Oregon Living 2023 – Blog #45 – More Isolation, a Couple More Tests & a Burn Day!

 

                                

Sunday, October 22^nd., 2023…… A better day for Cathye! She sounds better and has some color now! She got up and took a shower. Still staying in jammies though!  I walked the girls and fed them breakfast. Cat had leftover scrambled eggs and I used the rest for breakfast burritos for me. Quiet morning. She paid her bills and I worked on the blog then paid mine. We had to skip the Sunday square dance class so she’s bummed about that. We watched our tv programs throughout the day and evening (together) and then called it a night.

Monday, October 23^rd., 2023…… I had dog walk duty again. I have been taking care of them but Cat is feeling better and is bored and wants to do something. She’s tired of sitting and sleeping.  I went out and got us breakfast and we had coffee at home. We worked on a list of Costco items. We’ll do that later in the week.  Tv and quiet for the day and evening.

Tuesday, October 24^th., 2023……  Another day of recovery. She wants so bad to go to the senior center square dance class this afternoon, so she is taking another covid test. Nope - still positive. But she got a response after sending an email to our caller (Charlotte) with letting her know her situation. The caller is taking precautions too since she also has been exposed to covid. Class is cancelled today.  So, Cathye won’t miss anything more.  Based on that new bit of information, we are now thinking that all of the girls (Judy has it now too!) were exposed at one of the classes. Same with Charlotte.  Cathye is feeling better today. She walked the dogs with me but we’re still being careful. There is nothing on our calendar this week until Saturday. Hopefully she will test negative before then.  We hung around the house most of the day. I think I will get to do Costco duty probably tomorrow. We watched more of our taped shows after dinner. No spa time so it was an early night.

Wednesday, October 25^th., 2023…… Another bleak cold day. Temps in the 40s for the most part. They say there are freeze warnings coming as the temps are expected to drop again tonight and tomorrow. We spent it at home. A very lazy day.

Thursday, October 26^th., 2023…… Today was gym day for me. We walked the dogs and then I headed off while Cathye fed them. I planned to make it a one trip outing. Gym first, post office second, then a run to Albany to Lowes. I needed to stock up on rock salt for the water softener. I stopped on the way and got breakfast.  Penny brought over a covid test kit which Cathye took. Still positive. With all the info we have to go by, we figure she was exposed on Tuesday or Wednesday. This makes day 9 or 10. We don’t have anything going until Saturday so we will wait until then and test again. She is feeling pretty good. A little cough and she gets tired easily but no fever or other symptoms. Fingers crossed.  When I got back, she said that burns are allowed today. So, I went out again and got 5 gallons of diesel fuel. Diesel (although a little more expensive) is safer than gas for the fire. We brought out the hose extensions and got ready. The pile has been covered for several weeks now so it’s fairly dry. We got the fuel spread and I used the torch to ignite it in several places. It burned surprisingly well! We had a bonfire going pretty quickly.

Once up to temp, we were able to load some other yard clippings that weren’t quite dried out but burned anyway.

 

After a few hours, we could leave it to smolder. And it did!  I was so surprised to see smoke all afternoon and evening!  I would go out and check on it several times and saw the glow of the embers and smoke well into the evening.  But it was safe to leave for the night. We’ll check it again tomorrow morning.   

Friday, October 27^th., 2023…… Cathye probably shouldn’t have spent all that time out in the cold yesterday. She is coughing a lot more today. I was too from the smoke. Hopefully we’ll be ok. That said, guess what! - Cat went back out to the burnpile and stirred it up. Guess what – it’s still smoldering!  It burned just about everything we had thrown in there!  We also were out this morning checking on the water lines around the house and yard. Cathye cleaned up her garden and I removed the hoses and timers from the spigots around the house. I went to the store and got a couple more insulated covers for the spigots. Then we shut off the irrigation system for the fall/winter. Later, I went to the store and picked up a few things, including a couple more covid test kits for tomorrow. She has been in contact with one of her nurse friends who sent her back a text saying not to worry too much about it. She told us she had tested positive for 13 weeks after returning to work!  She assured us that if there is no fever and she has isolated for 10 days, she can safely go back into the world again. We’ll test tomorrow to be sure. Dinner in and tv until bedtime. 

Saturday, October 28^th., 2023…… Today was a day to celebrate Bailey’s birthday with them at her school carnival and then dinner with them.  Unfortunately, Vikki is a little doubtful about Cathye’s covid status to let us celebrate with them today. Grandma did test positive again. She feels fine but we don’t want to push. So, we’ll wait until another time. The weather is really getting cold!  We’ve had several mornings when it was below freezing. The trees took one frost shock and then when the next frost hit (even with bright sunshine) they dropped all of their leaves!  

We spent the day working around the house. We cleaned the spa filter and polished up the fiberglass and washed up the spa cover.  We added water and some more chemicals for suds and we were good to go! It’s been too cold to really start any projects. Cathye says it will rain next week. Oh joy! We watched our programs on and off throughout the day. I went and got us burgers and fries for dinner. Tv and spa and then bed.