Homesteader

This morning was consumed with getting mama to take some nitro for her chest pains. She wanted me to Google signs of heart attacks. She already knows all of them but wanted them reread to her. She is a medical encyclopedia. She scoffs at my lack of medical symptom knowledge. Sometimes people live out their symptoms if they dwell on them too long. The last place I want to be right now is at an ER. I feel our medical world has basically failed my family and church. So many of my friends and church leadership have died due to lack of medical intervention due to paranoia at the local hospitals/clinics. None of it was covid. I put little faith in them anymore, which is probably as it should be. My childhood was without clinic appts. I barely knew our doctor's name. If it wasn't broke, it didn't need fixing.

We've been laying a new vinyl plank floor in the lower level. It's finally coming together after the flood two years ago. If I hadn't asked for three new window openings through the 12" concrete block walls, we would have been finished by now. The only down side is the Sandhill Cranes in the summertime. The father gets mad if there isn't enough corn near the oak stump. He comes up to the window and pecks in it. We had to take off the screens last year. Then the father crane disappeared. The rest of the family was very calm throughout the rest of the summer. Our friends who run the crane foundation said the family will be back with a new father this year. Today, we go and dig the seed-starting shelves and lighting out of the storage unit my mom is renting. Many of the seeds have to be started within the next several weeks. It was the huge motivator to get the floor/walls finished around the unit. It will remain in place for about 4 months, AND I WANT TO ENTERTAIN FRIENDS ONCE AGAIN AT MY HOUSE. I want the remodeling project finished. Besides, DH goes in for extensive corrective surgery on his thumb and will be out of commission for 6-8 weeks.

According to the CDC report released today, almost 80% of those who were hospitlized, on ventilators, or died from covid were either overweight or obese. The obese number was over 50%. News came through CNBC.com. There are a lot more reasons to stay healthy that we only discovering.

I came in at 24 in December on a blood test. It's hard getting enough sunshine during the winter, which is one reason solar power is not viable in Wisconsin.

I canned up two bags of apples last week into applesauce. Mama can handle applesauce when I don't have gravy for her 'dry' foods. DH loves applesauce inside of flour, sugar, and spices (cakes).

I have to make room in the freezer for new strawberry harvest, so canned up some strawberry, raspberry, rhubarb jam. We'll have a taste this morning from the leftover pint. Mama always loves anything homemade. DH will eat anything. I finally got around to picking the chicken carcass and making broth. We ended up with 10 pints of strong broth. It's great for soups, stews, and making gravy so mama can swallow dry meats. I'm finding she like gravy on almost everything. Except for her pies, then it's ice cream or whipped topping.

Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Mark Makary, writing recently in the Wall Street Journal, concludes that the welcome collapse in virus cases, which began in January, cannot be attributed solely to the end of holiday festivities or the start-up of vaccines. He says it also suggests that the medical community is vastly underestimating the number of people in the country who have contracted the virus, are asymptomatic, and who have developed immunities. Makary thinks, assessing the data, that "The country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection." He concludes that the U.S. is nearing "herd immunity" and that "COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life." Youyang Gu, a data scientist whose model has proved the most accurate forecaster of COVID deaths, predicts we will reach herd immunity (or "normality," as his team now calls it) by June/July. Not as soon as April, but soon. None of these forecasters suggests we should drop all precautions. Indeed, progress may require continued mask-wearing and social-distancing for the next few months. But by early summer, we can resume our pre-COVID lives.

I volunteered at a temporary food pantry this week. It was lots of fun and I met many wonderful people at the church that was sponsoring the give-away. The teens were so much fun to tease, and they took it like champs. There were lots of left-overs that couldn't be forwarded to a 'real food pantry' because the big boxes were either opened or the food was perishable. My SIL filled up her arms, walked to my car after distribution, and filled the back of my little trunk. I have apples, potatoes, lots of frozen convenience meats, and too many bags of chips/cookies. I'm not a chip/cookie person so will dole out those, with the ice cream cups, to mom and DH. They love sugar and salt. I separated out two boxes and took them over to an elderly couple next door. It was good to check up on them and give them some extra food that their little grandson also likes. I think I'll start once-a-month volunteering at that church food pantry. The fellowship was priceless.

Having company keeps your housecleaning toes on the move. I like company in the 8 months that aren't arctic. It makes me pick-up our little 'projects' around the house.

