Greenstorm's Journal

Every election a different group of people turns into preppers, as if social support and the standard of living isn't drifting downwards so slowly the whole time.

There's so much I feel I can't say to folks around this: how exactly their responses echo the other side's responses on my off-grid etc groups four years ago, what access to medical care and standard of living and stability during climate events looks like over time, the complete symmetry in discussions on how to protect oneself from the other side.

I just removed the "" from the other side. It's like twisting a ripe peach with your hands and it comes apart into two halves and the pit pops out.

Someone on a local group -- in Canada -- just posted that they couldn't get a family doctor or dermatologist appointment in a reasonable time, and did anyone have tips for handling some skin issue. Everyone did have tips: keto, gut health, essential oils, various potions and amulets. Again I think about how if you can't personally access the benefit of something you need a reason why it's not really a banafit, you need to justify in your own head that it's better this way-- or if you don't, I would imagine that's when the torches come out? I've never seen that happen.

Even in myself, when I wait for a specialists appointment for long months to years, I begin to think that surely they couldn't do that much anyhow. Which is, of course, ascientific. But the feeling is there.

Everything was ultra muddy yesterday and the day before, things had thawed. I put down woodchips since I had access to them, though that means I need to keep the geese off long enough to establish a vegetation cover or it'll just break down into soil and more mud.

Last night it froze. I still need to plant my variety of sunchokes that I got from a semi-local tiny shop, one of these people who posts a couple videos on youtube of their garden and collects rare things. I ended up with skorospelka, stampede, red fuseau, clearwater, corlis bolton haynes, and beaver valley. May have to break through a frozen crust to get them in.

The peonies are in, and a ton of bulbs. This long slow fall has been a blessing for my body and my hope as I was able to put a little in the ground at a time for so long.

Assuming I achieve some sort of stable financial situation where I'm not doing paperwork all the time-all the time, I'm curious about whether I can write poetry still. My mind is so different from what it was, but poetry still feels like a mother tongue. It's just that my tongue is more often feeling silent these days, replaced by the experience at the inside of my eyes. Either way, these are times that call for poets and I feel the call, whether or not I can answeer.

I'm beginning to recover from all the disability paperwork submissions. It took most of my capacity for several weeks, I guess. Now I've had some time to recover, a week or two (?) which means I'm able to finally get back to more-or-less eating enough, maintaining the house a little, and doing things I actually like. I'm definitely in the learning part of managing this: if I take less than two hours to do things, then lie down a couple hours, then spend less than two hours doing things, then lie down again... it works pretty well. I've been pushing some, lately: doing pottery in my home for an hour and half, then lying down, and mostly eating premade food, worked. Spending a total of six hours in the day picking rose hips, cooking them down into syrup, and cooking meals for myself did not work. I got caught up in a conversation today while I was out and spent 4 hours doing errands instead of the hoped-for two, so tomorrow will be an in-bed day again.

So pushing things doesn't really make it better, but pacing things does, and I do need to keep my bedside stocked with bottled water, something proteiney, and something starchy so I can eat if I get stuck without the ability to go down the stairs and come up.

The woodstove has been off and on. When it's newly on downstairs is lovely, in part because I don't need to go up and down stairs to go outside: I can do pottery, lie on the couch, go outside, come in and lie on the couch, and it's much less physically taxing than the two flights of stairs to my bed. Right now, though, the downstairs wants to be around 16C without the woodstove, which is too cold, and roughly 30-35C with it on regularly, which is too warm. So we go on and off and I never quite settle. The baseboard heaters down there are on a thermostat that's a little wonky and they are, I'm pretty sure, full not only of my own cat hair but also scent of residents past. Those very thin electric fins can be vacuumed over but not cleaned between, really. Anyhow, when they go on my nose gets stuffed up.

All that said it stopped raining a couple days ago and we're into clear, brilliant, frosty-morning fall. Yesterday I dug up some extra raspberry bushes, today I bagged them and gave them away on the gardening facebook group in town. There's an art exhibition coming up that I made some pieces for, theme and proceeds are to the animal rescue. This is my first art show; the pieces just came out of the kiln yesterday so they need glazing and another fire. Even though it's my first I'm professional enough to know to make more than I need since some won't fire right, which is definitely what happened. I am not professional enough to want to write an artist's statement or price the objects.

