View from my work window

I am realizing as I look out my work window that the Black Walnut Tree is now half way across our back yard. It has grown quite a bit this summer and literally blocks the sun from my window from about 11 o'clock on. Looking down on the garden it suffers an equal fate except in the case of the garden it needs the sun and I can work better without so much sun but I can draw the drapes. The summer has moved quickly for me and now the last day of June.

Yesterday I did accomplish cutting the lawns; my daughter would do it but she is particularly sensitive to grass seed and it is abundant these days. When the heavy growing season is over she will cut the grass again. It is not such a huge task in actual fact. The new battery lawn mower works very well and requires not too much effort even in thick grass. I also managed to vacuum the basement but those two items took up quite a bit of my day. My daughter has started teaching again (all online) so her days will be full.

It looks like rain out there and still we could use more rain. The raspberries are swelling up nicely but more rain would make this a really good crop. The elderberries have quite a few flower heads so should be able to freeze five or six bags so that we can enjoy elderberry squares next winter and into the spring. This year we have had quite a few dishes as last year's crop was huge. The gooseberries are doing well and will produce at least one tray of gooseberry squares and perhaps more. I quite like that flavour. I usually do not make raspberry squares as we tend to eat them quickly but if it is a bumper crop than something else on the menu next winter.

COVID-19 continues at a very fast pace these days. Here in Canada we seem to be managing well but Toronto is about to go into the second phase. That will be the real test. However, they are enacting a bylaw enforcing the wearing of masks which I think is a really good idea. I have been wearing a mask in any public indoor spaces since the 13th of March. We bought a box of 50 dust masks that have served very well. It is a measure of how seldom we went out at first that we still have 25 of those masks. Now we each have half of a dozen cloth masks so the dust masks have not been used for a month and a half.

Globally there are 10,302,867 cases (increase of 147,383 over yesterday), 505,518 deaths (increase of 3,470 over yesterday) and 5,235,908 recovered (increase of 88,472 over yesterday). Since there are nearly double more cases that are new compared to the recovered the world is still in a bad way; the pandemic is running wild it would appear although some countries have been able to stem the tide for the moment and hopefully they will be able to maintain that as they open up more and more. Europe is now permitting 14 different countries to come there and Canada is one of them. That will be good news for travelers. It would be a great time to visit historic sites for sure. Here in Ontario we have 34,900 confirmed cases (increase of 257 over yesterday),m 2,665 deaths (increase of 7 over yesterday) and 30,196 recovered (increase of 89 over yesterday). Windsor-Essex continues to have a problem; the solution is still not yet there. Perhaps the problem could have been resolved by making any payments to students contingent on their going out in the fields and picking the crops. Possibly it wouldn't work well but I really think young adults (which are students are) are up to the task of making sure there is food on their plates and the stores have lots of home grown produce. I was a working summer student myself during my university days. I worked in an office eight hours a day and must admit I might have enjoyed working in the fields instead but of course the pay is so much better in an office especially as I had a lot of bookkeeping skills. plus typing. But if there aren't any jobs then being paid to pick the crops sounds like a good deal to me.

Busy Day

Monday again, the weeks are passing quickly. Today the grass needs cutting and the basement needs cleaning. The garden though is growing beautifully. We had heavy rain yesterday so was glad that I got the garden cultivated. Lettuce by the bucket and plenty of green onions; the radishes are trying to fill out and perhaps this rain will do that.

I have some scanning to do for Ed. Large record sheets that he can not scan on his smaller scanner. Will try to accomplish that today as well. He is organizing his research and scanning most days.

Online Church

Yesterdays newsletter from Christ Church Cathedral includes a link to today's online service. Wonderful news. I shall attend the service shortly. My Anglicanism is part of my soul but I want my Church to do more. To be more relevant in today's society. I do not want my Church to disappear. I have likely done everything that I am going to do as a volunteer at Church. Do I regret giving so many volunteer years to my husband's Church? I do not actually; I did it for my children so that they could understand Church and why it exists. I taught them at Sunday School for a few years during their formative years. Occasionally I erred and someone would immediately report that I had been using some style that was Anglican; did I do it on purpose? No it was unintentional but it did make me feel that I wasn't really welcomed. I could have said that my mother was raised United Church and my maternal grandmother and uncle were United Church but instead I said I was raised Anglican; I am proud of that. That my children are both Anglican in their thinking and outlook is a reflection of my raising them as Anglicans on the six days that they did not go to the United Church. Will they ever attend an Anglican Church in the future? I have no ideas on that really. If I asked them to go they would come with me but I never go so that isn't likely to happen. I will really love being part of the online service though and I will continue to tithe to the Anglican Church the rest of my life although the Roman Catholic Church has a strong draw for me but at nearly 75 years less likely unless I intended to go to Church in person once again. I will see how my Church evolves over the next five years and then I will make a decision.

My husband spent ten years as Treasurer at his United Church and almost twenty years in the Choir. He was a volunteer builder for the new Church. He did so many things there and he enjoyed being part of his Church. In the mid 1990s we went to a special service at Dominion Chalmers which had been mentioned in our bulletin. The minister there was also a religious scholar at the University. We were both quite interested in his sermons and from that time onward principally attended that Church until the minister retired. His sermons were a wonderful Sunday morning. Then we moved on to Christ Church Cathedral and have been there ever since. It is a long time since we attended the local United Church. I expect by now they have their mortgage paid off as I accidentally discovered that one of the members of the Church who told me that he had a life insurance policy in the amount of the mortgage died a few years ago. I just learned that recently. I used to go to the local Anglican Church for the early service (and then to Ed's Church for the later service) for a number of years; I grew up in large Anglican Churches and I never could get used to the very small Anglican Church here.

Yesterday I also planted another set of onions for green onions to come on in a few weeks. Green onions are a favourite in our household. We put them into so many dishes during the summer and than wait hungrily for them to come on again the next year! I could buy them but never do. They remind me of summer and I like to keep it that way; a treasured item to keep the seasons in place. Just like I never buy watermelon until they are in season here and raspberries are another one. I want to eat the items that are special to me that have been grown close to home.

Genealogy has faded away for a bit at the moment. I can not garner up enough time to sit and work at that. First I need some minutes for the thought process as I shift through the items that I need to work at and then I need to pull up my files and actually plan my couple of hours on genealogy and then I can begin.

Weeding

Yesterday was a weeding day; with rain promised for the next couple of days I wanted to get as much weeding and cultivating done as I could. I did get the entire vegetable garden cultivated. Everything is growing very well. It is the first year that we have planted a variety of vegetables in a half dozen years. Somehow COVID-19 brings you much closer to Nature as you appreciate both the power of Mother Nature and the benevolence. Still our neighbours to the south are being savaged by COVID-19. Prayers for them and that they will bring those numbers back into a manageable level. Many times I think we have dodged a bullet here in Canada but there is still the second wave if and when it comes. I am thinking about it already as we use up all the stored food from March and April. We always had a months supply on hand and have begun planning and buying for the possible next stage. It is so hard to say how much effect it will have on us. But Ed has to have a completely salt free diet for the most part so I need to have a lot of basic things on hand to prepare food. I bought two large bags of flour (more than half gone now) and that proved to be a good item as we bake all of the extra sugary things since they tend to be high in salt. I do not have a sweet tooth; preferring sour to sweet and lemon and cranberry to just about anything. We had about ten bags of elderberries that we froze last winter and they make a wonderful dessert which Ed quite enjoys.

