The Mountain Thymes

Saw the ER doctor at 8 AM this morning for my follow-up on the thumb.  After he painfully removed the wick and probed and poked, he decided the thumb was healing as it should.  I still have to refrain from tilling the garden or chopping down trees for awhile so Cliff is still wearing my apron. I've graduated to a gauze wrap, thank goodness.  My wrist and thumb joint were getting sore and stiff from no use.  I'll behave and do as the doctor ordered.  Do no want to go back to the ER.

My left hand is ready for Halloween................ Spent Friday morning in the ER at Murphy Medical.  Drove myself to the clinic first at 7:30 to be the first one when the doors opened.  Pat, my PA, took one look at the purple bulging infected thumb and commented that he wouldn't touch it, made a call to the surgeon at Murphy Medical, wrote up my transfer papers, and I drove to the hospital ER.  It was quite nerve-wracking to lay in the bed imagining how the surgeon was going to numb me and lance the thumb.  By the time the doctor arrive to explain the procedure, my blood pressure was up and the thumb was throbbing.  Thirty minutes after a happy pill and a pain reliever, I was ready for the surgeon to relieve the pressure and drain the infection.  Cliff's mother and sister-in-law, arrived Thursday so he stayed at the house with them because I thought my visit to the clinic at 7:30 would just be for a Rx.  He came to the hospital after I told him I was in out-patient waiting

The cold front came through calmly leaving us with 3+ inches of very badly needed rain.  After mid-sixty morning temperatures the past couple of weeks, I had my coffee on the porch this morning in 46 degrees.  The creek in the hollow can be heard from the porch and the absent deer are once again eating their way through the forest and garden.  Latest gathering of red peppers still coming in from the summer plants.  Peppers are fascinating with their odd shapes, indents, and metamorphosis of color. I'm getting ready for my mother-in-law's visit.  Dot will be 90 years young in December so has decided to fly into Atlanta with her daughter-in-law and we'll celebrate her birthday and Cliff's 68th!!  This is her first visit to our place in the mountains.   She can hardly wait to see the wildlife and relax on the porch with the crazy hummingbirds darting overhead in their airshow. We've noticed the HBs are bulking up in size which is an indication that they are prepar

 If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can't buy. September 18, 1988  Dear Betsy,          Lovely September morning.  The lawn and garden are wet and heavy with dew.  I had to walk across soaking wet grass to get carrots for our lentil soup.  The garden is about over. Your father and I have potatoes to dig and very few carrots left to use.  Don't know if there are beets among the weeds.  The peppers seemed to pick up after the heat left.  They love the sun and hot weather.  The zinnias and marigolds are beautiful.          Have a lovely day and thank God for all the good stuff.                                                                              much love, Mom (paragraph from a letter written to me when we lived in Florida )  My mother would have been 93 years young today.  The approaching weeks leading to her birthday make my heart heavy and I still find these days difficult.  So through reading her letters, visiting the garde

Just a few peaceful moments................... A young buck watches us watch him as we drive out Boulder Creek Road.  The doe was nibbling fresh greens not far from him.  Sometimes when we walk to the mailbox (0.6 miles) and back I wonder if there are big beautiful eyes peering through the leaves and branches as we stroll by. Seen or scene from our kitchen window.  Yesterday I captured two doe outside the bathroom window heading toward the vegetable garden.  The other one was already eating her way down the slope.  I watched them for about 45 minutes.  If I can open the french doors to the back porch quietly enough, I'm able to stand at the rail overlooking the garden and watch them snack on sweet peas, nasturtiums, and other tender plants trying to thrive in the fall garden. One early sign of fall in Western NC is the final summer concert in the open barn at the John Campbell Folk School before moving the performances into the Keith House.  Cliff and I prefer the op

Last post was August 26....my readers are going to think we don't do anything up here in the mountains.  Sometimes we don't!  When our children call, we're never home.  They leave messages like, "Old people, are you in bed asleep already?" (3 o'clock in the afternoon) or "Where are you?  Every time I call, you're not home.  You're old.  You're suppose to be home."  Labor Day we spent the afternoon and evening at a cookout with  friends on their back porch and Saturday we attended a house warming cookout in Georgia.  A few shots of one my favorite "people" who sat at the table with us.