School was due to start on Wednesday, September 2nd.
The kids would be rollin' into 100% online learning.
The day before, we decided to head out to a u-pick vegetable farm for one last summer hurrah.
Mikey was feeling a bit nauseous on the car ride over. But, he decided it wasn't that bad and that he would still accompany us out into the fields.
We trucked on out to the corn field.
None of us had picked corn before.
There was a sign that gave us directions, but it also warned that corn stalks are super sharp and can cut quite badly. Guess we shoulda brought gloves. Whoops.
We decided to go for it and snapped off some ears of corn.
Carefully, of course.
The kids were fascinated.
Mikey doesn't even like corn but he couldn't stop picking them.
There were lots of these guys out in the field. Like, everywhere.
Once we filled up a bucket with corn, we decided to move on to a different type of veggie.
"LOOK, MOM!"
"CUCUMBERS!"
Cucumber plants are close to the ground and you have search through the leaves and stems to find good ones.
Mikey didn't like picking the cucumbers.
I bet you didn't know this, but cucumbers have prickly spines on them.
The stems are also prickly.
You can see them in this close up picture.
So, again, gloves would've been a good idea. Whoops.
If you ignore the tiny "owies" from the prickles, you can power through and snap them off the stems.
Once you get them off, you can rub them on your clothes to knock off some of the prickles.
Next up was zucchini.
Zucchini live in these giant leafy plants that come up to about waist height.
Now, zucchini themselves don't have prickles, but their stems sure do.
OW.
And, to get the really good zucchini, you have to reach down into the middle of the plants through all those prickly stems.
About 5 minutes after zucchini picking, both myself and Katie had annoying rashes up both our arms due to the spines on the stems.
Mikey escaped the zucchini wrath by only picking from the top of the plants.
Humans WERE harmed in the harvesting of this zucchini.
Tired of paying the price for not having gloves with us, we decided to do something a little more low key.....
....Pick some potatoes.
On the way, we found a few rows of leeks.
Katie had never seen a real leek.
One of the vocaloids she likes, Hatsune Miku, apparently loves leeks...
So, she had to pick one.
Off to the potato field!
Potatoes, as you may or may not know, grow in the ground.
You've got to dig them up.
The kids enjoyed rummaging the soil for potatoes and we made quite the haul.
Mikey did his part, even though he doesn't like potatoes.
I think he just liked digging in the dirt.
It was like finding buried treasure.
After our foray into vegetable harvesting, we stopped at a frozen yogurt place.
Surprisingly, it was empty on this warm end-of-summer day.
We were the only customers.
Which was all good because I wasn't quite sure how I was going to have the kids stay outside (to lower their risk of COVID exposure) and carry out three tubs of yogurt.
That afternoon, Mikey tried fried mozzarella sticks for the first time.
He was a huge fan.
"WHY haven't I ever eaten these before!?"
SCHOOL TIME!!!
The first few weeks of school were dedicated to community building.
For example, taking time to let the kids get to know their teachers, their schools and navigate around the new learning management systems.
Katie and her schoolmates also spent time starting to build the culture of her BRAND new high school. They began work on deciding a school mascot, school colors, what kinds of clubs they wanted, etc.
Fall is spider season here.
It felt like I was "catch and releasing" at least a spider a day.
Some A LOT bigger than this little guy.
Remember those cucumbers we picked?
Katie and I decided to make our own pickles.
We followed an easy refrigerator pickle recipe.
We filled each container with brine and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours.
They were fantastic.
Katie thought they were TOO briny, but I thought they were just right.
Super fresh tasting too.
I think we'll do this again in the future.
And, in pure Katie style, she made me take a picture of the smiley face leftover from the spillage of the brine.
Movie night!
Huzbend snuck a photo.
Some not good news time.
Remember how I mentioned Mikey was nauseous when we went to the veggie patch?
Well, that nausea never went away and turned into a constant stomach pain that had already lasted a few days.
