I am two days late with my Friday Five. Pretty much because I didn't know what day it was until today.
1) The garden is producing kale and broccoli at an astounding rate. I had never really realized you can eat the broccoli stems, so by the time this is all done (it stops producing heads anymore) I'm going to have half my freezer full of chopped up broccoli stems. If anyone has good recipes for me to use up my "dinosaur" and my "commie kale" (as the Daughter calls them) they would be appreciated. I hate to just go on the internet and try what I find there - that has a way of not turning out good. The tomato plants - I had told the daughter to take any buds she saw off the indeterminate plants, as they'd only been in the ground not even a month, to let them grow a bit more before fruiting. She also took the buds off the determinate plants. I suspect we're now not going to get much in the way of paste tomatoes off of those plants this year.
She just didn't understand the difference between the two types of plants, although I'd explained it a few times. Oh, well. We''ll see. They really do seem kind of stunted, those plants, anyway. Not sure if it's been the extreme hot weather or what that has slowed their growth. I'm betting that is the case, though. So taking the first set of buds off of them might have been a good thing - allowing them to grow a bit more before having to deal with fruiting. The beets are inedible. Very woody. Obviously did something very wrong in growing them. Waiting for the first of the carrots and the fennel, both of which are doing well so far.
2) I went for my stress echocardiogram on Friday. (I think it was Friday.) Hardly slept the night before. Apparently passed the test quite well, but the contrast dye they used gave me a horrific back ache and chest pain for about 10 minutes, there in the clinic. I wish they'd have warned me that was possible before using it. They said it happens maybe twice a year and I should not worry about it. There were some unusual findings on the heart scan. I've been beating Dr. Google to death to find out what they mean, as I won't see my GP for several weeks to discuss them. Finding nothing really useful. Obviously they're not immediately serious or I would have had a phone call from her. One is congenital, and not to worry about. There is apparently an unusual density in one place and a number of hypoechoic spaces immediately adjacent to my heart. All the report says is that further imaging might be appropriate. Of course, being who I am, I am trying to research the heck out of all that and not getting very far. Oh, well. I guess I'll find out eventually.
3) Ok, so I've been under the weather a lot. The doc quizzed me, when I first went in, if I'd had any tick bites. (Not to my knowledge.) So she sent my blood off to test for tick illnesses. So far all are back negative, still waiting on the Lyme Disease results. Of course, on Friday evening at the garden I managed to acquire a deer tick that I found the next morning. Figures. It just so figures.
4) The Daughter has had two nibbles for professional jobs. One is Pennsylvania and one is in Northern California. We'll see. She's doing her thing with the Fire Department still - mostly just training and administrative meetings so far. Which is good - it gets her mind occupied.
5) The hamster smells like popcorn. He has always smelled like popcorn, except when he wasn't doing well. I took his cage completely apart and nuked out all the tubes and stuff, new bedding, new Dunkin Munchkins box for him to sleep in. He seems fine. Very old, kind a creaky, but very affectionate when he's awake. And smelling like popcorn. (That's so weird.)
Hope all are well. Hoping they get a handle on Variant D very soon so you can go back to more normal lives. I do hope they are reminding people that have had the vaccines that they are not immune to Covid, just that the vaccine should help them not have as bad a case of it if they catch it? People here seem to think once you have the jab your worries are completely over.
