Last week I bought a large bunch of fresh-picked beets from Three Bird Farms and cooked them up right away.  I must have placed them too far back in the fridge.  They were frozen when I went to peel and slice them for our dinner so I used them in a beet soup, which is posted under Recipes.  It's a smooth soup, very healing and nutritious soup.  Cliff won't eat it, but I sip a cup before a meal and find it very satisfying.

I also use a better homemade laundry soap from my DIY site.  This recipe is easier and quicker to make than the first one I posted some months ago.  It is pure and has no phosphates or chemicals to leach back into the earth. It's not very sudsy so may be able to be used in the newer machines.

A juicy good thunderstorm came through last evening as we sat on the back porch listening to the rain work its way through the woods.

Suddenly we heard pings on the roof and on the metal ladder Cliff had against the house.  The wind picked up and blew pea-size and marble-size hail where we were sitting on the covered back porch.  This pic is the front porch with hail bouncing on the floor and on the porch plants.  I haven't checked the garden yet because I'm not suppose to walk down the slope for a few days.  We know the rain barrel is full.  We watched it overflow from the porch.  Cliff will report the crop damage when he empties the kitchen compost bucket on the garden compost heap. 

I have a Baker's cyst behind my right knee which is a result of osteoarthritis in the knees but because I have RA, I built up fluid and caused the cyst.  After an injection, I'm just suppose to take it easy for some days and skip the step aerobics, no weight-bearing activities until the fluid is gone.  The name did not originate from the doctor who discovered it, but from bakers who get them frequently because they are on their feet all day.  I wonder if barbers get them, too.