We had a wonderful time tonight at the Citizen of the Year Banquet.  Several of us had nominated Lon for the award and I am so happy he got it.   It has been quite a week for him.  Three of his four daughters told him they are pregnant and then the award to night, with surpise visits from all his kids and family.

Another great part of the night was Kathy Preston receiving an Eagle Award for her work with Hospice.    We enjoyed visiting with everyone at our table and just had a wonderful evening.

The survey is done and we passed with no major problems.  We have a few things to update with some forms, but it went very well.

So as of Tuesday afternoon Hospice House is licensed to provide General Inpatient care which is the same level of care the terminally ill can receive in the hospital.    This level of care is used when there are intensive symptoms being treated, which requires more constant monitoring.    And, hospice gets paid much more to provide this care.  We’ve been doing it all along, but now we can bill Medicare and Medicaid for this high level.

We’re still waiting for the State Fire Marshall.    I’ll be glad to have that over.

My week is off to quite a start.  The state inspectors showed up unannounced today for their inspection.  This is our first for the hospice house and is a really important step for us.  They will be here until Wednesday afternoon.  The state fire marshall will be here this week too.

Fun, fun fun!

We had a great MoMeal today to celebrate Susie’s birthday.  We’re really lucky to have such a wonderful daughter in law!  Happy Birthday!

I really wanted to try grafting rare Japanese Maples for our lawn and for our little nursery business. Last fall I ordered rootstock and scion wood from a grower in California. I set the rootstock (which is Japanese Green Maples) out to go dormant and set the scion wood in the refrigerator. Three weeks ago I brought the rootstock in to wake up. Yesterday I grafted the scion onto the rootstock. If just one survives I’ll feel like it is a success. I know nothing about grafting other than a 2 hour seminar I took at MSU in 1974 and what I’ve read on line since then. Here are the 25 trees I did yesterday.

These are all fairly rare maples. Some of the scion are from an Inaba Shidare Japanese Maple tree and will grow into one like this.

If any of the grafts took I should have new leaf growth in 2-3 weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As a pilot you have to fly with a flight instructor and have 1 hour of ground school every 2 years.  My two years was up some time ago and the flight instructor/weather/my schedule was not coming together to let me fly.  Finally last night I met up with Aaron in Big Rapids and we got the flight review done.  So I’m good to go again for another two years.

YAY!