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Sep. 17th, 2026 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormWell, setting up the show definitely flattened me. I also went in to have an open studio on Sunday, and between those two things ended up with some very very significant pain for several days.
I'm never quite sure where the line between discomfort and pain is, but this was definitely on the pain side. It hurt when I moved, but also hurt when I didn't move, and my muscles sounded like tiny bubble wrap when I moved. Also my joints felt kinda like very rusty hinges? I tried things like: lying very still and not moving, splitting wood because if it was gonna hurt anyway I might as well get something done, hanging out with Robs which is always very distracting, and thinking about plants very hard. Oh, and painkillers. Nothing worked great but painkillers + distraction was maybe best.
I ordered some schlumbergera seeds from a guy in Sweden who breeds them: El fuego x phoenix fire, phoenix fire x mango majesty, orisschiana x double dream, ah691 x gold lantern. Ordering plants is out of my budget now (boo for the one reasonably-priced US place not shipping to Canada) so the seeds can be a project; they take roughly three to four years to flower so we'll see how they go.
The figs are outside, frosting overnight and waiting for dormancy. Most of the seeds are on, it was a big brassica year: 18 days radish, another round of rapini, choy sum, komatsuna (though the muscovies ate most of those seeds), red mustard (good earth farms), I think some others. There's a white hailstone radish and more ethiopian greens (b carnata) waiting to be harvested. The purple ethiopian greens didn't ripen seed fast enough, they were planted pretty late. They also had less silkily-textured leaves? We'll see how they do next year.
Non brassica seeds were a couple early tomatoes (beaverlodge, 0-33, latah, ditmarsher (which was first this year), some of my own homebrew ones; woad; clematis occidentalis; and there will be some delphinium and rose campion if I manage to cut them. Oh, and the ziar breadseed poppy.
Then I think I will have enough seed from my sweet corn grex, though it looks like most of what ripened in time was not only yellow but pollinated by yellow (corn is one of the few you can tell). The morden mix corn is still out there waiting to be harvested, risky but it needed to bulk up before harvest. Montana morado got tall and did not ripen in time, I ate some of it as baby corn while checking if the was anything to harvest. The fava grex got two harvests in and there's one more set out there still, they'll be the seeds I categorize as "late" in my jars. And the poor confused chiddham blanc that I planted at the wrong time threw up some seed, which I harvested, and also I think some will overwinter.
I really should plant a set of wheat now, before it gets too cold.
Anyhow I'm still really tired, and also have the occasional day of feeling panicky/guilty like I'm supposed to be doing something to do with disability. This is the longest I've gone without having to write or submit something. I guess the work has transferred to doctor's appointments or the workshop-style appointments the specialists do. It's such a luxury to be able to do those at my own pace. I just hope the next round of medications doesn't add more to my monthly bill, I'm already spending roughly twice my food bill on meds. I also hope the provincial pharmacare subsidy starts January, it goes off the income I declared two years ago so I'm above subsidy levels right now.
Speaking of meds, adding the estrogen back in has definitely helped 100% with suicidality, except... the estrogen patch I was prescribed is not available. The pills I was prescribed as backup are not available. The patch I ended up with is supposed to last for a week but it doesn't. I figured out how to make it stop taking the living skin off after a coupel days (scrub with a nail brush for 30-60 seconds, strong rubbing alcohol wash, let dry and put the patch on without touching) but it still stops working after 4.5 days. When I take it off at that point it's fully covered with naturally-shed dead skin, so I kind of wonder how fast other people shed skin? I also definitely feel it wear off, and my PMDD awareness comes in super useful "huh, thoughts about ending things, that's not right, let me check the calender, oh yeah, estrogen patch change day". It does mean I need to have enough energy to shower and super scrub etc every 5 days, which is... a lot.
It's very definitely fall. The wood stove has been on and off. I moved upstairs to sleep and the cats' social order is disrupted. I'm not sure I like it up here? But it's warmer more consistently.
