August is the month of bounteous harvest and I took advantage of local peaches on sale to make peach jam Monday morning. And, our one little grapevine is on overdrive this year and I have already had two good pickings with at least two more to come. On Saturday, I made THREE batches of grape jelly and I am not making any more so I have offered grape harvesting to friends in the ward. We have a LOT of jam/jelly now in our pantry! (Oh, beside the jars of peach jam are two bags of frozen peeled tomatoes from the garden. The tomato plants are also quite abundant this year. Not so much with the green beans, though)
We began our Tuesday by walking to a nearby school to vote with Fred. Then Steve and I helped drive Beckie to two doctor appointments - one at 11:30 and the other at 4:00. The first was in north St. Louis by the airport and the second was at Missouri Baptist Hospital complex so we just made a day of it and had lunch at The Corner Pub in Ellisville (next to Ballwin) that offers a wonderful gluten-free menu. I had a French-dip sandwich with onion rings. Delicious! Dessert was frozen custard at Culvers. Beckie's first appointment was to see her infectious disease doctor who gave her the good news that she would have her PICC line removed in a week and that she would be taking oral antibiotics until December 29th. Beckie thought it would go well into February. She won't get the bone graft surgery until after her antibiotics and she will be off her foot for eight weeks after that. January and February are "slow" months at Little Fox so she is happy that she will have those two months to recover. Her second appointment was with her surgeon who told her "all systems go" for the removal of the pins on Friday. And, the surgery went very smoothly and tomorrow she will get to put weight on that foot while wearing a boot. Yay! She will be more mobile. Here is what her Franken-foot looked like with the bandages off and the pins still in..
Wednesday was a day-trip to Johnson's Shut-Ins with Emily and family. Steve opted to stay home since his back is so bad. All the walking and climbing to get to the water is very painful. I hitched a ride with the Southerlands and we had a glorious time. We had pleasant temperatures both in the water and in the air, it wasn't crowded, and there were NO snakes! Back in July, the Black River, where the Shut-Ins are located, had some serious flooding and it altered the river bottom quite a bit. It was much deeper (over my head in places) with less of the loose gravel that provided the more secure footing. I am glad I brought my walking stick to help me on the slippery darker rocks. (you can see in the first few photos the lighter, loose gravel next to the darker, larger rocks) The shoreline was also less abundant making it hard to find places to put towels and other stuff. Below are photos of the day. All but Noah came although you won't see any photos of Lucy. The rock cairns were built by Larkin.
We had a hefty rain storm Thursday morning but that didn't stop Steve and me from grocery shopping. We needed to purchase stuff to take to the Thursday night English Class end-of-session potluck with the Archway Refugee Connections that evening. I brought cheese slices and crackers and a fruit salad, guaranteeing food that I would feel safe eating. The event was well attended.
Throughout the busy week, we managed to do some show/movie watching (which made me happy). We finished Masters of the Universe Monday evening. It redeemed itself (see last week's blog) for Steve but he does not plan to watch the hinted sequel. I probably will. On Friday, we watched Project Hail Mary (a second viewing for both of us) and we loved it just as much this go around. We watched Star Trek Discovery on Tuesday evening and an episode of Bull on Thursday. And, on Saturday, I had time to watch a four-part mini-series called Seeking Persephone. It was a lovely movie with a delightfully romantic story but I had to view in on the Roku channel and the commercials were extremely obnoxious. I also watched a movie called A Marriage Made In Heaven on BYU -TV that was good and carried a very good message.
I close with some lovely photos: a gorgeous sunrise, of a butterfly in my zinnia garden, my sunflowers and our house at sunset....
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