I was shopping at Toys R Us yesterday and everyone was wearing a mask including the young children. I wanted to get end of the year presents and something special because I think this is hardest on the children. I can remember the Polio epidemics in London when I was a young child. One became quite fearful of touching anything or going anywhere. The effect on the children is concerning. Although we may find that this narrows their minds towards environmental concerns putting them front and central in their lives as goals that we must met and attain no matter what. That would be one good thing that could come out of this crisis. A new respect for Mother Earth and preserving her for the next generations of people to come and especially for our young people who will have to live with this enormous debt created by COVID-19.

Three newsletters behind

In another couple of days I will be three newsletters behind - H11, Pincombe and Blake which is due the 1st of July. All are in various stages of production but none will be completed by the 1st of July. However I do see light at the end of the tunnel with regard to them. July is traditionally a quiet month for me as all of the really heavy gardening will be completed in another week or two. It is hard for me to estimate as my husband does do a little. But I suspect it will be mid-July before I see any forward progress in my genealogy research.

On Being a Christian

Normally in a Christian family, one becomes a member of the Church at Baptism which in my case was at the age of 74 days. I was baptized at the Church which I attended all of my life until I was married at the age of 20 years and still afterwards I would arrive for early communion after we bought a car as I knew my father would always be there and sometimes my mother was there as well. When I was 3 and 1/2 years old we moved from the house we were living in to a house just around the corner from that particular Church. I can remember every Sunday that parade of the Blake family going to Church. I loved being there; I loved the songs and the prayers. I also loved to hear the sermons as our priest had this large booming voice which would enunciate very loudly points that he wanted to make. But it wasn't until my grandfather died when I was eight years old that I really understood death and dying. As a child I had attended funerals every year of my life that I can recall. They were family happenings when I was a child and they still are. But I didn't really understand the entire concept of death; it was wrapped up in the spirit world and the burial of a coffin and the words being said over the coffin at the graveyard. I did know my grandfather was in there because I saw him and said goodbye to him at the Church before the coffin was closed. He looked so quiet and peaceful and I can still remember looking at him lying there. He was a blacksmith and also did carpentry on occasion. His hands were well worn and often marked with grease or whatever he was working with at the time. He smelled of wood and oil. But this was a Sunday grandpa who smelled of soap with lily white hands but he did still look like grandpa. The priest who buried him was the priest that I knew throughout my young childhood. I listened carefully to the burial service and the discussion of his soul. At eight I hadn't quite captured the concept that a soul was without flesh. I looked for grandpa for months after he died. Sometimes I thought I saw him and would race over but it wasn't grandpa. My grandmother finally convinced me that I would never see him in this life again. So my real Christian life began as I read the Bible cover to cover trying to learn more about where my grandfather had gone and when I would see him again. It quite absorbed my life at that time. A new little sister was a distraction but I was too young still to be much help other than fetching and carrying things. But two years later my youngest brother arrived and from his birth he looked so much like Grandpa. I think in my mind at that time I saw him as the reincarnation of my beloved Grandfather. He still looks like him actually and is a lot like him. He moves his hands like my grandfather did.

When I started into genealogy I had a lot of jumbled thoughts on what my grandfather had said about his Blake family of Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England. At that time Lord Robert Blake was of interest to people and he was talked about somewhat but my grandfather firmly said that we were not related to that Blake branch. He mentioned that the furthest back ancestor that he knew was Nicholas Blake who lived at Old House; that of course conjured up all sorts of thoughts in my brain. But it was trying to filter out what he had said and then serendipity in the form of dreams brought back my beloved grandfather into my mind and just occasionally I would recall things that he had said and when I awoke I would remember it and write it down some 60 plus years later. But Grandpa was an Anglican Christian. He was quite High Church Anglican actually and I do wonder where his thoughts would lie with regard to becoming Roman Catholic these days. I can feel the draw of the Roman Catholic Church; its stability and attachment to the hierarchy of the Church but I continue to tithe to my Anglican Church. My Christian journey is always unfolding in front of me as time marches onward.

Knight family

More queries coming to my inbox and this time it was the Knight family. This is a huge family and I have Pedigree Collapse in this line. My 3x great grandparents Ellis Knight and Eleanor Knight were 2nd cousins. They had 13 children and three of those children married three siblings of another family resulting in a huge number of double first cousins most of whom did marry outside of this double cousin group. My line comes down from the son of Ellis and Eleanor Knight - Samuel Knight who married Louisa Butt. I have 44 DNA matches on Thrulines at Ancestry. All of them are easily found in the family tree. But back to my query. I received a query on a Knight family at Barrie Ontario. Fortunately for me but not for the requester my Knight line only came to Saskatchewan as far as I know and they are descendants of the brother of my great grandmother Maria Jane Knight (her brother Samuel). Maria Jane Knight married Edward Blake. Hence I could not assist her and especially now I have little time to really sit at the family trees and search anyone out who doesn't immediately appear on a search.

All the Knight descendants in my line go back to William Knight and Sarah (Ellis) Knight and they had eight children (one son died young) and there were seven surviving sons (two of whom do not appear to have married or had children) and one surviving daughter. Eventually this Knight line appears to go back to Henry Knight and Mary Oliver who married 25 Dec 1727 at Spetisbury, DOR. They appear to have had fifteen children of whom only four survived to adulthood and I am descended from two of those sons William and David where William was the ancestor of Ellis Knight and David was the ancestor of Eleanor Knight.

In general I can not really help anyone with Knight ancestry unless it is very specific to the area that my Knight family lived in (i.e. around Blandford Dorset). This family did move within England with many going to Lancashire and some going to Hampshire but quite a few stayed in Dorset.

Finally Rain

Finally rain yesterday; a nice soft gentle rain that has awoken the garden and doubled it in size. Today I have an enormous amount to accomplish with the ground wet like that.

Siderfin Family

One of my interesting finds back in 2005 was the surname of my 2x great grandmother's mother. My 2x great grandmother was Elizabeth Rew but this proved to be a difficult brickwall for a little while until serendipity sent me on an interesting path. I searched for Elizabeth Pincombe (she married my 2x great grandfather John Pincombe at Bishops Nympton) on Ancestry way back in 2005 and up popped the 1841 census for a small village in Somerset with an Elizabeth Pincombe and a child John Pincombe. They were at Higher Hopcott home of the Nurcombe family (John Nurcombe married Ann Siderfin 25 Jun 1804 at Selworthy and I had at that time purchased the Parish Registers for Selworthy on fiche). At this point I still had not connected Rew with Siderfin. Also with them on that quite fascinating census entry for Wootton Courtney, Somerset was a Robert Siderfin and he was old enough to be Ann's brother. Elizabeth was of course considerably younger as she was a niece but the 1841 census does not reveal family affiliation information. The 1841 census at Wootton Courtney also included a Thomas Rew and his daughter Joanna Rew as well as John Rew (similar age to Robert Siderfin and Ann Siderfin). Pincombe is not a very common name but Rew is fairly common especially in the West Somerset area. I could not make any assumptions as Pincombe also occurs in the West Somerset area. I needed to sleuth this out but serendipity had definitely played a role.

