Thanksgiving Farming

Finally, almost December, and I'm getting back into the farm work that's slowed down since Tilly came. Who knew Min Min would be such an inspiration!

The day before Thanksgiving, I finally got that garlic in the ground I'd been meaning to plant. I double-tilled a large strip in the center of the driveway turnaround, and started separating out the garlic cloves to plant. I soon realized there was way more to plant than I had room for! Even with the tightest spacing I thought was reasonable, I only managed to plant most of the Georgian Fire and most of the Chesnok Red, though I still have German Extra Hardy and Pskem River left. In preparation for Thanksgiving, Grandpa and I went on a last-minute shopping run for pie and ice cream, potatoes, gravy, stuffing ingredients, yams and marshmallows, cranberries.... and we did a little housework to get ready for my uncle and cousin. Our friend Fritz from Juneau stopped by to say hi as well. 

Thanksgiving morning, after a long bike ride with Tilly, I got the stuffing and marshmallow yams all ready before heading to Heidi and Launie's house (the previous owners of our house) for our first Thanksgiving. After some delicious crab cakes and a quick visit, it was time for Tim and Grandpa to head home to get the turkey in the oven and mash potatoes and boil cranberries, while I took the ferry to the mainland and headed towards I-5 to pick my uncle and cousin up from the bus stop. By the time we got home, it was well after 7pm and the turkey was just about ready. We had a family dinner, some local pie and ice cream, then with full bellies headed off to bed. 

Friday morning, the day of leftovers and crowded stores, Min Min, Tilly and I headed down to explore the beach, then Min Min, Grandpa, and my uncle headed across the water to retrieve the U-box full of Grandpa's things - which ended up being a full day adventure. I made serious progress on my schoolwork and Tim started feeling tingling in his fingers. 

When the trio returned from the mainland, Min Min came to find me saying "It snowed! There's snow on the porch!" We ran up stairs and looked out the back, but there was no snow. "No, it's only on the front. We came home and there's snow on the front porch!" I thought it was strange, but sometimes these things happen, so we opened the door and sure enough! Snow everywhere! Or at least in a big pile in front of the door. We threw snowballs for Tilly and built a snowman topped with raisins.

Min Min did a great job helping teach Tilly the right way to be, and after a long day of playing, Tilly finally collapsed on the floor happily asleep yet trying desperately hard to stay on her towel for some reason.

After stopping to admire mom's awesome packing job, I headed up the hill with the little dog and little girl for an outing while my uncle and grandpa continued ferrying boxes into the house.

Min Min had been doing an excellent job helping carry boxes, but was delighted to come along on Tilly's morning walk and my lovely uncle was delighted to have some time to focus on the move-in.

As soon as we got up the driveway, we ran into our wonderful neighbors John, Fay, Sandy, and one of their holiday house guests. We took our usual walk with the "precocious" seven-year-old in tow, and found ourselves wandering back past our house and down to their yard as John relayed stories of buffalo's and diaper changing to Min Min and I. Somehow the two little ones slipped in to the house in the blink of the eye, so with Fay's permission, we all stayed for muffins and play time.

Min Min only wanted to play tug with Tilly, and Tilly only wanted to snuggle with Sandy.

When there were clear signs of fatigue in both little ones, we gathered our shoes and headed home.

 Min Min lead the way down the driveway with a trail of treats.

Once home, Tilly took a nap and us human girls got to work in the yard. First, Min Min shoveled up 9 buckets full of pine needles - I did I think 2, plus the 4 I did the other day for a grand total of 75 packed gallons of needles!

While Min Min was filling buckets, I finally got my compost area straightened out. It's still a little fragile, but I'm hoping filling it full of compost will help stabilize things. If not, I'll have to figure something else out, but at least it's a start!

Once we cleaned most of the needles from the bottom parking area (oh yeah, 75 gallons just from down there without even clearing the driveway or upper parking), we headed into the grass armed with a bucket, hoe, and shovel, on the look out for deer poop. Together, we filled another bucket full of prime manure. I figure shoveling poo with a seven-year old-assistant is the one time it is entirely appropriate to crack as many doo-doo jokes as possible.

Oh! And I almost forgot! I finished my Alaska History class for my Masters today!! Now, only a fake research paper (very odd assignment) and my portfolio left! Woo hoo! I am hoping I will make the December deadline in two weeks. 

