A Gift to Myself and More Yard Work

May 31, 2025

On May 29 (Thursday), I didn’t have PT. The office was closed on Thursday, so they scheduled me for Friday. Since PT caused some unexpected pain on Tuesday, I was glad to have a couple of days to recover. Wednesday was tough, but I was better on Thursday. My physical therapist wanted me to stay active. He believed it would help reduce the pain. So, I stayed active, with stops to rest to make sure I wasn’t overdoing it.

In the morning, I got a gift that I had sent to myself. I have been unable to find my old mortar and pestle. I think it got downsized, along with some other kitchen equipment. In talking it over with Bruce, I decided to purchase a large granite mortar (5 cups) with two pestles. ChefSofi makes it. I splurged and bought the black polished exterior. The weight is 18 pounds! The interior is unpolished for better grinding. The two pestles are of different sizes, an 8.5 inch to crush tough ingredients and a 6.5 inch to grind and muddle.

For the prep, the instructions had me rinse everything with water and let it air dry. Next, I had to grind rice several times until the rice powder was white. (It was grey the first few times.) After grinding rice, the instructions had me mash and grind 4 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bruce decided to get in on the action and reduced the garlic and other ingredients to a paste in no time. The instructions said to throw away the paste and rise out the mortar and wash off the pestles. I was sad I couldn’t compost the paste, but with the salt in it, I had to toss it. Once rinsed with water, I left the set to air dry. The instructions claim the set is ready to use.

We went for a motorcycle ride (We went on Wednesday as well.) and Bruce left the motorcycle parked in front of the house on the circle.

We started moving cardboard boxes out of the barn for sheet mulching. We carried some to the blueberries. I suggested we use the mower and mower cart. That saved a lot of time. We were able to transport a lot more boxes. Once we had enough boxes moved for sheet mulching the blueberries, we started moving cardboard boxes to the front for the planned flower gardens.

While I cut and placed the boxes, Bruce shoveled some of the Bama Dirt into the mower cart. He drove the mower around front and shoveled the dirt over the cardboard.

With the cardboard covered with dirt, Bruce felt he was ready to take a break. He put the motorcycle away and then he went off and did some more mowing.

I walked down to the mailbox. I noticed we have floating primroses in the creek. While I was taking a picture, I noticed a gorgeous damselfly fluttering nearby.

We didn’t have any mail, but seeing the floating primroses blooming and the damselfly made the trip worthwhile.

After Bruce finished the section of mowing, we walked around the yard. More daylilies were blooming.

Bruce picked the first ripe Sweet 100 tomato. It was delicious. We shared it.

I noticed a baby zucchini. Since the male flowers hadn’t started blooming yet, I knew the zucchini wouldn’t get fertilized.

We walked into the back pasture. A new branch was down and we realized the top of the maple was broken up.

Closer look at the damage to the maple.

I made red beans and rice for supper, using the onions and peppers from the garden. While cooking, I would look out the picture window to see the sunset. We didn’t have a spectacular sunset, so no sunset pictures to end the post.