Searching online I discovered that there was a book about the Siderfin Family (History of the Siderfin Family of West Somerset by James Sanders). I could not find a copy of the book at that time that I could purchase although I knew there was a copy at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and at the Allen County Library in Indiana. But I knew that I had perhaps clued in to the surname of Elizabeth Rew's mother. Now to prove the premise and searching once again on the wills of the Rew family I came across the will of John Rew (widower probated 1848) and he was living with his son Thomas Rew at Sheepwash which is near Bishops Nympton and he asked to be buried beside his wife in the churchyard at Selworthy (Somerset). In the will he mentioned his daughter Elizabeth Pincombe. The sleuthing continued at a good pace then (I was a student at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and this course was my means to write a profile of the Pincombe Family for a published history book; I wanted to get it as right as I could!). Slowly but surely I was teasing it out. I could now link the Elizabeth Pincombe with her son John (John Pincombe, her husband, was at Gatcombe Farm, Molland with the two younger children) with her brother Thomas Rew and his daughter Joanna who normally lived at Sheepwash, Bishops Nympton with the John Rew who left his will dated 4 Jan 1840 and living at Bishops Nympton. He does not actually say if he is living with his daughter Elizabeth or his son Thomas but I suspect Thomas because he names him as his executor. Why they went to Wootton Courtney remains a mystery in time but this was a family that remained close even with an ocean separating them. Their correspondence back and forth lasted up until the second world war and perhaps beyond I have not yet found evidence of that.

In 2008 we did go to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I could have borrowed the book perhaps but my time in those days was pretty limited. I was still working full time and did do that until 2007. As it turned out the author of the book, James Sanders, had linked my line incorrectly (and his own for that matter) and a good deal of research finally sorted that out. I gave my Siderfin Research to a cousin in England who was much closer to the records and he continues with the Siderfin one name study.

I did receive an email about the Siderfin family and will try to respond to that. The email though did bring back this rather interesting memory from fifteen years ago. These past eight years have passed rather quickly for me as it has been a really busy time. Perhaps this next decade I can get back to my research.

Father's Day

My husband is moving along with his recovery. His health is very fragile at the moment but at 77 years of age a lot of people's health is very fragile. He has been used to quite good health up until the issues that resulted in a pacemaker being inserted. At that time he was 69 years of age and since then he has had good years and not so good years. But we have done a lot in that time; a number of European trips and a goodly number of trips to the United States and one to Mexico. We have been east in Canada through the Maritimes and even into Labrador. We have been west as far as Winnipeg in Canada and Salt Lake City in the United States. We have been as far south as Florida in the United States and to Cancun, Mexico. We have traveled many times to southwestern Ontario but our last trip last Fall may be the last that we do by car. We have been north in Ontario as far as James Bay. That was a never to be forgotten trip and we stayed at an Aboriginal Environmental Lodge which was quite fantastic. The canoe trip to the mouth of the river that opened into James Bay was a wonderful experience. All in all it has been a busy twelve years of traveling since 2008. The British Isles and European trips gave us a window into the countries in which our respective families lived before emigrating to Canada (in my case from the British Isles) and the United States in my husband's case mostly from France, The Netherlands and Germany but also a small percentage from the British Isles. Only one set of his great grandparents and one great great grandmother came directly to Canada with the rest of his ancestors coming to the British Colonies between 1620 and 1735 although mostly between 1630 and 1700. The large majority of his American ancestors came to Canada as settlers but a  minority came as Loyalists particularly to New Brunswick but there again some came as "planters" prior to the American Revolution.

Today is my husband's 46th Father's Day and my daughters found spectacular cards to give him. The one card in particular is a pop up of his favourite bird - Blue Jay and for his birthday she found a Cardinal an equally favourite bird.

Last night we did a Father's Day feast with a lovely meat loaf, roasted vegetables, corn and a bean salad. That way we do not have to heat the house up on an actual Father's Day although we have air conditioning which keeps it at a good temperature. So today we can just celebrate Father's Day enjoying yet another beautiful warm day (it is going to have to last a whole lot longer this heat for me to complain even one iota; my arthritis loves this sun's warmth). My husband also enjoys the warm weather. The winter is long, dark and cold here so summer is always welcomed with open arms. These days we are, however, watering the gardens for about four hours a day. No watering restrictions yet thank goodness.

Life Style Changes

I am hoping that losing the Security Council rotation seat will result in our no longer trying to win it. I do not, in the long run, see any benefit in our winning. We turned a permanent seat down at the founding of the United Nations Security Council why do we concern ourselves now with this particular group? We need to stick with the message that we are a democracy; a country for the people and that we will continue to be that. We need to spend more money here at home working with under privileged communities that call Canada home. There was no real gain for us in having the seat given that the United States has a permanent seat. No one is going to believe that we will do other than vote as they vote. In the past that was true anyway; we tended to walk lock-step with the Americans right up to the end of the 1900s. Although we did not go to Iraq with the coalition as a people we still  believed that Saddam Hussein was unfaithful to the people of Iraq and he a cruel dictator there; he was betraying them and squandering their wealth. The attack on the World Trade Centre was an attack on our way of life as well; it was an attack on democracy; equality of men and women and quite a few other things. At the time, I probably thought we should have gone as I think back but I also saw the Prime Minister's (whom I did not vote for actually) point of view at that time. The United Nations had not supported the idea and we accepted that vote. In another year the vote could have been different; we will never know but had it been in favour then we would have committed I am convinced of that.

So a Change in Life Style is needed by our government with regard to Foreign Affairs. We need to stick with our democratic beliefs; our belief that men and women are equal; our overwhelming opinion that racism is wrong and that white privilege has to somehow find a way to extend that privilege to all peoples regardless of creed or colour so that it is no longer white privilege but rather the rights of all peoples in the world to be able to pursue education, jobs, the place that you live in and the ability to walk down a street without being queried just because you are non white. For the record I am 100% British descent with my youngest relative born in England in 1904 (my father). I do not have any Ancestry that is non-British Isles other than French, German, and Scandinavian. The French is Huguenot, the German and Scandinavian are extremely ancient. For the good of the world we need to see all people as having a right to the pursuit of happiness so long as no one is injured by them.

