Seedlings UP!

 I was gratified to see some seedling emerging from the newly-planting trays today.  Some Cosmos flower seeds emerged, some lettuce seeds emerged, some radishes emerged.  Good start.  I expect tomatoes and peppers in a day or two.

I planted snow peas outside today.  I wasn't sure how to plant them; they need support and I didn't want to dedicate any tomato cages to them as I'll want those in a few weeks.  So there I was in the yard, and I noticed a 5'x3' piece of rebar 6" mesh.  Perfect!  I keep stuff around because it always gets useful "eventually".   

Attached it to a support pole after weeding the spot and loosening the soil.  I had the pea seeds pre-soaked overnight 3 days ago and saw which germinated (16 of 18).  Those got planted.  

I received 2 grafted Brandywine tomatoes from Territorial Seeds yesterday.  Those are under indoor lights to firm up the grafts and encourage rooting.  I have my own to graft, but I'm not good at it so having a couple professionally done is good backup.  And I have pots of direct non-grafting seedling for standard growing.

I was late on planting, but experience tells me that later-planted tomatoes catch up to early-planted ones so I thing I may have a good harvest this year.  One always hopes...

This year, I hope the many flowers I have planted indoors will thrive outside.  They usually do, but I have less-usual ones I hope to use to establish some self-sowing ones that may repeat for years.  It's a fight between the weedy grasses and the flowers each year.  

I've been rubbing the marigold flowers to separate the seeds the past few days while watching TV.  They grew well enough just scatterred around last year and I am hoping for the same this year.

There were whole square yards of them.  I hope for the same this year...

The weather is great.  Time to be outside more these days.

Unmoderated Comments

 I was surprised today to  learn that I had un-moderated comments on Mark's Mews.  I clicked on the dashboard button by accident today.  They went back more than a year.  I apologize.  I deleted a couple of ads, but the rest were all good.

In a way, it was nice to read them relating to many posts.  But obviously. I should have read them at the time.

I will be more careful about that in the future.  I LOVE comments and read them carefully.  

Mark

The Indoor Lettuce Garden

OK, so yesterday I posted about the veggies and some flowers to go outside in a month or so.  Today I'm posting about the indoor lettuce garden...

I HAD a great lettuce garden going before The Ladder Incident.  Radishes, Bok Choy, Carrots, and 4 Lettuces.

Great Neighbor Deb watered them twice when I thought about them, but they usually slipped my mind.  Priorities were groceries, clean cat litter boxes, and laundry.

When I was able to get down to the basement again (barely), the indoor garden was in trouble.  I managed to water them a few times, but noticed "dust" on the leaves.  Turned out to be an infestation of nearly invisible tiny aphids.  It was too much to cope with at the time.

Thankfully, some plants survived anyway.  Last week I took the trays outside and sprayed them with Neem Oil (a tree-based organic insecticide most effective on small soft-bodied pests like aphids and mites but safe for humans).  The nights were warm, so I left them out 2 days.  Them I sprayed the HELL out of the plants with the garden hose and left them out another 2 days.  

The surviving plants looked bad!

BUT, they were clean of all aphids!  I harvested those.  Fine salads...

I emptied all the tray soil into a large 2'x3' plastic tub and sprayed Neem in the soil to get at any surviving aphid eggs and to let the soil dry a bit.  I don't actually know if aphids lay eggs in the soil, but I was being thorough.  And apparently it doesn't bother earthworms.  I found some beauties in the soil when I repotted the trays!  I moved the worms outside to rich soil.

Then I refilled and replanted the trays.  Bok Choy, Radishes, Red Romaine/Red Leaf/Green Leaf/Green Head/and Endive Lettuces will come my way in 6 weeks!  The nice thing is they are "cut and come again".  They regrow new leaves several times.

I'll show pictures when they are growing again (but they will look about the same as the top pics).  It was nice to be able to get my hands in soil again!  

I have snow peas soaking overnight for planting outside tomorrow.  There is still time for them to fruit before the hot weather hits.  I will be able to plant some seeds directly outside in a couple weeks.  Spinach, Pole Beans, Corn, Beets, Carrots, etc.  Can't wait...

