IT'S LIKE BEING AT THE RACES...

 Never in my whole life have seen time zoom by so fast. It is like that for everyone or just for seniors?

Today I got my second Covid vaccine shot. It was supposed to be tomorrow but there was a change of date. My first shot was painful as it felt that the needle hit the bone but this time the pharmacist who gave me the shot was as gentle as a lamb and I didn't even felt it. ( I don't have much fat on my bones).

I've been plagued by painful shoulders for over a year and I've been taking Ibuprofen when I couldn't bear the pain. I had difficulty lifting plates in the cupboard and doing chores that required lifting my arms.  A lot of things were left undone because of it.

My husband suggested that I see an orthopedic surgeon, who happens to be the husband of a friend. He only takes referrals so I would have to ask my doctor to refer me to him. There's a long waiting list. The idea of having surgery on my shoulders didn't appeal to me at all. 

I have had X-rays of my shoulders years ago and I know that I have calcium deposits and also loose sockets but when the pain was traveling into my biceps, I thought it might be arthritis. I always have frozen ginger in my freezer that I use in cooking so I decided to shred some and ate it raw and drank a little water to wash it down. I took about a tablespoon full 3 times a day with meals.

In a few days, I noticed a big improvement,  and in no time I could move my arms up and lift the plates in the cupboard with ease.  Ginger is very good for inflammation caused by arthritis so now I would rather take ginger than Ibupropehen. Disclaimer, I'm not a doctor so I'm not advising you to take ginger for your pain. So no surgeon for me for at least now.

Today I baked a rhubarb custard pie to use up the frozen rhubarbs I had in the freezer and some frozen pie crust that I made last week. Very yummy.  George likes it with ice cream.

Update on the hydrangea that the deers ate part of.  The other one has fewer blossoms on it as it was chewed more.  The color has already started to change.

Something has killed one of my petunias by stepping on it. I'll blame it on the deers.

I have English cucumbers growing in a bed of Daylilies. They are ready to eat.

 

All my petunias are started from seeds. I don't spend much money on plants. Notice my barrier for the groundhog is still up. I've seen a small groundhog this afternoon. 

That little hydrangea was started from a broken branch a few springs ago.  The deers never touched this one but the blossoms are small. 

More daylilies growing in the Sundrop flowerbed.  The yellow flowers are finished blooming.

One of my clematis, Jackmanii growing on my dilapidated shed. 

My sweet corn growing in the electric fence enclosure. I just hope the birds will leave it alone. 

This is my first attempt at growing corn. 

And my first attempt at growing sweet potatoes in our short growing season. They need heat to grow well and this summer has been cool. 

Thanks for the visit and I hope that your summer is going well. I appreciate your comments.

Julia

MAY BROUGHT ME SO MUCH BEAUTY, BUSYNESS, AND HEART ACHES.

May is bringing me lots of joy, lots of garden and yard work, fiddlehead picking, office paper decluttering, some long-awaited tests at the hospital since November, and my heartache is that my brother's 14 years old granddaughter has gone missings since May 11th, and no clues as to where she is. 

 A suspect has been arrested on evidence they found in his truck but he's not speaking and the police are not giving any details as there is a publication ban. It is now a criminal investigation.  And Blogger is not being nice to bloggers today.  

Creeping phlox and white daffodils

Creeping phlox on the rock wall

Crab apple tree suffered damage by armyworm this year.  I took down three big nests and a large patch on the trunk of the tree after I noticed that they had eaten buds and leaves.

The large daylily bed.

Creeping phlox and white daffodils and yellow Leopards Bane 

Daffodils by the big rock.

One of my many bags of mulch of garden debris that I'll be using to mulch some flowerbeds. I do this every year instead of throwing it away.  This year, I used the branch shredder instead of my lawnmower as my husband got a young mechanic to change the motor since it had been in the flood twice. It was much faster.

Blogger didn't want me to remove this duplicate photo.  They no longer have "delete" in the settings and I had to drag the photos in. I have done this at other times with success but I could delete photos then but now there is no "delete button"   or I haven't figured it out yet.

Golden alyssum  on the rock wall 

 Some of my many red tulips just before they finished blooming.

My first asparagus crop, grown from a package of seeds that I planted last year. I only harvested these as I want to let them get established before harvesting next year.

Nice fat fiddlehead after washing. The ones in the sink have been blanched.

16 pounds of nice big juicy fiddlehead that I blanched. I only went to pick once this year. 

I've been shredding old files for the farm business and this is only a tiny sample of what I will be shredding over a period of time. I just hope the old shredder holds off. In the meantime, the office is in a mess.

More old files that were shredded and it's just the beginning.  I only shred on rainy days but I need a new cord on the old shredder before I resume the gigantic task. I shredded 16  large blue Glad recycle bags so far. It's very time-consuming as I have to check every file before shredding.

It's been a long time since my last post and I hope that I'll do a better job of blogging next time. 

Stay safe and well. Thanks for your comments.  

Hugs,  Julia

 

WHIPPING MYSELF IN THE KITCHEN

What do you know, two posts in two days. I'm on a roll.....
Today started  very well.  I was on time for work and I had my day all planned. I was to pick up rhubarbs on my way back to the house to make a Rhubarb with Custard and Meringue desert for lunch and potato scallops and some veggie and after lunch I would tidy up and clean my dirty fridge and hook on my Childhood Memories rug in the sunroom. It sounded like a real good plan to me. I was going to be good to myself.....