How does this actually affect me; I am not a person who goes in marches or writes long messages on Facebook or Twitter to express my views? Probably the only result is to make the point that I dislike racism; I have always treated people the same no matter the race to which they belong. I am a hermit at nearly 75 years of age. I seldom go anywhere other than organized meetings; I avoid friendships plus I already have a huge relative base and I do not get beyond that base in my daily routine. I never will as I age the desire to communicate with my own is all that interests me! I actually do not correspond very frequently with any of my siblings.  I have made friendships with some of my husband's relatives and with my son-in-law's family but other than that I am exactly as I was as a child. I am polite although somewhat tempered by how I am treated (I can be withdrawn around people that I discover are actually negative towards me and that sometimes takes a while as my autism does sometimes leave me with a mistaken impression of people's intention). Hence I now avoid friendships. I prefer to put my time into beneficial things like the Church (and that included my husband's United Church where I was asked to be a volunteer secretary which did prove interesting although when the job became a paid position I declined as I was committed already to a paying job that suited me (my Church commitment is my gift to God)). The Church which I firmly believe in or my preferred volunteer commitment as a Patient Partner in research grants are my primary interests. Other than that I stick strictly to my family which is rather large. Genealogy is a hobby which I do follow when time permits and I have made a number of wonderful family acquaintances worldwide with all the DNA testing. It is fun to chat with a fifth cousin or hear from a fourth cousin who lives in Australia and wants to share something new and exciting with me. Or some of my second and third cousins (I do not have any first cousins).

It is 32 degrees celsius outside. A very warm day today; we distributed 8 bags of garden soil earlier today when it was a mite cooler. But other than that we are inside where it is cool.

Eight years old

Eight years have passed since the birth of my first grandchild. Today he will have a small socially distanced birthday party here with his grandparents, aunt and mother. We are not in their bubble and for a good reason. My husband is not well enough to have a long visit with anyone. It is so much fairer to let the bubble be my son in law's brother's family. I am very happy for that. But I have decorated the swing with eight balloons (hope they survive) and some Happy Birthday hangings and there is an 8 candle to burn.

I miss my grandchildren very much but that is the way with life. My father said goodbye to his grandparents in England and never saw them again when he was nine years old. It was a sorrow that he bore to the end of his life that he was not able to be with them ever again. My mother's grandparents were all dead by the time she was two years old. Having/seeing your grandchildren is a huge gift from God one might say at least I tend to see it that way. I had two grandparents a paternal grandfather and a maternal grandmother and unfortunately they did not really get along at all. But when I was very young I did not realize that. When my grandfather died I was eight years old and my grandmother had started having me over to her house very often that summer before he died and after a couple of months she asked me if I loved her now. I can still remember her saying that so I asked her why she asked. So she said I never loved her while my grandfather was alive; I was like that as a child. I did not love very many people deeply and I am still like that. She said that she knew that I loved her but wondered if I knew it. I was not a child to show my feelings particularly.

Up early watering; another scorching hot day but the garden is up very well now and the green onions have doubled in size the last day. The watering does help! Maybe we will get a good rain storm. Then you can really see the garden grow; Mother Nature endows her rain with all sorts of goodness that help to enrich the soil.

COVID-19 still with us; still controls our life and will for a while yet I suspect. Globally 8,435,080 cases (increase of 85,186 over yesterday), 452,520 deaths (increase of 3,123 over yesterday) and 4,134,210 recovered (increase of 42,232 over yesterday). In Canada 100,220 cases (increase of 173 over yesterday), 8300 deaths (increase of 46 over yesterday) and 62496 recovered (increase of 479 over yesterday).

A new drug dexamethasone is showing signs of helping extremely ill people on ventilators and oxygen. Ongoing trials for vaccines but no positive news yet. Everything takes time. A new treatment is such a welcomed announcement.

Exciting time of the year

I always find this to be an exciting fast moving part of the year. Probably I prefer the slower days of winter when I can get my work done but summer can be exciting. Not really a gardening fanatic I do find it exciting to look out the window every morning at the garden in the back yard and see the neat rows of vegetables steadily reaching upward towards the sun. It is a fabulous sight to see Mother Earth produce the many different plants that we just pop into that warm earth as seeds/bulbs and she does the rest along with the rain. All rows can be distinctly seen now and the green onions as usual lead the rest in reaching upwards. Another couple of weeks there will be green onions for the salads and other dishes. The radishes are equally hurried in their movement both downward to produce the product itself but also the leaves are quickly expanding in size. The beans are most interesting as the primary leaves unfold from the seed pod. Still waiting on the gladiolus bulbs and the sunflower seeds to show forth their grandness.

Another beautiful sunny day here in Canada. I was not overly disappointed at the vote for a seat on the Security Council. We chose way back at the foundation of the United Nations not to have a permanent seat but we should have suggested having a seat for five years every twenty years. With a population of nearly 38 million it would seem to be more logical to choose us since we represent a larger fraction of the world but there may be a thought that we might be influenced by the United States in our decisions. Living next to them that is a thought that likely crosses many people's minds when they voted. So once again we do not receive what is likely our due because of our great effort in WWII  but on the other hand we do not have to be part of a group that makes decisions that overall affect the entire world and making them brings down the ire of one side or the other on our shoulders. Sometimes it is just nice to be neutral which we cannot of course be because we do live next to the United States and what affects them affects us. Another interesting fact is the number of Americans who have Canadian ancestry with many Canadians having moved south over the last one hundred and fifty years. The weather is definitely better as you move south and for many that is a plus. I could never leave the snow behind; it is part of my soul to have winter every year and the solitude that it brings with it; my working time.

Onions, Radishes, Peas, Beans, Beets, and Dill

Every seed planted in the garden is up in terms of vegetables/spice. The sunflower seeds planted later and the gladiolus bulbs are still waited on but soon. Another beautiful sunny day and we will water again tonight.

Grocery Shopping

Beautiful day and I was out early shopping at the local Metro. Surprisingly there were a lot of people shopping and most of us masked. I like to go early as the shelves are mostly freshly stocked and it can be quite a quick trip around and back home again.

Yesterday I finished up the flower//vegetable beds on the one side of the garden so today I will work on the bed at the back of the house and start down the other side. It is a never ending task as there is also the front garden to do. Have I acquired enough appreciation for gardening to actually like it? Probably not but it is good exercise and I do like to get lots of exercise that suits me. All that bending and crawling about through the gardens does keep one healthy likely.

The main garden is starting to show green as the radishes are well up now and the green onions can be seen as a solid row. The beans are up and the peas and the dill is starting to show. No sign of the beets or carrots yet but I haven't been on the ground by the garden yet today. That is just looking out the window. The new sunflowers have not yet come up nor have the gladiolus bulbs appeared above ground yet. That is probably it for the garden. Usually we plant chrysanthemum all over the place but could not find the bedding plants this year. Definitely a lot of people are planting as the shelves are quickly emptied of bedding plants.

Parking lot more than half full

Perhaps a sign of a change in the time is the parking lot at the medical centre; usually there are just ten or twenty cars; today there were more than 50 I would say and busier inside. Gamma Dynacare is always busy but until now the number of cars has been sparse.

