Still...with the foot

But, there's tomatoes, too!  

So I saw an infectious disease doctor yesterday who debrided my incision right there in the office with some kind of crochet-needle-looking-thing, scalpel, I'm guessing because it cut and it HURT.  I hate when people just start chopping on you and don't tell you what they're doing or WHY they're doing it.  God a'mighty. 

I did like her, though.  She told me she's concerned that my incision is going to bust open when the stitches come out next Thursday because the skin is very thin right there.  Well, duh, I just had a skin graft RIGHT THERE.  I'm so over this whole thing.  Just one thing after another after another.  She wants to put a hard cast on, foot to knee, to immobilize my foot and put me on IV antibiotics for six weeks via a PICC line.  I'm waiting for the call today to tell me when to go to the Wound Care Center for all'a that.

The one thing she told me, that second opinion that backed up our theory all along, was YOU NEVER PUT A HARD CAST OVER A HEMATOMA.  And quite possibly, the hardware used caused this infection.  Soooo many mistakes made with my foot from the very beginning.  This whole thing did NOT have to happen.  I could be frolicking in the sand with my baby next weekend for my birthday but nooooo, I'll be stuck in a cast with a needle buried in my arm. 

But hey!  I have pics to share!  No scary ugly foot pics but pics of plants living their best life with all the rain we've had.  We got our sprinkler system fixed Saturday so no more watering every-dang-thing every day all summer.  Yay.  It was just the control box.  No biggie.

I had almost given up on my little patio jalapeno.  It was a stick!  And now there's one tiny pepper bloom.  No more jalapeno on a stick!  Ha! 

The purple Russian tomato plant is doing great, too!

I'm so proud of the rhubarb!  I'm not looking to actually GET rhubarb this year but next year, she should be ready.  Vicki, that's her name.  :)

Our sunflowers are growing big!!  Every year, something stings the crap out of them and I have to sprinkle diatomaceous earth on them.  Guess it's time for that.

Our first tomatoes of the summer! 

For an early birthday present, Larry gave me a Big Bertha!  A 4-ounce Pyrex casserole dish in the Old Orchard pattern.  He found it IN THE WILD, too.  Incredible.

Annnnnd just because he's as cute as a slice of pumpkin pie with Reddi-wip on top...Tabbie Hoffman wearing my peace necklace.

My boot boot.  <3

True love, homegrown tomatoes and sunflowers

We had a nice, long Memorial Day weekend at home, in the AC, binge watching stuff on TV.  It was just too hot to get outside and do anything.

We're in the middle of a heatwave and I can't remember 100 degrees in May, ever.  But climate change is a joke.  Global warming is a hoax. Yeah, okay.  I'm not getting on my soapbox about it (but why not?  This is MY blog, right??) but climate change is real and global warming is real and I don't know exactly what we can do about it but doing virtually nothing sure isn't the fix.  Before I left Facebook, I used to see willful ignorance daily about this and that and climate change was one of the things I saw being made fun of, made light of.  And yet, tornadoes and hurricanes are getting stronger and coming more frequently, the seasons are pretty much nonexistent these days and it's 100 degrees in May in Georgia.  Kids graduated from college last week in Colorado in the snow and over 150 tornadoes hit the central part of our country.  And last night, three tornadoes hit Ohio.  This ain't just happening, y'all.  God gave us this beautiful planet to live on and we are destroying it.  And He knew we would all along.

We do what we can but we can do better.  No more plastic bags in this house!  There are shopping bags in the Jeep, bought specifically for that purpose.  We haven't used paper towels in over 10 years and we shop local when we can, pay our bills online, plant flowers to help the bees and the butterflies and y'all know we buy OLD and vintage whenever we can.  Instead of buying a new toaster, we just go get one at an estate sale.  We can still do better, though.  There's always more you can do.

I've been working really hard these past several days trying to keep everything hydrated outside.  Everything is looking good, despite the heat.

Larry planted these tomatoes, plants he bought from the local high school plant sale, at the end of March.  They are monsters now!  He had to extend the space they're in.  I cannot wait to have a sun-ripened, homegrown tomato on two slices of white bread with Duke's mayo and a little salt and pepper.  Shut yo' mouf.  That's what I lived on growing up in the summertime.  My daddy always planted the biggest gardens in the spring and we had tomatoes, squash, peas, okra and peppers all summer long.  I used to love to go out there first thing in the morning with the basket and pick everything that was ready.  I used to take baskets of squash down to Florida to Larry's folks when I'd go spend weeks with them in the summer.  Such wonderful memories...

