Since the garden is nearly done, you’d think I have more time on my hands but cleaning up and getting it ready for the fall season is a major effort. Pulling all the residual plants and weeds is a big job and the main source of material for the compost piles. I usually get 2-3 hours in before noon and totally wearing out. It’s a load for Nancy too because I go through 2 sets of clothes each day. But it’s about done and I’ve actually planted the first seeds for a new start. According to a new book Tom got me, I should be able to plant celery now. I have my doubts but I have plenty of space and a couple packets of seed so nothing to lose. I’ve grown celery before with mixed results but I’m going to do this crop by the book.

The other reason I wanted to try the celery was that the author suggested that home garden celery should be treated as a cutting crop – which means cut the outer stalks when you need celery rather than cutting the whole plant. New stalks originate in the center of the plant which will just keep producing. Meaning you can get plenty of celery with only a few plants. The other suggestion that I’m going to try is to buy celery at the grocery store, slice off all the stalks to eat and then plant the root end in the garden where (supposedly) it will root and start putting out new stalks. I never heard of doing that but it’s sure easy to try (and it does work with pineapples). The other tidbit I picked up was that it’s impossible to overwater. Celery needs lots of water and I’m fairly sure I wasn’t aware of that. on my previous crops. With the heavy rains we’ve had, the side of the garden closest to the lake is really wet – too wet right now to grow most anything – so that’s exactly where the celery is headed.

We made another batch of eggplant Parm – the first go round was so good, it needed a repeat batch and I just happened to have two ripe medium size eggplants ready to pick. We set up a real production line. I peel and slice the eggplant (in this case two medium size eggplants); Nancy dips the slices in egg and bread crumbs, I fry them and Nancy does the assembly work – adding cheeses and (our home made) sauce. We made two casseroles, each oven ready for a party of 4 (or 2 with leftovers). One of the two will be frozen for future use.

Nancy didn’t have a fun week with an iron infusion and B-12 shot on Thursday and the eye needle on Friday. The infusions and B12 shots are a weekly event; the eye shots every 8 weeks. Starting to get hard to find blank spots on the calendar.

We were surprised today to see our picture in the Deland Beacon – the local newspaper. It was taken when we were watching the Stetson baseball game in Persimmon Hollow. We were in a group but right up front and very recognizable. The photographer is a larger than life personality very well known around Deland. She’s a very large lady and totally deaf so she doesn’t speak but makes lots of strange noises and is a very boisterous Stetson supporter. At first I thought she was mentally disabled but Nancy knew her from a quilting event and explained that she was deaf.

Up until the beginning of June our Monday routine was firmly anchored in taking Nancy to Palm Coast for a bridge game. I fished, read, hit a brewery or basically anything that seemed right for the moment. Then her bridge partner ran into problems and was forced to relocate – to Wisconsin or some other bad place. Because of her vision issues, there were no other members eager to jump in and rescue Nancy so the era of Monday bridge was ended. Timing wise it worked out just fine because it freed us up on Monday during the period that Wilma was having all her medical problems. And we found a new place to eat, High Jackers, which was conveniently located less than a mile from the hospital. It was at the Flagler County airport and was my kind of watering hole with an added attraction – spicy peel and eat boiled shrimp on special Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. The special is a pound of really nice shrimp for $10. And a draft brew was $2. So we simply adjusted our schedule to visit Wilma on Wed or Thurs. But wait, on Monday the bridge club called and asked Nancy to please come back on Mondays and she agreed. It’s 100 mile round trip to Palm Coast so I don’t want to go over there twice a week. And I could never pay $16 for shrimp when I know they will be $10 in two days. So you see the trap.

I had my annual eye exam and was fairly sure it would focus on my cataracts. Last year the doc said that they’d most likely need action this year. To me, my sight was ok – not perfect but not really bad and I had somehow managed to pass the drivers test a couple of weeks back. The results of this year’s exam showed things were fairly well stable, that I don’t need glasses other than drug store readers, and that the cataracts could go another year or so before doing anything. I was fully prepared to tell the doc that I didn’t want any cataract surgery but the test results supported my position.

Checked out the lake for swimming and found the temp to be perfect – probably in the upper 80’s. I’ve been working in the garden and/or the jungle for a couple of hours each day – until I’m totally wiped out and dripping. Based on the temp test, from now on I’ll end the hard work with a cooling dip in the lake.

