Gardening

I have been doing a lot of gardening this spring and summer. I have okra, rattlesnake pole beans, zucchini and yellow squash, egg plants, cucumbers, bell peppers, cayenne, banana peppers, and tomatoes planted. All of it is finally starting to make and we're in a heat wave right now. Heat index up to 108 today and sure hope it gets back to normal really soon because this is miserable with our humidity to.

We picked our first okra today and I made some okra and tomatoes with it. I just cut it like you're going to fry it and added some avocado oil to my skillet and stir fried it a bit in some onion flakes, sea salt, and garlic. Then I added a pint of tomatoes I'd canned a few years back. I cooked it until the okra was done. I plan on putting up some chunks of tomatoes this summer in jars as well as the okra so I can put them together like this and cook them for a side meal. We're all on low carbs around here so having a bit of trouble with side dishes since we've been at this for awhile now and getting tired of the same O same O.

I have canned 8 quarts of the rattlesnake beans so far and sure hope I can get more of them canned. With this heat the beans are having a time of it since they don't like hot temps. Leaves are turning yellow and falling off. :( Also fighting birds that keeps wanting to build in the trellis they're on and not having that because they will squawk at me the whole time I am trying to pick my beans. That will drive me bonkers! Sigh

A precious lady gave me some canning jars the other day and that was a huge blessing if you know how much those things cost these days. I am really on the look out for wide mouth ones at the thrift stores when I get to go. Most of the time I can get them for .25 each and I grab them. I am only buying those now since I would like to have more of those. Got plenty of the small mouth ones now I think. I've been trying to get all the jars cleaned she gave me so they will be basically ready when I need them. I usually re-wash in the dishwasher when I am ready to use them, but they had stuff stuck in the bottom of them I was trying to get out so they'd be clean.

I have a gallon of cucumbers in the fridge now soaking in their pickling lime. Someone shared a Claussen fridge pickle recipe the other day so I am going to try that one. They said no way to make them taste just like theirs, but close. The recipe didn't say anything about soaking them in the lime but I know this helps them have crunch so I am doing it. I have my own dill planted I will use as well as some dehydrated garlic I did as well. Going to use some of that in them. Tomorrow I will rinse out the lime really well and then got to soak them again for 3 hours it said on the lime bag. Then I can get the Claussen recipe out and get them made. Here is the recipe in case you'd like to make it. This will be my first time to try this one. I hope it's good because my daughter dearly loves these pickles!  https://www.foodiewithfamily.com/homemade-claussen-knock-off-pickles/

So this is what I have been up to now for weeks, gardening. I am hoping I can get a few things canned this year. Hope you guys are doing some canning to.

I guess this is all for now.
Happy canning
Rose

Summer in the South

WOW how time flies. Been awhile since I have been on here and just now seeing just how long!

 I have been so busy with planting seeds and growing seedlings and then bringing them inside and taking them back outside. Then finally got it all transplanted into flower beds and into the garden and having to water it since we were having no rain. Got rain today thank the good Lord! So now everything is starting to come in so we're happy campers around here getting fresh veggies.

So nice having your own fresh vegetables knowing how they were grown etc. I canned 8 qts. string beans yesterday and that was the 1st for this year. I sure am hoping I get to can 3 or 4 times that amount. Our cucumbers and squash has just started coming in as well.

Sure hoping you guys are being able to can some things this summer for your families. 

My New Bike

Wanted to share my new bike with you guys. I found it on Facebook Marketplace and messaged the lady over the weekend. Went and picked it up on Sat. Got to buy a tube for the front tire but am excited over my new bike. It came with the cup holder and the basket on it.
Love the little accent pieces on the ends of the fenders!
I have ordered me some new hand grips because these are sticky. I wanted lavender to match the bike but could only find purple or white and ordered both those colors. So now I will have an extra pair.

Health, Blessings, and Life

To start this post off this year has been something for me. Back in January of this year I had the flu. It was really at the end of Dec. into January I guess. I passed out here at the house and hubby took me to the Dr. that we had just been to 3 days before. He checked us both and said we didn't have the flu, just had sinus crud he says. Once in hospt. they actually did the test to see IF I indeed had the flu and I did. Primary Dr. had not checked for it. Just said we didn't have it. Since I passed out Dr. said I had to go to E.R. to get checked out. So he took me and I was admitted. I stayed 3-4 days I can't really remember. They did the heart scan score and several other tests to see why I had passed out. Dehydration was the cause my daughter and I think. For someone that goes the whole day with something in her hand drinking I dehydrate at the drop of a hat almost. Just crazy and I think I am FINALLY figuring out WHY! Same primary Dr. has been prescribing me blood pressure pills with fluid pills in them. I know there is a word for that, but I can't think of it right now. 

