Here's a recent addition to our back yard. Google Lens says this is Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria), an introduced biennial weed. The Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension has it on their Noxious Weed Watch List, which doesn't surprise me in the least.
In early spring this year, I picked up a packet of flower seeds and planted them in our back yard. Most of the flowers that have come up are cornflower, although a few other types have shown up as well. This one just appeared yesterday, and the name Google identified it by is listed on the seed packet.
Much the same with this one, which I photographed on Monday. Google says it's Clarkia amoena, and Clarkia amoena appears on the seed packet. Maybe more of them will appear later, but for now we've only seen one of each.
"Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death." -- Roger Waters
"Can't we talk about something more pleasant?" -- Roz Chast
"It was a good day." -- Ice Cube
In fact, it was a good day. Fair and comfortable, with cumulus clouds across a bright blue sky. PG and I drove a little, walked a little, enjoyed two good meals together. I learned some things, accomplished others, made dessert (vanilla pudding from scratch), and practiced a piece until I could get through the first third without error at 75% speed.
Oh, and this. I was driving on a side street when I spotted a cottontail rabbit in a yard to my right. The rabbit began moving in the same direction I was driving, and I momentarily lost sight of it behind a parked car.
Just in case, I slowed down, and a second later, the rabbit hopped across the road in front of me. It was barely visible in front of the car hood, and if I'd been going faster, the close call might have been too close. Didn't anyone ever tell it about hrududil?
Yesterday, Pat and I drove west just to get out of the house and stop scrolling. In a few minutes, we were in rural farmland, and she enjoyed the scenery.
At one point, we approached a traffic circle I hadn't used before, and I took the time to make sure I knew where traffic was coming from, how much of it there was, and that I would be safe getting into the circle. A split-second before I applied the gas pedal again, the car behind me honked impatiently. I'd expect that in the city at a red light, but at a traffic circle way out in the country? What is it with these people?
At the former Farmer Brown's Market out past Kutztown, I stopped at a Dollar General and got some snacks. The parking lot was across from a working dairy farm where Pat and I once saw a newborn calf in a field. I remember there were two adult cows, and they stared at us with a look that seemed to say "This doesn't concern you. Keep moving."
Before leaving the lot, I didn't bother consulting the map app before turning onto a road I hadn't traveled before. It was headed north, so I knew at some point it was going to run into I-78, so no worries.
Shortly before reaching the interstate, I saw a sign for a covered bridge, and pulled off the road to get a snapshot of the Dreibelbis Station Bridge. Hadn't heard of it, so a nice surprise for both of us.
Several years ago at age 65, and faced with the results of blood tests that indicated how close I was to being a full-on diabetic, I got serious about losing weight.
The physician's assistant who gave me the warning I didn't need -- my parents and both older sisters had been obese and had developed adult-onset diabetes, so I knew -- told me I could do something to improve my test scores, but, she tossed off, I'd have to lose 10 percent of my body weight. I believe "tossed off" describes it; it wasn't as though she said it with hope in her voice or that she sounded at all optimistic that I could do it. Kind of an unspoken "...as though you could do that."
Maybe it was reverse psychology on her part, but if it was, it worked. I'm sure I would have done it anyway, but her spoken skepticism was just that much more incentive. "I'll show you" has led to good outcomes.
No medication was necessary. I just did what it takes, the simple "eat less, exercise more" that is harder than it sounds, because that phrase leaves out "no sweets, no fats" and other fun stuff that had inflated me to 253 pounds.
Back then, I could have told you how long it took, but I've forgotten that part. But at my next annual Medicare appointment a year later, I weighed in at 228. A year after that, I could say to her, "I dropped 25 pounds and have kept it off." She didn't say anything in return.
More recently, I've fluctuated, as low as 220 after a low-grade URI, and as much as 233 after high-grade stress eating. The annual Medicare physical is two months away, and I want to go in there as close as I can get to that low number. I've been eating less and either walking, rebounding, or both, and this morning, I weighed 228 again. Reading the scale gave me a good feeling, and it's one that I understand I have control over going forward.
I can't believe I haven't used this before, but now I just ask myself, "Are you hungry?" Usually, the answer is "No," which has led to two meals a day instead of three, one in the morning sometime after coming downstairs, and the other in mid-afternoon, between the traditional lunch and supper times.
There's a heat advisory in place for the area, so elderly folk like me shouldn't go for the usual evening walk. Before the temperature reached the 90's, I did some gardening and dug up some stuff for replanting elsewhere, which was sufficient physical activity for the day.
