greenstorm | Entries tagged with update

I still really haven't recovered from... all the stuff. Teaching classes, pushing to do one more thing and then one more thing as the fall stretched on long without much snow on the ground, PMDD meds wobble and then medical stuff, and a steady dribble of disability correspondence.

The hope was that, from last full moon to next, I could take a month off and just kind of recover and regroup.

Well, what happened is that I did an impromptu cleaning bee with some folks at the clay studio. We've had a ton of people through there, so it was nice to do some of the project stuff together (sand and kiln wash shelves, turn over some reclaim, organize some things) and load the big kiln full of bisque; the one guy who comes in only on his two-week shifts had a crate full of scuplture, the homeschool group had a lot of stuff, and two of the studio people had taken a wheel class in the next town over so they had more stuff too. It was a fun and varied kiln load. I got someone else to do the next-day check and I left relatively early so it wasn't too bad for me, and my mental health really needed a volume of communication with folks that wasn't authoritarian/disability logistics related.

My vet offered a sale on pet dental work, and so I booked Thea in for next week since she has some tooth stuff she's been waiting on. It isn't uncomfortable but it needs to happen at some point, so a sale seems like the right point. It will mean taking her into town (2 hour drive) in the pre-dawn dark (which is admittedly anything before 8:30am these days) in unknowable road conditions, and sleeping in the truck while her surgery is done.

It was inevitable that a -20 cold snap would be forecast for next week. We've been bobbling around freezing or just slightly below, again, still. It's normal in Fort for cold snaps to alternate with warmer snaps, not really fully above freezing or just a little above, where the snow compacts and there's a reprieve from the brutality of real cold. Our last snap was in the -15Cs and was brief; the next is supposed to be in the -20Cs and not so brief. There's supposed to finally be a lot of snow; we have some but not much right now.

The last couple days were warmish so I went out and sledgehammered some things off the ground (things freeze to the ground and ice gets harder the colder it is, so sometimes on the warm days they can be moved. In this case there was a concrete block that had blown down right where I wanted to snowblow, and some pallets lying on the ground. The yard is clearer now, which is good.

Then last night a big wind came up, gusts up to 80kph, and unsurprisingly the pigpen's metal roof started to peel off. I went out with the power drill and climbed up there. The wind was enough to pull some of the screws through the metal and fold it in half backwards, so I folded it back and screwed some wooden strips overtop, so the screws went through wood, then the metal, then into the structure. While I was doing that the roof was bucking and lifting and very slippery since it was angled and topped with snow. I did not slide off (the drop would only have been 4 feet from the back, so I wasn't so worried) but I did get some bruises. It was holding an hour later but the wind continued all night; I have not yet gone out to check. Suspecting the wind might be ab issue, I'd used hurricane ties on the rafters when I made it, so I'm actually quite pleased with myself. Been a couple years since I made a pigpen fix in the middle of Winter Weather. Of course, it doesn't leave me much energy for today.

It's looking clear and sunny through the window. It's inviting me to come out and totter around a bit in the sun, and of course everyone needs to be fed.

But you can see how I haven't had much rest. I've had the mental fortitude to not do too much pottery at least, crawling into bed around 4pm instead of taking an hour of wheel time at night.

Descent into meds:

Oh! Good news from the gut meds I was given by my doctor: things feel weird in there still but these really help. Things seem to pretty much go in the right direction, with minimal pain comparatively, and at more or less the right speed. I don't worry everything is going to fall out of my stomach if I lean over, and I suspect I'm breathing in a lot less gut contents at night. AND I'm feeling a little less lightheaded, or lightheaded less frequently, which I'm chalking up to keeping liquid in my body better. Interestingly one of them (Accel hyoscine or something?) was prescribed to me for gallbladder stuff but I think has additional IBS use? I'm taking it at half the prescribed amount, since that seems to work best.

Anyhow, there we are.

Well, that was a lot.

PMDD stuff receded a bit. I *think* pepcid and allergy pills help it (apparently they can help folks) but it has been a really rough ride.

Luckily I've had that pig winter house to focus on. I need to secure the tin on the roof better still, but it's up and fenced (I need to secure the fence better still) and they're in it. Last night was supposed to be the first negative-mid-teens and their summer house just isn't good for that. Avallu tested the house while I was building the fence and found it good.

As usual these days, the weather prediction was extremely wrong, but they're in there and it's done, except for climbing on the roof to secure the tin better and touching up that fencing. They're strategically placed close to the water tap on the south side of the house, which I expect to freeze less than the north side tap.

The other consequence of the weather prediction being wrong is that I set the woodstove to put out more heat, and the house got pretty warm overnight. Not too warm, but not far from it.

In any case it was good to have that physical necessity pushing on me. Doing physical work has generally been better for my PMDD.

Next step, and not too much of a hurry, is to put the white side of the bulb yin yang in and/or lock the geese in their greenhouse and the ducks in the other so they can't access any yard, and then take down the yard gates.

We got some decent snow, a couple inches, but my driveway on the north side of the house, the sloping part, is still 2" of solid slick ice, now with snow on top. Even with studded tires I'm hesitant to take the truck down there. The hoses are all up except.... one part, about four feet, got frozen under the ice. It's where I won't snowblow, though, so I guess that's where it will live.

I had another dream about Angus. It doesn't escape my notice that I left when his depression led to him hiding importnt household things from me, like not being able to pay the bills, and he wouldn't get help for it. Then Tucker bought a condo in Vancouver without telling me, years later, and for some reason I stayed with him until roughly this time last year. Incidentally, after a couple of years of saying he was going to, he's now getting treatment for his depression, well after it ended, and it seems to help. The fact that it helps is good.

Anyhow, I retain my deep grudge against depression. It hurts the people I love. And wherever they are I want them to be happy.

Anyhow, it was a rough dream.

I've been paused in pottery stuff because I've focused on getting things ready for the very-late start of winter; every day feels like a stolen last day so I try to make the most of it, then there's another, and another, so I've been pushing to do more than I should. And the temps last night were a good reason to push, don't get me wrong.

But now I want to make things again. After a push to make things that would bring in money for a fundraiser for the arts studio, reskilling, I now am turning my attention to-- what do I find beautiful? How can I marry that beauty and function? What skills do I need? And I'm looking at the past work I have in my kitchen, noting which techniques bring me joy, and letting them sink into my body so they're available when I next have clay under my hands.

Whiskey has woken up and is being hangry at me, attacking the other cats if they're on the bed and doing stairs zoomies as he does when he's excited about it being almost-but-not-quite breakfast time. I'm very lucky in my cats. My own digestive system has started hurting, I usually get a bit of peace in the morning before I'm fully awake. And now Little Bear is climbing the curtains.

Too much people in the last little while. I spent a bunch of time at the studio which had a bunch of ambient folks and some time on the phone with disability folks and it's just been too much.

The pill fluctuations are catching up with me too; with PMDD it's the change in hormones that's the problem, not necessarily the levels, so I'm back to steady on the pill to suppress my body's cycles which had started to wake up. I have to remind myself that I lived through this monthly for decades, until it became super constant; I can get through this bit ok until I stabilize. The bubbles of hatred and despair and pain are just very unpleasant.

Being outside makes everything ok, though. Moving around, looking at different things, making garden beds and planting bulbs and splitting firewood-- those settle me and give me peace. I've nearly finished putting in the peonies and have added some grapes and a toka ownroot plum and three manchurian apricots, which may well be hardy here. They're all miniscule plants, of course, 2.5" pots, which take longer to mature but they're what I can afford. I can't spend as much time doing these things as I'd like, of course, or I lose use of my body, but any day that contains them is a better day.

Today the plan is to screw some pallets together to make a winter pig shelter. They can't stay in the back, and since the rescues are full they need to stay here, so I'm going to bring them in closer. We'll see how much of it I get done, but even if all I can do is move the pallets today, pound the t-posts tomorrow, and screw things together the day after then that's how it must be done. Weird to think I used to be able to do something like this in one bite in the dark after work, and work the next day.

