Thursday, May 28, 2009

Day To Do A Happy Dance!

I had my followup appointment from my heart cath with my cardiologist today. He went in to more detail than the cardiologist that performed it went in to that day. The cath was done because my stress test indicated there might be reduced blood flow in part of my heart. It's good news, no blockages and not only that but he said everything was clean as a whistle. At my request they had done both sides of my heart and there again, good news. My Pulmonary Hypertension had been classified as moderate based on an echo cardiogram. In the heart cath they can get the true pressure reading and it is not quite as bad as the echo indicated so it has been reclassified from moderate down to mild to moderate. They also checked to see if there were any holes between the heart chambers, which could have been a possible cause of my Pulmonary Hypertension. There were none, so he suspects my sleep apnea has been the cause of my PH. I have mild enlargement of my heart, consistant with my size. Also, I have aortic valve stenosis which had been classified as moderate from the echo cardiogram. The cath also downgraded that to mild to moderate. Based on the new information from the cath, my return checks for my PH have been changed from six months to yearly. The chest discomfort that caused my cardiologist to ask for the stress test in the first place is gone. My general practitioner and I were both suspecting it was caused by asthma. She put me on daily use of an asthmanex inhaler and that has completely taken care of that discomfort.

After my appointment I went shopping at Michael's. I wanted to find something to make an earring holder out of. While I was there I got lots of things to work on with my granddaughter Hannah when I go down to Alabama to watch her while her mom is in the hospital having baby brother Riley.

This evening was a Tweet-up for local people who tweet on Twitter. We met downtown at Tyeger's Pizza. The food was great and so was the company and conversation. We had 12 people there, including the two children. Next Tweet-up will be Wednesday evening at Billy Ann's. I'm looking forward to it.

If anyone is interested in Tyeger's Pizza, here is their URL: http://www.tyegerspizza.com.
Last night on Twitter @backyardpoultry tweeted that he was headed to the kitchen because his wife was hungry. He was going to make chicken nuggets and applesauce. That got me to thinking about chicken strips, or more specifically, dipping sauce. When I would go down to visit my son in Alabama we used to go to Guthrie's and get chicken finger meals. I LOVED their dipping sauce. I would get soooo hungry for that sauce. I'd beg Nathan to see if he could buy sauce to bring home to me when he would come but he'd never do it. Finally I decided to go online and see if I could find a copycat recipe, which I did, so now I make it at home. I've found that when I compare my homemade to the actual Guthrie's sauce that I'm putting a lot more pepper in than the original has, but I like it that way. We use the sauce on sandwiches too. I especially love it on a bologna sandwich. I've found that I like my homemade chicken strips better than the Guthrie's Chicken Fingers. I cut chicken breasts into strips about an inch wide, dredge in flour, dip in a wash of equal parts beaten egg and milk, dredge in finely crushed saltine cracker crumbs and deep fry until golden brown. Here's the sauce recipe:

Dipping Sauce Like Guthrie's

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (not garlic salt)
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
ground black pepper (I use fresh, course ground)

Mix together the mayonnaise, ketchup, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce. Sprinkle with enough black pepper to cover the mixture. Stir. Then add another layer of black pepper. Stir again.

It might seem like a lot of pepper but that's what makes it good. It's best if made a few hours or a day ahead so the flavors can blend.
Sunday, May 17, 2009

Meet Our Chickens

I finally charged up the battery pack for my camera. I took it outside this afternoon to take some chicken pictures and video.

This is a picture of one of our roosters. His name is Larry.



Below are two of our other roosters. I tried to entice them with a watermelon rind but they had no interest in it until Gene sprinkled a little chicken feed into it. These two are Bob and one of our other Larrys. My brother-in-law, Bob, made the comment that he had three Larrys in his life so my husband named our four roosters Bob, Larry, Larry and Larry.



Here's some video of Bob and Larry eating out of the watermelon rind.



