This is new

A friend and former co-worker of mine runs a decent size orchard nearby. Last count around 125acres of apples, pears and peaches.
Tho not just any fruit, some of the best varieties you can find. He used to bring it into work for orders though neither of us works there now. Now I catch up with him at the local farmers market on the weekend.
He grows pears, apples, nectarines and peaches (my favorite? Ambrosia. A large white fleshed variety that smells like purfume).
One more great thing about Michigan is the variety of fruit in the fall. The area we live in is one of the two largest areas in Michigan for apples and grapes and Michigan is one of the top producers of Apples and Cherries in the country.
And if you haven't had a HoneyCrisp apple, you are really missing out on a treat. Brian turned me on to these during a particualarly good year when his were bigger than softballs (it seems HoneyCrisp trees have 1/2 year harvests, One year is great, the next will automatically be lean).
The next thing he turned me on to are Asian pears, long before they or HoneyCrisps were in vogue.
And Brian grows around 8 varieties.
The great thing about Asian pears is they eat like an apple (staying crisp)and keep for twice as long, just getting better with age. I've kept some for three months in the crisper. My favorite variety has a clove smell that just gets stronger the riper it gets and the juice turns into honey.
So last week I was surprised (I shouldn't be) to see something new (and not a variety of something, if it's new, he'll have it first) from him.

Pear Cider!
Not cheap, $3 for 1/2 gallon but it's not like you can shop around.
And that's something else about Brian's stuff, it's not the cheapest but you can be certain it's always the best.
For his, I'm willing to pay.

Great cider by the way, a very unique taste.

Well, it's been about two weeks now and things seem to be going fairly well. Start PT finally on Tuesday.

I'll have one good day, do a bit too much and then have a fairly bad day the next, kind of a wicked circle. But I can tell you it is maddeningly frustrating having your dominant hand unavailable for most things. Went back to work last Monday and typing and writing were a real challenge. I suppose I could have taken several weeks off as short term disablilty at 2/3 pay but I just couldn't afford that. So i took 4 vacation days.

As for the surgery, went pretty much according to plan about 2.25 hrs. According to the surgeon this time the right side labrum was in even worse shape than the left. If you can see it in the photos below, it pretty much looks like a horse's mane, all shredded. 1st pic across and 1st in 2nd row.

But I think things will go much better this time for recovery.

As I mentioned to Cody:

1. I was mentally prepared for the outcome of this surgery, I was not last time. I asked for this

2. I no longer have a lot of the compensations that I did last time which caused complications in PT

3. I’m able to identify different pains now as being normal or not and can feel confident of how I’m convalescing

4. All the work I’ve put in to stabilizing the shoulders is paying off and I can identify what I feel and the body can now move more normally.

5. despite the pain I’m more positive and not so “why me?”

The second set shows the Labrum Trimmed up and the threads of the repair to tighten it up that were anchored to the Scapula.
Third set shows the work done to begin grinding off the bone spur(last pic).



Pretty Kewl the pics they can take these days. I have glossies from 2.5 yrs ago and the resolution on these is way better in just that short time.