While at the barn,  I got a phone call from my daughter Jackie, asking me if I would drive my granddaughter to gymnastic around 11:10 am. across town and my grandson to work down town as she had a craft sale all day to tend to and her husband had the car and was out of town.

I normally drop everything to help but this time I didn't changed my plans. I felt very guilty but the timing was not the best for me and it was not an emergency. I had no left over in the fridge to feed the employees who come to work on Saturday.

When I got home I started preparing the desert right away as it is done in three steps,  while eating a bowl of  breakfast cereal and coffee standing up at the counter.

My sonVaughan's car battery was drained and had borrowed my car to go get his hair cut.

I made my base  and the rhubarb custard for the desert and needed to whip the meringue. It seemed to take longer to whip when all of a sudden one of the wires on my favourite whip broke sending the half- whipped meringue across the whole kitchen in every directions. What a mess. I had to burst out laughing.... And to think that I was using the same  Cuisineart whip last Sunday at the church in front of a full room of people. Can you imagine?.....

I got splattered real well and it was everywhere, inside the toaster, inside the stove burners and the stove top, on small appliances, everything  on the counter, under the top cupboard, on the rooster, the floor and cupboard doors across the room the fridge, on the fridge....

My granddaughter Jordyn arrived on the scene and took some photos of the mess and me. I had to go change my clothes to continue. As this wasn't enough , when I came back downstairs  I had company company at the front door...

My granddaughter wiped up the mess on the doors and the floor and had to go back home. Now my husband gave me the news that non of the other three people would be here for lunch today. Had I known, I could have driven my grandkids to where they needed to go.

It took me three hours to clean everything. What a big mess it was and sticky...

Here is the Rhubarb Custard and Meringue desert. It was real good. Too bad the three part time workers didn't shoed up for lunch.  But my grandson did.

Now I have a clean kitchen, sort of... All the cupboard doors need a good scrubbing which doesn't show on the pictures.

Sunshine Rooster is happy again after getting his feathers wiped, lol...

My husband hired my grandson Liam to mow the lawn this summer. About three hours of mowing each time at home and the farm. His first time riding this hard to control machine. I tried it before and don't like to drive it. He did a great job but it doesn't go in tight places so I need to touch up with the small push mower.

So much for my hooking on Childhood Memories.

My favourite son, Vaughan arrived to give me a Mother's Day gift of  beautiful Mums. Sorry, I didn't had the camera ready and missed taking his picture as he left right away.
How was your Saturday?
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the mothers, step mothers, grandmother, mother in laws, mothers to be.       JB

ALMOST FINISHED

It's been a hot muggy day and I know that I shouldn't complain after all the cold and rain we've had but I have difficulty working in the heat and humidity. I need frequent breaks and I get fatigued  and I huff and puff.  A good excuse for me to come in to check on blogs while the fan cools me.  During the summer I think more about  Petals than Wool. For me they each have their season just because I can't do both ay the same time.

 I got a bit more done on my brick border and I worked until I ran out of bricks. Hopefully I'll be able to get some tomorrow at the brick yard.  I use recycled landscape fabric that I saved from another project a few years back to put under the bricks.

It's hard to see the brick with the long grass. I need another 56 bricks to get me to the end. I'm not putting any in the back because of the hedge and lots of surface roots. The hedge has been neglected since my neighbor moved. It definitely needs trimming in a bad way.

Saturday we had a wicked downpour and I thought that it would have flatten pretty much everything but surprisingly it wasn't that bad. One of my peony, the darker pink was heavy with blooms and all flopped over but the lighter pink fared better.  It needs better support for next year.

,

I had a good support for the big one but still even thought all the stems were tied some flopped over in the rain.

It flattened my chives.

One of my clematis has a broken branch

I think that this is a William Baffin rose.

This is a Grootendorst and is just starting to bloom.  Very hardy rosebush and quite thorny.

This bright  yellow flower closes at night and on overcast  and rainy days. They are called Sundrop.  I got a plant from my sister in law from Ottawa many years ago. I've dividd and planted in mass and have given away a lot.  I've got them planted in several places in the back yard and it lights up the yard even on an overcast day. They are just starting to bloom and in a few days it will ablaze with yellow. I'll post another photo when they are in full bloom.

Here they are just starting to bloom and in a few days they will be ablaze with bright yellow flowers that brighten the backyard. I'll try to think to take a photo of it in full bloom. Gee I wish I had the time and energy to cut my grass today. It's supposed to rain tomorrow.

Believe it or not these are serendipity flowers that just decided that they like to grow on my rock steps. I did not plant them there.

That Sedum Acre is growing everywhere, even on my rock wall.

Here most of these flowers are self seeded and they spread by themselves. I used to plant petunias on this rock wall.  Now you understand why my blog goes by the name OF PETALS AND WOOL.  I have petals in the growing season and wool in the colder seasons. They are my passion and joy. I hope that you like my ever changing gardens. That's the beauty of having something always in bloom until I get tired of caring for them and then I welcome the cooler season for a rest and grow a few house plants inside.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. They mean so much to me.  JB