Cat Eyes---A Cat Woman's Photos: Poppy's Lousy Mouth

Poppy has been having trouble. She would work her jaw funny, paw at her mouth and has lost weight.

Even though she was not drooling I figured dental issues. Off to the vet she went yesterday, for a dental.

She ended up having almost all her very rotten teeth pulled. Stomatitis. Like Gretal. The vet says she should feel so much better, by today even. And she is feeling better, free of all that pain and misery.

I started her on antibiotics last Saturday. Not easy juggling a cat in my bathroom (the Millersburg girl) and Poppy in the spare bedroom, confined there so I could easily find her for twice daily antibiotics. That created quite the stress on my cats, who were outraged at the sudden lack of free space for them.

And on me, with that going on. But now the Millersburg girl is gone and Poppy's had her dental surgery. Whew!

I banged my toe running around barefoot. Swelled up, turned slightly purple but hopefully will be ok.

I just can't seem to find shoes that don't make my right leg hurt. So most often, I'm barefoot unless I have to wear shoes.

Been trying to keep my plants alive through this unbelievable summer of heat and no rain. Someone gave me a young apple tree. I don't even know what kind it is. It had three apples growing on it, but I took them off to give the poor tree a chance to grow up, put its nutrition into strong bones! Teen pregnancies in fruit trees. Sad.

Anyhow, I have such lousy soil out front. Impenetrable clay. Finally I got some course moss and bark to help retain moisture and a fruit tree fertilizer spike. I looked up why apple trees get brown curling leaves and its a lack of I think it was potassium. If there's too much nitrogen in the soil the tree can't uptake potassium either. I hope I told that right. I can't recall now and tend to mix up the P nutrients, phosphorus and potassium.

It's doing better with that spike stick and more water.

In the early summer plant wars, when nurseries and backyard plant breeders are vying for customers, I bought a rhododendron for $5 and stuck it out front. It too has suffered from my lousy clay soil and this abnormally dry hot summer. I fed it though and give it lots of water now, since their root systems are so shallow and fine, and have it nested in nice soil with course moss for water retention. Not a great summer for baby plants or relocating plants though. Nasty nasty heat we've had here.

My garden box beans have been good to me. I like bush beans. I like yellow bush beans and purple bush beans especially. For two months now I've had all I can eat from my little garden. I've also had good cabbage and peppers, potatoes and radishes. I had a few strawberries but they got fungus and I pulled them all out after I got all I could from them. The plants were too old.

This wasp nest was right above my front door. I rubber sprayed it last night while the wasps slept. Bye bye waspies. I've been stung three times so far this year.