I can not begin to number the ways in which my life has changed in the past three months. Perhaps the biggest is the lack of time which is hard to believe I am thinking. But I am busy from the time I get up until bedtime. I always find in the summer that I do look forward to those long dark winter days and the extra time that they give to me.

Off to weed the gardens and move some earth to spots where we want to grow grass.

June 14th

We are now at three months since we first went into isolation. An isolation that lasted about 20 days although we went outside for walks in that time period but totally avoided people. After that date we did go shopping initially a couple of times a week but lately we are out and about most days buying items that we prefer to look at before purchasing. Thus far we have been lucky to escape COVID-19 including Ed spending eight days in the hospital for an unrelated event. We will continue to shop but always wear a mask and do carefully wash our hands on our return and generally wipe everything down with lysol wipes that we purchase. Perishable food we wash like fruits and vegetables with water when we return and then wash it again before using it.

I am now into finding a new family doctor. Our current doctor prefers to leave my husband's care for the sarcoidosis totally to the specialist. However that doesn't work for us because all of his health effects are a result of the sarcoidosis except for the pacemaker which is the Heart Institute and they efficiently monitor that once a year. He had an excellent family physician/hospitalist working with him when he was in the hospital but like most family doctors he has a full patient load already. So I am waiting to see if there are any graduates from this year's Family Medicine class setting up practice in this area. We are not very time consuming; up until now we are only at the doctor's office once a year unless one or the other of us has an accident (my knee collapse!). Ideally my husband would regularly be seen by a family doctor once a month or every second month just to monitor his health. His blood is checked every month giving a good eye into his condition regularly. I prefer to have a family doctor review all of that blood work and hopefully avoid another event that results in hospitalization; specialists have a huge client load although ours is particularly good (office in the hospital) in responding to any changes in his condition. It is far more expensive to hospitalize an individual than to see them once a month or every second month in the office of a family medicine practitioner.

My husband is nearly a month out of hospital. Our meal plans have completely changed to accommodate no salt and high protein.

Trimming

Turned sunny after all yesterday. Decided to write my blog later today mostly because we were out buying 15 bags of garden soil. We have one spot along the fence where moss took over so have cleared that and will plant grass once again. The remainder of the soil will go back where the maple tree is. The thing with clay soil is that eventually the roots come to the top of the soil and in a forest the deep canopy of fallen leaves etc help to create a nice buffer for the roots but that doesn't happen in a garden so we will add a nice layer of soil under the maple tree to give it lots of fresh nutrient. It will need it to stave off the effects of the Black Walnut! The Black Walnut is a beautiful example of its species for sure but it is also an invasive species and will take over if you let it. I keep on pulling up the young Black Walnut trees that land in our yard but for the most part the squirrels are so active in this area that few of the walnuts ever reach the ground fortunately. I expect it will be that way as long as I am living here. There is a huge colony of squirrels here.

Still no genealogy done. Must get back to it but likely it will be late fall before I sink my teeth into anything. I will try to finish off the two newsletters owing before the next Blake Newsletter comes out.

I now have five cloth masks which I wear one day after the other whenever we go out. The only nice thing about COVID-19 is that it allows me to be the hermit which I am.

I ended up working outside on the one side of the laneway clearing away the weeds from the bricks that are along the side. Looks much better now. Usually I do do that about this time of the year. The other side will get done in due course.

Looks like rain again

Looks like rain again today. This is a big day in Ontario though. Stores are opening; malls are opening. I am ready as is Ed with masks. We pretty much wear our masks everywhere except when we are out walking and I carry one just in case but mostly we can just move away from people.

Ed is doing well. We walked around the short side of the block yesterday. The physio is helping him greatly. He has a number of exercises to do and he works away at them through the day. The chair lift is marvelous; it makes such a difference for him to be as mobile as he was going from floor to floor between his office and the entertainment areas of the house.

Yesterday we made chicken soup with the drippings of the roasted chicken. We finally found a bag of barley and added some of that and it was quite delicious with small potatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, garlic and spices (no salt). We are managing a fairly salt free diet for him these days.

Today we need to transplant the sunflowers. Last year it was so exciting having our sunflowers and watching the birds fly in and pick them. This year we will grow the sunflowers in three areas since birds are very fond of them and we have a lot of birds this year. We have several pairs of cardinals and I wonder if they are the same pair year by year or their offspring that return to nest here time and again. The crows nesting though are new and their young are quite fascinating. They are quite large for baby birds and likely I did not notice that before.

More than 2 million COVID-19 cases in the United States. Discussions are ongoing on the border restrictions. I must admit I would like to see them continue for a while longer. The President doesn't seem to believe that this is something to worry about and wants to get back to normal right away. I think respect for Mother Nature and her ability to control our lives is perhaps something to be very mindful of and I suspect that our border will remain closed for yet another month to other than trade traffic. It is also a good way to stop guns from getting into the country. As a former gun owner, I surrendered my gun to the local police after the Florida murder, I do not see why anyone would need a hand gun really. You cannot hunt with a handgun. My gun was never fired in actual fact. I did not have any bullets for it. My brother gave it to me before I was married and it was always a sentimental object but lost that quality quite quickly with all the murders that have taken place and I just finally decided to get rid of it more as an object lesson than anything else. I do not think anyone knew that I had a gun actually. I never told anyone other than the police when I registered it.

New Railing

All that is left to do is our new railing. Certainly less urgent now that the chair lift is in but does need to be replaced. We are now over three months with COVID-19 having such an enormous effect on our lives. But will it actually change anything? Will we heed the warning of Mother Nature? Mother Nature is awesome and she can be cruel. As I look out the window of my office I can see that the leaves and branches of the Black Walnut tree next door extend almost 1/3rd of the way across our yard now. This tree was just a sapling a mere ten years ago. But this invasive species, if permitted, would take over the entire area wiping out the maples particularly the nursery grown maples. Our maple at the back was also a sapling which grew in this soil and so would give the Black Walnut a good run for survival.

We finally had rain last night. At some point I woke up and could hear the rain on the roof. The garden must have let out a sigh of thankfulness. I shall see if the green onions have poked their way out of the soil. Nothing like a good rain to help that along. The tomatoes are doing well along the far fence (far away from the Black Walnut!) but they are the small tomatoes. However we could only get a flat of nine of them instead of our usual two large early potted ones. They are growing well though and a couple of them have flowers on them. The raspberries will be thankful for all of this rain. They are well into formation now for the early lot and then the later ones will bloom in early July and produce fruit mid-July. The birds do love the raspberries (as do we if we are quick enough to get some!).

Today more cultivating of the garden areas. Also some house cleaning which gets neglected during the summer months. Still no time for genealogy and I missed the webinar last night on DNA. Will have a look at it today if it is up. I got a subscription to Legacy Webinars as they often have interesting ones but one thing or another gets in the way and I miss seeing them. This way I can watch them any time.

