Lemon and Armenian Cucumbers

Summer and Fall bring us great garden treats ... that is if we plant and care for a garden.

One of my long time favorites from our garden is Lemon Cucumbers.   (These, however, are not from my garden.)

Lemon Cucumbers have a great flavor and are usually never bitter.  They do have a unique look - not much like a regular cucumber.  They have little black prickly things on the outside so we always peel them to eat them. 

I learned about these as a young girl, when my mother used to grow these in our garden in Warden as I was growing up.  Because I like them so well I have grown them many times in our garden, but I have never seen anyone else grow or sell these (until my children started growing them too).   It's usually hard to find the seeds.


This year Michael grew these cucumbers in his garden and shared them with us. 

They are Armenian Cucumbers and they are delicious - even sweeter than the Lemon Cucumbers.
I had never seen them before, so it was a treat for us, and they could easily become my favorite cucumber. They look more like a cucumber than the Lemon Cucumbers do, but they have a unique outside skin - it's a bit fuzzy, so we like to cut the skin off of these too (but I don't know if you have too it just seems better that way to me).

 

If you're like me, and you get a chance to try one of these, you might find that you like cucumbers better than you thought you did.  Michael has sold a few at Judy's and at Harvest Foods, and even at a Farmer's Market - I hear there are some people who are pretty excited to find them because they love them so much and cannot easily be found. 

Friday Appointment

Our Friday appointment included seeing the doctor because she had been gone for a couple weeks.  The doctor added a new med to help clear up Terry's sinus issue (the infusion of Rocephin on Tuesday has made no improvements for him) and we hope it begins to help very soon.

Terry received 2 units of reds and 1 of platelets. 

RBC = 2.97(L)
HGB = 9.0(L)
HCT = 26.3(L)
WBC = 0.2(LL)
Platelets = 7(LL)
ANC = 0.0(LL)

Unfortunately Terry was by himself for those transfusions because BrittanyJo and I went and did some final shopping to get her set up for college.  We may have a couple more items on our list, so final might not be the correct word there, but we will do that online or on our way to Rexburg. 

We have got a pretty full schedule before we head out, so we are trying to accomplish a lot these next few days. We are taking it one day at a time ... It's best that way! 

Here's a smile for your day!

image from here

Transfusion

We spent most of our day in Wenatchee yesterday.  Terry had two units of red blood cells, one platelets, and we added an infusion of Rocephin. 

His counts were low, but the only count I remember is the platelets at 5.  

Rocephin is being used to treat Terry's sinus infection that is getting worse - he's feeling it in his ear now and it's a miserable thing that we haven't been able to get rid of.  Though it would be great, we don't expect it to go away, but we do hope to see some improvement soon.

Just for fun:
I was cleaning up and found this picture of our lawn bubble ...

We turned the water on after we took the tent down after our reunion and this bubble formed - evidence that we hit a pipe with one of the posts.  Ooops!  It's repaired and working fine by now, but it was an interesting sight to see.  Anthony and Chase had some fun with it.

 

Medical Report

Tuesday Terry got 2 units of reds and 1 platelets.

Friday he just had 1 bag of platelets.

He is fine! 

And - no pigeon shooters in sight either day.  ;)

So, here is a quote Bonnie Oscarson pinned (I'm an avid follower of hers). 

I may have pinned this quote before, but it's a great one, and it's a cute visual too.

Baling Week!

This was the week for baling and it went quite well.

The kids loved sleeping in the tent - the first night was in the family room and the next nights we had the tent in Anthony's room.  It was so fun!



 We had a nice few days together.

School Started for Anthony!

We (or I) like to take pictures of the kids on their first day of school.  I don't always get it done when they leave, but I try harder then to remember when they get home.  I have taken the picture on day two at times, but this year I got a photo of Anthony just coming home from his first day of school.

It will be a bit tricky since he will be baling several nights of the first week of school.  Not a real good mix, but it won't last long.

This week's medical ...

Terry had a doctor visit Tuesday -

CBC Collected:
08/19/2014 9:42 AM

Component	Standard Range	Your Value	Flag
WBC	3.6 - 11.3 10*3/uL	0.2	LL
RBC	3.72 - 5.85 10*6/uL	3.25	L
HGB	12.3 - 17.1 g/dL	9.5	L
HCT	36.9 - 49.9 %	28.9	L
Platelet Count	136 - 331 10*3/uL	4	LL
Absolute Neutrophils	1.2 - 8.0 10*3/uL	0.0	LL

The reds were good enough to let him go on his own till we checked again Friday, but the platelets really needed some help so he got one bag of platelets.   It was a simple and short day at the clinic.