The days are getting distinctly shorter. I think we're below 8 hours of sunlight now. I hadn't realized how this would impact my ability to be outside; because I need good long rest periods between pieces of activity I end up running out of daylight even if I'm only spending two hours outside total unless I start very early.

The ground is starting to freeze. I bet I can still get t-posts through the crust, it's not deep yet, but I'm not sure about digging anything and a bunch of stuff is likely frozen to the ground. I may have one hose encased in an ice flow on the north side of my house, which I think may not thaw till spring now, but I got most of the hoses and pallets up. I'd thought to move woodchips later in the winter but had forgotten that the outside of the chip piles, which are wet, freeze. I've moved most-ish of the chips anyhow, making the lasagne chicken-manure-and-green-deciduous-chip beds. I'd left bulbs-and-mulching the orchard until the ground on the way back there froze. It's more work slogging through mud, and anyhow, I just haven't had the ability.

A friend helped me take measurements for the automatic pattern thing (apostrophe patterns) where you feed in your measurements and it spits out a pattern. I just don't have it in me to self-draft leggings, and it's worked well for shirts in the past. Weirdly my arms are symmetrical now, biceps at least. I've lost 3" on my biceps in the last two years, which is not surprising but it makes me sad. I'm so much weaker now, and it's a combination of less physical activity and the illness.

Anyhow, the vast majority of my pants are in rags at this point. I have three pairs of comfortable-enough pants without holes, but none without stains, for winter. I have four additional pairs of pants that will work for winter with long underwear, two without stains, but that won't work for daily life, and of course I don't want to wear the ones without stains for daily life or they will stain. Either way I've been wearing the stuff with holes and trying to eke out the time between laundry, but if I can manage to put together several pairs of warm winter pants it will make a big difference.

Shirts that fit will be lovely too. I have several t-shirts -- they don't need to fit in order to stay on so I can buy them online -- but winter weather shirts that can handle chilliness and body moisture are beyond my price range, so it'll be good to put some more together. I did splurge on socks, as I have done at least every second year since moving north. Luckily I don't go through them as much as I used to when I was putting kilometers on them every day, and I don't need that level of quality, so it's a reasonable splurge.

Money is on my mind a lot. I have maybe eight months at most of the level of friends' support I've been enjoying. It's kept me alive through the worst of disability paperwork and learning to manage this, but it of course couldn't last forever. After that it will be back to survival expenses only.

As I go through the days I'm slowly saying goodbye to the luxuries I've enjoyed: premade food, steak sometimes, fresh veggies and even non-apple-or-banana fruits in the wintertime, fruit juice or pop or fancy tea or any drinks that cost more than a cheap teabag, milk and probably nut milks, gas for popping into town, a truck without check engine lights on, maybe regular membership at the pottery studio instead of saving my work at home to pop in and use the kiln every so many months, new plants, testing fancy clays maybe?, new sheets, electric blankets, keeping my home warm even in the shoulder season, running the dryer in the summer and midwinter (shoulder season is necessary I think), I know there'll be lots of things. In the meantime I need to sort out if there's anything that will substantially make my life cheaper at that time, and get it now. I've been thinking an e-bike, to get to town and back without gas, but that's only good in the summer. Maybe worth it? Maybe I can't maintain it well enough with my cognitive stuff and it's not?

I'm going to try and figure out some way of replacing my upstairs tile at least. Right now I can't wash the kitchen and bathroom floors except on my knees with a nearly dry cloth, because the tiles and grout and the MDF board underneath are so compromised that any moisture swells the MDF and further cracks or pops off the tiles and several are already missing or at an angle. So, I haven't been using my magic vacmop and in fact haven't been washing the upstairs floors at all. That just can't go on for the next 40 years. Even if I can just get it off and put well-sealed plywood in? It doesn't have to look like anything but I need it to function like a floor.

In the midst of all this, the ball I've been letting slip is meds. I've put off my covid shot, which I hear is a demanding one this year, because I haven't had enough recovery time lined up. I'm supposed to have started B vitamin shots a month ago, but again need to take the time to make sure if I have a bad effect I can recover. And I haven't been tracking meds symptoms except noticing the bubbles of intensity creeping back from hormonal fluctuations, and I notice them because they really are incapacitating.

Enough of that. I'll get the pigs tucked in somewhere warm today, or tomorrow, or the next day. I'll get the bluebells under the rest of the woodchips. Cats will snuggle with me when I rest by the woodstove. In a couple weeks I'll get the pottery area tidied so I can head back to my own wheel instead of the studio ones. It's a good life, full of things I love, and I'm very grateful to have it.

-snowsnowsnow but ground not frozen yet. bulbs going in.

-grouse in the crabapple tree eating crabapples. hazard wanted me to help him hunt them.

-tons of disability phoning and forms last week, used most of typing/writing

-art studio nice and full a couple days, for mug fundraiser and the fibre people just hanging out

-off birth control pill = digestive system fixed, feel like myself, charge into things like conversations or cooking but still have brain fog so sometimes ultra mess up. F'rinstance, looking into the sidemirror, seeing my driveway as I try to back into it, brain somehow deciding I was trying to avoid it rather than back down it it so correcting to back into ditch (caught myself before I went actually in the ditch in the snow, but still, it's that kind of thing). Also more muscle and joint pain. Also waking up ultra dehydrated in a puddle of sweat most nights. ARGH. No dangerous levels of S thoughts. Currently seem to be going back and forth two days on, two days off as the symptoms of each option end up sucking. Maybe I should call the nurse line and ask for advice.

-woodstove season is nice

-pulled my back pretty badly for a couple days, the same spot I pulled when I first moved into the house. Getting up and down from the toilet etc was pretty bad. Drugs, rest, gentle movement & time fixed it

-the cats' winter coats are deeply velvety and they fight on my bed at 7am when they get hangry before breakfast

-ate three meals a day for awhile, though admittedly it was mostly bologne sandwiches, scones, pears, and greek salad. Having an abundance of those things that were easy to make was great. I felt rich, luxurious, and generally good. Maybe also linked to food not meaning a ton of pain

-super crashed out after disability stuff and pottery thing

-peonies going in the ground shortly, into the snow

-all pig rescues in "northern" and "interior" BC are full (that is more than a couple hundred kms from the border)

-happy to be alive. Not relieved, but actually happy.

-I know I'm forgetting things

Despite everything, this summer is truly a glorious one.

The last three summers have been drought and wildfire smoke, and before that the heat dome. 2020 I spent in a state of basically complete panic that was probably a combination of PDA and work from home interacting, along with the ambient covid panic. I can't remember 2019's summer offhand but I think I changed jobs at that time; 2018 was a wildfire evacuation. I moved into this house in 2017 at the end of summer and that was the last summer like this, with birds and the smell of clover everywhere. Threshold loved me as much then as it does now, part of my body, a fully enveloping love like finally having real skin or gravity.

This year I've only closed the windows for wildfire smoke a couple days. We've had actual rain, the kind of rain patters I remember from before the drought: little wandering thunderstorms bringing cloudbursts and sometimes thunder as they pirouette across the landscape. There's no heat dome; outside it drops to about 10C at night and when I wake up the house is cool; during the day the sun can be a little hot between rainstorms but long cool mornings and the endless stretch of near-solstice evening give lots of time for moving around.

There are more bugs than I've ever seen and my body feeds noseeums and blackflies as well as mosquitoes when I go out in the evening. I leave the fan running in the bedroom, facing out the window, and a window on the north side of the house open downstairs; it pulls the cool air in but also disrupts the mosquitoes and any who get into the house can't fly against the air current. I picked that trick up from an Ologies bug episode, where the entomologist said the best way to keep mosquitoes off a patio was to put a fan at ankle level. They're bad fliers, he said, and like to be low, so they can't fight the air current enough to bite. I love that kind of elegant solution. When I came in from the garden two days ago in the evening my face was covered in blood, half from swatted mosquitoes and half from blackfly bites.