So they wanted to do a stress test in a week when I leave the hospital in January and I wasn't able to do one yet. I was still coughing my head off and very weak and basically had been in bed mostly since I got home. We cancelled the appointment and they rescheduled it for another week out. Still not back up to par I went on to the appointment. STILL coughing my head off. :( We get there and both of us are wearing masks because the flu was STILL going around very bad. We get in there and it is I mean really really hot in this waiting room. When ones coughing that is the very last thing you need is a hot room. As we sat there I was noticing at least every 3rd person was also coughing. I over heard one woman complaining to her husband and telling him lets just go thru the E.R. since it was the hospt. where we were. They had been there for 2 hours and this is the cardio waiting room to this Dr. and she was worried about her husband having a heart attack while sitting there. I asked hubby to go to the desk and see if we could reschedule the appointment and just told them we would get back with them when I could do it. We didn't actually make an appointment.

So the next thing I know they had made me one on their own and never even told me they did so. I get a call the day after with them saying they were sorry I didn't make it to my appointment on blah blah day and I was like huh what appointment? lol So by this time I had decided I wasn't even doing no stress test at all. I was going to work on this and see if I couldn't get my heart scan score better doing something Dr. William Davis talks about in his "Undoctored" book. Thing is now I see it was too late for me to start that the plaque had already started clogging my arteries. Not to late for working on the problem tho.

I wind up back in the hospt. the last of Sept. with symptoms and had to do the chemical stress test due to near passing out 5 times in less than a week. So they did the stress test and then a heart cath and found the lower left quad. of my heart the artery was 80% blocked. They put their stent in and now I am still working at making the plaque better so hopefully I wont have to have another one put in.

Now for the BLESSINGS part...... SMILE God is so good,  He helped me through all of that and several times I had to call out to Him for help due to me being scared of the unknown. When they got me to get off my bed onto the table to do the heart cath I was praying. He gave me that peace that passes ALL understanding.  I met so many good people in the hospt. So many good RN's and cleaning lady. Ms. Joyce was a hoot. She writes on my board the very 1st day she comes into my room. God loves and I knew what she was going to write next and I told her, and He loves YOU to! She says AMEN yes AMEN! LOVED that lady! She was my sister in Christ! Then I met Rodney a RN my brother also in Christ! He told me he prayed for me before he entered my room. What a blessing to have a RN that prays for his every patient before he enters their room. He came back the next morning to check on me and tell me bye. Such blessings!

More blessings...... A friend of ours came the other day to see us. I was sharing with them I had been looking for me a treadmill for over a year as I shopped the thrift stores and everyone I found had already been sold. So he tells me they will keep a look out for me one. So he goes to a small town close to them looking in a thrift store I don't go to. While in there he sees an elderly lady out in the parking lot close to her car calling for help. She had fallen trying to get in her car I guess. So he can his wife get the wheelchair and go out there to help the little lady get up. That I know had to be a blessing for her!! So while they are talking to the little lady and making sure she was alright another lady walks up that had worked with my friends wife. She asked them had they ever eaten at this place around there and they tell her no. So he says lets go and we'll buy you lunch. So while they're eating lunch he tells her yeah we're just off down this way looking for a treadmill to which she says, you really looking for one? He tells her yes and she says I have one you can have for free. Come to find out her daughter had gotten married and had brought the treadmill there and given it to her. They went to her house and looked at it, plugged it in and it worked. So now my husband is headed over there to get it along with our friend.

I had shared with them that I had been walking but then when it gets hot I just cannot handle the heat to walk. Told them it's so discouraging to get to walking and then have to stop because of these hot humid summers. Things I have read says to walk 3-4 times a week to help the plaque in ones veins so I was like OK I need to get back at it again. It's cooled off now to where one can walk and my daughter and I have been walking. She's losing loads of weight and I am so proud of her. She had to take steroids to get well for like 4 years now almost every month. She has asthma and it was going crazy. Only way she could get well was to take those things and lots more. :(  

So I am hoping to not get the flu this winter and hoping AND praying no hospitals in my life for next year. Twice in one year is enough. :-) 

Blessings,

Rose