Homey

Success! Today's goals: find Tilly more puppy food, and find cheap furniture.

We swung by the thrift store by our house as a first attempt before dreading the long drive to Oak Harbor. I had looked before without much luck - most of their good shelving at the thrift store is NFS as they use it for display, but maybe I wasn't looking very hard last time as I was also surprised by their anti-puppy policy. This time, we came prepared with a bone to leave with Tilly in the freshly cleaned truck, and two of us to hunt down the good stuff. Upstairs, I found my dream shelf - 6 feet tall with puppy-resistant doors on the bottom shelf! A nice woman brought it down to the front for us as we kept looking and came across a desk! Tim has been needing a desk to settle into his own space and get his things organized. I have my leather writing desk with built-in typewriter I've made us haul from house to house, but Tim has had to make due with what's around. We found this desk for Tim with cupboards and shelves above and a nice big desk area. It was covered in fine china and porcelain dolls waiting to be sold, so with some guilt, we let the lady at the front know we wanted it but weren't sure how we were going to get it into the house with three hands. Just then, another woman walked by and heard. "Where exactly do you live? Honeymoon Bay Road? Before or after all the curves?" She was on her way to run some other deliveries, and for a small donation to the Senior Services program, she'd be happy to bring our furniture right into the house in about twenty minutes. Woo hoo! We rushed home to clean and shuffle cars, then they arrived with our beautiful new furniture. Between these new furniture pieces and the beautiful new fridge that came yesterday inspiring us to stalk it and the cupboards full of good foods, this house is getting mighty homey. It's crazy to think that we've only been living here a little more than a week, not counting the time we spent in Seattle shortly after the floors were done. Unbelievable the transformation that's happened since this was a moldy old basement.

Tilly playing in her box on the search for food and cardboard to tear up. Thanks, Mom, for her new hobby! 

Tim happily utilizing his awesome new desk. 

 Our flashlight family waiting by the door to go on outings every few hours with Tilly and I.

Tilly really excited about her new bone and slowly gaining freedom in our ever cleaner and better organized (thus more puppy-safe) house.

Free range Greenbank dogs

This morning was a spectacular sunrise, and thanks to Tilly, I got to see it! And I also got to go back to sleep after. 

I took Tilly for a short walk down the street before and after church, but quickly saw that wasn't going to be good enough and was more exhausting for me than her, so we hopped in the car and headed for Greenbank Farm.

We immediately ran into our Airedale neighbors from Honeymoon lake who have a 16 year old Wire Fox Terrier the same size as Tilly is now, and a 14 year old Airedale.

Thanks to their help, Tilly got some manners lessons and properly worn out while I made friends. Hopefully we will be going on many more outings together to the wonderful off-leash dog parks of Whidbey Island.

We came home to a clean house thanks to Tim's innovations in one-armed sweeping and work on the kitchen.

Practice Thanksgiving

Last night was the first night in over a week that I slept all night! Woo hoo! Then, around eight, Tilly got tired of that business and decided it was time for a long walk. I took Tilly for a 2 1/2 mile "run" ie long walk with a little biting, pulling, and some nice trotting even! After eventually getting home and showering off, I jumped in the car with grandpa and a back seat full of cardboard while Tilly took a nice long nap. Once we were back from recycling, it was time to hop in the car and head to my uncle's house in Munro for a quiet family dinner of about 20. Tim held up in his sling, dinner was AMAZING with all my incredible aunts cooking away, and Tilly got to meet the cows. 

Tim and I were the only kids at the kids table married and old enough to drink, but as he's on painkillers, and I was driving, so root beer and cider seemed about right.

 We served oldest to youngest, letting Neighbor Paul and Grandpa take the lead.

 Grandpa Loren was up to no good slipping the baby whip cream and ice cream.

So many stories flying around the grown-up table.

Tilly

I feel like it would almost be worth while graphing how long I can keep Tilly's attention with any one item - make a game out of her puppy-sized attention span! So far frozen washcloth boiled and soaked in fatty chicken juices seems to be a winner. Unfortunately, most brilliant ideas only work well the first time, and even then only for so long. After more doctors appointments where we were told Tim is doing super, better than expected, and awesome, and we scheduled his stitches-removal for two weeks out and physical therapy the week after that, and came home exhausted and cold. Walking in the dark with the grumpy pup was a hard sell, so I instead played "walk around the house" where we brought things from our kitchen, all the way through the shop at the far end of the house, up the stairs past grandpa, and into the other kitchen at the far end there, then exchanged our item for something up stairs and made the trip back, stopping and sitting at every closed door. A couple of these trips made for quite the walk! Plus we discovered the joy of playing fetch with the ball all the way down our super long hallway complete with slippery floors.

