March Wrap-Up

Once a month blogging seems to be my theme for this year.  It’s a little hard to believe that tomorrow is April 1st, but time flies, right?

March was pretty busy for us.  Howard and Joey both had some health issues, and several vet appointments.  Howard had an anal gland abscess.  Without going into too many gory details, it involved a trip to the emergency vet clinic, a minor surgery, and about a month of wound care twice a day.  He also had to be separated from the other cats, and use a special cat litter while he healed.  There were numerous vet appointments to check his progress, and for antibiotic shots.  Howard handled all of it really well.  He’s a fairly easygoing cat, so he tolerated everything nicely.  We moved him into our bedroom while he was separated from the other cats, and he seemed to enjoy the one on one time with us.  His vet is incredibly pleased with how well he healed, so we’re very happy about that.  He has an appointment tomorrow for us to talk with the vet about making sure this doesn’t happen again.

Joey’s health issues are a little more complicated.  He’s fourteen now, so he’s a little older.  He has fairly severe asthma, but it’s mostly well controlled with his current medications.  He also has some intestinal issues, and seems to possibly be on his way to developing a heart condition.  The vet made some changes to his medications, and he seems to be responding well to that.  Our vet has said that there are some more medications we can try, but we have to make sure we strike a good balance as far as what the medications treat and the side effects they cause.  For the moment, what we’re doing seems to be working.  Joey seems happy.  He’s eating well and behaving normally.  He also has an appointment with the vet tomorrow.

The weather has been all over the place this month.  We had some snow earlier in the month, and lately we’ve been enjoying temperatures in the 70s.  I’m hoping the warmer weather is here to stay.

We cut the grass for the first time this season on Wednesday, just ahead of the torrential rain that started on Thursday.  Nick did most of the grass cutting, and I started weeding the flower beds.  It’s always exciting to see what made it through the winter, and I love seeing the first blooms.  The little white flowers are from GrandMommy’s yard. She helped me transplant them to our yard in 2013.  I’ve always liked them, but it’s especially nice to see them now.  She’s gone, but her flower legacy lives on.

We’ve also been working on trying to Duke proof the fence.  We fixed all of the places he escaped from in the fall, and there were no more unauthorized outings during the winter, so we thought the problem had been solved.  Nope.  Apparently even Duke has enough sense not to go frolicking around the neighborhood during the cold weather.  Once the weather warmed up, Duke went right back to organizing his own outings.  We think we’ve found a better way to reinforce the fence, so hopefully I’ll be sharing a success story soon.

I’ve decided to participate in the A to Z Challenge this year.  I’ve been going back and forth about whether or not to participate.  I’ve barely blogged at all this year, so A to Z seems like a good way to get back in the habit of more regular blogging.  For those of you not familiar, during the month of April you blog every day except Sunday, starting with A and ending with Z.  The posts just have to have something to do with the letter of the day.  It’s a good way to get into the habit of writing posts regularly, and a fun way to connect with other bloggers.

So what about you?  How did March treat you?  Are you participating in the A to Z Challenge in April?  Any other big plans for April?