Tisk, Tisk and Shame on me!

I never wrote in June about the hero and his venture of creating Fig Jam.

One evening he came in and exclaimed "the fig trees (we have three) are just loaded with figs!" He then commenced to have me plan out what he need to make fig jam, enough for us and the kids. I was still dealing with an ankle that kept me off my feet, so...we would come home from work, he would snatch up a small grocery bag and off he would go to the trees. About and hour later, he would come in with the bags brimming, and grinning from ear to ear. He was excited. It was fun cleaning the figs for him which I could do and squishing them, then showing him the amounts of other ingredients he needed. He would do one or two batches a night. [He lost about 2 bags of figs he had frozen to the hurricane.] Below he is stirring his brew over the stove and below that is his finished product. He canned about 36 jars of fig preserves. Most were strawberry flavored but he experimented with other jello flavors too. We will have to wait for the kids to tell you if they are good or not, I am prejudiced...they were wonderful and I so loved watching him work. What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and being provident.

Oh MY, Hurricane Ike went through like a Hurricane ; )

We had gone to the surgical clinic on Wednesday before Ike. Because of the storm brewing, we were sent home with some catheter kits and orders to change the dressings to normal saline and do it twice a day. The orders were if he still can't void on his own, when your kits are used up, go the emergency room.
We stayed home to sit out the hurricane. We are 125 miles inland from Galveston and were on the west side of the storm. Our son and daughter and her husband battened down the hatches and we all worked together to make it being locked up in the house for the deluge. Watching the long oak limbs swing widely left one wondering if they would stay attached to the trees. There were some 75 - 100 mph gusts but no sustained winds of that caliber...thank goodness! The neighbors lost a tree across the road, and the same on the way into town. The day after the storm, my son drove in and assisted others in cleaning up the roads and investigated the damage in town. It became evident that we fared well in just loosing a greenhouse and some misc. limbs and electricity ( which meant the well wouldn't work). [I will add pictures when we finally get home. I left the camera there.] We waited 4 days and then gave up to go on into the hero's twin brother to stay, so the hero could have water and bathe. They were lovely host and hostess. What blessings they have earned, in all the service they offered my hero and myself.
After I ran out of catheter kits, we ended up in the ER at a hospital near his brother's home. They have been lovely personnel in this hospital. I hope we can pay some. They put him on antibiotics again, catheterized him, and restarted his wound care like we do at home. The only problem is the confusion around his pain medication routine. Confuses me why it is so hard for them to grasp continuity.