Robs and Solly have moved a couple increments towards being more ok with each other. Robs is actually great, Solly is scared when there are no fences in between. Hopefully we'll get there.
I'm never quite sure where the line between discomfort and pain is, but this was definitely on the pain side. It hurt when I moved, but also hurt when I didn't move, and my muscles sounded like tiny bubble wrap when I moved. Also my joints felt kinda like very rusty hinges? I tried things like: lying very still and not moving, splitting wood because if it was gonna hurt anyway I might as well get something done, hanging out with Robs which is always very distracting, and thinking about plants very hard. Oh, and painkillers. Nothing worked great but painkillers + distraction was maybe best.
I ordered some schlumbergera seeds from a guy in Sweden who breeds them: El fuego x phoenix fire, phoenix fire x mango majesty, orisschiana x double dream, ah691 x gold lantern. Ordering plants is out of my budget now (boo for the one reasonably-priced US place not shipping to Canada) so the seeds can be a project; they take roughly three to four years to flower so we'll see how they go.
The figs are outside, frosting overnight and waiting for dormancy. Most of the seeds are on, it was a big brassica year: 18 days radish, another round of rapini, choy sum, komatsuna (though the muscovies ate most of those seeds), red mustard (good earth farms), I think some others. There's a white hailstone radish and more ethiopian greens (b carnata) waiting to be harvested. The purple ethiopian greens didn't ripen seed fast enough, they were planted pretty late. They also had less silkily-textured leaves? We'll see how they do next year.
Non brassica seeds were a couple early tomatoes (beaverlodge, 0-33, latah, ditmarsher (which was first this year), some of my own homebrew ones; woad; clematis occidentalis; and there will be some delphinium and rose campion if I manage to cut them. Oh, and the ziar breadseed poppy.
Then I think I will have enough seed from my sweet corn grex, though it looks like most of what ripened in time was not only yellow but pollinated by yellow (corn is one of the few you can tell). The morden mix corn is still out there waiting to be harvested, risky but it needed to bulk up before harvest. Montana morado got tall and did not ripen in time, I ate some of it as baby corn while checking if the was anything to harvest. The fava grex got two harvests in and there's one more set out there still, they'll be the seeds I categorize as "late" in my jars. And the poor confused chiddham blanc that I planted at the wrong time threw up some seed, which I harvested, and also I think some will overwinter.
I really should plant a set of wheat now, before it gets too cold.
Anyhow I'm still really tired, and also have the occasional day of feeling panicky/guilty like I'm supposed to be doing something to do with disability. This is the longest I've gone without having to write or submit something. I guess the work has transferred to doctor's appointments or the workshop-style appointments the specialists do. It's such a luxury to be able to do those at my own pace. I just hope the next round of medications doesn't add more to my monthly bill, I'm already spending roughly twice my food bill on meds. I also hope the provincial pharmacare subsidy starts January, it goes off the income I declared two years ago so I'm above subsidy levels right now.
Speaking of meds, adding the estrogen back in has definitely helped 100% with suicidality, except... the estrogen patch I was prescribed is not available. The pills I was prescribed as backup are not available. The patch I ended up with is supposed to last for a week but it doesn't. I figured out how to make it stop taking the living skin off after a coupel days (scrub with a nail brush for 30-60 seconds, strong rubbing alcohol wash, let dry and put the patch on without touching) but it still stops working after 4.5 days. When I take it off at that point it's fully covered with naturally-shed dead skin, so I kind of wonder how fast other people shed skin? I also definitely feel it wear off, and my PMDD awareness comes in super useful "huh, thoughts about ending things, that's not right, let me check the calender, oh yeah, estrogen patch change day". It does mean I need to have enough energy to shower and super scrub etc every 5 days, which is... a lot.
It's very definitely fall. The wood stove has been on and off. I moved upstairs to sleep and the cats' social order is disrupted. I'm not sure I like it up here? But it's warmer more consistently.
Robs and Solly have moved a couple increments towards being more ok with each other. Robs is actually great, Solly is scared when there are no fences in between. Hopefully we'll get there.