Classes glasses classes

I finally got some homework done, Tim got busy cleaning the kitchen with one arm and putting away the Pyrex, and Grandpa took Tilly and I to our last puppy kindergarten where she performed incredibly well despite a crazy week and got her diploma! I still haven't gotten my garlic in the ground, darnit!

Fish Expo!

After a long and harrowing drive to downtown Seattle, we finally arrived at the RIGHT convention center and walked in to the wonderful world of Fish Expo! Last night we registered on line, and due to some problems with the site, I couldn't register as a family member, so I got to be a commercial fisherman with the official title of "First Mate" to "Tim's Fishing and Marine Repair". We ran into Ed and Cathy from Juneau, met a woman from Greenbank (Whidbey), then lo-and-behold! There was our good friend Nancy at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game table! Although we couldn't find any remote control boats, there were bowls of chocolate everywhere and the whole thing was pretty cool. Tim found a creative use for his name-tag lanyard and managed to stay vertical for over an hour!.

Able bodied

Today was the first day we took care of Tilly ourselves since Tim's accented. So far, knock on wood, it's her first day without the runs since her shots the day before his accident. Tim was up and around the house, cleaning out the upstairs bedroom, scrubbing the shower, and helping with Tilly. We even carefully washed Tim's arm! Today was also my mom and Joe's last day at the house, so it is good we are perking up and starting to get on top of taking care of ourselves again. Tilly, Mom, and I headed up to Greenbank Farm and Greenbank Store to get pie and ice cream to deliver to the wonderful people who helped out with Tilly while we were in Seattle. Maybe tomorrow I'll even get that garlic in the ground!

From duck to zebra

Mom decided to stay another couple days, thank goodness, and Joe is also still here so the house is nice and full with Grandpa and Tilly as well. Mom and Grandpa went shopping at Home Depot this morning, than tag teamed with Tim and I as we left Tilly home and headed for Seattle for our first follow up appointment.

Way beautiful ground floor for the outpatient building at Harbor view Medical. Instead of each floor being called the orthopedic floor, ophthalmology floor, psychiatric floor, and otolaryngology floor, they are called things like "connection", "discovery", "communication", and "understanding" or something like that.

The stuffing was ripped out of Tim's duck puppet bit by bit until his naked arm remained. 

As Tim worked hard to hold very, very still, the last bit of bandage was taken off and we could finally see his excellent stitches.

Our physical therapist gave the wounded limb a little spa treatment, then headed for the ribbon caddy full of bandages, Velcro, and other excellent supplies. Tim's arm now has its own cozy little sock, complete with custom cut thumb hole.

Next, the physical therapist put his art skills to work, making a template using Tim's good hand, finessing it to fit the bad hand, roughly cutting it out of special plastic that then went into a tub of boiling water until it became clear and soft, then carefully molding it around the wounded hand that Tim was working hard to keep relaxed and still.

The final effect could really use some googly eyes, maybe a couple little ears, a tail... but its looking pretty good and gets a lot more breathing time than the old hot and stuffy cast. Now Tim is working on his physical therapy so that in about 6 weeks he should be able to hold a cup of water in his left hand and spend time without his superhero sidekick in full getup. Looks like we have many more commutes ahead.

Hopefully life will slowly start returning to normal now.

"Days Off"

Lets see.. where did we leave off? This week started out with Tim and Zac hauling furniture around the house while I scrubbed kitchen cabinets. Zac headed back to the mainland so we could put the finishing touches on getting the house reading for Grandpa. We only had a few days left to work and a lot to do! I made up a detailed list; hang the light fixtures and buy more for the new spots, clean the windows, install the downstairs toilet, buy a fridge, replace the upstairs sink faucet, make up the beds...

Wednesday morning (I think), Tim was hanging a light fixture of questionable beauty which he was quite proud of after spending more than an hour tediously cleaning the glass droplets and little lights. After hooking it up and having only a couple of the many bulbs click on, Tim went in to do some tinkering and repairs, and as he was taking the light fixture down he suddenly jumped off the chair with a yelp clutching his hand. He ran for the door, briefly flashing me the exposed innards of his wrist.