Part of the lead up was making 4 teapots. I'd only made 3 in my life previously, 2 during the course and 1 the day after the course to cement how to make them in my head. Of the 4 I made, two were just kinda playing, and two were animal-themed for the show. One of the playing ones broke on the drive over to the studio (this happens when I make things at home, they're very fragile at that point).

One of the animal themed ones... well, when you make something on the wheel, it's turning and turning and basically all the clay is getting pushed in a spiral. The clay shrinks as it dries, and again as it turns to rock in the kiln, and that spiral unwinds a tiny bit. If you look at handmade cups you can often see the top of the handle is a little offset from the bottom, because the cup has unspiralled a little as it's dried and fired-- the handle was lined up to begin with. Some very pro potters offset the handle a little so when it spirals it lines up straight.

So for a teapot I make the big jug part, then I throw a spout separately. The bottom of the tip of the spout needs to be thin and kinda sticking out, for a good pour, while the top needs to be thicker for strength. Because I knew the spout would unwind a little, I offset the tip by about 10%. But. I threw the one spout upside down, which meant when I offset it, I offset it in the wrong direction, and so it unspooled even further away from where it's supposed to be. Always make several objects if it's vitally important that you get one to work!

I've been asked to teach a couple pottery classes and I'm trying to think about how to sort that out without killing my body.

Meanwhile the bottom of the driveway is a sea of mud, once I get the geese in the garden for the winter I'm going to throw rye in it to see if it'll sprout for spring. I definitely need to do some recontouring. I have some daffodils coming, I guess they act as good much against grass around apple trees, since they bloom then die back and suppress the grass but don't suppress the tree in the same way grass does. Bears have been all over in town, and the dogs have been working very hard at nice in several directions along the fenceline. The cats are mostly coming in because of the weather, but they go out enough to somehow come in and track mud up all the stairs onto my bed. When they are all in all day they get cranky and playfight on my bed at 6am.

I'm being patched in enough money to live on and to get the occasional assistive device right now.

When I get outside and get to do things I like I'm happy. When I spend too much time on the internet I'm not.

A lot of what I'm doing is what twelve-year-old me would have done: plants, following interest and hobbies from that into plant dying, food preserving (the rose hip syrup was so good), from plant dying into maybe light wire jewelery making as per bronze age pins or from food preserving into grain growing. My capacity is small so I'm trying not to bite off more than I can chew. I have the energy for a phone call maybe once a week with someone I care for, there aren't a lot of people in my day to day.

Just this evening I was lying here with Whiskey the cat, sprawled out with the double triangle on his belly softly lifting and falling with his breath, and I thought: I feel what it's like to love things again. Or, not things, but everything all at once. It's been awhile. Just to sit here, and let it breathe through my chest and out my skin, I remember that feeling. It was gone in a fraction of a second, and I'm not sure I want it to come back. It's not helpful for this era, for this political climate, for this situation, in any way. It's not contributory to a comfortable life. But it's familiar, and it's love, and I guess it can come back

Might as well update about the animal situation.

Solly and Thea are working great as a team all night. I put them in the front at night (the grain is all there) and Avallu in the back with the geese, Thea I put in the back during the day with Avallu so she can go in and eat and I can keep Solly mostly on her puppy food.

Avallu is getting more ok with Solly, but after two incidents where he was pretty sure she belonged only on the porch we need a little more than current levels of ok. In the evenings we often do cheese o clock, where they all see each other through the fence and get lots of cheese. I think they may have got too much cheese, so I may need a lower-fat alternative for some of these evenings. Avallu is doing well listening to commands even when Solly is in close proximity, but he's also very respectful of the fence. Solly is very wary of Avallu after the last couple incidents but has a seemingly limitless well of optimism and is coming around with enough cheese again.

I've definitely made some mistakes during this intro but I suspect everyone can be convinced to forgive me.

