Comminuted fracture of the proximal humerus neck

In December 2023, I slipped on ice and broke my left humerus. A comminuted fracture of the proximal humerus neck. In other words, I broke my upper arm bone just below the ball that fits into the shoulder socket, and it broke into several pieces. There was some displacement of the humerus, but the displaced bone >mostly< went back into place due to gravity while my arm was positioned in the sling. There is still some impingement in my shoulder, but I have returned to swimming and can do most of what I could do before.

December 26, 2022

April 16, 2023

Dehydrator for the garden

I've had it a year now. I dehydrated a lot of herbs, peppers, and tomatoes from my garden last summer. This dehydrator was well work the investment. I still have several jars this size of basil, tomatoes, and parsley in June 2023. I'm scaling back some of my tomato plantings this year, but I intend to restock the oregano and parsley, my most used cooking spices.

Berries in my yard

I have three elderberry shrubs, although only one is producing copious amounts of berries. This one sits by itself in my side yard. The other two in my backyard are just growing tall and spindly with lots of blossoms - and very little fruit. I plan to remove one of these two in my backyard and plant another variety of elderberry in its place. I didn't know this, but cross-pollination among varieties increases fruit production. The variety in my side yard must either self-pollinate efficiently or is benefiting from the presence of my two backyard varieties.

The aronia berries are very tart but when cooked down with a sweetener make a very rich blueberry-like syrup. I have three aronia berry bushes and all are producing abundantly even though the bushes are still small, only a few feet high.

My currant bush produced a pint of fruit, but I wasn't in town to enjoy them. The shrub is still small and next year should see the first sizeable harvest.

Gooseberries, aronia berries, and currant are my more dependable producers. Elderberry and cherry less so. Both of my dwarf tart cherry trees had lots of blossoms this summer but not an iota of fruit, which may have been due to the hard freeze in late spring when the blossoms had already started. I'm still waiting on the dwarf mulberry to produce flowers or fruit two years in. It died back to the ground this year.

The larger of my two hazelnut shrubs has several small fruits on it. It's hard to say if they will turn into a nut.

My blackberry is making more berries in my shady side yard where it grows untended than it did when I was carefully pruning and watering it in my garden.

Elderberries

Aronia berry, or chokecherry

How my zucchetta is changing

I am in my third generation of seeds for zucchetta, or tromboncino. I've been letting some of the fruits remain on the vine and grow large rather than eating them all when they are young and tender. I store the winter zucchetta in my basement and eat them over the entire winter and this year, well into the spring. I typically have ten or so plants that climb along a narrow strip of soil that runs along my back fence. This third generation of seeds produced a deeper orange flesh and a better taste. It is closer in flavor to a butternut or winter squash than a yellow squash or zucchini. I've also been selecting for size and taking the last of the individuals to select for storage. As of May of 2023, I still have several large winter squash like the one in the photo below. The long seed-free neck is easily cut into medallions for roasting.

Extracurricular reading from 2022? 2023?

 I may have missed listing of few of the books I've read over the past year and half or more. There's barely enough time to read, so adding them to my blog is not a priority. This was my third reading of Moby Dick. The novel is not what you think it is. Nor is Uncle Tom's Cabin the book you think it is.

Elderberry

The elderberry trees I planted last year have thrived. They may be doing so well as to require some rigorous monitoring and pruning to keep them from overtaking my yard. Sorry kids, when you inherit the house, the first thing you will have to deal with will be all the feral elderberry. I harvested some of the flowers to make elderflower tea, but I'd rather wait to see what I can do with the berries. They won't be ready until the end of the summer. I have four elderberry bushes, but how many berries I get will depend upon how dutiful the birds are at foraging.  I dug out my blackberry this year because the birds would get to them before I could. However, my blackberry were not producing very well because the very sunny location I planted them required more watering than I was willing to do. I wasn't interested in a making such a resource intensive berry. The elderberry so far seems much more prolific, although the preparation of the berries to remove the arsenic compounds may make it more work than picking and eating a blackberry.

First harvest of garlic and kale basil lemon pesto

The Kentucky soils again made me feel like I know how to garden. My first garlic crop worked much to my surprise.  I didn't harvest too soon or too late. We roasted some of the fresh garlic and I set the rest up in front of a fan downstairs to cure for a couple of weeks. I have about three dozen bulbs to store. And a week or so after the garlic harvest, my basil plants needed a first clipping to keep them from going to seed. My kale was doing well despite the heat, and from these confluences arose the return of  summer pesto. That's a bus tray piled with my garden's contributions in the photo below, the first of 2022. Actually, the twins have been eating my kale basil lemon pesto all year, as I still had enough frozen from last summer to last through this past June. To the basil and kale, I add raw pumpkin seeds, olive oil, and just a little bit of parmesan - easy on the cheese so that it is more vegetable than dairy product. 

Maypop (passionflower) juice

Maypop is a North American passionflower that is cold-tolerant. It makes an edible fruit that has long been eaten by native Americans and rural populations in the southerneastern US. In Louisiana it is sometimes referred to as pomegranate vine. It has a vine growth form that is known for being weedy, and some consider Passiflora incarnata invasive. I've had to pull runners up all summer to keep it from growing over my other plants. I'll know next year if I have a source of fruit juice and leaf cover to cool my porch, or if I have a weedy monster I can't control.  It does die back completely in the fall though. It does not leave behind a woody vine that persists through the winter. The fruits just needs to be scooped out, squeezed or pressed against the sides of water-filled pitcher to extract the juice, then chill. 

Harvesting my molokhia

Also known as Lebanese spinach, Egyptian spinach, Palestinian spinach, If I get a lot of seed pods I may make refrigerator pickles out of them. Below is a closeup of some of the leaves. And at the bottom are the plants in my garden. They are well over six feet tall. I had minor beetle damage on the top leaves mid summer, but they grew well and needed very little care or watering. I'll probably grow it again as I have been using the leaves all summer on pizza, sandwiches, and wraps. Photos of the cooked version coming soon.

White asparagus long beans

 I grew another crop of asparagus beans this summer.  Asparagus beans originated in Asia and are increasingly grown in the US. They looks like snap beans but are actually more related to southern cowpeas. They are also pest resistant and in my garden much easier to grow than some of the more common Kentucky bean varieties. The photo at the bottom is my storage freezer. It is filled with tomatoes and lots of bags of asparagus beans - I can make Lebanese green beans for dinner all winter.