Gardening can be a cruel hobby.  Last year, I had everything planted indoors and out on time but it stayed cold and wet all Spring, so most died and some couldn't be replanted (too late to mature or ran out of seeds).  I hardly got any heirloom tomatoes, no corn or spinach, and few peppers.  THe pole beans were OK.  

This year, the weather was good but I wasn't.  Still, hope springs eternal.  I'm not beyond the point of expecting some good harvests.  

Getting Back To Normal Activities

I was surprised to realize I haven't posted here for a while.  I suppose I got used to just posting about falling off the ladder and healing from it.  Well, I'm about as healed as I will ever be, so there wasn't much to say about that.  I'm walking, driving, shopping, doing household chores about like before.  The collarbone ain't ever gonna be re-attached to the shoulder bone though.  An operation is bad enough; the recovery requirements are worse.  

But I DID get back to gardening yesterday and today.  I got tomatoes and peppers started indoors  (yes, I'm late by a month).  I have 2 groups of tomatoes planted.  Some are planted normally for direct transplanting outside in 6 weeks.  

But some are planted 2 to a larger pot.  Those have an heirloom tomato and a special rootstock tomato for grafting.  I am (so far) a complete failure at grafting tomatoes but I keep trying.  The idea is that a vigorous rootstock tomato (that on its own produces poor fruits) can be topped with a less vigorous heirloom tomato with great fruits.  

The rootstock makes a larger root system, is disease resistant, and absorbs more nutrients to send up the heirloom stem.  There are 2 basic grafting methods.  One cuts off the tops of both seedlings and you clip the heirloom top to the rootstock bottom.  

The other has you shave both stems slightly and clip the shaved areas together.  That leaves both seedlings with roots for nutrients while the graft heals.  Then later, you cut the bottom of the heirloom and the top of the rootstock off, leaving one grafted plant.

Someday I will manage to get that to work.  Other people do.  I've watched youtube videos of it and they show the routine success.  They get a lot more true heirloom fruits than usual.  You can even buy them (I have 2 grafted Brandywine tomatoes on order for delivery in a couple weeks.  But they aren't cheap ($10 per plant), but they really do produce better so I REALLY want to learn how to do it myself.

I also late-planted a bunch of flowers indoors.  Some are standard ones like zinnias, marigolds, and salvia. Others are more unusual but are tall cottage-garden "self-sowers" so if I can get them established outside they might spread and shade out weeds for many years.

I have to confess that my lovely indoor lettuce garden failed while I was injured.  But that is for another post!

Covid-19 Vaccination Shot

 I got my first Moderna vaccine shot today.   The Maryland State site never worked for me, but the Charles County one was a breeze to use.  I went to it, gave my address, it showed me the available appointments for the nearest County location, I chose the first available time (2:00 pm). 

I got a confirmation of my registration request at once and another approving my request and confirming the date and time a few days later.  I did a timed drive to the location yesterday (20 minutes and easy enough to find).  Got there 10 minutes early today with no problem.

It was funny, though.  The appointments were for 9 people at a time, every 4 minutes and I had the first time.  Cool, I would be in and out in 10 minutes.  So Imagine my dismay when I entered the building and found a waiting line of about 100 people.  I confirmed it was the correct line.  No one was moving!

But, HURRAY, promptly at 2 pm, the line started moving and I was in the vaccine room in 10 minutes.  There were 9 shot stations.  I didn't even have to fill out a form!  I got my shot 5 minutes later and was sent to a waiting room for 15 minutes to make sure I had no reaction.  

As I left, I observed that there was no line left at all.  Had I known, the secret would have been to arrive LATE!  I would have walked right into the room and saved 10 minutes of standing around.  LOL!  

But I was back home 75 minutes after leaving home, so I sure can't complain.  What a wonderfully smooth process.  They even gave me my appointment for the 2nd shot at the shot station as I left.  I'll have to see if there is a site I can visit to leave a very positive comment on my experience.