It hurt so bad that it was keeping him up at night.
We decided to try to use Marvel movies that he's seen a million times to take his mind off of the pain and to help him fall asleep.
His first pick was Black Panther.
It worked.
The west coast is prone to forest fires in summer.
The reasons for this are many.
This particular year California, Oregon and Washington all had severe fire seasons.
With a shift in winds and a slowing in weather systems, the smoke from these fires can settle in our area.
We woke up on Tuesday, Sept. 8th to declining air quality and smoky skies.
You can see the smoke obscuring the distance.
One tiny positive, the smoke in the air makes for some beautiful colors at sunrise (and sunset).
Days and days.
As it wore on, the air quality further degraded until it was advised that people no longer left their homes.
Mikey's stomach pain had lasted a week at this point and we were getting concerned.
His energy was low, he was still having a hard time sleeping and his appetite had disappeared.
It had lasted a week.
We paid a visit to his doctor. We talked over symptoms and took an x-ray.
There was thought that it could be heartburn/acid reflux, possible constipation (based on the x-ray) or possibly anxiety.
We were told to try Miralax to try to alleviate any constipation issues and OTC Prilosec.
Friday, the 11th, was the worst day for smoke and air quality yet.
The smoke was palpable. You could smell it, feel it and even taste it.
When you can look directly at the sun, you know that there is something very, very wrong.
This is what the west coast looked like.
Fires and low quality air warnings up and down the entire coast.
And this was an air quality reading from this day.
The next day wasn't any better. Actually it was worse.
Our hazy house.
The sun became fainter and fainter.
The forecast for this week was supposed to be sunny and 70's, which would've been a beautiful end to summer.
But, because the sun couldn't make it through the haze, it barely reached 60 degrees.
We made it all better with coffee cake and hot cocoa.
Some blue sky peeked out on the 14th, but, it quickly disappeared.
We had a few more sunless unbreathable days to go before the smoke would finally clear out.
On Friday, the 18th, the winds began to shift.
A storm was headed our way to clear out our air.
FINALLY, relief came with the rain that usually no resident of western Washington wants to see in September.
This September rain usually means that summer is over and that the fall rainy season is here. I know I for one was just happy to be able to breath freely and LEAVE OUR HOUSE.
It really was a horrible to not only be stuck at home due to COVID, but also not able to go out into our backyards or go for a short walk. Everyone was glad that the smoke had left.
Yay for the rain!
Finally, on Saturday, the 19th, the air cleared.
Phew.
For those not keeping track, that was TWO WEEKS of dangerous air quality.
We chose that wet and breathable Saturday to truck on down to IKEA to pick up a sectional couch for our basement.
We rented a UHAUL van.
The kids stayed home.
We had to wait in a socially-distanced line for about 30 minutes before we could go in.
It was quite the procedure to load up, like, 10 large boxes of furniture parts ourselves and push them to check out.
We were able to fit them all into the UHAUL.
Huzbend did some serious math to figure out if we could.
With the acquisition of the new sectional, our old arm chairs had to go.
I tried to give them away.
No takers.
Our garage was filled with the armchairs (they were pretty hefty) and ALL of the IKEA boxes.
Mikey had a good time playing with the boxes as Huzbend built the couch.
He had me bury him in boxes.
Before.....
....and after.
The largest of the boxes became what Huzbend jokingly (and cringingly) called, "Mikey's Murder Box". Mikey would take a cardboard cutter and stab through the box repeatedly. He also practiced his knife throwing.
TA-DA!
Couch complete!
Mikey was still falling asleep on the living room couch each night.
I jokingly told him that he snored when he slept. He didn't believe me.
So, I provided video proof.
The next day, the IKEA boxes were put to good use by Katie and Huzbend.
They made kendo helmets.
Katie ended up burning herself on the glue gun.
OW.
That is quite a blister!
We were finally allowed to have an in-person check up at the GI doctor.