The garden rolls out like a carpet and then fills in like details on an oil painting. I'm putting in paths and trees and trellises, a little at a time, and yesterday I picked up a bunch of perennial flowers and they're waiting in the wheelbarrow to go up and in. I've put in a kolomikta kiwi trellis. I've put in a strawberry bed with six kinds of strawberries. I've put in baby lindens and silver maples and elms and ash and oak and hazel. In one tomato and pepper bed the hazel, cherries, and haskap are there, no bigger than the other little pepper plants and spaced in between them to line a path that does not yet exist, to a spot that is still weeds but will later be a portal.

I have somehow become a person with elderly animals -- not elderly in the way they act, but at ten years old they start to get yearly bloodwork at their vet visit to make sure everything's ok. Whiskey, Hazard, and Siri fall into that category and today is Avallu's birthday; he's 9. Yesterday Whiskey followed me out to the garden and followed me as I wheelbarrowed woodchips from down here to up in the back garden a couple times, then got the zoomies and ran along the path very fast, bounced off the wheelbarrow I was pushing, and kept going. He does not feel elderly.

Anything could happen during the rest of the summer. It's windier than it has been, with tornadoes surprisingly nearby, and the wind strips moisture quickly. We're only saved by the little wandering rainstorms that come regularly. There is a lot of fire elsewhere and strange heat anomalies and floods. Politically we've lost the idea of human life as important and human well-being and rights are so far out of functional equations as to be laughable. There are many wars, even if we don't call them that anymore, and no one with resources is interested in holding back the tide of disease. Systems infrastructure frays and I suspect one day we will wish we had our current access the things that right now we think of as irritating because they are becoming inconvenient: border access, medical systems, air travel, relatively free telecommunications, year round fresh foods, so many things.

This won't be the last glorious summer like this but it might be mine. Even if it isn't I draw a line here: I love being alive, I love inhabiting my life, I very very very much want to know what happens next, but this summer would be enough.

Cool wind and the scent of overnight rain through the window. Warm covers and a cat sleeping on the bed while others wait for breakfast. Thai black rice, coconut milk, and sugar in the rice cooker with apricots waiting. Aspens rustling outside silkily. A pile of woodchips waiting for their wheelbarrow, steaming slightly as they compost. Wiggly dogs and the sound of roosters in the distance and beyond that robins and sparrows. Nearly clean sheets and parsley, mint, and tomatoes from the garden waiting to be turned into tabouli downstairs. Reading again! by audiobook, the closest I can ever have to revisiting my childhood home. A nephew? Even a few people in the world who really want me alive.

It's very good to be here.

I've been pushing myself harder than I should to get the garden in. We've had weather that goes back and forth between too hot and dust-dry to work the soil and rain (that clay soil really needs to only be touched at the right time), mostly courtesy of these very intense drying winds we had for the last two or three weeks. I don't want to complain too much about it -- basically the prairies are all on fire right now, with tens of thousands of evacuees -- but it has impacted the pace at which I can put things out there.

Something is happening with the garden out there. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's what I've always wanted from a garden. I'm putting in permanent paths, originally because I can't remember anymore where things are supposed to be if they're invisible. I'm putting in more bones, hazels lining the paths and shaping edges of things with trees. I'm putting in perennial flowers this year? Echinacea and sedum and daylilies and that sort of thing.

And then of course the tomatoes are going in, I now have at least one of each variety in the soil. The sweet peppers are in, the hot peppers will go in today hopefully.

It's becoming something recogniseable. Not an ad-hoc this or that, but places within the larger place, an entity that swirls through time forwards as well as back into its history. I love it here.

I was chatting with someone online the other day and realized I've somehow come into the crone stage of life unexpectedly. I never would have thought I'd take issue with interacting with humans as much as I do now, but here we are. I don't share values with anyone anymore. It's possible this is still the remains of the breakup with Tucker and the way that's playing out, but I don't think so. Maybe something about how the bad things in the world are getting closer and the way folks react to that. I'd write about that more but I've finally learned discipline around keeping away from emotional things now that I'm unwell: every feeling indulged is minutes to hours I lose from later in the day doing other things, eating or gardening or rescuing a gosling with lost parents and finding it a foster (yesterday's task).

Maybe that's why I have trouble handling people right now. There's anger sitting next to that feeling of being dismissed and I don't really want to work through it until the garden is in for the year. That does sound pretty classic breakup, no?

I'm very very happy with my selection of tomatoes and peppers this year. I didn't get everything I wanted in the ground -- woad and weld but not coreopsis for dyeing, no flax, and the squash and corn are going in late. I did get some juglans in the ground, though, and I have a fun selection of blackcurrants to put in the wet part of the back field this year, and some swamp white oaks for around them.

I'm getting a sense of how much land I can handle in annual crops in my current state, and perennializing the harder-to-handle parts, I guess.

I follow a couple of accounts in gaza of kids who remind me of me when I was that age, doing things they love as best they can. One of them is a gardener who has cats, he shows us every time he gets a new tomato or squash on the plant as the flower fades. I know one of them will eventually turn up dead, or rather, the feed will go dark and I'll have to assume that's happened. There's no way out for the folks there.

And now LA is rising up against-- well. That's just happening now, calling in the military. And I think, what would it be like to have a society that rises up to put itself in harm's way for you (I mean, at the same time as the rest of the society is putting you in harm, to be fair) instead of thinking it's too hard and letting it happen?

Dark thoughts interwoven with gardening as we move solsticewards.

Into the city for another MRI. I'm claustrophobic, so I need to take drugs when I do them, so I can't drive afterwards. So: hotel.

The timing is such that Josh is coming up today, the MRI was ysterday, so I managed to find a ride into town and will be going home with him.

That meant I could end up in the hotel with no parking, which was literally a block away from the candlelight Coldplay string quartet concert I'd been thinking about coming in for last year, but had then decided too much was going on. Right day, too.

Between chores yesterday morning, getting to the hospital (a few blocks), wandering lost in the hospital for a full 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go, coming home, and walking to the concert I covered 8km yesterday. The concert was an hour, and by the end (I wasn't checking my watch) I had ust about decided I needed to stand up and walk out because I was at the edge of my ability with sitting so long, then they announced the last song. So that was amazing.

The hotel mattress is excellent, I did get rest in between everything, and my body hasn't tanked yet. Maybe it can wait till Josh is gone?

I definitely needed to get out of my little box a bit. I also need to make my little box nicer, which hopefully Josh can help with. It's got piles and dirty floors and everything askew. I'm hoping to enlist him to remove all my clothes older than 5 months or so (saving t-shirts and jeans legs for projects), figure out organization for some of my shelves, and do a gigantic dump/thrift store dropoff run.

Plus I think the cats need a bunch more Places, like wall steps and boxes in corners etc. They're socially unstable right now and that isn't ideal; with more cat-habitat I believe the situation will be better.

Not fully convinced I'm not becoming allergic to the woodsmoke from my chimney, which is problematic, though for a heating system I probably do eventually need something that's not splitting, stacking, and carrying several tons of wood each winter. Not sure I can be convinced to get rid of the woodstove as a backup, though, since every other heat source needs some kind of electricity, even the pellet hoppers and blowers. I say that as if I have money to install alternatives.

Been talking to Tucker some and there are hard bits but also we're both better at compassion for each other now. I'm very happy about how it's going, and very curious about how his practicum with my former employer (different person, different ministry, but still) will go. I steered him to this guy, who seems pretty good and reasonable, so my fingers are crossed.

The light is racing back after solstice. You can see outside by 8am and even after 5pm now. It's so good.

So I went in to the doctor on Thursday. I'd been planning to walk in, since I knew she was working the walk in that day, but when I showed up with a bunch of papers they said normally walk-ins don't fill out paperwork but they had an appointment with her that afternoon that had just opened up. So, I went home and came back at 2:30 with a bunch of papers: my summary of symptoms by order of priority and what I'd tried and what I wanted to try next, a work form for a sick note, the article my counselor had sent me for GPs managing autistic clients that talks about comorbidities etc, and... um, something else which I've forgotten, which is why I make lists.

