Friday, May 20, 2016

Poison Ivy -- WHY?!?

I'm such a happy-looking plant!  Why do I cause such misery??
 PATTY:  Yes, we have a poison ivy patch in a most difficult place:  the ditch at the edge of our yard.  I won't use toxic chemicals*, so I'm going to use this recipe made from kitchen ingredients:

3 cups vinegar
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp dish detergent
Mix, spray, repeat in a week

Bhu doesn't have to worry about the poison ivy because he never ventures beyond the walls of this abode, but if your kitteh likes to wander in the open air and you are concerned about what plants (s)he might be cozying up to out there, check out this blog post "Cats and Poison Ivy." 

P.S.  Bhu is sleeping, but I can tell he wants to say "Hi!"
*The over-the-counter brands of weed killer will kill everything, including enormous trees that will cost over a thousand dollars to have professionally removed.  Just sayin'.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

May I?

The Meister himself on the quilt prior to the puking incident.  Does he look a little smug?  Was it premeditated?
I was reflecting this morning on how much I love the quilts I've made.  Bhu puked on the bed last night, so the top quilt went right into the washer and I hung it outside this morning.  Standing back by the garden and looking at that quilt on the line . . . it's so colorful, so full of energy!  I just feel so lucky to have pursued my interest in making quilts back when it was a dying art and there wasn't a huge billion dollar industry to support it like there is now.  There was barely a yard of 100% cotton much less an entire kit of fabric cut and ready to be sewed!  Anyone remember those days? No charm packs, no layer cakes and definitely no jelly rolls!!  
The quilt hanging on the line along with a few clothing items that caught part of the action. 
Close-up of the clean quilt, ready to go back on the bed. 
Bhu is doing well.  He had a lot of mats on his legs and belly, so we had to take him to the University Vet Clinic for a little grooming, for which he has to be sedated.  Once again, he was true to his reputation:  "extremely aggressive".  It's a fact; it's in his medical record.  His claws were impossibly long, also.  I noticed when he walked across the wood floors it sounded like one of the Khardashian sisters . . . clackity, clackity, clackity.  Only problem is, he is in stage 3 of renal failure and there's just nothing we can do.  Good news is there is no protein in his urine so he doesn't need medication.  

These days Bhu acts his age, I suppose, filling the day with sleeping, wandering around yowling (and getting fairly operatic sometimes), and demanding people time and pets.  He loves to be with both his people but he will still NOT sit on a lap, not if you paid him a million pieces of fresh shrimp!  I know his sight is not as good as it once was and I wonder about his hearing.  But his purring still works.  He's a major purrer. 

Graduation has occurred and the town will be quiet for another three weeks.  It used to be that every summer there would be an influx of more mature students taking graduate courses during the summer, but now everybody takes courses online, so the city really does get a bit quieter until August when everybody comes back.  I like it quiet! 

Hope you are all well and looking forward to summer.  We're having a little cold spell this weekend and had to cover the plants . . . the basil in particular was looking quite ill.   xoxo