Honey update, Grandpa update, duck update

Yesterday evening, Mama and I transferred the honey we had collected into as many jars as it took to empty as much as we could get out of that bucket. In all, we got just over 9 pints of honey out of those four frames. Mama has decided that we will keep all this honey for our own personal use. My hope is that I will be able in October to collect a couple more frames of honey and be able to sell it to our interested buyers. That remains to be seen, but at least we have a supply of or own honey. That has been exciting and encouraging to me and Mama. Right now, we need that encouragement.

Tomorrow, time permitting, I will go back into the hives and reposition the emptied frames in the hive so they can be cleaned, rebuilt and refilled in the hope of giving the bees a head start on making more honey. I will not be able to put all four frames back in the hive because I put a syrup feeder in the hive to help the bees through this dearth and that takes the place of two frames of the ten required to fill the hive box.

Grandpa continues to improve. His muscle strength is increasing, and the nurses are delighted with him. As he comes back into his own, they will begin to discover how funny and charming Grandpa can be. Some lingering disability still hinders the use of his right leg, but he does appear to be gaining use of the right arm and hand. His speech is steadily improving, and his cognitive interactions are getting more and more spontaneous. In other words, it does not look like he has to expend extra effort to get his thoughts together and verbalize responses to questions. He is engaging more in ongoing conversations and adding his thoughts to those conversations – and we are only on day two of his recovery.

The cost in money, time and emotional energy is very high as we make the repeated trips to the hospital to make sure Grandma and Grandpa have their time together. We are more than willing to sustain that effort as Grandpa receives the care he needs, but it is taking a toll on Mama. Grandma was asking that Mama would drop her off at the hospital and leave her with Grandpa, not realizing what she was asking. In her mind, it would save Mama the time spent waiting at the hospital and give her and Grandpa time alone – as they have grown accustomed to having.

But Grandma is unable on her own to get herself to the bathroom when needed (there is no bathroom in Grandpa’s room) or get herself something to eat when needed (she has no ability to find her way through the hospital on her own), or to get herself out of the way when Grandpa is being taken for one procedure or another when needed (which happens several times per day). Someone is required to help her in every one of those situations and if she was wheeled out of the room, she would not be able to find her way back to Grandpa’s room.

If she is not left in the room, it is doubtful that Grandma would be able to tell a willing worker where she wanted to be taken if they did not already know where to take her. Mama does all that for her without Grandma knowing it is being done for her – and Mama is glad for the opportunity to do so. Plus, we are not going to make two round trips per day to a hospital an hour away unless it is absolutely necessary. Right now, about three hours in a wheelchair is about all Grandma can handle. So, we will keep things as they are for now.

Please pray for Mama to have the strength necessary both emotionally and physically to keep up with the ongoing needs. Please pray for Grandma to respond with a receptive heart to the many decisions that will be made outside of her control. We are slowly learning our way through this maze of decisions that must be made as we try to minimally impact the lives of Grandma and Grandpa all the time being responsible to provide for their every need as we try to continue living our lives. It’s complicated.

Mama has moved the baby ducks into the nesting box I built in the duck habitat. The original intent of the box – which is 96x30x30 – was to have a place to close up the ducks at night in case any predators were able to penetrate the outer defenses of the enclosure and to give the females somewhere to lay, but it provides a great starting place for the growing ducklings to be moved out of the tote in the garage. I am not sure how quickly the little ones will mess up the large nesting box, but they have more than quadrupled their living space. This living space has openings in the floor to allow some of their water splashing activities to flow out of the box to be soaked up in the ground below the box. Hopefully, there will be less cleanup on Mama’s part until we get the older ducks purchased and placed in that habitat to help produce a larger mess in the full enclosure.

Things will work out. We just have to learn our part in the working out process.