Tests that were scheduled for today have been cancelled.  The hospital’s imaging equipment is down and in need of repairs.  We’ll reschedule once they are back in business.  It leaves me somewhat mixed feelings.

Sylvia was having computer woes, so I bought her a new unit.  It worked for two days.  After that, it failed to power on.   Now I have to send it to Texas for repair or replacement.    Aargh!

What’s next?

Yesterday, Sylvia and I started this season’s efforts on the vegetable garden.  Yes, there will be flowers in there too.  First we checked on the plants that went in last year.

Giant garlic looking good

The garlic plants are looking strong.  These were a gift from Sylvia’s cousin.  He’s the one that keeps entertained through items sent to me e-mail inbox. 

We have two varieties of asparagus. The Martha Washington seems to be doing better

Perhaps I should mention that after I put the camera down the serious weeding began.  Pay no attention to weeds.  Please.

Rosanne asked about the rhubarb that we got from her and Dale.  It is doing great.  Rhubarb needs a lot of nutrition to flourish so rotted manure is what it needs.  Or llama droppings, and neighbor Meghan will supply us with some from her llama, Grace.

Rhubarb or pie plant makes the best pies IMHO

After the photo op, we pulled weeds and tilled the rest of the garden.  Today I have a very sore back.  But I feel good and am already dreaming of rhubarb pie.

I had expected to take Sylvia out for lunch after church yesterday (Mother’s Day).  Saturday evening, she announced that she had some pork ribs in the freezer and wanted to bake them for Sunday dinner.

That’s what she did.  She even fixed mashed potatoes!  We enjoyed that fine meal together and then spent a few minutes tidying up the house.

Our older son, Bryant, with his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Briana, (aka the 3Bs) dropped in a little later.  In addition to the beautiful handcrafted card for Sylvia, they brought pie and ice cream.  Wow!  How great is that?  We had a great visit, as we always do.  It was good to get caught up on the latest happenings in their lives.

In the evening we drove to the nearby (5 miles) sandwich shop for a light evening meal.  We shared a BLT on whole wheat.  It didn’t take much to top off our tanks.  Then we returned home and watched Sylvia’s movie selection, Salt with Angelina Jolie.  As Sylvia observed, “There’s a lot of action in that one!”

Then, as is our custom of a Sunday evening, we called our younger son, Scott.  We had what for us is a short conversation.  By then it was bed time and Sylvia said goodnight.  I was doing a couple of online chores and would follow shortly after . . . but sleep would elude me until very late.

Yet today is a good day.  The sun is shining.

Yesterday, Sylvia went with me to visit the urologist.  We already knew the outcome of the biopsy.  The doctor had asked us both to come so that he could go over the results and analyze them for us.  He also talked about pros and cons of various treatment options.

It is prostate cancer and it is of an intermediate to aggressive type.  (Not all prostate cancer is slow to develop.)  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but considering how fast my numbers had risen, I wasn’t greatly surprised.

Next Friday, I’ll be going in for CT and bone scans.  The purpose is to see if the cancer has spread beyond the edges of the prostate.  The good news is there is an 89% chance that it is limited to the prostate.  I think we caught this one early and that bodes well for a good outcome.

We’ve had a lot of info to process in the last 30 hours.  However, we have a few weeks to think, talk and pray our way to a treatment decision.

Sylvia summarized the situation well when she observed, “Well, this is going to put a crimp in you summer plans.”  She is right, but the survival rate for this is very good.  And we are both optimistic and confident about what lies ahead.

Sylvia has just returned from a stay with her father.  Last week, while she was there, she told me that her cell phone’s battery was nearly flat.  She had left the charger here at home.  She also wanted a couple of other things.  I offered to take the items to her.

While I was at her dad’s, I took some time for a stroll around the house.  With camera in hand, I went in search of . . .

hyacinth.  I found some growing in the lawn near the driveway.  Aren’t they lovely?