We had to put netting over them to keep the birds and squirrels out because we feed them in the backyard, too, and they think anything you put out there is for them.

Georgia Peach Dianthus...

Squeeeee!!  My sunflowers, thanks to my amazing husband who planted these for me because I couldn't this year. 

And I'm working on two avocado trees, just to have a pretty little tree plant.  They won't make avocados for years, if at all.  I did this once before at the condo but it grew very spindly and died.  Hopefully, these two will do good! 

I'll be having surgery number four Thursday and I sure hope this is the last one.  I'm tired.  I know I have to do it because I can't walk without pain and the beach is calling my name SO loudly that I can't think sometimes.  This is my favorite picture of me and Larry, just a simple phone selfie at sunrise at Tybee.  

I need this girl back.

Seeds of hope

I hope we're finally into spring!  We've had such cold and rainy days in between few sunny, warm days that my gardening is off to a slow, late start.  Since I'm growing everything from seed this year, everything seems to be soooo slooooow.  

The sunflowers are doing great, though, and Larry took the netting off today.  The first set of seeds we planted got gobbled up by something.  They ate right through the Texas Pete this year!  Larry put down netting and that seemed to do the trick!  We've got mammoth babies growing tall already.  I'm always so proud of my summer sunflowers.  I can't wait to see these.  

Tabbie loves to lay in the sunflowers, under the windmill, in the dirt.

I was about to give up on these tomatoes and peppers I ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and just go get me some plants, like I do every year.  They took a while to sprout.  I blame the cold nights and all the rain.  They finally started sprouting last week!  

There's Atomic Grape Tomatoes, Filius Blue Pepper, Tam Jalapeno Pepper and Santa Fe Grande Pepper.  Maybe we'll have something we can eat come August!  Ha!  I bought two huge pots to transplant these into as soon as they're big enough.

Earth Day and a birthday!

I left Larry at home today on Earth Day cutting grass and replacing more of the fence and finishing up a chest-of-drawers that he's been working on and I spent some of the day down home in Montezuma for our Katie's third birthday party.  Katie loves Minnie Mouse so a Minnie party it was, complete with cake, cupcakes and pizza!  She got Minnie clothes and toys and Larry and I gave her a Minnie Mouse sofa!  She was so cute opening her stuff.  

I just love this picture of her when she saw Minnie on that little sofa.

Here she is tooting her birthday horn!

Clumsy me, I busted my camera while I was there today.  The strap came loose and I dropped my camera on the concrete step.  10 seconds earlier and it would have landed on the soft dirt and been all right.

Owwee.  Hopefully we can get it fixed.  I finished the birthday party taking pictures with it and they all turned out good so it still works, you just can't see the picture.  I probably won't forget hearing that craaaaackkk any time soon.  It sounded like my ankle felt when I broke it.  Owwee.

I came home and finally got my little garden planted.  I decided to try container gardening this year so I planted my 'maters and peppers in a pot and I planted zinnias in the middle.  In two other pots, I planted my lavender, sage and rosemary.

I still have flower seeds to plant --- wildflowers, zinnias, marigolds and mums and I even got a pack of catnip to plant in a pot for Tabbie Hoffman.

Maybe tomorrow... 

Garden update!

It's MAY and things are busting out all over around here!

I've never seen a peach hibiscus before!  But I'm growing one in a pot on our deck!

Beautiful yellow dahlia

 The gardenia bush is just full of buds!

 The sunflowers are gettin' big by the fence!

My accidental pumpkin patch!  I say accidental 'cause it sprung up after I sat last fall's porch pumpkin out there to compost.  I may get a pumpkin this year after all!

I planted a few of these gingerland caladiums last weekend.  I just love their colors.  And their name!

These are some succulents that have grown from tiny little pieces that Aunt Ruth gave me last November when we visited them down at Jacksonville Beach.  Pieces!  I just tucked them down into the dirt and this is what we have now.

My butterfly oasis is coming along nicely!  Lots of milkweed growing now!

And I saved the best for last!  We have baby tomatoes!!