We had an hour to catch up on the last 6 months, decide what to do next, fill out the form, etc. Obviously we did not get through it all. I went in with the intention of taking some time off work. Long story short:( blah blah blah )

There's lots of good news though, starting with the "you need to be dead" voice/feeling being pretty much gone since I stopped the vyvanse. That is *huge* obviously.

I've been managing to run the dishwasher once a day because the cats need clean bowls to eat out of, but all other cleaning has been off the table. This morning managed to wash the downstairs sofa for the first time in awhile (Solly gets pretty muddy and goes on it) and sort of clean my pottery area a little.

I put the handles on some pottery two days ago, it's been a long time since I had energy to work on that sort of thing at home.

4/7 house animals went in to the vaccine clinic yesterday. Some hadn't seen a vet since 2018. It completely flattened me for several hours and used everything I had -- I didn't even have energy to make tea and breakfast until after it all, and after a nap. But: cats all microchipped finally, treated with a tapeworm-inclusive dewormer that we're not allowed to get over the counter here, Thea got her vaccine boosters thank goodness, and all the animals hated it but were pretty good about it and have somehow already forgiven me. Thea went in a carrier in the back of the truck and didn't even throw up! She also did well on leash and appreciated three people all petting her at once, and she tolerated a little puppy running up to her very well. Somehow she is officially a senior dog now, eep. Let me tell you though, three yowling cats in the truck at once is a sound I won't soon forget, and I learned that Demon can jump over a door with a standing start. Like, a door door. This goes under health stuff because their health is my health and because literally they kept me alive over the last months, and no doubt will do so again.

I've had the energy to text a little more with partners and friends, though nowhere near enough for a call yet apparently.

I even had the energy to open my mail and see the furikake Josh sent me, which will be nice and easy on rice, or rice and salmon.

I'm starting to think about writing up the ad for the pigs, about taking the last couple weeks of garbage to the dump, and maybe even vacuuming. Not there on any of them yet, but it has at least crossed my mind.

Tomato seeds are in for the year, I believe 101 or 102 varieties depending on how you count. Several of them are F2s, which is the first variable generation after a cross. Many of them are up already.

Peppers are potted up, mostly, and the couple that didn't germinate are replanted.

I put a bunch of greens in too, though just a couple of each except sorrel, with the plan to start a bunch more for the farmer's market later on. Doesn't impact me, but I believe some legislation was just changed so it wouldn't be legal for actual stores to buy veggies from me unless I did a bunch of licensing stuff and joined a group of some sort based down south. Not a great look, gotta say, for a gov that mouths words about food security. As always I'm excited at the idea of ethiopian kale.

Potato seeds started, though seed potatoes are not ordered. The snow is mostly off the garden, on a sunny day I could go up and plant favas and poppies and I bet the ground would be thawed enough; it's still mostly freezing hard overnight which makes chores less muddy.

Looks like many of the apple seedlings I planted are still up there -- some are not -- but the geese keep getting into the garden and likely will eat them all if I don't get better fencing sorted asap.

No legumes or corn or squash started yet. I'm thinking about doing a round of sweet corn or popcorn on top of my gaspe, I'm more likely to eat popcorn but people locally like sweet corn so a seed crop might be nice. Anyway, I could offset those by starting them indoors, especially if I'm starting from several different varieties. I'd like to try runner beans this year too, I don't really like figuring out support but they're supposed to do well in cooler weather. Maybe on the deck? I have a nice assortment.

I did plant some mache and pak choi on the deck.

I would like salad season.

I set up some damp boxes and am experimenting with those. I'd like to be able to throw a bunch, carve a bunch, and handle a bunch of objects not necessarily in the demanding timespan that air drying with a bit of plastic over them forces on me. Fingers crossed! The damp boxes are just clear bins, I set cardboard in them for the mugs to sit on and I can spritz those or just dump water in. Now I need to shift some shelving so they can be somewhere convenient and also allow more plant space when the tomatoes get potted up.

Geese are sitting in a lot of cases, I'd been hoping to keep them off the eggs until midmonth so no babies happen while I'm gone in early-mid May. I've managed to keep the ducks off at least. It all means lots of eggs for me, I sent a box of them with Tucker and stored a box in the back of my fridge (goose eggs keep for a really long time) and now it's time to start making and freezing pasta dough. The little food processor I got way back when is putting in some hard labour on pasta dough.

Thea has really bad matting on her pantaloons. It must be uncomfortable because she doesn't want me touching it. I think I can get in on Solly's before it's that bad, and Avallu's are good, but I think I might take Thea in for a professional groom. She gets spectacularly motion sick, but there's a groomer just a couple kms down the road, I might even walk her down there?

In other dog news, Avallu let me clip his nails the other day after I worked up to treats-for-touches for awhile. None of them are running on the road much, so they're definitely needing clipping. Thea is Not Having It, Solly will be worked up to it ok, she's just skeptical. And Solly has showed truly excellent escalation from tiny liplifts, through gentle escalating growls, to a sudden but roomy air-lunge with the cats. I'm very pleased; when she arrived she went right to lunging to indicate her displeasure, and I've been working on letting her know that growling is a good communication tool. This just makes her a safer dog all round. The cats appreciate the heads up too, and are feeling safer knowing when to be around her and when not to be (the not being: when she's eating or getting lots of attention from me. We're working on this latter one a bit).

I realize I'm supposed to be making some dishes for my brother's wedding but I haven't been in to the studio to use those bats for plates recently. Hm.

I also started a "mug of the day" post on instagram, where I'll post something about something I've made. Sometimes it will be a glaze detail, sometimes another thing I'm noticing or thinking about. At work it's something about the mug I bring in to drink out of.

Visit with Tucker was excellent, though I didn't love being away from home. Finally talked with Josh about all the stuff that had been waiting on me having energy, and that was good. It's a place to start.

So: lots of good.

The drop-dead date for having completed all the stuff I haven't been able to do to keep working is this fall, and I'm just not able to do it in time, plus work, plus manage my health stuff. So far as I can tell they allow zero accommodation there, too. So this lovely castle in the air I've built myself rests on that foundation until October, when I'll most likely lose my job because I'll be kicked out of the forestry thing for not finishing it. The forestry thing doesn't allow it all to be done separately, only while working, so that's a no go. I'm glad to have had this, anyhow. Not sure how long I'll be able to hold down any other job, like retail or whatever is available in town, since I'm working from bed a couple days a week right now. So I know there are changes ahead, but I'm happy right now. That counts for something.

( Tired of medical stuff? I sure am. )

In other news I potted up my F2 heirloom mini x baby jade seedlings, there's time nice variation there. I set up some lights in the basement after clearing out some of my closet for pottery supplies (the closet is right next to the wheel). After those tomatolets and some of the peppers got potted up I ran out of shelving, so I need more shelving to set up more lights on. I'd been going to put them in the nutri-tower but I can't find the clippies to set it up.

I need to replant one set of peppers, and finish winnowing down which tomatoes I'm planting this year. I'm down to 70 varieties, which is pretty good honestly. I also want to remember to plant a bunch to sell.

Obviously I need to grow a bunch of the F2s I produced last year, some of my good favourites, some new quick red ones, and some new fancy ones. The F2s really need a good quantity of grow-outs so it starts to limit the rest.

Some of my micro tomatoes from the micro tomato project are forming baby tomatoes, they're carrot leaf plants and I can't wait to see what happens! They may have brown or large fruits.

I also found some carbon x zesty green F1 seeds which is amazing and I really hope they grow. They were in a tiny weirdly-shaped tomato and there are only a couple seeds, that happens sometimes with hand pollination and bagging.

Meanwhile the geese are laying-- I had sorted out a few extra nests for them on the weekend. They're adorable and I want goslings this year. Not sure if I want to incubate or not. The ducks are in spring plumage and therefore gorgeous. The silkies remain tiny and cute.

Woodstove is out, it's been warm and the house has been spiking in the afternoons due to the angle of the sun. It's supposed to be cold the next little while so although I've cleaned the chimney I need to clean the ash box and maybe start another fire or two for a couple days.

