This is a PSA. Safety at Home

Speaking of grab bars and general safety, I thought I'd give you a guided tour.

I have a townhouse with two full and one half bathrooms, and a step down to the living room. Two full flights of stairs.

About eighteen years ago I started installing grab bars. I only use ADA compliant (Americans with Disabilities Act) or your regional equivalent.  They're designed to have the best nonslip knurling, the part you grab, the best engineered distance between wall and bar, the best gasket, and this feature, see below, which I learned about yesterday. 

Don't shop online other than from a medical supplier, because there are loads of bars not engineered this way, not suitable for screwing into tile, no matter what they claim. Bathroom fitting people don't have to have ADA compliant bars. They're more decorative than useful, I think. Anyway a word to the wise. Back to ADA compliant 

See how the screws favor one side? That's to enable at least two to be attached to the stud. The usual wide triangle used for railings is evenly spaced around the plate and it's likely only one screw can attach to a stud. This is vital to know, since a person falling and reaching for a bar can tear it off the wall otherwise.

The reason I originally started way back then installing bars was after Handsome Partner fell in the bathroom, grabbed the towel rail, which tore out of the wall and hit him on the head on the way down. 

Next day I contacted Mike the contractor,  got three bars, one per bathroom, from a medical supplier, and he researched the approved installation needed, and replaced the towel bars with the safety ones.

As you see, on the left they still work as  towel bars. 

Later HP needed an assist to help navigate the step up from the living room to the downstairs bathroom, it's now also a handy parking place near the front door for masks, sunglasses and visitor car tags.

And bars in the shower to enable him to stand up from the shower seat. We measured this to fit his reach. It's on the right of the top picture.

Then stairs became more difficult and I had bars installed on the side where there was no banister rail.

The reason for two bars rather than one long one was that he needed to grip the curve on the upper one to pull himself up. Then the bar at the top gave him the ability to turn onto the step up on the right there. That's the one Mike reinstalled yesterday, higher, to suit me.

More recently I had Mike install this to help me get out of the bathtub in the other bathroom

On the left you see the assist that clamps on the side of the tub which I installed myself.

I kept all the bars in place after Handsome Partner died, figuring sooner or later I'd need them myself.  

Eventually he became quadriplegic, so the bars weren't in use, and I moved on to learn the skills of the Hoyer lift. All these stages enabled us to have a life, and him to be home to the end, as we both wanted. 

Back to the present, I notice that even younger, able people tend to use the bars because they're there. Including a couple of friends who decided to install one near their own sunken living room, after realizing how handy mine in the front hall is, to alert visitors to the step down, averting a dramatic headfirst entrance.

Anyway for what it's worth, this is a tiny fraction of the adaptations we made over time.  In case it's useful knowledge, here it is!

Later today, knitting group, more cheerful!

Also while Mike was here, he the wood lover and worker, geeked out over the darning egg and dibber Joanne gave me. The dibber, he tells me, is white oak, the egg possibly beech. He loved them, handled them for ages after I explained their function, admired the engineering. 

Happy day everyone. Eat chocolate rabbits, stay safe.

It's still all Ukraine no matter what Putin says.

Social whirl and safety first

Yesterday just as I was putting a banana bread into the oven, I got a text from a local friend whose hermit tendencies even exceed mine, to say she is trying out a new tea, can she come over? I accused her of checking up on me, and said if she waited till 2.30, there would also be fresh banana bread..

So we spent a lovely afternoon catching up, testing the tea and diving into the bbread and saying we mustn't wait another year to do this again.

After she'd left, carrying a large bunch of sage, great cook, my local friend/neighbor/contractor came over to check on the grab bar I'd asked him about. 

It's right at the top of the stairs, where you turn a right angle corner and go up a step , and I had it installed for Handsome Partner when he was still able to do stairs, which I'd set up with bars available on both sides and at the corner at the top.