I’ve never seen anything like the fire ants this season. Overnight they build very large mounds that you would think were weeks in the construction. I poison the mound which is supposed to cause the mound to collapse, killing all the ants and the queen – and it does but overnight a new one (or two) will spring up a couple feet away. We’ve been much wetter than usual since early May so this must somehow be connected. I’m using a different insecticide than I have in the past but it’s certainly a big brand and well known. If I don’t start seeing success in a few days, I’ll go back to the Amdro. Maybe these ants are a new super species that chew up the insecticides and spit out new mounds.

June is my month. Had a great birthday party at a German place in Sanford- they have a grapefruit flavored beer that I’m particularly attached to. Denis and Judy (Spelman) visited and was able to join the family at Hidden Treasures for a great fathers day. Johnny and Brian and his family plus some friends from Cocoa joined us. I think the total head count was 15. Tom got me the most unanticipated father’s day gifts – the worlds greatest ladder and an imitation Iguana. The ladder is most useful because each side is independently adjustable making it able to work on hills, on steps, around corners while holding very stable – which is a big deal for me. It’s a 6 foot step ladder that can be expanded to a 12’ step ladder or a 20’ extension ladder. Very nice for cleaning the gutters which is tricky because along one side of the house the legs are on the lawn and the other is at a higher level on the concrete deck. The other thing was an imitation iguana. We had read that putting a fake iguana or snake in the garden, it would scare of the birds. I located it in the garden where I have the most bird activity and it seemed to work. But yesterday I went to the garden to pick some tomatoes and forgot it was there until I came within a couple of feet and glanced down. Scared the hell out of me for a few seconds and then I busted out laughing.

Garden pretty much done. Picking the last of the tomatoes and making the season’s ending batch of sauce. There was a beautiful ripe eggplant patiently waiting to become parmigiana. done – in fact it’s cooking as I write this.

Exciting day. Took Nancy to the hemotologist which is normally a one hour event. They keep the office too cool for me so I usually go outside, sit on a bench, and read a book. I was doing that when a large crash occurred at the turn in for the doctors office. I was maybe 75’ away and saw this large truck crash into a small car. The car had crossed in front of the truck and ended off the road up onto the sidewalk. I rushed over to see what had happened and saw the car was driven by an elderly lady. She looked fine and I opened the car door to get to her. I asked her if she was ok, planning to get her out of the car if I could. About that time a nurse from the doctor’s office came on the scene and an emergency vehicle arrived so I backed off and let the pro’s handle it. She was totally coherent and didn’t seem to have any obvious external physical issues.

We’ve about recovered from last week’s testing. The freezers are straightened out and the one gallon water jugs filled and back in the freezer (to prepare for the next emergency). Living out in the woods, we are nominally prepared for periodic power losses and having a few days of ice on standby is an important element. The new fridge is fine, just like the old one with better internal lighting. The ice maker has been able to keep up with the need for ice for Nancy’s knee. Which, by the way, passed the one week follow up appointment. The doc said the tear was worse than he thought but she’s healing well and quite able to support her weight and walk without any assistance. I suspect all the activity of last week with Wilma actually helped the knee.

Wilma finally had an endoscopy Tuesday afternoon so our trip to the hospital was supposed to end with her being discharged and back home. But the doc’s decided she needed another day of recovery. The scope showed gastritis and a bleeding ulcer were the cause of the blood loss. I assume the bleeding had stopped since her blood had built up to 9.5 and the treatment was Nexium which heals such maladies. They called at noon on Wednesday and told us she was to be discharged so we headed over to the coast to get her back to her apartment and alert her “caregiver” that we were officially out of the loop. I think we hurt their feelings when we went around them on Saturday and took her directly to the emergency room but…………… I had a long talk with the “independent care giver” to find out why the admission process was so confused. Turns out that the caregivers are contracted by Wilma’s daughter in Atlanta and that Wilma is one of several customers living in Las Palmas. Their job is to check on her daily and make sure she’s taking her meds and is generally in good health. The caregiver can’t make the call to take her to the hospital. The process is for them to call the daughter and take direction from her but (according to the caregiver) she tells them to do whatever her mother (Wilma) wants. The problem with that is obvious – she may not be able to make the decision or she makes the wrong decision as in this case when she decided to hold off going to the hospital until after Memorial Day. When we jumped in and took her to the hospital we short circuited the system. The other big problem with Wilma’s arrangement is that she is seriously hard of hearing so when the hospital staff tries to communicate with her directly, she simply can’t hear them but rather than saying that, she answers questions incorrectly because she can’t understand what they’re saying. I really don’t know how the whole process would have worked if we hadn’t been there. Over the several days since her admission, several hospital staff personnel went out of their way to thank us for being there and helping.