The government is already sending out "watch for burning bans" ads over fb and youtube, we're all nervous about the spring and fires.

There was a glaze fire Sunday night in the studio kiln, it cooled yesterday and so we can open it after work today. I've been seized by catastrophizing that my new glazes have run all over all the shelves and wrecked them. They're probably fine. We fired at cone 5 with a 12 minute hold instead of the previous cone 6 because the kiln was overshooting some so they should run less than previous, and I was pretty careful.

Tucker, his partner, and her kid are going to visit some friends for the eclipse. I made a set of eclipse mugs for them all, one of the first times I've worked to an idea I clearly visualized in advance, and I'm very curious to see how they come out. It takes skill to be very deliberate in a creation like this and I'm still only building skill slowly and in slow kilnload-by-kilnload iterations.

I haven't been able to throw in awhile, it seems like an exceptionally bad idea with the migraine hanging over everything, so I have some ideas piling up.

Today I'm still getting visual artifacts but am in much less incipient pain so yay! And also bad to work. Oh well.

Big update infodump I guess. I think I'd be writing more if screens weren't so weird and uncomfy. Maybe I should start vlogging or something. Is there an audio equivalent?

It's been awhile since I wrote. I had that truly terrible cluster of migraine symptoms at first, then work was extremely busy -- we did a last minute heli flight that lasted a full workday, then I was helping with a conference one town over, then I was recovering, then I was helping with our seedy saturday, then I did a tiny bit of pottery at the studio, now it's now. It really took everything I had to get through that. I gave up on non-masked human social stuff for that couple weeks, on doing more than minimum for food and house. Now I want to sink into the deep pool of peace that is my house and my life. I want to watch my cat sleeping and intermittently pet him for hours while my mind unspools and processes.

There's a lot to process.

It's spring and the geese are all over the yard looking for nests and there are melt-pools everywhere. I can hear gregarious honking through my dog door.

While I was at the end of the conference, but still in it, before the drive home, I was sending off a quick email to my supervisor about how my work hours supported the yearly priority plan. I used the term "DEI" and he didn't know what that meant; I sent him a copy of our organization's new DEI plan that had come out and been circulated something like last fall and he said thank you; he didn't dispute (and never does) the time I spend on this but wow.

I introduced my colleague to proper vietnamese food for the first time and as I was dressing and flipping my pho he asked how I knew how to eat it. He loved it, even the (truly phenomenal) fish sauce.

I gave away 8 mugs as door prizes and several hundred packets of my own seed at seedy saturday. They had someone else as a speaker this year talking about "proper" seed saving (how not to cross, for instance) so I spent my time at the seed tables. First I was stuffing envelopes with seed and directing people to label them as I stuffed, but we quickly ran out of packets. Then I showed people how to do the origami seed packets, the librarian used her paper cutter and a pile of recycled paper to make squares, and we folded, filled, and taped. People kept coming in with big bags of seed. Someone came in with elaborate origami seed packets with a crane folded into them. We had such an incredible richness of local seeds come in, I felt so honoured, like a conservator of a community treasure. Several thousand packets of seed went out, free, to people. My mugs, some plant starts, other folks' homemade wine went out as door prizes. The space was packed. Everyone said it was an amazing event. One of the speakers brought 75 varieties of tomato seed to give away. They say that in the coastal indigenous cultures your wealth was measured by what you give away, and I always feel that, and last Saturday I felt wealthy. All the extra seeds go to the new seed library in the library there so anyone who missed the event can still grow things. A+ use of my time but following on the end of a long week it was a lot, and by this time I was really missing talking to my people.

Dogs finally got treated for the fleas Solly picked up when she went on her walkabout. I hadn't seen any in the last month but that means very little. I've been watching videos of a professional dog groomer doing livestock guardian dogs on youtube and trying to figure out how I could wash my pups. I'll settle for getting the mats out and doing a deep brush. Avallu's been loving this; I think it's time to start treating Solly for it. Thea has realized it gets her attention so she's settled into it.

My pepper seeds are all up except for the african birds eye. It's getting on time to start tomatoes and separate the peppers, which means setting up more lights, which means clearing a shelf or two, which means doing some work on my storage container. My first round of seeds, tomatoes from Jan 1st, is doing well-- some of the micros are flowering, and the F2s exhibit the breathtaking diversity that hold me in awe and that I'd always hoped to attain.

The headache seems to be somewhat recurring, but not as constant as it was. Nausea is a near-constant struggle. These two things may (?) be correlated to air quality, as they may get worse when I turn off the CR box or have the windows closed? On the other hand it's warmed up and I can keep a couple windows cracked open so my body just feels lighter in a lot of ways.

In two weeks I'm driving to the coast for a couple days to visit Tucker and bring him (and some clay) back up, maybe disseminate some mugs.

This Wed is a bisque kiln and possibly the following weekend a glaze kiln, that doesn't leave much time for glazing.

Odds and ends, unprocessed. Spring is coming. My mind doesn't think well. Still I'm doing what I love and am happy; I only hope this life doesn't have that fall expiry date.

It warmed up. Animals all seem good. Solly is the world's biggest lap dog, maybe literally. Body abilities still slowly eroding and work continues to be poorly managed. Happy nonetheless. Doing some carvings on my pottery from time to time. Carried so much water and food. New laundry sink downstairs is excellent, as is calf sled. Lots of snow now to keep the house warm since the last batch settled off. Relationship stuff good.

Tapped out of counselling midway because of a shutdown. Need to figure out how/who to talk to about leave of absence maybe. 60% sure I won't survive my job till this time next year because of PDA-related stuff. It's scary, but I don't have enough bandwidth to address it, I'm just surviving.

Connection with Tucker continues to deepen in a way that feels cautiously safe enough for me to mostly own where my attachment issues are - even the ones that were previously caused by his behaviour, there's space to listen and empathize. That's good. There's a lot of baggage, that's hard, but I'm mostly hopeful.

Solly has not yet learned to use the dog door but the dogs have all been in the woodstove room at once, or in various pairs, though she's still getting some counterconditioning around guarding things, and she's poorly mannered about the sofa (but is getting better). Still, we've had nice evenings with all three dogs and a couple cats snuggled up in here. Solly is also re-learning her growl and I'm so proud of her (haha, as someone who spends time with folks who have trouble expressing "negative" emotions I guess) and she's growled several times now instead of going straight to a lunge-and-air-nip. Thea needs daily love and attention for her to not guard Solly away from me in the downstairs. Avallu will not displace cats who are lying in his bed, and so has been sad.

I cleaned the chimney a couple days before new years and relit from the ashes. Chimney was good and clean from burning dry birch. I want to make a better woodshed and get a bunch more birch if possible.

Making a ton of pottery. Downloaded a tracking app and am numbering anything that will be bisqued in 2024 as 24-1 through 24-whatever.

Josh and Tucker both might be visiting in Feb.

It's been ultra warm, not even consistently below freezing though the ground is frozen and we finally got snow a couple weeks ago for insulation. Finally have -20C in the forecast. Very curious to see how the rest of the winter goes.

Last night, on the 1st of the year, I planted 4-6 seeds each of 8 types of tomatoes: two I'd got from a silvery fir micro lineage for testing online, two for crossbreeding (mission mountain sunrise and sweet cheriette), and 4 of my own crosses (unknown whether F1 or F2) sweet baby jade x hardin's mini, F2 zesty green (an offtype of karma miracle I think) x silvery fir, F1 of mission mountain sunrise x (F1 of aerogarden "heirloom" micro x sweet baby jade), and F2 sweet cheriette x karma miracle. This morning I woke up and, knowing those seeds were planted in the next room, I couldn't stop smiling. It's not a lot for growouts but it gives me something to look at, and it's my first manually crossed F2s!!!!!!