We installed it exactly where he needed it to be, to reliably find it going upstairs,  that being his blind  side. That meant anchored into hollow wall, missing the studs.Over the years it's loosened, and I wanted it reset higher, to suit me, also anchored into studs, safer.

So here he is, Man at Work, and job done.

He tightened up the other bars while he was at it. He also finally billed me, very reasonably, for the work he did on the deck ages ago. His bill had never reached me, from back in June, so I instantly wrote a check.

Then having exchanged news -- his daughter in Florida is fine, never lost power though rain is drenching down, my other friends ranged from never lost power to lost power, lanai torn away, but people and animals fine -- I picked him a bunch of sage and he gave me a great idea, took some banana bread, then left.

He's a terrific cook and here's the idea: saute a pan of sage leaves to crisp, serve on top of pumpkin butternut squash soup. Definitely going to try this.

Then met another neighbor out doing something in her front yard and we had a hilarious convo about our accidental gardening. 

She got a watermelon growing with edible sized fruit from a pit she'd tossed, and garden balsam, no idea where from, also zinnias from, she thinks, next door. I told her about my inadvertent crops. We both look like good gardeners this year!

All in all, a mad social whirl. I need to decompress now.

Happy day everyone, try to stay safe, dry and don't get all combustible over our various useless policymakers, applicable to practically every country of our readers, except maybe NZ where the sane  Jacinta holds office. 

Here we do have a sane president and veep, but an off the rails Congress, oh well.

Meanwhile in other serious news

I think I know quite a few people who could happily help destroy chocolate rabbits.

 

Late flowers, backyard in fall, easy quiche

 Yesterday I walked the entire perimeter of the development, cool sunny day

And home again noticed a few bell peppers ready to pick. Gary's been offering me them for ages and I haven't accepted because I don't like bell peppers. Except in a Trenton pepper, onion meatball sub, best in the world.

But since these would go to waste, I wondered if I should pick and find a way to cook them I'd like.

There followed the onion, pepper crustless quiche

Eggs, milk, flour, blue cheese and shredded sharp cheddar, beaten together, poured over the peppers and onions, 350°f 35 minutes. Note to self: do this again. 

Happy day everyone, cook what you like to eat, or get a Trenton sub, whichever is more practical.

Renovating, vegetating and cooperating

 Current reading, aside from a Maisie Dobbs reread of  Pardonable Lies and the audio of The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh, one of a creditable series continuing the Wimsey/Vane saga, is 

Ironic in view of that previous sentence. It's about resisting the produce at all costs mentality, a Western ailment which counts only results and considers a day wasted if not productive. I'm hoping to be enlightened as I go.  

It's a result of the industrial revolution, I think. Before then people certainly worked hard, but not to acquire and own and prove their worth and  please a boss and fit in,  so much as to live day to day.

It's also a suggestion about resisting making our lives into Instagram fodder, not a bad idea. I'm quite good on this point -- I don't do anything in order to blog about it, just blog about what I did.

Yesterday, down with a bump, I finally did this.

I unravelled a vest I'd knitted long ago which proved to be a bit too warm. But I think it will make grand socks, doing that two in one method.

It's beautiful yarn, part of a gift from granddaughter long ago, her fiber share from Shepherd Susie, in the natural cream color, lovely quality wool, definitely worth another try. And with enough small lengths for the inevitable darning which will happen. Using Joanne's Grandma's darning egg.

And yesterday I spent time on the deck, catching good weather while I can, along with butterflies doing likewise

And, the streets of San Francisco now back in the box ready to pass on, I broke out out Jungle Paradise or whatever it's called

It's turning out to be a nice sidebar thing, a piece now and then in passing. I don't sit and fiddle  at it, not my style, just stand a minute while the kettle's boiling, that kind of thing.. 