The geese are sleeping right up close to Avallu many nights and spending more time than usual up by the house. I can tell when there are no bears around because they go into the orchard. They've taken care of this spring's goslings well and those are now fully feathered. The orchard is pretty well mown at this point and the geese are starting to gorge on grain to fatten up for fall, they've gone from roughly a quarter bucket of grain per day for the 31 of them to closer to a whole bucket.

I have an ancona drake swap lined up for later this year, so he can cover this last two year's ducklings.

Incubator full of chicks should hatch while I'm gone. Things will be set up for mom to just plunk them into the quail shed under lights. These are mostly chanteclers but with a half dozen silkies. If I'm going to do silkies I might as well do seramas, which are the sweetest chickens on earth, but there are none to be had up here. Also Clyde the new rooster (his previous family got him as Bonnie and when he started to crow had to part with him) is doing well. He's a brahma, so he should get very big, but right now he's young and pigeon-sized with ENORMOUS FLUFFY feet. He's also smart, social, and I like him a great deal. I have not yet evicted the previous rooster from the bottom coop and put him in yet, I'm planning to do that when the chicks are a bit older, so right now he's sleeping under the truck canopy at night and hanging with the muscovies during the day. His crow is growing in adorably; I guess I have a thing for adolescent rooster crows.

The three boars have been shedding, I can scratch them with a rake and all the curly wool comes off and leaves growing-in guard hairs. I think they should move to the back to guard that entrance, though really Baby and Hooligan are the better defenders against bears. Did I mention Hooligan kinda bit me when I was stealing her babies? She didn't break skin or even bruise me, but she put her teeth on me in warning after I'd ignored her barking and other warnings. She is 100% a perfect temperament in this regard: she lets me play with her newborn babies if I'm not harassing them, catching them, and making them scream and she loves being scratched behind the ears but she can gauge situations in which it's appropriate to defend and does so with careful escalation. I'm just very impressed with Ossabaws in general, but also her in particular.

We do have at least two bears back there, one big and one small, that appear unrelated. The big one doesn't mind bear bangers, air horns, dogs, or yelling so I'm worried about what will happen come fall. Two bears in that territory is already a lot and it's only August. When bears go into their super calorie-seeking mode before winter they're less cautious and maybe it's not safe to have the pigs back there then? On the other hand the whole herd of pigs may actually be better defenders than the dogs, at least until the whole pack gels and maybe even after that.

The poor cats are withering away from lack of love and attention since I've been into the office several days the last few weeks. Also Demon is not a fan of a New Person in the house to farmsit and complains loudly when she's not around. I expect he'll come around. They continue to break down all doors into my bedroom to sleep on the bed, to my detriment.

Ducks are ducks. The anconas are in the covered area, and I want to make more covered areas for bear/lynx/raven/fox/coyote protection for the littles in future years. One broody ancona made a nest just inside the chicken house so I can barely squeak the door open and squeeze in and she will not be shifted. Everyone likes lamb's quarters weedings from the garden.

It's good? At least until the bears finish eating my neighbour's chickens and turn more attention on me.

There are a LOT of bears around right now. In town there were 15 sightings yesterday of at least 5 different bears, my one bear on the back has swelled to several of different sizes, etc etc. Not sure if this is because of the drought, of a frost that nipped a lot of the flowers this spring and led to less fruit, or the fires chasing them in close, or probably all of them. Plus the last few years have been really good years for the bears with 3 cubs per sow being frequent, so a year where a bunch starved is definitely due. Starting this early, though-- it's going to be an intense fall as they all go into calorie storage mode. I clearly need to fortify.

Which is an introduction to just saying that last night I woke up at 3am and helped Thea and Avallu chase two bears away ("help" is an overstatement, I held the flashlight. Man those dogs run fast) and then went back to sleep. In my dreams a sow and three cubs came close into the yard and me and the dogs were hitting them with sticks to try and get rid of them and then a friend(?) showed up and finally shot the sow. Then we were starting to allocate meat & fat (I'm more interested in fat, for soap) when I woke up. It was one of those experiences where real life blends seamlessly into a dream, I was wearing the same thing, it was basically just a continuation.