Working on a micro tomato workshop for the garden club. The grocery store gave me their poinsettas, so I can use those pots and some scavenged soil and my own micro seeds and people can plant their own. This is the time of year everyone wants to plant things but it's too early to start outdoor veggies. I love being able to help people do plants, especially at low-to-no cost. The garden club is trying to plan one workshop per month and a couple seed swaps at the right time for different plants (early flowers, veggies, and probably plant-straight-outdoors plants).

I am inspired to do some sunreturn pottery as the days get noticably longer (and maybe some wheel pottery at summer solstice?). Tucker requested something firey, and I realized in that moment that good reds usually come from reduction firing-- that is, heating the clay with actual fire instead of electricity, so the fire eats the oxygen and you get different chemical reactions and thus colours than you do with electricity and exygenated air. Relatedly, someone about 3.5 hours away offered for me to fire pots with her. That's relatively close in the scheme of things. I'd like to figure out some sort of wood firing here, not sure if barrel or pit or clay oven style.

I'm going to open Threshold to folks who want to celebrate the solstice and eating and planting and telling stories and maybe canning or sausagemaking or making clay things and who knows what for a week around June 17-24 this year. Hopefully I'll have the outdoor shower & maybe an outdoor toilet by then, there's some camping space maybe even fenced off from geese and some room in the house. It's going to be a big lift but it's important. Need to figure out covid protocols etc. Hoping too much of the province is not on fire by then, we're still in hella drought and I know a lot of those fires are burning under the snow. Flying over them some of the fires were very patchy, so there's lots of edge for fuel to be living in.

Little Bear the kitten manages to somehow be adorable enough that I welcome his help in keeping surfaces clean rather than being upset that he knocks things over and tracks mud onto my neck etc. His current hobbies are windowsills and sinks but they change often.

Tucker got me some lights from ikea as a christmas gift and I'm using them to set up shelves to display my unfinished pottery so I can stare at it after bisque and before glazing and let a creative process of some kind happen. Downstairs is getting really nice. The lights and shelves are as much of a game changer as the couch or the storage can.

It's cat brushing season and now Hazard is demanding, not just food in the mornings, but also brushing.

It's later than usual for snow but not ridiculously so. October has been warm; this last day or two looks like it's finally going below freezing for good for the winter.

Things I have not done that I need to do:

Pull up the hoses and coil them

Power wash hoses, snowshovel, nets, anything else that's been sitting in the mud for the last two weeks since we finally started getting rain

Put my chainsaw pants on and actually cut up all the logs

Screw together the field fence

Put a roof on the greenhouse

Move the birch wood in

Build one or two doghouses with pallets

Build a roof over the feed area, or build a feed shed

Pick up weird bits from the yard in prep for the snowblower (Solly makes this hard, since she re-scatters things everyday)

Spread the woodchip piles

Put the rototillers "indoors" somewhere

All that said I'm still pretty easily winded from covid, and when I do too much in a day I get dizzy. Yesterday I spent the full day at the pottery studio -- this month Sundays seem to be when it's open, and hopefully that continues -- and by the time I got dinner in me the room was just spinning. I'm back at work now and it's definitely a struggle.

I've got a bunch of tomato seeds fermented and drying, though, the corn's in and there were some gorgeous gaspe x saskatoon white ears with a peaches-and-cream pattern in the mix. I pulled in a karma miracle, sungreen, sweet baby jade x "heirloom" micro, taiga, and sweet cheriette plant to do some crossing this winter, and I need to start some micros.

Pottery is super fun. Having the wheel in my house really helps; my skill is improving so quickly when I'm able to work even a little most days. I still haven't got a slurpee-cup-height cylinder thrown but I'm only an inch or two away. Most recently I've started attaching handles. I have two shapes I like: one is a classic rounded bellied shape and the other is a very geometric conic flare; I can make the former but not the latter. I'm learning so much all the time: besides handles, the most recent bit is that these big pieces need a lot of material left at the bottom, to be trimmed off, for stability. Funny that I've just learned to clean up the bottoms and take extra material away. Each technique has its place.

I've been working with two clays: p300 and m332, both by plainsman. the p300, a porcelain, is like sewing with silk. It does whatever I ask it to do immediately, it holds its shape. The m332 is like carpentry, it has a significant set of physical limitations and strengths. It's sandy and red and has absolutely gorgeous potential for texture, where the porcelain is pure white and smooth and I end up being uninspired by the surface except to cover it with glaze.

Kitten has settled in as a full member of the household. He still sucks on any bare skin he can find, but otherwise functions like a very energetic, exploratory tiny cat. He harasses the other cats, who set boundaries; climbs the curtains and shelves; snuggles lots; and sits on my lap and helps with the wheel. I think he wants to be called Bear or Little Bear. He's also apparently a smoke cat, and not a black one. That is, he looks black but his undercoat is white, and his belly is developing white longer hairs too. Between him and Solly it's feeling very animally lately.

Covid took my sense of smell but not of taste, and I found it remarkably easy to eat for a couple weeks. I think I didn't realize how processor-intensive food is for me until that went away for awhile. There's just so much going on in the whole nose/sinus area. Things are back to normal now, more or less, and I'm enjoying the bergamot in my earl grey tea again.

There's probably more but my cat is sucking loudly on the inside of my elbow and it's distracting. I should talk about eating with people from separate rooms over thanksgiving, but that might need to fade into obscurity.

Kittenlet got approved by the vet to go in with my other cats yesterday: no FIV or whatever the other one. This morning he and Demon were chasing each other around the house, I think deliberately. When folks come up for thanksgiving it'll be interesting to see where everyone ends up. It seems like he's probably staying here? But only if Hazard can handle him. That's the last holdout.

It's definitely fall. The aspen trees are brilliant gold, and soon they'll drop leaves on roads and sidewalks and those will be gold too. We've had a bit of rain but not a ton. The ground is still very dry. Frost has killed the tomato plants back and is taking its toll on the favas. I've harvested very nice gaspe and gaspe x corn, the first round of favas, and my seed tomatoes.

I'm very, very tired and I've been distant from all my people lately, and/or they have from me.

I played with a little porcelain on my home wheel for the first time the other night and it is just so much easier to control than stoneware clay.

Probably more to say but too foggy to think of it.

Dog better.

Puppy slowly integrating with dog.

Friend found two kittens on her 25 acres, one died, the other is in my spare room pending a FIV test. Have never had a kitten before, it's 5-6 weeks old. 5-8 weeks is the fearless imprinting stage. It is very tiny, very affectionate, very active, very cute, and very catlike. It has a loud purr and a silly meow. Current plan is for it to go down to a rescue on the coast (rescues up here are all full) but we'll see. After a FIV test it can hang out with my cats if all are willing.

First frost was last night. I have yet to see the extent of the damage. I hadn't brought tomatoes in to ripen. Yesterday I got home at 9pm and had to do chores and kitten stuff, and I'm in the office today, so.

Have to give a presentation to a bunch of highschoolers about forestry in two weeks. I'm thinking themes will be "everything is connected" and "monitoring/data and always learning is important" and the spot is a stream so I'll tie that in since everything that's done on the landbase flows downhill.

Kilnload of stuff at the studio is cooling right now, this will be my second firing in Fort (it's not all my stuff but it has a bunch). First firing with these glazes over a red clay. Very curious about it.

Scrambling to do work-adjacent stuff before a deadline. Have had a headache for over a week. Just want to lie around with kittens and puppies. Such is life.

I planted sixty tomatoes last night, mostly promiscuous and blacks but also my 16 grocery store green F2s. Greens and reds are mostly already planted. More blacks, some sibling promiscuous, and some "weird" colours still need to be done.

The smoke was coming in last night, not high where the sun turns orange but low where the sky is still blue but it moves like mist along the ground and smells like a neighbour's bonfire all day. Today, thank goodness, it's gone. My air filters have not yet arrived and I haven't yet cleaned up the dust from downstairs.

Somehow I've gone from being energized by the sun all my life to being sick and weird-feeling when I'm out in it even in the late afternoon. I've been gardening between 7 and 9:30pmish, because I just do not feel well if I go out otherwise. I have a Dr's appointment next month; I need to bring my list of symptoms and push for whatever the next thing is because I still don't have enough memory to advocate for myself in a visit like that without notes. Sinus infection still present: eyes hurt, shoulders and neck hurt, on top of the normal sinus places. Not sure if the stabbing headache I've had for the last week and a half is related. Things just hurt, dammit.