Yesterday morning the sun, now moving around the living room, fell just right on this handmade paper artwork, so I seized the day

            Ebb Tide                      Liz Adams 

White on white three dimensional art is so tricky to picture with no special lights and a liw level camera, so you catch the moment. A few minutes later the cooperative light had moved on. 

Happy day everyone, keep moving on, any direction will do 

Jigsaw puzzles, small treasures, chocolate,

 First, to blogistas who observe 

The Freecycling yesterday was a love fest end to end. Such happy and courteous people. All the surplus plants gone and more than one recipient said they're happy in their new homes! Chairs to a very nice person who never fails to get back to thank. Anyway, very encouraging.

Probably more soon. Meanwhile the last piece of the San Francisco street scene goes in 

And the completed image is the one I'll use for Freecycle to show potential takers it's complete.

Yesterday's walk yielded beautiful lichen

And a discarded bluejay feather

There were local thunderstorms, but here just rain with sunny intervals. 

And the front path was getting narrower with sedum, chrysanthemums and spiderwort spilling over it.

So I pruned back the bits catching people's ankles and have a house arrangement

In the afternoon, time for a little something, and I hadn't got around to making banana bread, so I made a  chocolate spread for afternoon tea

In addition to what you see on the counter, I added a drop of milk and a spoonful of confectioner's sugar. Worked nicely. And later last evening, a spoonful blended with a mug of hot milk made a late night hot chocolate drink. 

Meanwhile here's my knitting group

Well, if you don't count the gracious living room, the hats and the knitting of blankets for the troops, that is! Otherwise exactly the same.

Notice the hatless lady near the window winding a hank of yarn off the skein held around her knees. Probably the kids were at school, otherwise this was a classic kid task, holding the yarn and learning to move back and forward to make it easier for your mother or Gran or older sister or aunt, you could be called on anywhere, to wind.

At this period the guests,  even relatives, kept their hats on. My aunts would, in our house. Only the lady of the house went unhatted. And everyone hatted up outside the house, even to run to the corner shop. 

Evelyn Dunbar was more than a wartime illustrator. She was an acute realist social historian. She's worth looking up.

Happy day everyone, tend to our knitting, glad for the friends in PEI who came through Fiona, many thoughts for all our Florida blog and rl friends facing Ian 

Photo AC 

One thing in, several out, ficus, Freecycle, Fiona

Yesterday was the Bringing in of The Ficus, now a bit over eight feet tall and almost fifty years old.

As usual I had to cut the taproot she'd put down over the summer, and a lot of hair roots, before she let go. 

Also as usual she came right out of the pot like a kid dragging her feet and leaving her boot behind.

But this was good because I was able to brush off some earth, then, once indoors and back in her pot and saucer, I added in new soil and watered it down.

And now she's all what kept you, been waiting to get in with my friends.

Reunion party last evening.

Some of the friends have left via Freecycle, while the weather is still warm enough to travel.

I started all of these from cuttings and rootings from the parent plants which I still have. 

No lack of takers including people who didn't read the entry and asked what they were! And would I split them up, yes, of course, but you need to tell me when you'll come, I'm not getting into a penpal correspondence about it.

But I'm nice to plant fans because I feel they're kindred spirits. And now I know it's easy to pass on extras via Freecycle.

While I was at it, I moved on some chairs I've had around unused for ages, 

I made the entry late last night and woke this morning to someone who wants to come by any minute. So I got up promptly to lug them outside onto the step,  where the last of the houseplants await pickup this morning too. 

The step's getting a bit crowded.

Yesterday was a day of finally getting things done. I baked bread now there's no need to think twice about heating up the kitchen

Oatmeal and wholewheat, very sturdy and artisanal, and ready for that Vermont butter and Vermont sharp cheddar you see in the picture.

I'm very concerned for Marie, our blogger friend on Prince Edward Island, and hoping she  and family managed to get through Fiona intact. It was a big hit on coastal Eastern Canada.

Thankful for a quiet day here and wishing you all a happy day everyone.

Photo AC