We made the first batch of pasta sauce for this season. It’s 90% cherry tomato based which puts a little bite to the sauce. Love it. The first batch is 16 quarts so we’re off to a good start. That’s good because I’m thinking the total crop will not be so great with all the rain we’ve had. There are also a few eggplants on the bushes so I see a totally home grown eggplant parmigiana in the near future.

Had a great time today – Saturday. Nancy had a hair appointment at 3PM. Since her hair person is only a couple blocks from Persimmon Hollow we decided to wrap it all up. We had bought a small block of nice cheese, some thin sliced hard salami, and good crackers so we packaged that up in a small insulated lunch bag and combined with a small cutting board, a knife, paper plates, napkins and toothpicks. You see it. That plus a couple of fine craft brews just hit the spot. It just so happened that there is an NCAA regional baseball tourney going on here with Stetson making it to the regional finals and Persimmon Hollow becoming the unofficial tourney watering hole so the place was jammed and rocking. Some people let us share their table and we thanked them by shared our snack so it was a fun event. I think next time we’re

This has been a busy, busy week. The best news is that Nancy has been recovering from the knee surgery with a good level of mobility and modest pain levels – manageable with a tylenol now and then. The level of mobility has proved to be important. Aside from the knee issue, we were dealing with losing the fridge from Wed to Sunday, requiring a nominally constant ice crisis – trying to save all refrigerated items by shuffling ice between our 2 stand alone freezers and the inoperative fridge. So we were in full, 1900, ice box mode for 4 days. Tom jumped into the breech by coming over to help get Nancy to the surgery (on Friday) and ice for the fridge crisis. I think we could have managed without him but it was starting to stack up and it was sure nice to have the help.

On Friday night we got a call from Nancy’s 93 year old bridge friend in Palm Coast saying that she thought she should be going to the hospital on Saturday. We drove over Saturday morning and were surprised to find her in bed in a seriously weakened condition, having trouble even breathing but telling us of her decision to wait until Tuesday to go to the hospital. We told her that wasn’t an option and got her up, in her walker/chair, packed whatever we thought she needed and headed for the emergency room at Flagler Hospital. That’s about 5 minutes away so we had her in examination in about that many minutes. It took the doc about 5 minutes to say she needed to be admitted and immediate care. A quick blood test showed her hemoglobin at 6.0 compared to an expected 12. So she was seriously anemic and in need of blood transfusions. Her blood pressure was 50/33 and her pulse was 35. She has an existing heart condition and had visited her cardiolist just the week before and had scheduled all the same stress tests I had last week for mid June. She has no relatives in Florida and we’re her closest friends so it all dropped on our shoulders. While she was “out of it” we met with a barrage of doctors and hospital workers all needing to fill out paperwork. Not sure how they would have dealt with it all had we not been there. Her blood level was so low and her heart numbers so weak that they couldn’t just give her a “fill-up” Too much blood in her condition would have more than her heart could handle so it had to be done very slowly. When we left she was stable with a transfusion happening.

We had a refrigerator delivery scheduled for Sunday AM and needed to get all the stuff in the “ice box” into short term coolers and disconnect the old fridge to make room for the new one. And certainly we needed to be back at the hospital early. Tom and Tina could see our dilemma and volunteered to come to the lake Sunday morning to deal with the refrigerator and also prepare dinner for us when we came back from the hospital. Oh yeah, the weather folks had forecast a heavy duty rain for all day Sunday so that was going to add to the job of switching out the refrigerator. Our luck turned and the delivery happened earlier than expected and between rain storms. Tom got the ice maker connected and we were ready to head to the hospital before noon.

We were amazed at how well Wilma had recovered over night. She was bright and eating a beautiful lunch. Her blood had recovered from 6 to 7.9 which is still seriously anemic but way better. I asked the doctor why they had stopped adding blood and he said her heart couldn’t handle more. So they had changed her heart meds to get her rate up where they could continue adding more. They scheduled an endoscopy for today (Monday) because they think she was bleeding in her stomach and they planned to cauterize those leaks. It didn’t make sense to keep filling her with blood if they hadn’t solved the loss problem. So we left the hospital on a high note late Sunday afternoon and came home to a fully functioning fridge and a great meal of smoked chicken and sides – compliments of Tom and Tina.

Since coming home from NC, we’ve had 7” of rain and the lake is the highest we’ve experienced in quite a few years. The dry season ends and the wet season starts June 1 and it’s more normal for the lake level to be quite a bit lower. If we have anything approaching a wet June, I’m sure the dock will be overtopped. A mid summer hurricane could also be a fun event.

Nancy has a knee (arthroscopic) operation the end of this week. It’s an in and out kind of event but she’ll be mostly off her feet for a couple of days and using a walker. complicating her life just a little more, her blood count dropped off again. This problem has been going on for about 3 years and they just don’t seem able to pin point the source of the blood loss. Can’t catch a break.