As I shot that photo, I saw a tulip blossoming in the ditch beside the road.  The tulips at home would open the next day.

From the ditch, I walked to the back side of the house.  On that side, there is a pergola that is covered in wisteria.  Our friend Vanilla had posted a photo of his wisteria in full blossom.  This far north, it takes longer for those blossoms to develop.

I activated the camera’s flash to provide light on the back-lit scene.  I was rewarded with an interesting effect.

My friend Roy had sent me an e-mail with the subject line “The Last Photo in the Camera.”  There were some good ones in the collection of shots.  One of them fit particularly well with a post that Lin had published on Duck & Wheel with String.

I sent the photo on to Lin with a couple of lines that I knocked together. Today she posted photo and text.  Stop by and comment on her post “This is Why . . .”   Be sure to tell her that I sent you.  Thanks!

As Sunday afternoon drifted into Sunday evening.  The house was quiet with TV off.  I was breathing slow regular breaths.   Then I heard Sylvia approach.  She had dealt with e-mail correspondence and won a couple of hands of spider solitaire.  (We don’t talk about the losses.)  I rose to a higher level of consciousness.  (I opened my eyes.)

“What do you want for supper?” she asked.  That’s like handing me a blank check.

“I’d like a BLT,” was my response.

“I don’t have any B in the house,” she reported.  (No surprise there.)

“We can drive to the village.  Papa C has some and he’ll make the sandwich for us.”

“You’d take me out to eat twice in one day?”

“Yes, for you I would do that.  Besides, I really would like a BLT.”

A short while later we were sitting in Papa C’s pizza, ice cream and sandwich restaurant.  The BLTs were very tasty and the folks there are very nice.  It’s nice to eat and talk without a lot of distractions.  Okay, there were a couple of young men sitting in the booth next to ours, but they weren’t noisy.  A couple of customer’s came in for carry-out orders.  But those aren’t really distractions they just add a homey feel to the atmosphere.

Time came to pay and return home.  As I approached the counter the waitress flashed a big smile and said, “You folks are all set.  Your bill has been paid.”

She assured us that she was serious and that the young men had extended us that kindness.  So who were they?

I don’t know who they were.  Neither Sylvia nor I have ever seen them before.  Nor did they leave a clue.

I asked the rhetorical question, “How can we ever thank them?”  Sylvia responded, “By paying it forward to someone else.”  The waitress said, “Right!”

No doubt you’ve seen it happen.  It may be that it has happened to you.  I’m talking about the embarrassment that comes from speaking without proper consideration of the words that are about to come out of the mouth.

It helps to think before one speaks.

It pays to think before speaking.  Now, if I could master that . . .

Don’t let the title fool you.  It is not Christmas, and that’s not Santa on our roof.  We’ll maybe it is, but she doesn’t have a bag full of toys.  Yes, it is Sylvia.

Yesterday, was wonderful and sunny.  I had noticed that in heavy rains, and we’ve had a lot of them lately, the gutter that runs beside the kitchen and dining area runs over with water.  That gutter needed to be cleaned and the rest needed to be checked.

Sylvia, the volunteer, went up that tower on the back corner of the garage and walked the roof to access the nature and scope of our gutter-cleaning project.  About 20 feet of gutter had to be cleaned.  I brought out the ladder and with that we soon had the job finished.

As we were finishing, Sylvia observed that the shrubs would soon cover the windows.  I promised to take care of the job.  A few minutes later, I had a pair of long-handled loppers in my hand and was beginning to work on the end shrub.  I have tried to keep the growth cut back with an electric hedge trimmer, but every year the top just seemed to creep up.  It would require major surgery.

It took a while with both of us working at it.  We got this far and then decided to continue at a later time.

It required some planning and packing to fit all the debris into the tractor’s front-end loader, but we did.  (Wish you were here Pricilla to help process those shrubs.  Fortunately, it looks like more rain today.  I don’t really want to prune another shrub today.