I helped him to the car while calling 911 and frantically looking for my keys. The operator had me use my shirt for a temporary bandage as the sirens got closer. The medics brought Tim up for a seat in the back of the ambulance while I grabbed keys, shoes, wallets, and phones. With a last glance at Sad Tilly locked in her little room, I shut the doors and got Tim from the medics. Their bandages were unable to stop the bleeding nearly as well as Tim's thumb, so he pushed hard and I drove us the agonizing distance to Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville. The doctors there gave some local injections of painkillers, a shot of antibiotics, and spent an hour on the phone locating a hand surgeon before sending us back to the car with strict instructions not to stop until we reached Harborview Medical in downtown Seattle and not to feed or water the Tim until we had talked to a surgeon.

After a couple painful bandage changes, the bleeding stopped and we were ready to leave Whidbey General

Meanwhile, I had sent a cryptic text to my dad in Alaska: Can you find our neighbor's phone number a few houses down and ask them to take Tilly out? I don't know their address or last name. He used his Dad superpowers and got right on it. In no time, she'd been rescued from our horror house of broken glass and blood and brought to play with her favorite friend, Sandy. I had thought it would be a few hours to get patched up and checked out at the local hospital, but this was quickly turning into a bigger deal.

A long, rush-hour, dark, I-5 and down town Seattle, bumpy, painkiller free drive later, we got Tim into the Emergency room, where we were quickly set up in a room and attended by a stream of doctors and nurses. Some life-long family friends of Tim's from Seattle, Bill and Julie, stopped in to see us, and eventually the surgeons came around. After more poking and prodding and excruciating pain, the hand team declared Tim in need of repair, with severed veins, tendons, and nerves, mostly in his left pointer and thumb. The hand team also declared we could now eat until midnight as surgery wasn't likely until at least morning. With less than an hour left on the food-clock, our nurse made it top priority to get us settled in our room for the night with something to eat as quickly as possible. We were hooked up with a shared room in the Burn Unit with another guy and a tasty turkey sandwich for Tim.

The door to our room

After a long night of painkillers and a long day of watching cartoons and waiting, Tim was grabbed for surgery and whisked to the basement surgery unit. I waited and watched the monitor for Tim's number to be up and to see him back in our room. After a couple hours, he was set free and wheeled back up to our room where his nurse lost no time getting him discharged. Julie hung out with us while we finished up the last of the paperwork, scheduled our follow up visits, and carefully dressed Tim around his new cast.

Tim heading into surgery, thoroughly drugged.

Watching the screen while Tim was in surgery.

We headed up to Bill and Julie's house to stay near the hospital and to keep the drive short. They supplied us with every extra blanket and pillow in the house for propping up Tim's arm. Every three hours all night and all day, we kept to the schedule for painkillers. The following day, Joe had already planned on heading to Whidbey before the accident and stopped in on his way up to feed us and visit. My mom, grandpa, and uncle were all also already on their way to Whidbey and also stopped in on their way up later that night. We spent one more night in our Seattle suite before climbing back into the car for the long ride home, this time with pillows and painkillers.

Finally aloud to eat, cozy at Bill and Julie's house

Our neighbors had been putting up with an unexpected sick puppy for a few days and were well past their good neighbor quota for the year. I got on the phone our first morning at Bill and Julies and called in search of reinforcements. She's too young to go to a kennel, having barely gotten her shots, plus being sick and needing to go out every half hour, so I called my vet desperate for ideas. The AMAZING girl who answered the phone took pity on me and remembered Tilly from our recent visit and her full-body wiggles of delight and offered to take in the poor beast until my mom arrived.

Tilly freshly laundered before our arrival

Since getting back to the house, and reuniting with Tilly, it's been a blur of waking up for frequent pills and taking the sick puppy out all night. Lots of napping, or taking it easy watching funny movies in bed. I can't imagine what it would be like if we'd gotten home to no toilet and a puppy without my mom, uncle, and Tim's dad waiting for us to pitch in and keep us going.

