Recovery, rain, fruit

After a day and a night of thinking I may have to go to Urgent Care, I believe I am finally on the mend. I still have a cough, thankfully, a productive cough, but the fever, the sore throat, and the choking, wheezing cough are greatly abated. I will stay on antibiotics for a few more days but I can honestly say I am feeling better. Mama was very worried about me last night. I was pretty worried about me last night, but we got through it and things look a little better now – other than the wicked fever blisters I have on my lips. As of next Tuesday, I will be on our new insurance, so I was hesitant to seek any medical help other than a prescription until that switch happens. It is a silly consideration, but I have gone through that sort of change before, and things get messed up quickly as one insurance provider argues with another insurance provider as to which is responsible for the bill. That very conflict years ago cost me $4,000 out of pocket which two and a half years later was reimbursed. I am just thankful to eb feeling enough better that I do not have to worry about outside medical intervention.

Overnight we got an inch of rain. The storm blew through in a little over an hour. I was sleeping on the couch, so I got a closeup view of the lightening and the downpour. (I was on the couch so that I did not disturb Mama through the night with my cough. Maybe tonight I can sleep in my own bed. We’ll see how my cough abates through the day before I can make that determination.) it was a very impressive storm. Fortunately, we did not get any of the hail that was forecast. We are now significantly ahead on rainfall for the year. Over the past couple weeks, I do not think the ground has had a chance to dry out between storms. Although the tomato plants we have in containers are begging for more water even while the ground in the yard is still soaked. So, regardless of the amount of rainfall we have gotten, when the plants look droopy, I water them. That has worked out well so far.

Even though I was feeling badly, I took time yesterday evening to collect a wheelbarrow full of compost we will use today or tomorrow the plant the last of the tomato plants I started from seeds. With the forecast of a soaking rain overnight, I wanted to get the compost in as dry a state as I could. It was all I could do to get the full wheelbarrow from the compost bin to the garage, but I am glad I expended the energy to have that ready for me and Mama to do the transplanting today. Especially since today, we are supposed to an additional inch of rain with another two inches forecast for Monday. At least the tanks are filling up before the summer dry times hit us. The temperatures are also lower than normal. As additional blessing.

Mama picked about ten zucchinis yesterday and gave them to a friend to make zucchini bread. We are not doing that sort of baking right now. Our friend was happy to have the vegetables because they have been totally unsuccessful in raising a garden at the house they are renting. We will have more than enough to share. So far, we are keeping up with the blackberries as they ripen, but we have to pick them daily to do so. I am being careful to keep the blackberry bushes in check, both the native and the non-native varieties. Blackberries propagate by sending out runners underground that send up shoots along the path of the runners. If left unchecked, they will take over an area.

So, I have to cut, pull and mow down all the plants that come into areas where I do not want them to grow. When I took the domesticated blackberries out of the bed and replaced them with the grapevine, it took me over a year to get all the blackberry shoots and runners out of that bed. Now, where we have the blackberries along the fence between the shop and the garage, I am constantly mowing or weed eating around the bushed to limit their spread. It has worked well enough so far, but the native blackberries are heavily thorned and require special handling to dig them out. I bleed each time I take on that chore. I suppose I am getting thin-skinned in my old age.

The berries are worth the effort.