I woke up tired into a beautiful sunny dew-drenched morning and told my dogs they were so, so, so good and came in to work.

Since I never trust my plant markers *especially* over the winter, here's how my garlic bed is laid out:

The garlic is mostly in north-south rows just north of the gooseberries etc, in two patches: one on the east side of the aspen and one on the west. The east side is planted in more formal rows, the west side starts with more patches. The rows are not perfectly parallel since I couldn't get the tiller running, so it took some legwork to make the trenches to plant into on the east side, and I used the bulb planter for my drill on the west side.

The southern bed is covered in straw, the northern bed is not yet.

From east to west the rows are:

Prussian white (short row, only 1 bulb/4 cloves)
Northern Siberian
Metechi
Northern Quebec
Red Rezan
Great Northern
Purple Glazer
Portugal Azores
Georgian Crystal
Kostyn's Red Russian
Sweet German
Linda Olesky
Sweet Haven
Duganskij
Pretoro (short row, only 1 bulb/ 4 cloves)

(Aspen Tree)

Elephant Garlic planted by the State Fair apple tree so not in line with the others, only 3 cloves (the catalogue said 3 bulbs, I'm not pleased with their advertising)
Khabar (more in a patch than a row)
Fish Lake 3 (only 1 bulb/4-5 cloves)
Newfoundland Tall
Dan's Italian (1 bulb)
Dan's Russian
Brown rose
Wenger's Red Russian

All the above except the elephant garlic from Norwegian Creek garlic farm.

I still need to plant, from Woodgrain Farm, but ran out of room:
Music
Marino
Spanish Roja

That's a lot of kinds of garlic. This feels like a small trial to me, but I guess I really don't garden like other people do.

One of the questions in the autism assessment was something along the lines of, did you line toys up or sort them as a kid?

Well, it's fall. If spring is for sowing, summer is for harvesting, then autumn is for transforming. And transforming looks a lot like processing three roosters into fifteen jars, taking a clump of a thousand tomato seeds on a paper towel and winnowing them apart and separating them into packets, or taking lumps of fat and rendering them into amber lard which gets zipped into bars of shining ivory soap.

It's for transforming chaos into order, for taking the bounty scattered across the house, capturing it in geometric shapes, and shelving it in shining lines according to its properties: meat, fruit, vegetable, seed, soap.

Sowing and daydreaming brings great satisfaction. Reaping the harvest gives great satisfaction. When so much of that has been done that I'm glutted on it it's time to sort my toys in beautiful piles of abundance and line them up in shining lines.

Things that need to get done:

Feed brought and stored, garlic planted, wood stacked, ducks separated, everything watered, roses planted, mushrooms innoculated, straw covered, pig house built, daffodils planted, lard processed, food eaten, animal carriers power washed, back of truck cleaned under mats

Things I'm doing:

Stacking wood, laundry, reading about seam finishing, sorting existing fabric stash, researching cost effective (eg seconds) fabrics available to me for sewing, deciding on details of patternmaking, heating lard, washing bedding, watering garden prior to tilling

There's some overlap!

It's been a couple months since we had rain, rare up here. We still have a burning ban on -- campfires are allowed, but nothing bigger, no bonfires or anything larger than 1m x 1m. The ban was recently extended till the end of the month.

My soil is dust. I gave the south slope a good watering several weeks ago, but I think I'm going to need to water it, the mushrooms, and the rhubarb etc again. While it's good for plants to go into winter on the dry side -- the cells are less likely to burst when they freeze if they have a lower water content, so there's less freeze damage -- it's not good for them to go into a cold winter water stressed.

I've finally excluded the ducks from my garden space. Even the rhubarb is in rough shape. If I water it they'll destroy the soil by digging it all up for worms, so they got the boot. Now I need to spend enough time at home to move the sprinkler for a couple days; I've been in the office to help me focus on data entry for he tail end of this week.