COVID-19 worldwide 7,400,013 cases (increase of 161,245 over yesterday), 417,133 deaths (increase of 5,354 over yesterday) and 3,482,191 recovered (increase of 108,350 over yesterday). In Canada 97,125 cases (increase of 472 over yesterday), 7.960 deaths (increase of 63 over yesterday) and 56,639 recovered (increase of 1,067 over yesterday). Good sign to see us recovering more than are taking ill. 

World cases at 7.4 million is still less than 0.1% of the world's population. That is a good sign but the numbers are continuing to grow. Then there is the possibility of a second wave which could be, given that it would likely be into flu season here, worse than the first wave. We must continue to be diligent; wear our masks and respect distance if not wearing a mask. I try to, even wearing a mask, but it is more difficult in a crowded grocery store. We tend to go in the off times but sometimes get caught at a busy time.

Rain

Promise of rain, clouding in again as we had a small amount of rain this morning. My husband's second day of physio and the week has seen a large amount of improvement for him. He is definitely stronger. The physio is really the most important for him at the moment along with controlling his diet. We are busy gardening and that is wonderful exercise even if you just walk about through the garden looking at everything and checking on the bedding plants.

It is getting on to six months since I last had my hair cut. With all the humidity I am looking quite curly these days. The one advantage to curly hair is that it hides the length. There are a lot of other advantages and then the absolute fact that my hair has a mind of its own and for the most part I just let it do its own thing.

Yesterday we cooked a whole chicken in the oven. We haven't done that for a couple of years. The smell was marvelous. And it tasted quite good as well.

I am so far behind in genealogy I am not sure when I will get caught up. I need to finish my H11 newsletter for the 1st of May and write my Pincombe newsletter for the 1st of June and the 1st of July is starting to make itself noticed for my Blake newsletter.

We bought Alexa and I think I will enter my newsletters into Alexa perhaps one week before they are due so that I get that reminder for the entire week that the newsletter is due. It will at least keep it in the forefront of my brain. My time though is pretty much taken up these days.

The chair lift for my husband is working out really well. He is much more independent as he can go upstairs to his office and work on his computer or come down and watch television, bike (we put the stationary bike behind the couch) or lift weights. He likes to be independent so really glad that Silver Cross was able to accommodate us so quickly into their schedule.

Other than that my day is already scheduled so must get back to it.

Black Walnut Tree

Blake Walnut trees play a huge role in my life. There were about 30 Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) trees at my parent's cottage in Bayfield, Ontario. I loved those huge trees and they were easily 150 feet tall. They stood tall and straight as the area was quite wooded. In a backyard they are more likely to have a shorter trunk and a broad crown. It was wondrous to spend time under those trees and I must admit to missing them.

We do have a black walnut tree next to us. A squirrel likely planted it as this particular one appeared as a sapling about ten years ago. No one plants them in a yard as it releases chemicals which harm other plants. In particular it poisons garden plants and grasses (allelopathic) particularly herbaceous and woody plants. It is known as a common weed tree. The roots, inner bark, nut husks and leaves contain a nontoxic chemical called hydroijugalone although the action is just in direct proximity.

Some plants can not grow under the black walnut tree. Hosta does well though and through the years we replaced all of our other plants with Hosta on the side where our neighbour has a Black Walnut Tree. As we age Hosta are certainly less work!

Myself I would not grow a tree so close to the house. We are thinking of taking down the tree out front as it is very large and not that far from the house. We planted our large maple many years ago but at the back of the yard where we can enjoy it and not have it fall on our house! But trees grow and we are constantly pulling out saplings of the various types of trees around us.

Trees are beautiful though and I do love them very much. They are here when we are born and here when we die. They live for hundreds of years and what a story they could tell! Their thousands of roots stretch out from the base of the tree and can be found far from the tree particularly in the heavy clay soil that we have here. When the soil is dry; it is very dry and the tree roots sink down to find water and they steal it from the plants around them because they are more efficient and can seek water much deeper. Hence I tend to remove roots where I am planting. The tree will grow more roots but the plant will have a chance to grow until it can compete with the tree for water.

Our garden is another story though. We can no longer grow anything on the one side of our garden except for plants that tolerate Black Walnut. On the other side plants tend to be somewhat stunted although peppers apparently do not too badly. But tomatoes do not do well at all and we no longer plant them in our main garden. But we are aging and I do enjoy trees so until we move we will gradually garden less, plant more hosta and love the trees!

Chair Lift Day

Chair Lift went in today. It is a marvelous tool for an older person. It has taken a great deal of concern off of my mind where my husband is involved. He can now use the chair whenever he feels that he needs to do so. I am not strong enough to support him on the stairs. Although he has lost a lot of weight he still outweighs me by more than 30 pounds.

Another beautiful day and today I boiled water and removed an ant hill colony in the back yard. We tend to do that whenever we find an ant hill. There are still lots of places for them to be but they are a nuisance in the yard and will be much happier somewhere else I am sure. Just like I would not live in the woods, I leave that to the animals, birds, insects, reptiles and other beings that occupy the planet with me. I am a great believer in sharing and so I share all the woods with them. I seldom go into the woods these days and when I did in the past it was with the idea that I needed to be as conservation minded as the occupiers of the woods and so left no trace of myself being there other than a few footprints.

One of the nicest parts of being allergic to strawberries is that I do not wait enthusiastically for them, nor do I eat them at all during their season or at any other time. It saves me a lot of calories likely and since I try to stay at my lower weight now that I have attained it after a few years of being very conscious of what I am eating I intend to stay at this weight. My Heritage did an update on my Medical DNA and I apparently carry the genes for overweight to obesity with a BMI more than +5 of my actual. That probably accounts for why I do find it difficult to lose weight. I really have to work at that.

The Birds

Our tree at the back has never housed a bird's nest before so it is with pleasure that we watch the families of birds that have chosen to spend their summer with us this year. Yesterday they were promenading about on the back part of our lot under the spread of the huge maple tree. My husband and eldest daughter planted that tree the summer that our youngest child was born. It's thirty plus years of growth have given us a beautiful maple probably 150 feet high with a perfect oblong shape at the top of the tree. The foliage is thick and healthy looking and now we are graced with families of birds.

Our bird feeder has been visited by so many birds this year we have lost count of both numbers and species. It has been a treat. A blue jay visits us every evening. A pair of cardinals are nesting in the tree next door and they too make their visits to the feeder. The squirrels are also there and amazingly a huge crow backed off when a squirrel decided to defend its feeding rights yesterday. The hawk that lives a few doors up swoops over our yard every day and the rabbits that used to plague us are not to be seen these days. Possibly they are just in hiding and creep out at dusk when they are least seen.

Another hosta and hurutia (sp) to plant today. I have another root to remove so that the hosta has a chance. Once established the hosta plants grow really well even in shade and are a pleasure to look at all summer.

It is amazingly quiet today. The sun is shining and everything looks so lush and green.  