Day-To-Day

One good thing is that my normal temperature tolerance is returning.  For a decade, I have kept the day temperature at 72 and the night temp at 68.  After the ladder fall, I had to keep it 74F day and night and I was often wearing a sweater.  I am OK at 72 day in normal clothes and at night it felt "too warm" at 72 recently.  I think I'll try 71 at night.  

I keep reading about the clavicle re-attachment operation and recovery work.  It's beginning to seem like a good idea.  The shoulder is possibly getting worse.  It is so weak and I feel something moving often and it hurts some.  That's the worst time.  Other times, it doesn't bother me.  The Dr said I can decide anytime at this point.

It would be extremely limiting for 6-8 weeks and require actual knock-out anesthesia (which I fear) and more daily help than I could ask of good neighbor Deb (so daily onsite medical care visits on insurance) and probably a lot of expense.  

What I can't quite find out is how "back-to-normal" the operation would make me.   Athletes have this done, but they have training rooms, onsite medical staff, and no expense.  On my side, it is live with this for 20 years or go through a REALLY hard 8 weeks and I'm not sure which is worse.  Mild for a long time or really bad for a short while.

My Primary Dr has the same injury, and he said he decided not to have the re-attachment operation.  That is a reasonably professional opinion.  The Orthopedic Surgeon is neutral about it.  But I'm used to such full freedom of movement.  When I read the newspaper, I keep getting "ouchies" feeling "something" moving around in there.  

Maybe the minor "ouchies" go away after a while, or maybe not.  If I lived with or very near to family, I would probably go with the operation.  But some decisions are hard when you live alone.

I have a last scheduled visit with the Orthopedic Surgeon in 5 weeks.  I think I will see how things improve or don't by then.  I can get by that long without too much difficulty.  But if things are not better, I will have to discuss details of the operation and recovery with her.  

It might be that the assistance I need after a clavicle re-attachment operation is less than I fear or it may be worse.  And I might seek a 2nd opinion.  6-8 weeks in a serious compression sling is no small matter. But neither is maybe 20  years of less ability to engage in hobbies that would cause constant minor pain.

I know, "what is 8 weeks"?  Well, it is "forever" if you can't do anything yourself.  It has been just over 8 weeks since I fell, and THAT has seemed like "forever".  

I think what I will do right now is find a Physical Therapist on my health insurance plan.  I've been stupid not to have done that before.  But my Primary Care Dr showed some exercises and I looked up some on the net.  But maybe having someone actually show me what to do would help.  

I know, I know, see an expert...  So I will.  

I keep talking myself in and out of doing this operation...  I have to decide at some point and I'm unconfident of either decision.  I've learned just enough to see it both ways without a resolution.

If the problem was more serious, I would have an operation.  If it was less, I would just live with it.  This seems right on the balance point.

Indecision is awful!

Shopping And Healing

Or maybe not so much healing.  I had stuff I needed, so I went out.  Walmart was an experience.  I needed a bunch of odd stuff.  And I sure discovered I'm not healing much more lately.    One thing I really needed was cat litter.  I've given up trying to lift those 35 pound tubs, so I get the 12 (whatever) pound jugs.  The big tub cost isn't lower enough to make it worth scooping it all into smaller containers anyway.

I used to just casually pick up 2 of the smaller jugs at a time.  Now it takes both hands for one.  My shoulder reminds me it isn't like it was.  I even have to remember to pick up a 6-pack of soda with the left hand.  The right arm is USUALLY OK, but sometimes there is the OUCHIE if I bend it wrong.

I had a real cartful this time.  I usually go through self-checkout, but I decided to stand in line so the cashier would bag everything.  Emptying the cart into the car was a pain.  

Then I went grocery shopping.  That wasn't a lot of fun.  After walking through the football-sized Walmart, I was starting to get a bit stiff at the hips.  Sometimes I realize I'm not as healed as I think.  And to make things worse, a lot of stuff I went there for wasn't available.  

No Corn On The Cob, no peaches, no plums, no chunky horseradish, no baby bok choy (I buy it for the leaves to use in making egg rolls and the mature stuff is all stalks), no muenster cheese (love that), no whole milk in half gallon, and no pepperoni sticks (the pre-sliced stuff is nearly $14/pound and I have a meat slicer machine).