I was shocked to hear that he had passed when I came online this morning. I have been rooting for you guys all along, especially as I deal with my mom on Hospice. Take your time with grieving. Step-by-step as you sort through emotion,s and memories of DH everywhere you turn. Because of your medical background, you kept him going so much longer than any one else. We've ended up with a medical system that falls so short for those who have long-term care needs. You are a champ to us and a wonderful example of the love of a woman for her husband.

I'm guessing that you guys supplied power to the South this week during their storms? Most of the grid is tied together throughout the country. I'm not sure about CA though. I know that our local power plant does NOT provide us power. Strange but true. My mom even remembers your local town as she grew up in D.M.

A rolling blackout in IOWA????

And ..... you are always so kind, generous, and thoughtful to pass your nastiness our way. We still haven't topped that record three years ago. It was -36 F. It took out half of my orchard trees, which had only been planted 1.5 years. If this keeps up, I'll die of old age before I get a bite of those apples.

I have several gallons of dried, sliced, tomatoes. I generally forget to toss them into tomato-based soups on the stove. Can I just grind them and start adding them as a thickener? My mom is VERY picky about anything floating in a soup that she can't identify.

Received a FREE Vitramix (old one) from a good friend. I was thinking it was more like a juicer. The thing was huge and would take up too much counter space for being a blender on steroids. Some of the parts were missing but worked well after DH fixed the switch. Friend got a new one for Christmas (almost $500 mfg.). I cleaned up the blender and sent it back to the former owner so that she could give it to someone else. My old blender still works and takes up about half the space on the shelf. I did send DH over there with the blender and a big bag of Meyer lemons. She was thrilled for the gesture. It's hard out-giving her.

In the UK, the ticket goes with the car. All moving violations are photographed by cameras. All roads cities are monitored by cameras. If you borrow your friend's car and get a ticket, you had better be a GOOD friend because your friend gets the ticket, points against his driving record, and has to apprear in court.

So if a senior dies of natural causes but happens to test positive for Covid, they are labeled 'died from/with covid'? However, if they receive the gene therapy and die, it's generally attributed to 'natural causes'? Yesterday, we talked to one of my mom's friends who stayed at the retirement center. They are locked down again as someone brought in covid. The cafeteria is closed down and all meals are delivered to each apartment. My mom's apartment hasn't been rented since I moved her out. That's 9 months times $3000 month. Rack up $27,000 for many empty apartments and I can see why the Center is in deep financial trouble. No one seems to be moving into these places if they can stay at home and bring in services. The writing on the wall is that the residents will eventually be required to take the gene therapy if they want to stay there. I didn't want my mom to have to make that decision. It's hard, but we make life simple and easier for her as she finishes her race with us.

Our pharmacist's wife had covid earlier this Fall. She went ahead and got the vaccine. She was very sick and in bed for days. Even swollen and tender lymph nodes. She's not interested in getting the second one yet.

We have a big snow storm coming tomorrow so will can burger and chicken. I like to dump them into veggie soups for added protein. I need to see the back of my freezer some day. 😂 I did make 3 to 4 different kinds of jams from the fruit freezer but filled up the space with veggies and baked breads. Our honeybees REALLY pollinate our gardens. I need to get mama to eat more. 😂. Now I am on the sourdough kick. It's fun but the pounds can creep up and the flour bin can look underweight. 😛

Good old Dr. Fauci, the highest paid federal employee that we have. I don't wear one mask. Why would I even consider wearing two masks? It keeps getting more ridiculous by the month, and they're testing to see how high you will jump.

Yes, yes! Happy birthday, Kappy. I'll shovel some extra snow for you today. No mosquitoes this time of year in Wisconsin.

Afib? We're starting to learn more about my mom's 'stress' triggers. The doc calls it anxiety episodes. She goes into afib and gets short of breath. When I see her on O2 I know she's bothered about something. She has been afib-free since the holidays and not so much Nitro for chest pains. Doc said that if it's only one Nitro needed to settle her down, it's probably not her heart. Nitro opens the circulatory system and helps with many problems. So many things I never knew.

Your bath Your bathroom looks so much like ours!! Even the vanity. We had thought about changing out the bathtub for a large shower to help mama, but the CNA's are really good about getting her old legs up over the tub rim. We do have handicap railings throughout the bathroom to help with her mobility. DH said they'll still look like new by the time WE need them.

We've been using a hoophouse similar to this one for about four years, only we decided on PVC framework for the roof structure. He will find that the cattle panels will rip the plastic within one season from the wind rubbing the plastic on it. Also the black pipe insulation tubes (pool noodles) will also breakdown within one season from the sun's UV rays. If plastic wasn't so darn expensive, we would have considered this style.