September 2021

After the transplant Ann recovered for a few days in the same room. Then as she improved they moved her to what the floor staff told us was the room with the best view of St. Louis. Here are some pictures of Ann recovering and a bouquet that she received. Ann felt sort of like a pincushion with all the shots and blood draws at the hospital. The heparin shots left bruises that lasted a long time. Lynell came down for a couple of weeks to help and it was very much appreciated. During this time Troy was reading a book about dealing with insurance companies and healthcare. It is eye opening and provides some good information to help minimize costs.

Trapping activities stopped after we caught another opossum.

Elizabeth has been pulled into singing duties with the adult choir at church.

Our irrigated blueberry bushes tend to draw many different caterpillrs. We found these hungry eaters out there. Some were eating blueberry leaves and others were on the milkweed.

We have not had much rain and the ground is getting dry. The honeybees are not making any fall honey so we are occasionally feeding them sugar water. We have a few small patches of golden rod and we started watering it to feed the insects. Here are some of our visitors during this dry weather

Some of our trees were confused and were flowering. One of these apple trees has been struggling with cedar-apple rust the past few years. We will have to do a better job removing the cedar trees to help it.

Sparkle climbed up on the swing to get some attention from Troy one afternoon. This is pretty unusual behavior for Sparkle.

Near the end of the month Ann went back to have the stint removed from her kidney that they installed as part of the transplant. The procedure literally took less than 30 seconds.

As the days get shorter and the sun sunsets move further south we can again see some of the amazing sunsets God sends to us.

Troy was taking Ann to the hospital for an regular appointment and when he was turning around in the driveway the Escape would not shift into Drive properly. Troy managed to get it pulled back into the parking space and we took the car to Ann's appointment. When we got back we spent a few days trying to figure out our options and eventually remembered we had purchased an extended warranty. We checked our extended warranty paperwork and we have 1869 miles left if the transmission was faulty. We called the dealership and it was going to take 3 weeks for them to even look at the Escape. We scheduled the appointment and the three week waiting game began.