flowers.  The new buds, the flowers and the seed heads are all interesting.  I’m hoping this plant triples for next year. 

Too much fun.  Can you imagine what I could do if I had a camera that I could take macro shots of some of this stuff?  I’ll have to start planning for that goal.

And I caught this downy through the front window last week. Working on the sunflower seedhead. 

Sunflowers… the flowers that keep on giving.

 

How wonderful is this world we live in… Keeps me going, for sure.

The Bee’s Knees… Not!

I’m taking a break from the ice packs. I have laid around so much today that I’m tired of laying around.  I did spend time visiting on the phone this afternoon, cutting up and laughing and just visiting with a dear blogging friend.  She said I had better post pics of my knee after I told her it was looking better.  I don’t think she believed me…

If you hadn’t read my posts for very long or don’t remember,  I hate ice.  Let me clarify… I love ice in my tea or in my soda.  I hate ice on my body.  Generally I think it makes things hurt more than it helps.  However, in this case I have to say that I have been faithful to putting ice packs on my knee and it is helping.  My knee is achy, but it does not hurt to walk on my leg, carefully.  The swelling is dispersing around and not so defined and tight.  If I can force myself to stay off my feet and ice for another 24 hours and it keeps going like it has, then I’m not going to worry about getting it checked out by a doc. 

‘Scuse the wrinkled knees… It comes with the territory of aging.  My laugh wrinkles are worse.  Anyway you can see the swelling is going across the front and other side of my knee.

From another angle. I’m going to have a very colorful knee for a while.

We had a rainstorm blow through while I was in the bed with my leg propped up.  It had quit by the time I took my ice pack break and the sunshine had come out in all it’s glory so I thought I’d take my knee pictures outside.

Do I need to tell you that it is now very humid?

  I think I’d rather just say that these photos caught the angels working on my oweee.

Would It Be Cheaper

To fix me or maybe SueSue’s foot?  But before we go there… Guess what I found this morning while weeding at God-thirty in the morning, as in not too long after dawn?

Got any idea?

becoming clearer?

Yep, a bunny nest.  No babies, though.  They are big enough to be out on their own and I’ve seen some of the young’uns out and about on the prairie.  Here’s where they were hiding out in plain sight -

Remember the grass and weeds I’ve been needing to clean out around the daylilies and the iris? The one that I so brashly stated that would only take a couple of days to clean out?  I guess the reason I didn’t get out sooner to start was because the babies needed time to grow and leave the nest…

and start eating on my ONE good head of cabbage.  It was beautiful. Four days ago. Late in the afternoon, early evening.

Today, after bunny brunch.  This cabbage was just right and big. Four and a half pounds of wonderful, sweet crunchy cabbage.  Now bunny food… Dang.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Me or SueSue?  Suess was on my heels in the kitchen when I was turning out the ice trays.  She likes the little crunchies that break off when I crack the trays. I took a few steps towards the living room, talking to Carol.  I turned back to finish the ice… and stepped on SueSue.  I knew I was on her because I was barefoot and could feel her furry foot.  I jerked my foot off and fell square on my knee.

She is okay.  I’m not sure about me.

Didn’t hurt when I landed. Felt kind of like a denim burn.  I had on jeans. I took these about twenty minutes after it happened. It didn’t hurt to walk.  I got in the tub and noticed it had started to swell.  Now it hurts like being stuck with a hot poker whenever I move my leg.  Dang! Double Dang!  Poopy baby diapers DANG.

Why couldn’t I just have stepped on the Baby Girl?!! At least I’ve got ice for the ice packs.

I’ll keep you posted on whether I’m more costly than SueSue.  Tomorrow…