now before we begin the tale of my taking down a venomous cobra - let's go back to last wednesday, shall we? it was a beautiful river day! saw this gorgeous butterfly on the way down.
the river was backed up as it always is this time of the year!
jam had found some platforms in someone's garbage and snagged them for us!
now we have a pretty awesome set up for suntanning and swimming at river, as i am sure you will agree - bahahahaha!
we noticed a strange object out floating in the river - hmmmmm - what can it be? we were hoping for a barrel full of cash....
nope - just a junky plastic barrel full of water!
after enjoying many dips and suntanning, the sky clouded over. no worries - we had to get back to water the garden and greenhouse and get ready for our vfd meeting that evening.
this has been our daily haul for the past few weeks!
we are loading up on peas, beans, squash, zuchhini, and tiny little kymber tomatoes! (our cherry tomatoes always come in first. but we have also gotten several romas and a few regular tomatoes! we're hoping for a glut!)
here's another great haul!
and some delicious meals made with most of our produce!
a little cabrese salad.
cucumber, tomatoe, basil and feta - yummeh!
this pea and mint salad with feta is sooooo delicious! i will put the recipe on our recipe blog pronto! and my famous scalloped potatoes - when you grow your own potatoes you really notice the difference! we love potatoes!
here's some lemon balm leaves that i harvest every day, some for fresh lemonade and some to dry for delicious tea over the winter.
here's some of the fresh lemonade made with the lemon balm - deelish!
of course life would not be worth living without some delicious home-made tempura!
anyway, let's get back to last wednesday, shall we? i know that you are all dying to hear about the spider bite which i swear was a venomous cobra! well, first off, i never felt the bite. once we got back from the river and i was taking off my flip-flops, i noticed 2 red bite marks. i immediately thought i had been bitten by a venomous cobra...except we don't have any here on the island. jam and i looked up some stuff on the internet but the puncture site was clean and unswollen, i didn't have a fever so i put some of my homemade comfrey salve on it.
i started getting wobbly when we went out to get in the truck for the vfd meeting. i don't remember driving there (about a 12 minute drive), i don't remember the meeting and i don't remember going to our friends' house afterwards!!!! jam took me home and put me in bed and on thursday morning i woke up in incredible pain with my foot swollen to the size of a soccer ball! it was horrendous and i couldn't walk on it at all.
jam went to the internet to do some more research and i called 2 of my friends who are emt trained. my one friend recommended that i might need a tetanus shot, and told us to call the Nova Scotia Nurse's Hotline. jam got the number and called the nurse and she took him through a series of at least 150 questions, diagnosed that i was simply reacting to the spider venom, told me to take one benadryl a day, keep off the foot and keep it raised, and to ice it for 10 mins, 4 times a day. she provided her name, told us to call if we had any questions and that if i got a fever to take me to emergency. i have said this many times but we are just sometimes blown away at the services that we receive here!!!!
anyway, i should have taken a pic of my foot on the first day - but let's just say it wasn't on the top of my list as i was moaning and groaning for over a week about being attacked by a venomous cobra!!!! a little melodramatic but it really hurt!
here's a pic of my foot yesterday. almost one full week later. the puncture wounds from the bite are smack dab in the middle of my foot. the blisters on the left are from my shoes.
you can see that the foot and ankle swelled up big time - this pic is the best my foot has looked all week. the swelling has almost all gone down and i am able to walk on it now, but it hurts to be upright for too long.
anyway - if you want to read an excellent article about benadryl and why you should have a ton of it stocked in your preps - see my friend Jane's excellent article here. i had no idea of the many uses for benadryl!!!
well my foot is better, jam is working on the outboard motor, and here's some delicious, creamy mushroom and bacon pasta that we love!
jam went fishing last night and the river is even more backed up!!!!
our breakfast this morning - fresh caught trouts, peas, a tomatey and some soup that i made from home-made bone and veg stock that i added fresh veggies from the garden to! that broth really picked me up last night and this morn.
here's some heal-all (self-heal) salve that i made this morning - i wish i had have had it on hand when i got the bite!
and here's some bone and veg stock that i am making.
we normally freeze our stock but this year we are going to can it - woohoo! i use home-made stock in just about everything, and by canning it, we'll free up room in the freezer for all of peas, beans, peppers, etc.
sorry for not getting to most of your blogs in over a week, but i will catch up! until then, be good to yourselves, read Jane's post, stock up on some benadryl, enjoy your gardens and your harvests and be happy!
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