Our Role in Society

When my mother died in 2002 and my maternal uncle in 2003 I realized that my husband and I no longer had any further back in time living relatives other than cousins. It is somewhat profound to realize that you are now the total decision maker on everything. We both had mothers who made helpful comments and we listened to them. My father tended to not really comment very much. My parents did not come to Ottawa very often (when I added the times up it was eight times in total). The last time they came was when our children had chicken pox (they had had that as children so immune at least I was hoping so since they wanted to come!). The children were pretty much over them when they came but it was also spring and they wanted to see the Tulip Festival in Ottawa as they had never been and it is quite spectacular to be here during the blossoming of the tulips here. My parents never stayed long (seldom more than 2 nights) but I am one of seven children so they had lots of visiting to do and new grandchildren were on the way back home and they never came again. Plus by then my father was 78 years of age and it is a long trip. My mother was only 66 and did most of the driving. She always meant to come here again after my dad had a stroke and was in a nursing home and then when she was widowed but she never did. I offered to buy a plane ticket or a train ticket but there were so many grandchildren around her that she just couldn't pull herself away anymore. I totally understood that.

So our role in our nuclear family changed although I am not sure that mine did. My children always did pretty much what they wanted and I only interfered/commented when I felt there was some danger involved. I was working full-time by then and they were both older and mostly lived their own lives.

But one change for me was my involvement in charitable/religious organizations. I had primarily when our children were young been involved in religious type organizations. I managed for my husband's Church the World Day of Prayer and before that I was volunteer secretary for about six years (I was actually asked to do that; I did not volunteer). But it was easier for me to be behind a table rather than in the midst. I am rather too shy to be in the midst; I tend to stay on the outskirts of any group unless I am speaking. My mother was always wanting me to make friends and was quite enthusiastic when I said that I was so involved but in reality I did not make any friends; nor is it in my nature to do so. My husband and children occupy my life fully and even if I was alone my siblings have always occupied my life or just my work/volunteerism. I did go back to work when our youngest was 14 months old although I worked primarily at home doing proofreading and copy-editing for a local printer but my husband was Church Treasurer and I spent time in lines at the bank doing whatever needed to be done. Then running over to the Church when the minister needed something. It was somewhat of a challenge to have a small child standing in the bank lines or running over to the Church! I finally mentioned that I was working and didn't mind helping out with items but felt I should mention that in case the person did not realize it. I did not get quite so many calls after that! My husband also dragged me into his genealogy volunteerism in the mid 1990s. I did do lectures on DNA for about eight years after that became popular in 2007 to 2015. Looking back my volunteerism was quite extensive but I had not yet found something that I really wanted to do. The lecturing on DNA I mostly fell into because no one was doing it at the time and Ed was interested in that as was I with regard to my own research.

I did finally find volunteerism that I really enjoy and that is being a patient partner. Having worked in medicine for ten years in various departments and involved in research, I am really enjoying once again being part of a research group from the patient/caregiver perspective. I have found my volunteer niche. I do not have a lot of spare time at the moment with my husband ill but COVID-19 has curtailed every research project for obvious reasons. The doctors who do research are otherwise occupied and they will be busy for a while as they convert back from a state of readiness over the entire hospital to a point where they can pick up the traces of their research and get back into that. Then of course we must be ready for a second wave; whether or not it materializes; is severe enough to warrant another lockdown and cancellation of surgeries remains to be seen but none the less they have to be continuously preparing and planning for that.

I do miss my involvement in my Anglican Church. For a while I was on a committee involved in outreach which was quite interesting and that was when I started donating to the Union Mission in Ottawa. I do know that women's shelters also need support but there is quite often more support for them because children are also involved. Men's care does tend to get put to one side. But I have not really been a part of my church (other than my monthly donation (I tithe) which is shared between church expenses and the PWRDF (Primates World Relief Development Fund) which goes primarily to the First Nations here in Canada at least I have told myself that) in terms of regular attendance for a long time. I should investigate that I suppose. I have found myself somewhat disappointed with my Church and the direction it is moving in. When I was young I advocated that marriage should no longer be a sacrament because of the Divorce Act. Had they stepped away from marrying people then a lot of the sadness that has emerged over the last nearly sixty years would have been avoided. I didn't make any friends advocating that for sure. A sacramental marriage to me is a lifelong commitment. We will be married for 54 years in September.

So our role in society is to do the best that we can with the tools that we have at our own disposal and try to better mankind.

Another beautiful day

Sun is shining brightly and the garden is growing. It is mysterious watching a garden grow; one large rain storm and everything doubles in size. Certainly Mother Nature when we treat her well responds to us in beautiful ways.

My husband is stronger these days; he is busy doing his physio exercises and his chair lift arrives on Monday. He can make it up the stairs and it is good exercise for him but he only does it a couple of times a day. It is really hard for him. It will be nice to have the chair so that he can go up whenever he wants. Knowing him he will still walk it a few times a day but will have more flexibility as his office is upstairs and the television on the main floor. He is a bit of a television addict but also spends a lot of time on his computer working on his genealogy.

We got out the crock pot today and cut a couple of thick steaks into strips, seared them and then put them in a crock pot with lots of vegetables, broth, can of tomatoes and will enjoy that later. We mostly prepare everything from scratch so that we know the nutritional content and can regulate salt, calories and protein.

Our rhubarb hasn't done as well as some years but we will have one tray of rhubarb squares; a favourite of my husband. We made elderberry squares from our elderberry bushes the other day and it is actually quite nutritional as elderberries are a powerful anti-oxidant as well as having protein and no salt. Rhubarb on the other hand is actually a vegetable. It is an excellent source of vitamin K, potassium and calcium as well as a lot of other vitamins and minerals. Soon we will make that dish of squares.

The elderberry transplant out of the lawn into the elderberry patch has survived thus far and just waiting for new growth to come.

Must go and feed the birds, I see they are starting to check out the feeding tray!

Good news

When we were on our way to physio (just up the street fortunately) the electrician arrived yesterday and fourty minutes later the new electrical outlet was in and we are now ready for the chair lift to be installed. Hopefully this week. Ed is doing well but a chair lift will be such an asset.

I also realized after consult that my slightly elevated glucose result was likely the result of the corticosteroid cream that I used to quell a reaction from a bandaid that I hadn't used before. I had poked my face with one of the twigs when I was cutting up the elderberry bushes that my husband had cleared. I had cleaned it up well and because I was still mucking about in the garden I put the round bandaid on my face. I had a lovely red reaction about three times the size of the bandaid (same shape) so had called telehealth since it was after hours and followed their suggestion which was a good one. Reaction disappeared after a couple of days and I was all fixed up. Never thought about that when I had my blood test; Ed goes every few weeks for blood work so I just did mine at the same time.

Today more gardening. The root to saw out so that we can plant the new Hosta plant. We planted several yesterday. The elderberry transplants are doing well. The sun is shining. It is a beautiful day. Off to accomplish things!

Gardening today

Weather today is great for gardening. I have that other length of black walnut root to remove from under where the new Hosta plants are going. That will be my first project once I get outside!