We had a bad experience driving Nancy home from her bridge game in Crescent City. We were on US 17 about halfway between Crescent City and Seville – that’s halfway between nowhere and nowhere squared when we developed a flat tire. To make matters worse, I had left the cell phone home so had no way to call AAA. Luckily a kind hearted young lady passed and figured we were in some kind of distress so she rendered assistance – calling AAA for us. Luckily we did have a useable spare in the trunk and an hour later we were heading home and then to the tire place in Deland. I was going to change it myself but the spare itself was low on air and I couldn’t fit the jack under the frame – that’s what I pay AAA for. Turns out the tire was worn down to the steel on the inside edge where it was totally invisible – clearly an alignment problem. So we ended up buying a new tire and having an alignment job. Surprisingly the tire on the other side was ok. The whole episode consumed about 4 hours and ended at cocktail hour so we finished off an otherwise bad day with taco’s and brew at Persimmon Hollow.

And just when you think things can’t be worse – the compressor on the fridge gave up the ghost. We were lucky enough to get a service guy here in a couple of hours but he only confirmed what I thought – compressor problem with a fix that would cost more than a new fridge. Found one that fit the bill at Lowes but delivery not until Sunday – 3 to 4 days without a fridge. Nice. We do have 2 external 5 CF freezers but those are about 90% full. Part of the space was taken up with water bottles intended to use in coolers as needed so those bottles were moved to the dead fridge and the space created, filled with stuff from the dead fridge freezer. So I’m playing a game of rotating frozen water bottles between the working freezers and the dead fridge. I think this will work and we can supplement it with purchased ice if necessary. The fridge is the last of the original major appliances. In the past few months we lost the dishwasher, the stove/oven, and the fridge. They lasted about 17 years so I guess we can’t complain too much. The only original left is the microwave – and that’s not a critical item in any event.

And by the way, we have a tropical storm forming up in the Gulf which should keep us well watered this weekend. Could even raise the lake above dock level. We’re on a roll!!!

No more Swiss Chard; no more kale; no more cabbage -the only greens are the collards and the NZ Spinach. Lots and lots of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini with other tomato types on the near horizon. About another week on the green beans. There are a few pepper plants that are still putting out and five eggplants that have loads of blossoms but no sign of fruit. Last year that was all that happened with the eggplant – blossoms but no fruit. My guess is that the whole summer crop will be peaking and winding down in June. Then a month or two before I start getting serious about next fall and winter. That’s good news because it gets way too hot to garden July thru September.

Back from the Lake Lure cabin. We had a really fun time with everybody and the only negative was the stairs. No matter what you wanted to do, it involved a long set of stairs to navigate and Nancy had some problems. But we survived and everything else was great. We came home by way of Spartanburg SC and had a Mother’s Day breakfast with almost the whole Sheronik clan. A great pleasure. We’ll for sure be seeing them more now that Chris is all settled in charlotte. He loves his house, his neighborhood, and (so far) his job. His comment after the first day was that it was going to be a challenge and that’s usually a good thing. The store he’s taking over has a very low ranking so if he’s as good as he thinks, should be a piece of cake!!!

We arrived home after dark so I didn’t get to check out the garden until the next day. It was in a fairly high state of maturity when we left and we had no rain so I was expecting the worse. Normally I will putz around in the garden a couple times a day so a week away will always bring surprises. On the plus side, there was a couple pints of cherry tomatoes ready to pick, a load of green/red peppers, and the second planting of green beans was ready. Some zucchini had cratered and some had grown as large as watermelons. Zucchini is a crop you have to stay on top of because things happen so quickly. But all in all, it wasn’t near as bad as I’d feared.

Big rain since returning home. The rain gauge was empty when we got back on Sunday indicating no rain while we were away. We got an inch on Monday, five inches between Tuesday and Thursday and two inches on Friday – so eight inches this week. That brings the lake up to a fairly high level for this time of year. Another 6” and it’ll be over the top of George’s dock. With the forecast we have, that’s very possible this coming week. Our dock is 11” higher than George’s so we should be ok for a while. The thing is that in mid May, we should just be coming out of the dry season with the lake level at least a foot lower than it is now. A few years ago we were down several feet at this time. So if this summer approaches anything like normal rain, for sure we’ll go over the top.

Finished all the heart testing – just routine testing 3 years after the stents were installed. There were 3 tests spread over that many days. Only the nuclear stress test involved a few seconds of discomfort. Other than that, piece of cake. The results show everything totally normal – which is exactly what I thought.

