Half steam ahead

I’m slowly gaining strength and mobility, although with rehabs like this one, it’s three steps forward and two steps back. New problems constantly arise with new exercises added on. The pain level has dropped some, which is a delight. I have some of an appetite although I never seem able to eat much. I have been seeing friends. The oxycodone still keeps me from doing any creative work, but I can concentrate better on what I’m reading. My friend, the painter Helen Miranda Wilson, who lives just across the marsh from us, came and picked black currants off our many bushes, since I can’t. She got half and gave half to us. I don’t know what she does with them. Maybe she feeds them to her chickens who are the best fed best luxuriously kept chickens in Massachusetts. One of her hens [forgotten her name] has laid two fertilized eggs, for Helen is waiting for them to hatch and hoping they aren't roosters. I picked the currants over carefully and Melenie and I made 4 ½ half pints of freezer jam. I love freezer jams because they’re so fast and easy and use half the sugar of regular canned preserves. Black currant jam is particularly easy because currants have so much natural pectin, the whole batch cooks in three minutes. Melenie took home half and I froze half. the little bit left over went into the refrigerator. We also froze a bunch of puree yellow squash for winter. I have begun doing a tiny bit of cooking as well as supervising. Today I am hoping to make and freeze pesto. Elise is here. She is off chemo right now and her hair is beginning to grow back. She drove up from Trenton Thursday. Dale and Stephen came over while Woody was at a WOMR event till late. Dale made a delicious chicken liver pate, very much, brought a brie and made a wonderful chicken salad with lots of fruit. He made a chocolate cake for dessert. We played various board games afterward. I kind of overdid the socializing but it felt good to see people again who aren’t physical therapists, nurses and poor overworked Woody. My friend Martha spelled Woody when he did his interview program and then my friend Dan covered for him for his next program. Dan is on chemo via pills so we commiserated about the so called side effects of our various medications. I take 7 or 8 pills myself scattered through the day and night. I hate pills. I hate medications. I am tired of pain but it is lessening slowly but surely. There are good days and bad days but I progress and can do more for myself every day. We had a huge rainstorm. Melenie said the garden was growing by a foot and was going to start lobbing zucchini at us like a rocket launcher. Elise harvested the garlic and it’s drying in the gazebo on newspapers. We are just about done harvesting cucumbers and the next generation I started the day before my operation are ready to go into the garden – more than ready. We are also getting peppers and eggplants. Amazing. And today, BEANS! The garden is wreaking revenge on us or else is simply perverse. Never such earliness and such mad fecundity when I am not able to do much with it all.