COVID had made all appointments remote.
Katie went in for a general check up and to discuss how she was doing with the reintroduction of dairy into her diet.
We decided to schedule her follow up endoscopy for November.
At this time she was eliminating the following foods: gluten/wheat, peanuts/tree nuts, fish/shellfish, eggs and soy.
Rescoping would give us a clue as to if dairy was the cause of her EOE issues.
If it was dairy, she would take that back out of her diet and maybe add either eggs or soy back in.
She wanted eggs added back in because, her words, "Baked goods without eggs are yucky."
I saw this froggy on an early morning walk with Ralph.
He did not eat it.
He didn't even notice it.
Mikey was dutifully taking the medications, but they weren't helping at all. He was still in pain.
He was also STILL not sleeping, not eating, had no energy and he was losing weight.
We made another appointment with the doctor to discuss next steps.
We decided to do a barrage of tests in the hopes that we could find something. Blood tests, urine test, stool sample and an ultrasound (scheduled later in the month).
Everything came back normal with only one inflammation marker listed as "abnormal".
She also put in a request for referral to a GI doctor.
Sigh.
A week after getting our new couch, I still had not been able to get anyone to take our arm chairs.
I tried to donate them - Goodwill, Value Village - No takers.
Desperate to reclaim the garage, Katie and I drove to a town 20 minutes away to a Salvation Army store. We got there as they were closing.
A dude came out to let us know they were closed for the day. I asked if they could take our chairs.
He said he would take them the next day at 8am!!!
WA-HOO!
I had to make two trips to the store because both arm chairs wouldn't fit in our car at the same time, but it was worth it.
The last weekend in September, Huzbend went wild and decided to try some new meals.
On Saturday, we had Korean short ribs with kimchi coleslaw.
I thought the ribs were delish...but the kids, not so much.
Katie DID enjoy the leftover cabbage.
Yes. She pretty much ate the whole thing plain.
On Sunday evening, Huzbend made falafel with a tangy sauce.
To be honest, I was not very excited to try falafel.
It just didn't sound appetizing.
Boy was I surprised. I liked them.
I liked them so much I had some leftovers for lunch the next day.
Huh. Who knew?
Katie really liked them as well.
Mikey, not so much.
Earlier on that Sunday morning, on my run, I spotted a bunny hanging out against a long stretch of fence.
As I ran by, I noticed that he did not try to run away.
Upon further investigation, I saw that he was injured.
The location he was in happened to be a popular stretch for dog walking.
I felt bad that he would have to sit there, injured and with no chance of escape, with dogs trying to get at him, all day. Well, at least, until he died of his injuries.
I knew that wildlife rehabs were not taking rabbits as they were trying to save resources for not-so-prevalent animals. There are TONS of rabbits here and, once injured, are very like to succumb to their injuries.
I thought that I could at least move him somewhere else to die in peace.
I grabbed a box, some gloves and a towel and drove to the place I had seen him.
He was still there.
The bugger was surprisingly hard to catch for being so beat up.
He tried to run, but would fall over sideways and kick his legs until he was up and moving again.
I was able to throw the box over him.
Upon closer investigation, besides some fur missing and a puncture wound or two, I saw that he had lost one of his back legs completely and one of his front legs was injured.
I drove him over to the middle school near our house.
My plan was to set him free in a wooded area so he could hide and die in the bushes.
Before I let him go, I took a few minutes to pet his forehead between his ears.
I wasn't sure if he would like it.
He did.
Immensely.
His body calmed and he closed his eyes.
I decided to place him next to a blackberry bush.
He had other ideas and bolted away from me.
Be free, Stumpy!
The last day of September, Mikey went in for his ultrasound.
The tech was great and took time to point out his organs, show him blood flow and let him listen as well.
The ultrasound findings were normal.
It had been 4 weeks that Mikey had been in pain.
Next up for him was a trip to the GI doctor.
