Snow

A chilly day today, 2C out there this morning, and windy, so it feels cooler than that. Sunday night the temperature dipped below freezing, but once the sun came up yesterday so did the temperature. Yesterday, was chilly and windy. We went for a wee walk down the street and the wind was strong enough to require leaning into it to make headway, it whistled through the hydro and telephone cables overhead.

This morning I peeked out the window at daybreak to find about an inch of snow in the yard. It must have snowed a lot more than that, because it was warm enough to melt the snow all through the night. The roads are clear and damp. The snow will not last the day I think, and we will be on to warmer times tomorrow, or so the weather people tell us.

Our Easter weekend was a quiet and enjoyable. Attila built two of his three little greenhouses, and planted the trays of Cabbages, Kohlrabi, Kale, and Swiss Chard. He purchased some fence t-posts, installed them around the garden outside the fence, installed remesh panels between the posts, then installed netting along the bottom of the remesh. This will keep the rabbits out of the outer garden, as they are quite destructive to our food supply. Attila has already planted peas all along the inner perimeter of the remesh. He also purchased a roll of black plastic, which he used to cover the rain water tank. That should help keep the light from affecting the water in the tank, and slow down the growth of algae. The garden is Attila’s happy place.

Things are turning green out there! In the front garden the Lungwort have begun to bloom, our first blooms of the season, earlier than even the Dandelions. The Day Lilies are about six inches tall now. In the back yard the Rhubarb is coming up, the Garlic is six inches tall, the Wild Geraniums are leafing out, the Heliopsis and the Horseradish are up. It is looking pretty good out there. But it isn’t warm enough to sit out on the porch. Next week I think you will find me out there.

My measuring spoons came on a ring. This is very inconvenient, particularly when one of the spoons is used to measure something messy like oil, and the rest need to be clean for measuring spices and herbs. Some time ago I requested that Attila install racks for the spoons. I showed him where I wanted the racks, and how they needed to work. The racks were installed over the Easter weekend, they were a quick job. What a different it makes, having them handy on these racks!

Most of my active time is spent keeping the kitchen organized, container management is a thing. I made a big batch of soup. I milled wheat, both organic hard white, and organic kamut. I prepared a pizza dough, which I like to make with 1/3 kamut flour, it has a nice nutty flavour. I baked bread, and muffins. Then again Monday I baked another loaf of bread, and another batch of muffins. The week before last Attila brought up a one liter tub of frozen squash, home grown, cooked and pureed in 2017. I agreed, it was time to use it. Half of it was used to include in a vegetable soup, and the other half a batch of muffins. I’ve started adding ground flax seed to my breads and muffins, we like the taste of it, and it is a good source of Omega-3.

One of the projects I’ve been working on is dealing with the felled branches that Attila took from the dead Ash tree in the back yard. I used garden loppers to cut the branches as big as 2 inches in diameter into small pieces, just the right size to be burned in our camp fire ring in the backyard. Right now there is a total burn ban, but that will lift in a month or so, so the branches should all be sectioned and piled by then. I don’t do much at a time, slow and steady wins the day on this project. Activity does not seem to affect my level of pain, but I tire easily. It is nice to spend a little time out of doors, and since I am moving about I don’t get cold.

My condition took a turn for the worse over the Easter weekend, and I struggled with it to stay out of the emergency department and away from heavy duty IV pain killers. This is a situation with great potential for developing an addiction to nasty pain killers. The pain killers I am taking at home were not working at all. I stopped eating altogether, which helped, and spent a lot of time with the heating pad, and retiring with hot water bottle at night. Today it is a little better, although I continue to eat little, I tire easily, and use the heating pad and hot water bottle. I was told that the surgeon will see me for an initial consult near the end of July, if she decides surgery will help me it would be months before that can happen. In that scenario it will could be next January before this pain is dealt with, almost a year of pain, and if this is what I hope it is, it might have been resolved with simple day surgery last January. This is not how I wish to spend all of 2022. In my opoinion, an opinion shared by many suffering people in Ontario, the health care system is broken. Despite my ill health, I carry on as best I can and enjoy whatever I can.

Worldly

Weather

Updated on Tue, Apr 19, 7:45 AM
2°C
Snow
Wind 2 SE km/h
Humidity 100 %
Visibility 4.8 km
Sunrise 6:17 AM
Wind gust 3 km/h
Pressure 100.7 kPa
Ceiling 200 m
Sunset 7:56 PM

Quote

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
Nelson Mandela
1918 – 2013

Ah yes, but where to find a place unchanged to return to!