Then I will do a quick cultivation of the garden patch (about half the size it was just a couple of years ago) and then we will plant. We have onions, carrots, beans, peas, yellow peppers to plant (our seed order never arrived but we managed to find these seeds/plants at local merchants). Possibly we have had our last frost until Fall (if we are very lucky) and it is time to get everything into the ground to enjoy the wet earth and hopefully sun over the next few weeks until dry July arrives.

Our Hosta plants are also ready for pickup so will do that a little later today as well.

My husband goes for his first physio session. I would estimate that he would have 20 sessions or more to really get him back on the road to recovery. He is doing well though. Keeping active walking about and doing some gardening; not too much. More than I like him to do in his present health state but he is the person to determine what he can and cannot do. He sleeps well so it has been good for him to be this active.

Summer is a busy outdoors time for us and generally passes too quickly and we are back into Fall and the cold weather again. Usually we try to leave the swing out until Thanksgiving but it is mostly too cold to sit out in the day with just a few days after the end of September suitable for that.

The bird life has been great, blue jays, cardinals, many warblers, very large crows, robins, red winged blackbirds, and a number of others. They love the feeder but, unfortunately, the squirrels also love the feeder!

One of these days I will get back to genealogy. I have had a few emails from distant cousins. Always interesting to hear from people. Some of them are still matching DNA with one or other of my siblings or myself and as much as fifth and sixth cousins with still a good length. It is interesting having so much DNA data on hand. Plus we have all inherited somewhat differently from our parents making for a well rounded look at our grandparents DNA. DNA Painter is a great tool and continues to advance it what it offers.

COVID-19 is still the controlling force in our lives. Some life has returned to normal here. People are going back to work with face masks on. Globally there are 6,395,328 cases (increase of 123,751 over yesterday), 380,580 deaths (increase of 4,924 over yesterday) and 2,742,306 recovered (increase of 44,978 over yesterday). Still growing rapidly almost three times as many people infected as have recovered.

In Canada we have 92,410 cases (increase of 705 over yesterday), 7,395 deaths (increase of 69 over yesterday) and 50,357 recovered (increase of 618 over yesterday). Still more new cases than recovered.

Learn something new every day

I went to buy test strips for my new blood glucose meter and discovered you have to have a doctor's prescription to acquire them. Well I only actually need five to test for the next five weeks every Wednesday. So will wait on that. In the meantime, more protein less carbohydrates and lots of exercise. I already do 120 plus minutes of exercise every day so that part is certainly fulfilled.

My first task is to make sure my husband is well and I will wait until I am satisfied that he is well on his way to recovery. I do not want to get bogged down in anything at the moment that takes me away from looking after him full time. Ideally he should be seen by his family physician monthly or every second month to review his various reports from his gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, cardiologist and Heart Institute and see how he is doing. That is the way that medicine works actually; the specialists take care of specific areas and Family Medicine doctors look at the entire picture. Family Medicine doctors actually have a huge responsibility to manage the entire care of people. My husband has worked hard all of his life at his job, he has given greatly to society with his volunteerism as Church Treasurer for ten years, 35 years to the Ontario Genealogical Society now Ontario Ancestors, and a number of other items. He deserves to have the best of care in his declining years. I do believe in equity in medicine but I also believe that you earn that right by being the best and most responsible member of society that you can be.

When I was thought to have multiple sclerosis and spent the two weeks in hospital and then many months recovering at home with an infant to care for, I had this marvelous doctor who saw me every other week for four months and reviewed my progress forward. It didn't take long, maybe ten minutes but it kept me on track. When we moved to Ottawa I had to leave that lovely man behind but did find a new doctor here where we lived in Blossom Park. He didn't look after children but he had a part time pediatrician who did. It was once again a really good relationship. As it turned out the new family doctor asked the pediatrician (a lovely person with a child of her own a year older than mine) to keep an eye on me as well as helping with the baby when I needed help. I didn't know that initially. He was a really special person as well. I would have stayed with them but we moved to the east end outside of Ottawa and it was too far really with a small child. The druggist at the Medical building recommended one of the doctors upstairs and so we moved on. I always regretted leaving that wonderful medical practice.

Primarily this blog is to remind me of my daily thoughts during COVID-19.

Today we went to view and then ordered my husband's chair lift. The electrician has to come and install the new electrical outlet to charge the battery and then he will have that to let him go from floor to floor whenever he wants. Soon the new railing will be in as well.

Just finished chopping out with an axe a large root from a black walnut tree that was under where we wanted to plant a couple of new Hosta plants. Then we planted the cucumber plants. Still have the garden to plant and some yellow peppers. All of this exercise actually doesn't show up particularly on my FitBit other than the fact that my beats per minute are rather high so gives me some time but doesn't call it anything like running, walking, biking, etc. My resting heart beat is 56 beats per minute which is not too bad for a 74 year old. I am back to running most days for 40 to 45 minutes once a day. I love to run although these days I do all of my running in the basement on a nice thick rug to protect my bone joints!

Frost - a perennial happening in June

We had a frost warning last night but looking out it doesn't look like we had any frost. Will uncover the plants that we covered in a little while. It is 7 degrees centigrade outside now. With a high of 15 degrees celsius it will be a cooler day today. Good weather for growing lettuce and grass!

Hard to believe that we are nearly three months under lockdown although restrictions eased a little today. We will continue with our face masks for the foreseeable future I would imagine. We wash our hands frequently as suggested and we spray the bottoms of our shoes when ever we leave our home. We also use lysol wipes to clean anything coming in except fresh food we wash on arrival home.

If I had been attending Church I would be really missing it; I miss it anyway but have now found work arounds that keep me close to my religious preferences. My mother was raised United Church becoming an Anglican in her teen years. My uncle and grandmother always attended the United Church. I sort of grew up with a foot in both although I am an Anglican and discovered as an adult that I really prefer being an Anglican although did attend my husband's United Church for about twenty five years whilst our children were small. He wanted his children to experience the United Church atmosphere that he grew up in and it was really easy for me to raise them as closet Anglicans anyway. It broadens one's mind to attend different churches I think and I would never have denied that to my children when my husband felt strongly about it.

A new week dawned yesterday and it was a beautiful day. I quite enjoyed it. We moved a couple of new growth elderberry bushes out of the lawn into the berry patch and will see if they survive. Somehow new life being aided seems right on Sunday. I try not to work too hard on the Lord's Day but I just feel that he would approve of us taking care of the world around us.

This week my husband will start physiotherapy to help bring him back to a stronger self. His medications seem to be working well for him now; being in the hospital let the doctors exert more control over the dosages. Certainly when I took him in on the 12th I was quite fearful for his life at that point but my husband tends to be a fighter and recovered well. Now he just has to regain his strength to continue his fight against sarcoidosis. He doesn't smoke or drink so makes it so much more difficult in my mind that he has to suffer this particular disease. I help him as much as I can. The doctors he has at the hospital and that he experienced in the hospital were a lot of the reason for his recovery and being home so quickly.