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Yup, it is definitely spring, at least for the next couple of days.

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Started repainting the east wall in the living room. We are putting in a kitty stairway to the shelf over the window. We've been wanting to put in a kitty tree but decided on a wall-mounted design instead. So the wall needed repainting. Granted, it's needed to be repaired since we moved in.   Got rid of the people eating chair and bought a nicer one at the Habitat for Humanity shop. Definitely much nicer, takes up less room, and is easier to move. The cats are a bit freaked as the old couch was their couch. They will get used to the new one eventually. When we moved in, we thought the previous people had painted the walls in flat white paint. Once I started to put on the new paint we realized it wasn't white. Possibly an eggshell with a bit of gray, but it is definitely not white. The difference is night and day. The rest of the living room will be done over the summer. I should be done with the part of the wall I am working on today. It needed a second coat. I also painted

Spring has apparently sprung!

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Aniss Hysop in my pollinator garden   Daily temperatures are rising and we are looking at 60s over the next few days. Overnight temps are still in the 30s and low 40s. Hopefully, we can start opening up the house a bit during the day to get some fresh air happening. With the weather getting nicer I plan on seeding my containers with broccoli, spinach, and salad greens. I will make some covers for them to mimic a cold frame. I won't need them for anything else until the tomatoes are ready to go out, so greens will be perfect. We have several squirrels we are feeding. One has gotten fairly used to us, and I was able to snap a pic of it. I didn't need to use the zoom. One of our resident Wellingtons. So named because our one cat is named Napoleon and they like to tease him.

New at Purple Ducky Designs on Pixels

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My latest addition to my Pixels store. This is a photograph of one of my strawberry plants in the snow earlier in the year.  I am looking forward to late Spring/early Summer when my strawberries start producing. They are growing in the raised bed that a fried built for me to make growing and harvesting my strawberries easier. My raised strawberry bed (photo by author)

Thus Spake the Knee Nazi - No new knees for you!

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  First published in  Cat House & Shooting Society  in Medium on 01/31/2024    A reminder of what my knee joints look like (x-ray of the inside of the author’s knees) Well, it seems I am too fat for the doctors who I was told had no issues with replacing knees for fat folk. It would have been nice to have been told this before we drove 90 miles to another city, it was a total waste of my time and energy. They had all my information, so they could have emailed me saying they wouldn’t do it. Oh, wait, I forgot they wouldn’t be able to charge insurance an arm and a leg for the visit. Silly me. We now have a call into the original practice who referred me to let them know to not refer larger people to the one in Spokane. No need to completely waste someone else’s time just to have their hopes crushed. After the usual, “You need to either undergo rearranging your internal organ surgery so you’ll be bulimic or submit to chemical anorexia before we’ll consider it” suggestions, both of whi

Time for New Knees. Hopefully

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   First published in  Crow's Fee t  in Medium on 01/21/2024   Yeah, knees aren’t supposed to look like that. (inside the author’s knees) I finally got in for a consultation with the local orthopedic practice and had x-rays done. I don’t think knees are supposed to look like that. I thought my knees hurt before, now that I see how bad they are my knees hurt even worse. I’m surprised I don’t spend more time screaming from the pain. Unfortunately, the local practice won’t work with fat patients, so I have to drive 100 miles away to see another practice. Hopefully, they won’t give me the brush-off. The one positive is my mom lives up there and we can stay with her the night before the surgery (if I get the surgery). They called me yesterday and I have a consultation with them in a couple of weeks. The local practice forgot to send my scans with the referral, so they will need to get ahold of them. The next time we are over that way we will stop at the hospital and pick up a CD of all

Ulnar Collateral Ligament Injury Aka Gamekeeper's Thumb

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  First published in  Crow’s Feet in Medium on 01/15/2024 photo by author Or in case the reader resides in the US, Skier’s Thumb. In plain English, I’ve damaged the ligament that runs up my thumb so I can’t pick up a pinch of salt anymore left-handed! I can’t do much of anything left-handed because of it, which makes working in my kitchen a pain in the thumb. I also have a bit of carpel tunnel in that hand, so things have gotten interesting. I first noticed the thumb issue a few months back. It probably had been building up long before that, but it wasn’t until I started having problems using my left hand in the kitchen that I noticed it, most notably when I was cutting up things. I don’t have the greatest knife skills in the world, but I have developed a way to cut onions that worked for me and avoided losing skin or fingers. With the problem with my thumb, I couldn’t cut onions without risking life and limb! I did figure out another way to cut onions. The next problem I had was deal

Spring had better get here soon, I am so over winter!

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  Anise Hyssop and Blue Flax (photo by author) Even though it is the start of March, there have been signs of Spring in my front flower beds for the last month and a bit. Some of the native wildflowers and plants I have been seeding and transplanting into my garden have finally taken hold. Even better, they are big enough that I can ID them and not pull them up when I can finally start weeding my flower beds.  The weather has been all over the place. We can start the day out with lovely sunshine, though the temperatures are still chilly, and end the day with rain/snow. We are still getting some snow falling, though it doesn't stick around most days.  One upside though, the time is now 5:30 pm and it is still light out. The days are finally getting longer. Now we just need it to get warmer. I need to get out, play in the garden, and get my hands dirty. I will be starting some seeds soon. I want to plant salad greens and broccoli in my bins. When the weather gets warmer I can put my