Having a fun time in the Carolina mountains – fishing and just generally relaxing. The weather has been perfect. Chris picked up Joey at the Ashville airport and brought him to the cabin so we have the whole family here. Nancy and Kassem drove up from Spartanberg for the day. Simon and Amy are driving in from Alabama, I think scheduled for a very late arrival tonight. We take Joey back to the airport tomorrow and then Chris and Jamie and the rest of the Sheronik clan come on Saturday so it’ll be a full house again – the more the merrier. It’s been great seeing everybody and enjoying the setting. Fishing has not been great but we have caught a few small bass so it’s not been a total loss. We spent a few hours yesterday in a little town called Chimney Rock – had lunch and just did the tourist things. We leave on Sunday and should be home before dark.

We drove to Charlotte Saturday to spend the day with Chris in his new home before heading to the mountain cabin near Ashville with Tom and his family. Chris has a brand new townhouse in an area of Charlotte called Waverly. It’s on the south side of town in a totally newly developed community. It’s one of those new concept places with a highly retail center intermixxed and surrounded by homes and apartments so that everything you need for everyday living is within walking distance. There must be a dozen restaurants of all types, a really nice Whole Foods, and the standard mix of other retail. We ate at the Carolina Ale House last night and loved it. Jamie starts his new job today and Chris takes over his store next Monday. Tom, Tina and Olivia joined us Sunday afternoon, we did a late lunch at a Mexican place there and then headed off for the cabin at Lake Lure. Joey joins us mid week; ditto Simon an his newly announced fiance, Amy; and then other family members. The Carolina relatives, will join us next weekend. Should be a fun time.

The drive to the cabin was exciting. It was about half good road and half narrow, windy, mountain roads – reminded me alot of driving in the mountains in Utah. We hit a super market and loaded up with groceries for the week. The place is quite roomy and will get the job done just fine. There’s a nice looking lake out the back door and a canoe waiting on the shore so we’ll be running a bass test later. Report to follow.

We’ve got some kind of “bad knee” disease going on. George, Barbara, Nancy and I all have the same knee problems. George and Nancy visited doctors and both were diagnosed (eventually) with a torn meniscus and told that it is something you get when you’re old. Like the dentist says – “you’ve got old teeth” or the eye doc says – “you’ve got old eyes”. duh! Nancy’s doc is giving her shots; George’s told him to use ice a few times a day, take tylenol, and keep his leg elevated. Barbara and I are just avoiding the whole doctor thing and are just toughing it out. Actually I’m semi toughing it out by going with the ice remedy. We all seem to be getting a little better. For me, one of the toughest moves is getting in and out of the car and the kayak. Getting down on hands and knees to pick beans is also a bit trying. Maybe next year I’ll grow pole beans again.

Rumor has it that a 7’ gator wandered on into the lake a couple days ago. That happens from time to time but a few of the locals take care of it – usually within a day or so. A couple nights ago we heard two gunshots from a serious weapon and assume the critter was converted into steaks, wallets, belts etc. Sounds kind of harsh but if you had a dog or child living on the lake, you might see it differently. We also had another wildlife encounter yesterday. We came home from Nancy’s bridge game and when she opened the screen door, a snake scooted right by her trying to get out. It was obviously an OK snake – maybe 2’-3’ long and about as big around as a pencil. I think it was a black racer which is totally harmless but it does give your heart a start when you don’t expect it and when it races by about 2’ from you. He was having trouble finding his way out and we needed a broom to help it find the doorway but it was all over in a minute or so.

Joanne, Joey and Mark came up for a “work” day yesterday. There are a few jobs in the house that are difficult for Nancy to keep up with. And I try my best to keep up with the outside but occasionally a job too big or technical for me to handle comes up. This time it was the dock which was starting to get shabby with rotting decking. The structure itself is just like new but the deck itself, particularly the portion that’s directly in the sun has been deteriorating. That’s a Mark job. So a couple of weeks ago I picked up a dozen 16’ deck planks. We pulled up all the bad boards and replaced them with the new wood. Took us the better part of a day but we did it. I finished off the next day by carrying all the bad wood over to the burn pile on George’s and just generally cleaning up. Looks good and hopefully it will hold up another 12-15 years. The only loss was a hammer dropped in the lake but I know exactly where it is and as soon as the water warms up, I’ll retrieve it.

The winter garden is winding down fast. Not much kale left, one more cabbage, no regular spinach. The chard is hanging in there but by mid afternoon, it’s wilting badly – just can’t handle the heat. I give it another week, that’s all. The collards and the NZ spinach are hanging in there so I have greens for my smoothies.