I found other stuff and went to check-out.  One register open and 6 carts ahead of me, meaning about 15 minutes.  Standing up is wearisome these days.  

When I got home, the unloading was hard.  I wish I had an elevator in the house.  Most days now, I can manage the stairs one foot per step like normal, but I was stiff.  So it was both feet on each step one at a time and I had a LOT of bags.  It was slow going and I was pretty much worn out.

And then I had to put everything away!  *SIGH*  The 4' shuffle from the counter to the fridge gets long after enough "back-and-forths".  I just wanted to sit.  But because I wasted meat recently by delaying to cook and store it, I needed to bake the chicken thighs and bacon immediately.

There is a series of TV ads that make fun of Boomers acting like their parents.  Acting in certain ways, not understanding computers, giving unwanted advice in stores, etc.  I get that, smart phones are not my accustomed way to communicate and I think of writing an email before I think of texting.  But they also ridiculed sighing with pleasure when sitting down in a chair.  I don't get THAT!  It is just a physical ease to sit down after standing for hours.  I make the same sound myself after standing for hours and then sitting.  My knees relax; my back relaxes.  So I sat for 15 minutes.

And got up to cook.  At least this time it all went perfectly!  I baked boneless chicken thighs sprinkled with smoked paprika, with lemon wedges and sliced shallots at 400F for 40 minutes.  That produces a flavorful liquid, which I drained off and mixed with lots of green olives and cornstarch which I heated until thickened  to make a sauce which I poured back over the chicken and set in the fridge when slightly cooled.  It's a North African recipe I found once and quite interesting.

Meanwhile, I set a wire rack over a baking pan and spread the bacon strips over it.  In the same 400F oven, I let them bake 12 minutes setting them on newspaper to soak out grease.  I put them in a container in the freezer.  They keep great.  I also keep the bacon grease for some cooking.

THEN I sat down for a couple hours.   Whew.  It was a long day...  I'll probably lay in bed for 12 hours!  I often do 9-12.  I'm still tired these days.  And the heated waterbed is SO soft and comfy.  And The Mews all gather around slowly during the night.  By dawn, they are all there.  Even Laz and Ayla are often sometimes just on opposite sides of me, against me.

How To Ruin A Roast

I enjoy cooking.  But I can sure mess up sometimes!  Here's the way to do everything wrong.

1.  Buy a pork roast on a Monday.  Now, it was a cheap Boston Butt at $2/pound, so it wasn't like a Standing Beef Rib roast at $10/pound.  But it's big, so it isn't free.  

2.  Leave it in the refrigerator (planning to cut it up and smother it in dry rub "tomorrow")  for 4 days.

3.  You positively CAN'T let it go another day, so cut it into 2" slabs and cover it with the dry rub.  Put it back in the refrigerator to smoke tomorrow.

4.  It's "tomorrow", but it is raining.  OK, the rub will really soak in by "tomorrow"!

5.  Next day smoke the slabs for 3 hours (it's the next Monday by now).  I usually smoke the Butt outside for a few hours (no real benefit longer than that, the surface is impervious after that long) and finish it in the oven at 225F.  Set portable timer for 3 hours.

6.  Timer goes off while watching TV.  Yeah, gotta take it out.  Forget about doing that for another 3 hours.

7.  Suddenly remember the pork and take it out of the oven.  Well, it certainly is safely cooked!  Cut off a chunk to eat (dinner).  Put the whole tray into the basement refrigerator to chill.  

8.  No problems with the pork overnight, so I decide it is safe (and it was).

9.  Gotta cube and package it "Tomorrow".  Leave pork in refrigerator 4 more days.  This makes it 11 days since bought.  

10.  Take it out to cut it up.  It is hard as a rock!  Sharp knives struggle...  I cut some pieces off for stewing.  It "sort of" softened. but "chewy" would be too kind a description.

11.  Consider leaving it outside to punish wandering raccoons and possums.

12.  But decide to just wrap it up in a trash bag with cat litter (to discourage scavengers), place the bag in a box, and put the box in another trash bag.