I don't work tomorrow. I may stay out late and plant things; this is about as late as I want to push that.

It's supposed to be cold on the weekend. I want to do some pottery, and maybe I will. I am feeling significantly more emotionally regulated now than I was yesterday; I assume that was a medication wobble, or maybe I took some steps to reach out and chat with folks and that helped with my sense of connection.

Canada is doing an education grant for all citizens, regardless of income: $3500 for selected "futurizing the workplace" type courses. A couple are website design for small business owners, which I might do to out out some of my soap, random cool animal bones, maybe random pottery, and meat in season - I have a website sketched up but the last time I did the internet it was all straight html, so. There's also a nice drone program or two -- good for work - one on autism (not sure how good it is), some things like the basics of plumbing which would be ultra useful, and -- well, I just like taking online classes, so this is neat. But it would be good to get a website up. I think we have 2 years to use up the grant funding.

Oh right, I also need to put some mushrooms in my logs. Tonight is pottery, so this might be a late night, or an early morning tomorrow if I'm trying to avoid the sun.

The geese and especially ducks are growing super fast (the babies, I mean). It's unreal how much they eat, poop, and grow. The chicks in there are a little more civilized.

I had a tap installed in the south wall of my house when the plumber was here, and now I realize I have water there. I should* put a lean-to greenhouse against the south side of the house, where it will broil and be great for tomatoes and peppers, slightly insulate the water side of my foundation, etc. In the meantime I should put pots of tomatoes along that side, they'll be easy to water (before I had to wrap the hose around the house) and do well in the heat.

I have a bunch of my seedling apples in the ground, about 18" apart. Will be interesting to see what survives the winter. These are the edholm seedlings: "early OP", "Oct OP", "Wickson OP" and "red flesh OP". There's no real way of knowing what they crossed with, though there are a ton of interesting things on his land, and only Wickson is a reliably hardy parent. I figure I'll just replace any that die with new seedlings every year until I have no more gaps. But anyhow, that's why I thnk the 18" spacing for full-sized apple trees is ok.

My named apples planted in the orchard are doing well. All the crabapples are flowering.

I'd like to make a bunch of tags, one for each tree, out of clay. Just one more project, besides the poetry tumblers and the seed storage jars and the plates. Good thing winter exists?

It's dry dry dry here. The "poker ride" (something about riding around the trails on ATVs and poker hands?) was cancelled because those hot engines on the vegetation can start fires when it's this dry. Thank goodness for my well and for that little bit of rain the other night, but still.

PDA is kicking my butt in so many places. I have pictures and last year's text for piglets, I need to put up excess pigs for sales. Also something course degree something mumble oof.

The folks in Smithers who were looking to share their property let me know about a job in that area. I guess that's also an option if I wanted to move, which I don't really. The more apples I plant, the more I know that when my dogs leave the trees won't survive unless they're big enough to survive moose predation.

I get clogged up trying to write everything, so let's try some simpler micro-posts

1) Rain. Only a small amount, but it's here. The only two times it's rained lately are right after I water the garden.

2) Plumbing/foundation/taking the waterline right back to the well is done. My water pressure is great. The sand appears to be mostly out of the system (makes sense, it had been accumulating for a long time) and my water is great. It tastes better too, unsurprisingly.

3) My body is having some issues. Possibly intense sinus stuff exacerbated by concrete dust etc. Need time to clean the house thoroughly but need to work. Still, working through things like cleaning all the laundry in the house (dust got into drawers and beds etc) a little at a time.

4) Ducklings and goslings are adorable and growing faster than seems possible. V cute. Reset more in the incubator.

5) Eating is hard even though I have like 70lbs of pork salami back from the butcher.

6) Starting to finally plant things.

7) Trees got taken down on the south side of the property. Feelings about that. The arborist was super skilled. Good to have the light on the garden. Gonna be a lot of tree processing.

8) Did I mention it's nice to have water?

9) Planning a week-long trip this summer w/ housesitter. Involves crossing the border. Anxious about it.

10) Plumbing emergencies aside, worked my way into positive cashflow though still need to deal with a bunch of debt. Still working away at this but it's definite progress.

11) The cats are extra snuggly lately.

12) My baby orchard is doing well.

13) Avallu is super happy with hanging out in the back with me.

14) I will get a puppy for Thea by the end of next summer. Now to decide from who, etc.

15) Garden <3

16) Pottery <3 Enjoying a red clay body to play with, thinking of neat glaze ideas.

17) Had another 32C day, and last frost has happened just recently. Seasonal signs going by very fast because of the heat.

People have been asking me how I am and I’ve been saying things like “good” or “excellent”. It’s been awhile! A couple counseling visits ago I said something like “is it even possible to give a straight, single, non-ambivalent answer to this? Like do neurotypicals have everything average out so they don’t experience both the good and the bad, but just a kind of middle mush?”

Last visit I said, “really good, actually.”

It’s important to laugh at myself when it’s warranted.

So here’s the stuff:

Garden: tomatoes are looking great and I’m starting to acclimatize them to outside. I never did set up my lights, but the thing about seeding so late is that daytime is starting to be warm enough to keep them outdoors as they’re thinking about stretching. We’re still getting freezes at night but they’re still in the “couple hours at a time in the shade” phase so I just take them out once it warms up. I’m thinking of repurposing my chick brooder for a mini greenhouse on the deck so I don’t need to haul in and out.

Meanwhile the apple seedlings are thriving, they’re outside all day and any evening there isn’t frost (only one so far). Peppers had poor germination but I did plant two flats so I’ll have enough to grow. I also had poor germination on ground cherries.

I started messing with the raspberries the other night. Started cutting out last year’s fruiting canes and cutting the east fence one into rows, leaving a stub so I can dig out the extras.

Outside is beautiful but weird. Stinging nettles are coming up, rhubarb is up, sweet ciciley and apple trees haven’t budged yet. Favas are in the ground. The pigpen is almost dried out, it could almost be tilled already. The lake is lower than folks remember ever. They’re forecasting a big wildfire year for the whole province. Eep.

Pottery: so looks like we’re crystallizing into an actual functional group, or at least moving towards it, without me having to shoulder the whole thing. A previous volunteer, who burned out because she didn’t have help, seems to be back. The first kilnload of bisque is currently cooling down, I’ll get to see it on Thursday. We’re going to glaze. The plan is to meet regularly on Thursdays. Hopefully that doesn’t fall apart. I really do want to do a bunch of throwing until I can do it confidently.

Tucker/stupid/mystery: a lot of stuff is percolating on this one. My therapist suggested that what keeps drawing me back is that he’s unpredictable. Or, I mean, she said “mystery” and that’s maybe accurate? Which offers me the lens that his unpredictability throws me off in both directions: I appreciate not always knowing what’s going to happen, but I really struggle without any sense of certainty or agency in the relationship. I also feel stupid every time we go through the dance where he distances, I distance, and then he comes closer after I distance. It is kind of predictable, after all, and if someone doesn’t explicitly commit to me I feel uncomfortably ambivalent about my right to complain when they suddenly don’t act committed: on the one hand they didn’t say anything for me to rely on, on the other hand if someone does a bunch of stuff with typical societal meanings about commitment for years and then stops it was in fact fair to believe they’d go on as they had begun unless they said otherwise. Anyhow I’m chatting cautiously with him again. We’ll see how it goes. He tends to schedule himself pretty full and I’m not great at “I can only talk to you on Tuesdays for the rest of the year except when I’m too busy, then we skip a week”.

Willow: the basketmaking course was nice. I’ve harvested a bunch of willow, some from my property and some from the side of the road last time I drove the highway. It’s supposed to be harvested before buds start to open. I may have been slightly late? And just a week or two later it’s definitely too late. We’ll see if the stuff I got is ok for basketmaking or not when it’s done drying and soaking. I have a couple friends interested in learning too so we’ll see how that goes. I guess practice baskets are fine even if they’re not perfect.

