Journal of a perennial optimist (part 2)

[Yvonne Smith]

This has just been a really rainy year so far. Even though we have been having a heat wave and in the 90’s every day for most of this week, we have still had some rain every day, even if only a sprinkle.
This morning is an early morning thunderstorm , and then up to the 90’s again this afternoon. It is a good thing for the yard and garden, especially when it rains this early, so the rain will soak into the ground and not just steam up the air.
The forecast once again shows the next week having rain every day, or at least a chance of it happening. Everything is growing like crazy !

I ordered some kefir starter and am going to make kefir again, and this time I ordered a brand that also has the L.Reuteri probiotics in it, which is supposed to be very important, according to Dr. William Davis , who wrote about it in his book, Super Gut”.
I tend to be an erratic kefir drinker, I crave it for a while, and then lose interest, so making kefir with the actual kefir grains does not work well for me. I have tried it several times, and I just end up not drinking enough, and get too many kefir grains, and I don’t like the business of straining it when it gets really thick with the grains.
So, for me, the starter packets work perfectly. I can make kefir when I want it , and not have to deal with taking care of the kefir grains when i do not want to be drinking it.
I have been using either cottage cheese or yogurt for my protein ice cream, but the kefir will work just as well, and has lots of good probiotics in it.

I got into poison ivy several times when out removing weeds for the area where i want to transplant the red raspberries, and I am just covered with the rash from being in the poison ivy.
(It is interesting that cashew nuts (not a true nut) are in the poison ivy family of plants.)

I have been washing it good with hot water and soap to get rid of the oils, and soaking in the swimming pool feels great on the little blisters, plus I have been covering them with calamine lotion.
I will be glad when they get healed up ! The little swimming pool has been wonderful, now that the water has warmed up enough to use the pool every day.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I have most of the red raspberries pruned back, and the area is cleared, so once Bobby has it tilled, I will start moving the berry bushes, and hopefully we will have more red raspberries next year.
I started some of those Atomic tomatoes, and they were large enough to transplant to a big planter box, so i did that yesterday, and thinking that we will have tomatoes before too long.
In the meantime, I think a trip to the Farmer’s Market for fresh tomatoes is in order. The Atomic tomatoes are very colorful, and shaped like a Roma, but more the size of a cherry tomato.

Two of my Gurney roses are bloom now, and another one has large buds and should bloom soon. I ordered the kinds that are supposed to spread, so eventually, they should be nice large shrub roses.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

It has been HOT today ! I went out early and soaked all of the roses really well before it got very hot, and then have been in and out for the rest of the morning , working in the front yard. I got some weedeating done along the sidewalk and little front garden area, and then some of the vines that come up everywhere weeded out from the raspberries.
Out for a little bit, and then in to put my feet up and recuperate, and than back out for a little bit again. When I was done, it was close to noon, so we both got in the pool and soaked for an hour and cooled off.

This afternoon, I went out for a little bit again, but it is still really hot out there. I cut the vines out of the way that are in the grape vines, so they can grow better now, and I think that is all o f my outside work for today.
The next project is to transplant the red raspberries, now that Bobby has tilled up the space where i want to move them to. I already trimmied the old vines back, and shortened the new vines, so they should transplant better.
Now, I just have to take the hose and soak the ground good so that I can dig up the berry roots and then transplant them. We are supposed to have more rain coming in around Tuesday or Wednesday, so if I can get them transplanted before then, maybe they will get plenty of water to help the new vines grow .

Bobby brought in my little battery tiller, so before I plant each one, I can till the spot a little more and have the dirt ready for the new plant. I have on old Green Machine that I have had for years and years, but it is not wanting to run this year, and I have been looking at the cheap electrical ones on amazon. Prime day sales are coming up, you know……

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Most of this week has been a complete loss for me. I seldom get sick, but got a horrible flu-bug or something and was wiped out for most of this week, finally being up and around better the last couple of days, but I still do not have much energy. So…..no raspberry planting got done.
Dr. Bobby took care of me all week, as well as the dogs and himself; he is the very bestest husband ever ! !

Today, I ordered the flour for the bread in the bread machine, and have my first loaf in the process of being made. When chatting with Copilot, I asked him about dehydrating the Shiso, and he said once they were dehydrated, they can make a great herb to add to a loaf of bread, as well as they are healing for the lungs and respiratory system in general.