Down on the coast the situation is pretty intense. At this time last year the coast got tremendously heavy rainfall which washed out a lot of the roads between here and there and flooded a ton of that, er, floodplain that makes up the fraser valley. Now it's very very dry. Normally there's a dry period in the summer and then the rains start; sixty days without meaningful rain isn't completely out of character for the area. All the drinking water is surface water, though, so there are tremendous dams which are supposed to recharge over winter, then hold a summer's worth of water. Unfortunately the summer is over and the rains haven't come yet. Agricultural water is being cut off, and I know at least one small outlying community is going to run out of drinking water by the end of the month.

My weather app has been drifting cooler and cooler very slowly, but we still have a steady stream of clear skies predicted same as we have the last couple months. It's making me lazy around an additional pig structure, getting my straw covered, and all that jazz but it is really nice for line-dried sheets and spending the last few hours of light-outside-work-hours outdoors.

Started mucking out the goosehouse. Can't get the organics smell off my fingers. Finishing pickles with my fingers smelling like this feels dodgy. Maybe I'll seed a bunch of tomatoes and see if that helps.

The first night Josh was here I went to the other bedroom and hung out feeling super sick (with a bucket, just in case, since my bathroom isn't nice enough to hang out on the floor by the toilet) and I was honestly a little concerned. My random nausea hadn't been that bad previously. Then at 6am or something I realized that I'd been at a friend's house the day before, and she had pot plants outside. I'd given them a ten-foot berth minimum, and figured I was outside and I'd be ok, so I didn't think of it as an exposure event but I guess it was. Good to know.

Despite that, and a little bit of residual tired from that, it's been really nice having Josh here. He brought up a ton of produce and I've been making a lot of hot mix pickles (cauliflower, green beans, carrots, hot peppers, a touch of celery, a light brine with 1/3 cup salt and 1/2 cup sugar per pot, which is my preference) to complement my charcuterie meats. I'm always looking for a replacement for my store-bought pepperoncinis, they need to be appropriately spicy and gently salty and have the right texture. Maybe these will be that! Either way, more pickles to have with charcuterie are always welcome; there's nothing as nice as variety in a no-effort (or no effort at the time) meal like a charcuterie plate.

Work is less stressful because last week was the silviculture conference, not the office, and this week is vacation. I'm also making an effort to interpret the rules in non-autistic ways, so when they say "that's not allowed, but you can do it, just don't let anyone know or do it too much, but it's ok to do, but it's not allowed, and don't tell the wrong people you do it" I'll just... do it and not tell anyone, rather than trying to avoid it. In an ideal workplace there wouldn't be rules like that; in a non-ideal workplace that could accommodate me I could ask for what it means, does "not too often" mean once a week? Every two weeks? In a non-patterned way? etc. Being autistic usually means taking people at their literal word and being considered inhuman because of it. There's a real art to managing the space where everyone does something but kinda just says they don't, and I'm not great at it, but we'll try. Either way it helps relieve the stress of ridiculous rules that no one will change because no one follows them anyway so they aren't an actual problem.

I painted some signs last night for many of my perennials: the roses and the gooseberries, mostly. I'm putting little signs on stakes in next to them since all my other labelling methods have failed. A wooden board screwed to a stake is too big for crows or ravens to carry off, and hopefully the paint won't fade (the new formulation of sharpies, I've learned, isn't colourfast in the sun anymore so I lost my labelling this year. Frustrating, because the labels from last year are still colourfast). I wish I painted in a nicer font, but it's still a kind of charming effect to have things labelled.

Josh found a bunch of cascade ruby gold corn ears that were both not frosted and pretty ripe, so that's excellent. I should do a separate farm post for that and the new piglets.

For some reason it's only now, after more than five years living here, that I've realized my basement bathroom fan... doesn't have an outlet on my outer walls. It *may* feed into the sewage siphon tube thing that lets gas up, that comes out my roof, but that's a narrow tube three stories up from the basement. So I guess I need two additional throughhulls in the house: one for a vent hood over the stove and one in the bathroom downstairs. Both of them only need a five or six foot run to get outside, so that's not so bad. It also explains a lot about moisture in that bathroom. Those things are, unfortunately, on the list after the deck (currently collapsing). On the plus side, if I wait a little maybe I'll also replace the awful shower down there.