The Mountain Thymes

 After four weeks of mostly blender meals and occasional ice-cream, I can chew again and what an amazing feeling.  We take chewing and digesting foods well for granted.  Going without gives a deeper appreciation of things that we do day to day.  My gum discomfort and sore spots caused fatigue, more than I realized.   Clouds and rain..............  My wisteria is blooming a second time.  This has never happened before.  One spring bloom is all I've ever been able to enjoy.  I figure it must be the plentiful rain. Morning sun on the squash and zucchini open the flowers for the bees to pollinate.  Checking them a few days later I found the baby squashes dropped from the plant rotting on the ground from too much rain and not enough sun.  When it's not raining, the cloud cover doesn't allow any sunlight.   The thunderstorm that came through earlier this month caused a lot of damage throughout Hayesville and areas in Murphy...

 Started today by helping Janice fit a new soft cone on her sweet little pup.  Lilly had major hip surgery last Friday and has to wear the plastic cone for two weeks and Janice has to do PT four to five times each day.  She calls me when she needs support or help with Lilly. The new cone didn't work  because it was too soft.  This afternoon the new surgery pj's from Amazon arrived.   It looks like the pj's will stop her from licking her itchy stitches but she can't pee without wetting the suit. They will both get through this annoying trial. Yesterday morning I washed and bleached the uncovered deck getting it ready for stain.  This morning I began staining when I got back from helping Janice.   I'd like to wait until Thursday before walking on the stained steps to do the skipped ones but will have to check the forecast tomorrow.  It feels good to get this done and this amount shouldn't hurt my wrist or shoulder.  This afternoo...

 I sat down to type last Saturday but when I reread what I wrote, it came through to me as wah, wah, wah, whining.  So it's still in the draft.  Let's see if I can relate what's been happening without the whine. The past ten days I've been in and out of the dentist chair trying to get this temporary partial to fit better.  Eating is challenging but I'm coming up with lots of ways to make the soupy food tasty and keep the nutrition.  Most of the mouth sores are healed.  At the beginning of May I had my yearly eye exam.  Last year I purchased vision insurance at a reasonable price through AARP so I updated my old glasses with a new frame and Rx and ordered single lens piano glasses.  Last time Mark visited here he measured my sight distance from the bench to the sheet music.  Two weeks after the exam both pairs of glasses were ready but the order got mixed up and the piano frames had the new Rx and new frames had the piano lenses.  They we...