And Then THIS Happened

So…I’ve been very lazy about writing during the last month, although I wasn’t lazy in other areas of my life.

Interruption: Oh! Just as I began this post, I saw the Mama Deer emerge from the forest with her spotted fawn. I haven’t gotten many glimpses of them this summer so I am distracted as I watch them. They grazed close to the house, drawn by the berry bushes, tiger lilies, and the scent of apples. Hannah Joy is dozing next to me on the couch and I don’t dare move to try to get a good shot with my camera because if she sees them, she’ll bark and scare them away.

Ok, the deer have moved off. Now back to writing this post:

In the last couple of weeks, the Mama Raccoon began bringing her babies to the bird feeder to eat the seeds the birds left. I’ve counted four babies: Usually one is at the top of the post with Mama, one swings from the tilted tray feeder, and two are on the ground eating the seed the others spill. Most of the time they come during the night, but a few times they’ve arrived in the evening when I am still up. They are not upset that I stand right outside the window shining my flashlight at them. I love watching them!

EJ has worked hard on his garden this summer. He built new raised garden beds as well as fencing for the climbing beans and peas. We started calling his garden Farmville because it reminded me of the game that used to be popular at Facebook. We have a bountiful harvest of beans and peas, and I’ve been blanching and freezing them.

The only crop not doing well is the corn, which is sort of “meh” because our soil is too poor. It appears that the Raccoon family has eaten some of the few ears that did grow, making our harvest poor. EJ knows that I love corn-on-the-cob so he continues to experiment with how to grow it.

I’ve been harvesting my herbs every morning (until recently…I’ll get to that in a moment). After I harvest them, I prepare them for drying and put into my dehydrator. Hours later, when they are dry, I put them into jars for storage.

Overall, we’ve had a nice summer…and then THIS happened:

Last Wednesday evening I went out to secure the coop after counting the chickens to make sure they were all inside. I always shut them in at night to keep them safe from predators. Chickens often dig depressions in the ground to keep themselves cool on hot days. I didn’t see that they had dug one right in front of the coop doors so when I stepped out of the coop, I fell into it. It wasn’t deep, but it was unexpected and I hurt my foot quite badly. I made it into the house. Fortunately (for me anyway), EJ had stayed home from work because he was suffering from a migraine and he was able to help me. I’m really not sure how I injured my foot/ankle so badly by falling into such a shallow depression, but I did! I guess I’m skilled that way.

I didn’t want to go to the hospital because, frankly, over the last year I’ve become disgusted by the medical profession, which has seemed to care more about profits and agenda than patient care. We don’t think I broke my foot but I figured I could do the very same things for my foot that I had done when I broke my hand a few years ago. I elevated my foot, iced it, took Ibuprofen, and wrapped it. I also have an ankle brace that I will use soon for support.

My foot/ankle swelled up like the foil on Jiffy-Pop Popcorn and it turned beautiful shades of color. I couldn’t walk that evening or the next day, which made necessary movements–like going to the bathroom–problematic. But I solved that by moving around on our wheeled office chair. Hannah Joy kept close to me, sometimes looking concerned and other times grinning as if she thought me moving around on a wheeled chair was a game.

Each day the swelling has grown less and by Saturday I could put some weight on my foot. On Sunday I put away the office chair and started using a cane. EJ took over my chores for me, although I’m doing as much as I can. I have volunteer to prepare the beans and peas EJ brings because I can do it sitting down–and then EJ takes over the blanching/freezing process.

I had been concerned about how I would shut the chickens in their coop in the evenings when EJ returned to work, but last night I was able to hobble out to the coop. So we are able to manage. One of the most frustrating things is that I cannot get out to my herb garden. I don’t ask EJ to harvest my herbs because he has enough to do with taking over my extra chores. My goal is to make it out there…