I expect this will really confuse some future landfill archeologist.  One may find my roast centuries from now, intact, and be baffled by our current-day culinary practices.  And (considering the kitty litter I added to the bag) be amazed at our choice of "spices".  After all, who ELSE'S pork roast will still be around to compare it to?

Anyway, I still need cubed smoked pork for my stews and stir-fries, so I've added it to my shopping list.  At least I'll have good reason to remember to cut it up and dry-rub it THAT DAY and smoke it the next...  And cube it as soon as chilled)!

Hope you enjoyed this...  ;)

Writing

Have you ever written something that needed to be posted at a given time and it was just horrible?  And you just couldn't fix it?  Most of us have.

I wrote a poem for Dr Seuss Day over a week ago and it was just a mess!  The idea was good but I had too many topics in it.  Cat In The Hat, falling from the ladder, Alice In Wonderland, etc.  Too much on my mind, I suppose...

I sent it to a friend (Ann of Zoolatry) asking for some help.  It came back much improved.  Inspired by the improvements, I kept some and changed some.  I fixed some rhythmic mistakes, so it reads better.  It's better than it was.  You can read it HERE.

In the same way, on another site I visit (not a "writing" site) someone suggested writing a first chapter (no full story or conclusion required).  It required a set up for a story, an object someone could sit on, and a single line from another character.  

I write short stories sometimes, so I figured all I had to do was drop the ending, make sure someone sat on something, and add a comment from someone else.  But I used a short story written before and reworked it.  Nothing said it had to be new.  But it had been included in a group "vanity press" book, so I decided that was improper.  And I couldn't come up with a new plot.  So I'm not submitting it.

I used to play chess a lot.  When I was younger, I could up with complicated attacks using spaces just vacated by a previous move.  Those are harder to detect.  About 10 years ago, I discovered I couldn't organize attacks any more.  Creativity was failing me.  I could defend well, and defense is important.  But at some point you actually have to checkmate the opponent to get a win.  A great defense usually leads to a draw.  I don't play to get a draw.

Getting older sucks...

A Good Day

Yesterday...  Last night... 

First, I got my new iPhone XR working.  Not that it was EASY getting to Apple help, but once there, the assistance was great!  The agent I spoke to (on my old cordless phone) was patient, helpful and knowledgeable.  I also need Verizon help and got it.  5 hold minutes each is nothing to complain about.  I called my neighbor friend Deb to try it, and my sister later.  It worked.

HURRAY!

Apps and contacts come later.  Knowing the iPhone worked was the major event.  I do miss having a printed manual though.  Looking stuff up in print is "sometimes" easier than visiting a help site that makes you figure out even the QUESTION to ask.

Second, I cooked outside the first time this year.  The Boston Butt was cut into 2 slabs for greater dry rub exposure and smoked for 2 hours.  Well, quite frankly, after 2 hours the surface is sealed and it is easier to complete the cooking in the oven at 225F.

Third, removing the pork allowed space for 12 chicken boneless skinless thighs to get smoked for an hour.  They finished in the oven just as the pork came out.   

The pork was SO GREAT I just noshed on cut parts all night.  Best pork butt I ever cooked.  BTW to those with other names for parts of pork "butt" is not actually "butt".  Its' a shoulder part.   Sorry, sometimes I get "eww" when mentioning "butt" LOL!

I drowned the meat in dry rub overnight, and it really pain off.  I bet the chicken thighs are the same (dinner tonight).  

Sometimes I get lucky, and the pork was IT.  Maybe the chicken too. 

I walked better yesterday.  It comes and goes.  Yesterday was better than average.  Maybe going out to the smoker helped distract me.  Any port in a storm, as they say.

New seeds arrived in the mail.  I better get busy with some of them as I'm behind schedule with some early ones.  I've been spending more time in the basement lately (laundry, litter-boxes and some seedling tray platform tray repairs).  

Had to "glue&screw" some of the platforms.  The drill was "heavier than I remembered it".  I got by carefully.  It's funny how slight differences in strength make big differences in handling tools.  Took both hands to hold the drill straight, and also to move things around.

But I couldn't have done that at all 2 weeks ago.  