Since the huffing and puffing when trying to breathe are definitely respiratory, I am now drinking a cup of the tea that was recommended and have a bunch of the leaves in the dehydrator. If it helps, I will for sure be dehydrating every bit of it except for leaving a few plants to go to seed for next year.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I have been reading through the instruction manual and recipe books for the Zojirushi bread machine that my daughter has loaned me. It is definitely easier to read and understand, and all the recipes are written out and have a photo, so you know how the bread is supposed to turn out.
The model she has is the Zojirushi Maestro, which is supposed to be the small sized bread maker that they make, but it weights twice as much as the bread maker i have now………. It is a good thing it comes with a built in handle ! !

I was sure that if Robin bought it, it would be a top quality machine, but when i looked it up on Amazon, I was still surprised at the $400+ price tag !
I think that the smaller sized loaves will work better for us, since we do not eat a lot of bread, but want it to be fresh and healthy. We are still finishing the first loaf I made, and once that is done, then I will make a loaf with some whole wheat in it in the new machine.

The fig trees have green figs, but they seem to be growing really slow this year, or maybe I am just impatient, ….. or maybe….. the squirrels are sneaking in there and eating the ones that are getting even a little ripe, so all I see is the new green ones ?
I want to make some fig jam this year, and that should be delicious with the fresh bread. I also got a recipe for bread with fig in it from Copilot, and will be testing that out.

I don’t think that I mentioned that my son and his wife, who have been here house-sitting my daughter’s home, and working here, are going to be moving back to north Idaho this fall.
They both miss Idaho, and my grandkids are out there, so my son was really excited when he landed a position out there that he will enjoy doing, and will be a good paying , steady job for him.
They will be leaving in September, which is a good time for a cross-country move, in between too hot and too cold, and they should have good roads.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

The red raspberries have (finally ! ) all been dug up and transplanted in the new area where they will get enough sunshine, and hopefully spread.
This year was all rain all spring, and then went straight to the 90+ weather all summer; so doing any yard work and gardening has just not been happening much this year, and in little bits when it did happen. For me, anyway. Bobby is pretty much impervious to the heat, and does whatever he wants to do regardless of the heat.

Today, it was 90+ again, and just a swimming pool day, but this afternoon, we got a thunderstorm , and it cooled everything right down. I went out with the weedeater and got the weeds out from where Bobby rototilled for the raspberries, and then asked Bobby to come and help me dig and transplant them, which made the whole project go really fast.
Now, we are soaked, the raspberries are soaked (God is doing the watering), and the raspberry project is finally done, and they still have a few months to grow before winter comes and they die off.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Decades ago the boys were very young and we bought our first house. There was a plot for a garden and a red raspberry patch was already adjacent.

The raspberries never bore particularly well, and they were terribly invasive. We kept digging them out but they'd still send runners into the garden plot and pretty much overrun anything low to the ground and weeding was incredibly time consuming - so bad things like radishes and carrots stood no chance. Forget squash and cukes.

I prefer the black raspberries, but maybe that's just a bias because that bad experience, plus the fact that not too long ago I had a good 4 or 5 seasons where some "volunteers" had appeared and provided a meager but tasty harvest until they "travelled off" and/or just died away. I just treated them as wild and they were good about keeping to my back treeline.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I moved some of the mustard spinach from the aerogarden to a nice pot outside, and it was doing great, and growing. I wanted to plant it in the little garden area under the tree once the weather cooled down, and I can get the weeds out of there.
However, yesterday, all of the neighbor’s ducks and chickens came over to visit, and I noticed this morning that the pot was empty, so the ducks apparently ate all the nice tender leaves.

I am going to start some kale and collards in the aerogarden, and by the time they are large enough to transplant, hopefully, I will have cleaned out the area where i want to put them, and then we will harvest some and let some go to seed for next year. I just have to figure out how to stop the ducks from escaping from their yard and coming over here and eating the baby collards.

My daughter is going to be home for a visit from the Netherlands the end of this month. My son and his wife have been staying in her house for the last couple of years, but he just got a new job back home in Idaho, so they are leaving again the first part of September. My daughter is going to be here when they leave, and then she can move her things that have been in the storage shed back into her house once my son has moved back out.
I am looking forward to seeing her again ! She loves her job in the Netherlands, and really like living over there. I miss her being so far away, but I am glad that she is living where she wants to be , and enjoying her life over there.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

This was a productive day for me. It is cooler , and I was able to work outside in the yard for a couple of hours , with breaks, of course. Bobby helped me plant a couple rose starts from last year that have been growing in planter pots all summer, but it was too hot to move them until now.
I trimmed some of the blueberries and made some starts and hoping they will root so I can plant more blueberries. I will put them along the edge of the sidewalk where they can get sun and will be easy for us to pick berries once they are large enough for that.

