Feelngs of success

This spring I got ambitious and decided that it was time to start working out. Well, that is fine and good but the last time I did that there was no such thing as "too much" or "too hard" for me. So, I went at it like before, pushing myself as hard as I could. As it turns out, that was a bad idea. On about day 3 I started feeling a pain in my back. By day 5 I was done. And I mean on my back, can't move, headed to the Chiropractor and Emergency Room- DONE!

I won't get into too many of the gory details but I did spend about $500 on an emergency room visit that did absolutely NOTHING for me and much less on a couple Chiropractors that did much to help me on my road to recovery!

Well, time has passed and I am feeling much better though I do still have back pain. I can move and work again without feeling like I am going to die.

I did NOT get a garden in this summer and though my wonderful sister came and put a few plants in the ground for me, the harvest was essentially, non-existent.

So, I put the word out there that I was looking for garden over stocks and I did get a few offerings from some really awesome people!

First I was given a bag of pickling cucumbers and gosh-darn-it taught myself how to make pickles. I taught my friend Michelle at the same time. That was a fun day!

That same day, I taught Michelle how to make Elderberry Juice (see my other blog "Stuff My Friend Kim Says") and we talked about some of the healing properties of that. All together I was able to put up about a gallon, maybe a little more, of that. I would like to mention here that people I talked to pay around $30 for two cups of the stuff at the health food store. Mine was free.

Then, a week or so later, I was given a couple boxes of tiny, little apples that I made a batch of apples sauce with. That was a lot of work. Next time I will make sauce with big apples and just juice the little ones. But, they were realllly good little apples! YUM YUM!

So, even though I was totally unable to grow my own food this summer, I still ended it with a feeling of some accomplishment of being able to squirrel away food and homemade remedies for the winter for my family.

And if I have my way, I am not finished, yet!