The remains of the light fixture after my uncle's careful disassembly 

Kitchen

As you can see, the living room is looking wonderful after yesterday's cleaning frenzy, and by morning, the kitchen will have followed suit. Our kitchen downstairs is becoming cluttered and full of beautiful things as the upstairs becomes stark and pristine. I've been scrubbing every surface in sight, inside and out, and carrying armload after armload downstairs, siphoning away the abundance. Tim and Zac did their part following my directions to "bring everything outside, inside" which meant trying to figure out if the washing machine and oven that have been outside for months still work (looking good on both accounts after much unexplained beeping), stacking doors against every wall, and making a large pile for tomorrows dump run. Tilly was a lucky pup and got to go to the vet yet again today, for her last batch of shots between now and getting spayed. Woohoo! She is now safe from parvo and rabies, what could be better for a dog? Unfortunately, she came away from it with the runs and has been making frequent dashes for the grass, looking up at me desperately with those eyes until I understand what she needs and comply. Hopefully it is a short term side effect. After our Holmes Harbor Rod and Gun Club orientation meeting, Tim took Zac to Seattle while I continued my scrubbing efforts. Before leaving and amid the cleaning, Zac took us out to lunch and insisted I pick the place, so we all discovered our new favorite restaurant; The Basil Cafe, full of delicious Asian foods with a friendly guy running everything and reasonable prices. The man who seems to own the place offered to let us wash dishes for dinner next time. We are hoping he's serious and planning to follow up. 

Living room

While Tilly and I were out on our morning walk, where she cried and refused to leave our neighbors house until they came out and went for a walk with us then played with Sandy until she could hardly stand, Tim and Zac were back at the house busy moving all the heavy things from upstairs to downstairs. Once I got home, Tilly took a nap, the boys headed for Seattle for Zac's job interview, and I got busy cleaning the upstairs living room. There is now one less dusty room in this house and one more room ready for Grandpa. Downstairs, we now have a couch and chair in our "living room/dining room/kitchen" space. I realize I haven't taken hardly any pictures of our house yet. Part of that is a lighting problem of now being downstairs without skylights, with smaller windows, and with very few working light fixtures. Hopefully this week Tim will help me get all the lights on in the house, or maybe we will wait and pick fixtures out with Mom next week.

House hunting

We had another long driving day today as we took Zac to a few open houses around Seattle as he searches for an apartment. After living on our quiet island, Seattle seems so loud and busy and diverse! This morning, Tim and I went to the UU church by our house, where the topic of the week was money and the message talked about how much of the world lives on a dollar or two a day and doesn't have retirement accounts to manage like most of the congregation. Tim and I were the odd ones out not being rich and retired, but we were greeted with warm welcomes and cake all the same. Next week the topic is food and someone is coming to talk about food security on the island which sounds very interesting. 

Juneau Migration

The big news of today is that another Alaskan has escaped from Juneau to settle into a Refugee life in Washington, in this case, Seattle. Our friend, Zac, flew down on the same flight my mum is taking to Tennessee to help my grandpa with his move to Whidbey. Tim and I made the drive to Sea-Tac to welcome our friend, and then headed south to Tacoma to have a little reunion with another Juneau-ite, Drake.

Tilly was an excellent house guest, settling into the best seat and staying out of trouble - what a difference in the last six weeks or so of having her! I'm glad Tim is getting to spend some time with old friends after being a little isolated on our not-yet familiar island. We are getting there, but we haven't found a lot of young guys around.

Home

This is the amazing view I opened my eyes to this morning! From my bed, in my house, in my room, I can see the ocean, the field, and our new floors. I arranged the furniture nicely, but then Tilly wanted to snuggle and be up on the chairs with me, so we pushed them all together - much less trouble that way.

During our morning walk, we joined Sandy, Fay, and John and headed over for some coffee. They are getting ready to replace their stairs to the beach. Our stairs, four doors down, follow a relatively gradual hill down 160 steps. This is looking from the edge of their yard down approximately the same distance, but in a matter of feet; quite the drop off.

Eventually I promise to start posting about things other than Tilly, like farming and such, but until then, I can't help myself, she's just so precious! And she has Sandy, who's the perfect babysitter.

 

We did manage to do something useful today other than stare lovingly at the little one. Tim built an awesome workbench from left over wood to get our shop up and going. We made some progress on moving the upstairs down like sweeping the floor, scrubbing the sink, and scraping bits of toilet sealer and plaster out of the new flooring compound so we can eventually reattach the toilet - wouldn't that be a nice thing to have!