We had a longer day in Wenatchee than that because we waited for Chase as he was doing some testing at the Wenatchee Valley College and then taking him to his car that was getting some work done. 


We went back to the clinic on (our regularly scheduled visit) Friday -

CBC Collected:

08/22/2014 8:55 AM

Component	Standard Range	Your Value	Flag
WBC	3.6 - 11.3 10*3/uL	0.2	LL
Results confirmed, test repeated
RBC	3.72 - 5.85 10*6/uL	2.80	L
HGB	12.3 - 17.1 g/dL	8.4	L
HCT	36.9 - 49.9 %	24.8	LL
Results confirmed, test repeated
Platelet Count	136 - 331 10*3/uL	3	LL
Results confirmed by redraw
Absolute Neutrophils	1.2 - 8.0 10*3/uL	0.0	LL

 

This day Terry needed 2 bags of reds and 1 bag of platelets.  We got started in pretty good time and got done around 4:30pm.  I was so happy to get home kind of early ..., or so I thought ... 

We had heard over the intercom something like "Attention all employees, Code silver, first floor, Allergy".   We hadn't heard code silver before so I was intrigued and thought I'd ask the nurse about it when she came in the next time.   We've heard code blue several times and even code green a couple times, but code silver must be special.   A few minutes later we heard something like this, "Attention all employees, Code silver, contain your area".

A few minutes later our pump started beeping so a nurse came in.  She didn't seem to know what was going on, but did know that code silver included guns.  So, there must have been someone with a gun in the clinic.  

We began noticing policemen pulling into the parking lot and the nurses came back to close our door because that is protocol with such codes.  The first policeman we saw got out of his car with his rifle in his hand ready to go.  Other police vehicles pulled in and policemen were coming and going and we were in lock down for an hour and a half.   We saw the police, state patrol, sheriff, and most surprisingly we saw what looked like forest rangers.  Everyone wanted in on the action, but the action was taking place somewhere around corners we couldn't see.  So we sat and waited and watched and wondered and visited and saw a little TV.  We were finally released at about 6:00pm. 


Here are a couple photos Anthony got.

The view from our suite -



On our way out of the parking lot.

 

 

Curiosity got the best of me today so I searched for info about what took place yesterday.  After learning the real reason for the lock down I found that all of our time was wasted, and we sure understand why no one really knew anything or at least no one admitted to it.  It also explains why the forest rangers or Dpt of fish and wildlife were there.

If you are curious you can check it out too.  I got my info from The Wenatchee World.

This is the photo they had on their page - and we saw this photo taken.  This was the sheriff I saw get out of his car with the gun coming out first. He was ready for action before his door even opened.  We saw the news reporter taking these photos, so it was fun to see and recognize this picture.  Our room would have been to the very left of this photo, (except they don't show that side of the building). 



The news article is titled BB gun triggers lockdown at medical center.  That sounds silly enough, but wait until you read the news.

I think the clinic needs to talk about how and when this employee enters the building.  

Another Driver in the Family

This should have happened a long time ago, but with all that is going on around here Terry and I have a way of not giving this kind of thing the proper and immediate attention it deserves. 

However, with school starting Monday for Anthony, and the fact that he had some more time to practice drive with us so he was finally close enough to his 50 hours driving (enough that I could feel comfortable with) it was finally crunch time and we needed him to have his license more than anything else (or almost anything) on our calendar and crazy schedule.  

ANTHONY PASSED HIS WRITTEN AND DRIVING TEST first try for each and is now a legal driver and does not need a parent with him or someone else to chauffer him.  CELEBRATE!    He is our last new driver!

BrittanyJo feels like she lost her job and will miss the opportunity to take him where he needs to go.  REALLY!   She has been our designated driver for the last couple years, but will be heading out to Rexburg in September for a new adventure of her own. 

Chase is planning to attend school in Wenatchee this fall and will not be available and Terry and I just didn't want to add that to our list when there was a better option.   So we forced that activity into our schedule and got it done.

We learned a couple things as we made our attempts at getting this license -  the DOL no longer does the written or driving tests.  The Central Washington Driving School does those now,  then the DOL takes your photo and gives you your license.


Watch out Royal ..., Here he comes!