Been a while since I posted here, got some important information that has to be passed along this time.

Friend Update

Probably the biggest inhibitor to my being online in any capacity to get things done lately has been my offline friend. He's been under so much stress the past few months that his physical and mental health have been affected adversely. His personality is not what it once was, he's not nearly as cheerful as he had been up to that point. Several months ago, a lot of things hit him at once, and I don't think he's recovered. The most profound thing that seemed to affect his mood was his own kids backing out of a promise to come visit him. He's not one to really talk about feelings and such, which makes it hard for those of us who genuinely care about him to figure this thing out.

The physical repercussions to the stress have been apparent as well, possibly induced by one of the medications he was taking, possibly related to the stress, or both. He's had some twitching in his arm which came about at the time the stress started and his meds were switched around (it happened the same week). His doctor finally set up an MRI for him, that was yesterday. He promised he'd let me and my Mom know what they find out when he gets the information from his doctor.

I'm worried for him, and I'm afraid of what might be found. I hope and pray that there's nothing serious wrong with my friend, but at the same time, I'm finding myself bracing for the worst possible news. My mom is scared too, and so is my sister. We don't know what to expect. If I take extended time away from the blogging circuit here, it's probably related to this topic. I will pass along updates as I get them. If I could ask everyone to keep my friend's good health in your thoughts and prayers, I'd really appreciate it.

Garden Update

Pumpkins got attacked by bugs, and a woodchuck sadly, lost all five of the ones we had growing on the vine. If I had the back-up I was supposed to get on the garden project, it wouldn't have happened, but no sense getting irritated over what can't be amended.

The tomatoes are coming along all right, bigger than last year's and more on the vines too. In the past few weeks I've gotten over ten tomatoes so far, and there's still plenty more to come. I'll have a picture or two up next time, I kind of took up a lot of space with the vids this time, so I'll save the pics for another post. Bell peppers just started coming in also, a serendipity situation for me, I wasn't expecting them to do anything at all this year (we didn't get anything last year from our pepper plants).

I've also begun to dry my mint and basil, using something I picked up from late-night TV viewing. No, not some one-use-wonder infomercial device, I'm talking good ol' Food Network and Alton Brown's Good Eats. I've learned a lot of neat little tricks from that show, including this fan and filter herb drying trick. Why use a box fan and central AC filters to dry herbs? Cause those food dehydrators use heat to move the air, and heat, even in small doses, changes the flavor of the herbs because while drying, it essentially cooks the herbs being dried. As Alton Brown would say: "Not good eats." This is my first attempt at doing this Mr. Brown's way, and so far, I'm impressed with the results. It takes a couple days (a week or more for thicker basil leaves), but it gets the job done.