Garden Update

    I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I posted. I guess we have been busy. The storms moving through this weekend were supposed to have totaled over 2" of rain, but have fizzled so far....maybe a tenth or so. Not enough to register in my big rain gauge. I have 2 repairs to make on my distribution water lines so I can turn the drip hoses on. It is quite dry now.
    My continuing lack of stamina from the chemo treatments limit me in what I can do, but Rita has been a real trooper and is doing much of the work. The potatoes are growing very well; I pulled all the loose dirt up to them last week and now we will mulch deeply with straw. The Walla Walla onions are growing well too. The first planting of corn is 4-5" tall and the second planting will be up this weekend, along with pole beans, cucumbers, summer squash and melons.Monday we hope to plant more sweet corn and butternut squash (the squash was waiting on a roto-tilling task). I will continue to plant sweet corn through June and make the last planting about the first of July, along with pumpkins at that time. That should allow for mature pumpkins and dried corn stalks in Oct/Nov. Wendy always gets some for her classroom, and last year I planted pumpkins too early and they were rotting before time to decorate with them.
    One of the easiest tasks for me to do is mowing, and I love to mow. But yesterday I about over did it. I got the John Deere fixed (needed a fuel filter and fuel lines blown out). The south pasture was over knee high in thick lush grass and clover. Oh my, how my cows would have relished it! But I bush hogged it and did about 4 acres total yesterday, which was too much bouncing and steering I guess. I was beaten down when I quit. But the pasture looks like a lawn this morning; very beautiful.
    I just completed the 2 week regimen of antibiotics and it was effective in stopping the clostridium diarrhea. We started the 3rd month of chemo last Wednesday, since there are still cancer cells present, we will do 3 more weeks of chemo. The last week of May I will have a CT and we'll see where we go from there.
    The GREAT NEWS is that the Ca 19-9 marker test is down some more. Remember, it skied to over 36,000, then dropped to 6000? Last weeks test was 2550! Going the right direction. "Normal" is 0-37, so we still have a ways to go, but the chemo is working. Praise God.