Gene made an outdoor pen and brought the hens out of the shed to it for the summer. Here's video of the roosters running around and the outdoor pen.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

My Favorite Rhubarb Recipe

Rhubarb Ambrosia Betty

Ingredients:
5 cups fresh rhubarb cut in 1/2 pieces
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. flour
1/4 Tsp. salt
1 1/2 Tsp. grated orange rind
Sections from 1 orange, cubed (or use a small can of drained mandarin orange sections)
4 cups small bread cubes
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
1/2 cup flaked coconut


Directions:
Mix together rhubarb, sugar, flour, salt, 3/4 Tsp of the orange rind and the fruit. Add half of the bread cubes and 1/2 of the butter; mix. Put into a greased 8"x8"x2" baking pan. Combine remaining bread cubes, butter, orange rind and coconut. Sprinkle over top of rhubarb. Bake in moderate oven (375 degrees) about 40 minutes or untill browned. Serve warm.

Number Of Servings:6-8 Servings

Recipe courtesy of Velma Souers (my mom)

Note from me, Marsha: Since I'm diabetic I cut the sugar back to less than half. Tangy, but I'm not crazy about baking with artificial sweeteners.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Itty Bitty Fish In Our Pond


I guess I've been lying. We've got some really nice sized crappie in our biggest pond. It seemed like we never caught any decent sized bass in it so I've been saying I didn't think there were very many big ones in it. A few days ago the son of one of my husband's coworkers asked if he and his friends could fish here. His dad later sent us this picture of one of the bass they caught and released here. He said the kids caught 26 more just like this. LOL...maybe I should find out what kind of bait they were using! Or maybe I should USE bait. I don't fish very often and when I do the urge strikes quickly and I just grab my tackle box and use lures. Once in a while I'll use bait if my husband already has some here.
Sad to say, for someone who grew up on a farm and now co-owns the family farms with my brother and sister, I've not shown much interest in farming. I just read an article that caught my attention though. The article is titled 'More than agriculture, it's a consumer issue'. It talks about the housing of certain farm animals and chickens and how the HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) wants to force changes that will ultimately cost the consumer money. For the most part I don't feel farm animals are mistreated. It really irks me that it seems like everyone and his brother tries to control the farmer. It's no wonder the day of the small family farm is practically gone. Give this article a read: More than agriculture, it's a consumer issue.

Speaking of animals, I'm soooo sad. Late last night we heard what sounded like a baby bird. We went out with a flashlight and searched the yard and found that it was a tiny baby rabbit, probably not yet two weeks old. I wanted more than anything to scoop the little fellow up, bring him in and give him some warm milk and make him a warm place to sleep. Deep in my heart I knew it would be wrong. Chances of me being able to raise him were probably small. And if he did survive, then there would be the matter of him not knowing how to survive in the wild. I didn't even pick him up for a quick snuggle because I didn't want the scent of humans on him in case his mother was still close by. We left him there and closed the outdoor cat in the garage for the night. He was gone this morning. I can only hope that his mother was still close and took him away and that something didn't make a meal of him. Good luck sweet baby bunny!
I just realized I didn't update after Friday's doctor appointments.

First off was my appointment with Dr. Berning at the St. Joseph Burn and Wound Center. He was pleased. My wound in my incision line is finally healing from the bottom up and not just from the sides. He told me to come back in 4-6 weeks but if it healed in enough to stop the vacuum treatment to have Home Health Care call him. And if it totally healed in to call and schedule for a scar check, which I assume would be a final appointment.

In the afternoon I had an appointment with Tammy (Dr. Dunmoyer), my general practitioner. She was pleased too. My labs all came back good. I was tickled because my A1C came back at 6.2. I think that is the lowest I've ever had since I became diabetic.

This was my last appointment with Tammy at Markle Medical Center. They've been sold and Tammy has made the decision to leave and go to Family Practice at Caylor-Nickel. I'll be following her there.

Tomorrow is my 6 month cleaning and check at the dentist office. Unfortunately I already know I have a problem that will require a followup appointment. I was eating cracklings a couple of weeks ago and broke a tooth. I'm pretty sure that tooth had a root canal. At any rate, there's been no pain but the sharp edge sure bugs me!

Enough with doctor appointments now! :-)
 
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