Next project is to get all sites listed in my password manager so that I don't depend on old lists and marked-out scribbles.  It's a pain to change everything, but I can see the ones I've done make life easier. The hardest part was figuring out how to add passwords to start.  It is easier after the first few.  

At least it seems to work.  And I have wicked long and complicated password manager password.  Takes minutes to type it, but I don't have to do it often.

I only wish everything went that easy...

2 Months

I'm disappointed!  Depending on how I count the day I fell and today, it has been 2 months since I fell.   It is starting to feel like this may never end, and I have this worry I'm as "good as I'm going to get".  Or next month I may look back on this post and laugh as I do cartwheels on the lawn or carry a big laundry basket down the stairs easily.  But not yet...

I had some problems before I fell.  I was routinely getting leg and rib muscle cramps for a decade.  I had involuntary finger-clench cramps, but usually only after doing hard gripping of tools.  Oddly enough, those went away for weeks.  Well, they are back.  Maybe the muscles were shocked from the fall and are recovering.  

And I'm feeling sorer around my lower back and (coff, coff) butt than earlier this week.  It moves around some though.  Maybe that's a good sign of healing, but I could do without it.  I'm walking a bit stiffer again.  Maybe it is that I stopped taking even Ibuprophen last week.  I may start a daily OTC dosage again.  If it is the same in a week, I'll call my primary care Dr.  

But it is really annoying to get worse after getting better.  Maybe that's normal; 2 steps forward, one back.  As I've said, I don't have much experience with lingering problems.  Maybe I've been walking too much or too little.  Maybe I've been comfortable enough to sit awkwardly lately.

My right arm is weaker than I realized.  I have some simple platforms I use to adjust seedling tray heights under my basement shelf stand lights.  They were originally just glued together and I screwed some in place last year.  I missed a few (probably in use at the time).  Well, one came loose and I decided to check (and screw) all of them.

It was harder than I thought!  I had to use both hands to hold the drill upright and straight.  And pulling the drill bit OUT took some effort (which normally requires no effort at all).  At least pushing DOWN on the screws as I drove them in wasn't a problem.  Drill straight and pull out, bad.  Screw in, good.  Well, at least I got them all reinforced...

So it was time to make dinner.  Pork stew (tastes better than it sounds) and a tossed salad.  But more cutting and chopping.  But more gripping the knife handles.  More finger-clenches...  I had to physically pull some fingers back into place.  

Ever had a basic recipe you've made a 100 times and one time it just doesn't work?  Last night was like that.  The potatoes and carrots in the stew wouldn't soften!  I even put it all in a bowl and M/W it 3 more minutes.  Still not stew-soft.  I ate it anyway while watching TV.  I like good food, but sometimes (so long as it is not spoiled), I'll eat what I end up with.  

2 hours later, I realized I had a pork roast (Boston Butt) and chicken that needed to be marinated for cooking later today before it went bad.  More slicing and knife-gripping!  I slice the big pork chunk into 2" slabs for smoking and cube them later when they cool.  The chicken is boneless/skinless but also gets smoked.  

After slicing, I made a dry rub mix.  It works on both pork and chicken.  More grabbing stuff with the hands...  I don't have a "special recipe" but ask if you want the general mix of stuff.  I just "guesstimate" each time.

I really packed it on this time!  I'm not a spicy-hot type of cook, but brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, etc can  add a lot of flavor.  But by the time I was done and had the meat back in the fridge, my fingers were going all whichway.  

Thank goodness for NSAID muscle rubs.  I had to slather it on my hands and it took 15 minutes to take effect, but it did.  Otherwise, I would not be typing now...

Which leads me to the last thing for today.  Typing causes the finger-clenches the most.  The muscle rub is working for now, but I'm finding it hard to post every day and visit as often as I would wish.  I appreciate the visits from you.  

I will get back into a more regular habit of posting and visiting as soon as I can.  And after smoking an 8 lb pork roast, 12 chicken thighs, and having frozen steaks and shrimp in the freezer, I will not be doing serious "slicing and dicing" for a while).

Each day, I expect "next week" will be a lot better.  And I expect that, one week, that will be true.  I'm so very much looking forward to that week.