We had a pizza for lunch, just a frozen one, but i always add more peppers, onions, shrooms, and extra cheese, and there was plenty of of leftovers for the dogs to enjoy some pizza also.
Then, I researched using kefir for making sourdough bread, and …… lo and behold……. It is a Thing ! So, now i have some kefir and flour in a jar on the counter to culture, and maybe by this weekend, I can try my first loaf of sourdough bread.
I am not sure if it would work with the bread machine, so this will be a trial of baking it in the little toaster oven.

I have the collard and kale seeds planted in the aerogarden, so once I have the planting area cleared out and these have sprouted enough to transplant, I will be putting them outside.
Then , we have to keep those ducks from eating them !

 

[Yvonne Smith]

We went to the fitness center today, first time since early this summer ! With the extreme heat we have had this year, we have mostly just stayed home and cooled off in the little backyard pool for the last few months.
With the cooler days, the pool was not warm enough to be comfortable, so we decided to just make the trip to the fitness center, and I can enjoy swimming and Bobby works out in the weight areas of the gym.
We are supposed to have some rain later this week, and then cooler temperatures, so this might be the last week for the pool for this year.

My daughter should be here by the end of next week, and I am looking forward to seeing her ! Since my son and DIL are moving back to Idaho, my daughter is going to move her belongings that have been in storage back to her house again , and maybe have some of her furniture shipped back to the Netherlands when she returns back later in September.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

My new Ultimate Yogurt Maker arrived today, along with the LR Superfood starter packets, and a bag of inulin; so I have been busy unpacking the yogurt maker, and packed the old one (which looks identical, but is not a name brand )into the box that the new one came in. This has a lifetime warranty, and there are several books for recipes on Amazon, plus they have a YouTube channel, so I will be reading and watching videos for a while.
I am sharing all of the new information with my son in Washington who is getting the old yogurt maker, because it should all work fine for him, too.

There are some interesting ideas for making other beneficial yogurt cultures besides the l.Reuteri that Dr. Davis has in his Super Gut book, so once I have a good idea of getting this one made, I plan to adventure about and try some of the other bacteria strains, too. They all have different benefits for our body, and he explains all of the important benefits of each one in his book.

The Ultimate company has a YouTube channel, so I subscribed to that, and also found some books on Amazon that I added to my kindle library. I have lots to read and learn !
Last time, I started my culture during the middle of the day, so it finished the 36 hours in the middle of the night and I had to get up and put it in the refrigerator; so this time, I am going to start it before bed, and it will be done on Saturday morning, a much better time schedule !

 

[Yvonne Smith]

This has been a good week for me !
My daughter, who works with the Chinook helicopter training simulators in the Netherlands, has been home this week, and will be here for about another week before she has to go back again.
My oldest son and his wife have lived out here , in my daughter’s house, for the past several years while she has been working overseas. He came out from Idaho to find a better job, and has been taking care of my daughter’s house; but now he has another good job back in Idaho and they are moving back home this week.

They have the U-Haul all loaded and will be leaving in the morning for the long trip back to north Idaho, and hope to be there by next weekend. In the meatime, my daughter will be moving her belongings back from storage and getting her house set up for herself again, and it will be ready when she has vacations.
She loves living in the Netherlands, and really enjoys her job there, but since it is contract work for the Netherlands military, she never knows for sure how long she will be there, and needs to have her house here in case she comes back home for a job here again.
I miss having her closer, and now none of my family is going to be anywhere close by, since my younger son lives out in Washington state; but I am glad that they can all live where they are happy living, so that is a good thing, and important.

It seems like we are done with summer, and it is actually chilly this morning ! Time to put the shorts and tank tops away and get out the sweatshirts and pants and get ready for winter.
Salad says are over and soup days are here, I guess…..

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Tomorrow, my daughter is flying back to the Netherlands for her job there. She loves living there so much, and has a great job that she enjoys; so even though it means I seldom get to see her, I am really happy that she is doing something she enjoys and living where she is happy. I am still hoping to be able to go and visit the Netherlands sone of these days, but not sure if that will actually ever be possible.

My son and DIL are now back home in Idaho, after a 4 day trip with the U-Haul and all their stuff, so now I have none of my family anywhere nearby, except when my daughter is home for a visit. We do chat online and have a family chat group that we all contribute to, so we still always have good contact, and I chat with my youngest son almost every day. He is the one who is also making the kefir and probiotic yogurt, so we always have good conversations together.

It is the time of year when the Medicare insurance companies send out their annual notice of changes, so I have been reading through that for next year. Our Devoted Health does have some changes, but nothing that looks like it is going to affect our policy too much.
However, we will still have a visit with our Medicare agent and see which company and plan he recommends for us for next year.
I looked though the Humana plans, too, and some of their benefits might be better than Devoted for next year, so we definitely want to see what our agent thinks about the available plans before we decide.