The rain! The rain!

Our first substantial rainfall of the new season arrived this morning at 4 a.m. when remnants of Typhoon Melor blew in from Japan. Some parts of the Bay Area got 1 foot of rain, but San Francisco got much less than that.

My garden received 2.5", and the rain barrels filled up with 240 gallons of free water. What did I do but run right down and use 60 gallons of it for some directed deep soaking. Two inches of rain does not soak down very far. Move the top layer, and the ground beneath it is quite dry.

But when that top soil layer is thoroughly wetted, additional water penetrates deeply. I take advantage of that all winter long by using the rain barrels to supplement the actual rainfall. As far as the plants in my garden are concerned, every year is an El Niño.

I keep track of the rainfall on a piece of paper tacked on the wall in the garage.



We're a couple weeks ahead of where we were this time last year.

Along with the rain, strong winds bent the garden out of shape. I'll have to do some pruning and editing in the next few days.



In the meantime, I planted out more bulbs today, including recently obtained Dichelostemma and Watsonia.

On my way back inside, a single bright red grape leaf stopped me in my tracks.



It was already dark so the picture is blurry. Well my dad always says the best pictures are taken with the mind.

As nice as that idea is, it's still nice to have actual pictures you feel good about. It's been hard to do that with Miss Patty. Today I succeeded!

Presidents Day Garden

This morning, the view out front:



Out back:



This weekend this happened (pea-sized hail if you can't tell):



(That's my high-pitched kitty voice. I don't really talk like that.)

While inside, it was like this:



Down in the garden, the big story is 3.3" of rain in 2.5 days.



That brings the rainfall total in my back 40 up to 10.075" since the current rain year began on July 1, 2008. So San Francisco is not a desert this year.





The sun came out a little bit.







Even plants next to the north-facing wall are getting some light now.



Cantua buxifolia:



I'm very excited to see that Bartlettina sordida will bloom this year. It didn't last year because of storm damage.



I came out yesterday during the storm and tipped some of the bamboo which was swinging wildly into the neighbor's air space.



Long overdue pruning.



Today I planted out bronze fennel



and Hooker's evening primrose.



I was tempted to plant out Petromarula pinnata seedlings too, but decided to wait. These seedlings were struggling until I gave them some Miracle Gro about two weeks ago. Now they seem vigorous, but I'm going to wait until they get a little potbound, just to be sure.



That's pretty much all I have for you. I planted this little calla I "gave" Guy for Valentine's Day.



The kittens were loving it.



Just as I finish this blog post, it's raining again.

Some mid-week cat lovin'

drip drip drip

Penny loves to play with dripping water. She often gets in the sink and meows at the faucet as if asking it to please drip.

That enema made all the difference

for Penny. The next day she started to eat and drink and poop, per usual.



There's a little swelling of the surgery site, but nothing unusual. Her belly hair is growing back in.



I'm always telling Guy we should shave off all the cats' hair so we can see how tiny they really are. (He hates that idea.)

It actually took Miss Patty much longer to recover from Penny's surgery than Penny herself. Patty hissed and growled and generally adopted a surly tone for a whole week after Penny came home. We were worried.



She'd always been so loving. We even scheduled an appointment with a behavior specialist, but after some intensive playtime and shared treating, Patty's anxiety lessened to a point where we felt comfortable canceling that appointment (14 minutes before the deadline).

Everything is back to normal now.



With a few changes. We've banned unattended shoe laces from the house. Shoes are left outdoors, or put in the closet with the door shut. And both cats are forbidden from being in the closet unsupervised. It's for their own good.




ADDED: Penny's publicist informed me at dinner tonight that any statements about Penny receiving an enema are false and should be regarded as vicious gossip.

The fentanyl patch comes off

Not easy! It was quite adhered. But I managed to peel it off with only two meows of pain from the patient. Opioids cause constipation, and Penny appears to be constipated. With what, I don't know. She's only had about one tablespoon's worth of food since Saturday. But she gets in her litter box and strains without product. I believe the constipation is causing her appetite to decrease, and she needs to eat so she can heal.

So, I'm going to give her an enema. (After this blog post--don't worry. P.S. I was a veterinary technician in another life. I can do this.)

Hopefully we'll get her unclogged so she will start eating again. I've force-fed her what little food she's had the last few days. Actually, no so much force-fed, as trick fed. I smear a little baby food on the side of her mouth and, being fastidious, she can't help but ingest it while grooming.


Offered here, for your delectation, 20 seconds of feline grooming.

Blissed out on fentanyl

I'm talking about Penny.



She always likes to knead her basket [bed], but this pose she's in cracks me up.

She had major abdominal surgery last night to remove a foreign body. Presumably, she's experiencing some pain and discomfort, as you or I would be after undergoing that kind of surgery. It was good the vet sent her home on painkillers. I'll show you her surgical scar later on. In the meantime, here's her fentanyl patch.



Fentanyl is an opioid analgesic 80 times more potent than morphine. An "opioid" is anything that acts on the body as morpine does, but not necessarily an "opiate". An "opiate" is anything derived from morphine. Chemically speaking, fentanyl is radically different than morphine. (Opium is the latex from the opium poppy, which includes morphine plus other stuff.) You can look it all up on Wikipedia if you're interested.

Fentanyl, btw, is what the Russians used to neutralize the Chechen terrorists who kidnapped an opera-house full of people in 2002. (Note that that BBC article says fentanyl is "opium-based". That is quite false.)

Dodging the bullet

That's what we did this weekend.

Penny, our one-year-old kitten, started vomiting on Friday. By Saturday we were in the emergency room for x-rays and blood-work. Yesterday we were back for an ultrasound and emergency surgery. To remove this from her small intestine.



A frayed inch of drawstring from Guy's swimming trunks. Unbelievable.

She stayed at the hospital for observation and recovery. They might discharge her today. We feel simultaneously fortunate and broke.

Hopefully she'll be feeling like her old self soon. Here she is quite entranced with the kitchen faucet set to drip. She's fearless about water. She even gets in the shower with us sometimes.



Here's another one that features Patty, too. You can see why we have our hands full.