I really enjoy the way the willow smells, and the way it scents my basement while drying.

Poetry:My friend did that wonderful poetry month daily challenge, and I’ve taken up a PDA-compatible “30 poems sometime in 30 days” challenge starting randomly on April 29th. It’s a real joy. I’ve written a backlog of poems to put out one at a time (I did write them all in the first couple days) and in the meantime that frees me up to write new ones without PDA last-minute pressure. Writing feels so good. Manifesting the inside of my mind on my outside is empowering-feeling. Also it’s neat to see what’s on my mind.

Well: my water pressure is a real problem. There’s also sand coming up through the system. I cleaned out a bunch of my little faucet screens last night; the kitchen water had completely stopped and I pulled maybe ¼ tsp of sand out of it, which fixed it. Apparently the sand is a big thing for everyone on my road right now, so for everyone on the couple layers of aquifer. We think it’s because the water is SO LOW right now, and I think on a karst system it shifts around very quickly. Anyhow, my washing machine is struggling – it’s the thing that uses the most water in my house right now, and loads are taking an extra hour or two as the machine fills up so slowly. I need to order a pressure tank and try to figure out how to put it in by myself or get a plumber to come out for an hour. The money is definitely hard right now and I’m waffling between the same sized tank (25 gallons of “useable” water, aka drawdown) or get one step larger (35 gallons of drawdown) to help protect me through power outages. Either way I may need to sell random stuff to make it happen.

Starlink: the provincial government said something about wanting broadband to every rural household in the province in 4 years. This comes 1-2 years after almost removing it completely from some remote communities, and after funding it being put in south of me along the whole highway of tears (which is definitely taking longer than they expected). My internet right now is a hub that runs on cell service, it’s very very slow but it’s reliable and it’s $90/month. It’s getting worse as the local cell towers decay (as with everything owned by businesses, they cut the nonprofitable stuff for small groups and focus on what makes money, which is not rural stuff). Starlink (and the truly awful satellite internet) are the only other options.

I hadn’t wanted to get starlink since there’s the $700 equipment cost up front and if the gov ever does get some other kind of broadband internet up here I don’t want to be stuck with the sunk cost fallacy keeping me on it. However… the other day I learned that starlink is offering its equipment to rural Canada, NZ, and Australia at a very very steep discount ($200) that makes it palatable amortized over even just four years. Soooooo… I’ve ordered it. I am not thrilled to be supporting the organization, I firmly believe it should be a government service, but my government is failing me here.

I am looking forward to making youtube videos again! I wasn’t able to upload them in less than 20 hours or so before. I wonder if IO can find a used gopro or something?
Anyhow, that’s a lot and mostly good.

I've been dreaming hard the last couple weeks. These are the long, complex, deeply social dreams I used to have when I was younger; days or months or a lifetime passes and I have enmeshment and intimacy with people. Some of those people exist in real life. Sometimes upon waking I find that they never did and that's pretty devastating because my feelings of care and connection remain.

I also haven't been writing much about non-garden things. Whatever is going on with me has made it difficult. To describe it I will conceptualize writing as having four components: having an idea to write about, being able to form concepts into words, actually doing the push to start (executive function?), and the physical labour of viewing a screen and navigating a keyboard and web interface. Right now I can do the first two but not the two. Bits of things to say float around in my head but I can't sit down and dig into them.

Normally writing feels companionable, clarifying, and positively connecting. I'm putting myself out into the world as myself (this is a practice for me that requires constant, er, practice, which is why this journal is public). Anticipating that connective feeling usually drives me to write in the same way that anticipation of a conversation with a friend might drive you to use your phone. There's usually not a barrier to me for starting. Lately I'm unable to anticipate or conceptualize that feeling in advance so I'm not able to start easily.

Furthermore my body is tired all the time, my elbow had been hurting, and there is still something weird with my vision. I quite often sit or lie there thinking of exactly what to say but the physical experience of writing feels overwhelmingly uncomfortable to me. I have an optometrist appointment this week so we'll see if there's an obvious cause for the vision; if not I'll follow up with my doctor because it has been awhile with this blurry spot in my left eye, with difficulty focusing, and with a patchy/bleeding overlay on light surfaces. Luckily basketweaving seems to have fixed my elbow. I probably just needed to work the unused accessory muscles hard.

Having said that it would be good to find a good speech to text device.

On the opposite end of that I've been doing an evolution deep dive and every once in awhile there's a Stephen Hawking quote. I cannot tell you how soothing it is to hear an AAC (augmentive/alternative communication) device being used. Part of my autism learning has been exposure to folks with situational mutism, that is, folks who sometimes lose the ability to speak but other times are fine with speaking. I get those periods, and I get periods where I can force myself to speak but it's really really uncomfortable. Having just one person in my awareness who uses AAC sets me at ease on an unexplainably deep level, like maybe someday I can do that too when I need it.

I've been pretty busy lately. I'm still very very tired a lot but I've been able to spend a couple hours at a time outdoors somedays. I took two day-long basketweaving workshops and learned to make willow baskets (!!) which felt really joyous and fun. The first one was on Friday, my Friday off, and was a small class full of delightful people including the person who runs my local food bank. It was a nice chat-and-work day. The second class was on Sunday, it had more people and was a lot quieter but I still found so much joy in making the basket. Not quiet pleasure, but actual joy, like a leaping of the heart.

I seem to be able to connect to the things in front of me right now. I may not be connecting well to the internet but every time I see my baby apple trees and tomatoes I'm happy. Those baskets and my pottery feel good. A seed exchange with the food bank person was lovely and I like her generally. It remains such a relief to experience joy and connection again after a winter without.

Some things are more complicated. The pottery studio in town seems to be turning from a "show up sometimes to volunteer" to "carefully navigate people to find out information and push a little but maybe ultimately be a structural/organizing force myself". I'll do that if need be but I'm a little bemused. I've been able to dodge the garden club and landrace gardening organization; I've been good at organizing long enough to know that the second I take anything on I'll be running the whole thing. It may be that if I want the studio to stay open I need to step in, though.

That's always how they getcha. This might be a record timetable for being sucked in though.

Also complicated is stuff with Tucker. With the exception of that one evening (which is scarring from years of society and probably relationships using "your partner feels hurt in this situation" and "you shouldn't be poly because it's bad" and which I totally understand) he's been really present and loving and available. Realizing that I have no obligation to interact with him, I am wondering if I'd like to explore how our interactions could be if 1) he's not in a job where he's super burnt out and 2) I have my mind and sense of enjoyment back. Both those things are true now and they might not have been true for a very long time. I guess we'll see how things go and I'll self-monitor.

Meanwhile counseling today will involve a deep dive into my symptoms that might be medication side-effects (this counselor has lots of experience with autistic folks on various medications, we tend to react differently), some way to track symptoms and make decisions about trade-offs, and hopefully a strategy to approach my doctors and an approach to deciding what do to next. I'm feeling woozy a lot but happy, and I think I need to clear up the woozy before I'm driving 4 hours a day dodging logging trucks on resource roads. If I were in the city it would be fine, but with this much driving it is not.

More random things: donated a bunch of seeds to the burgeoning local garden club for them to give away as prizes, that may count as having given 120 or so packets of seed away locally. Big win.

Food bank can take both eggs and inspected frozen pork. Come to think of it, I wonder if the local teaching kitchen would mind hosting a bacon workshop? That might let me get out from under some pork belly. Contributing to the food bank is a win-win-win; I get to support the part of my community I most want to support, I don't have to run a perishable food retail business (though maybe I can tax write-off a sufficiently big donation?), and folks get food.

Cats are eating 1/2 can a day of wet food mixed with 1/2 can of water each. Their energy levels and coat quality have noticeably increased.

I guess volunteering with the pottery studio is volunteering? I've been looking for something to volunteer with for years here but it's mostly only during working hours. For instance the health and wellness fair that has all the clubs and volunteer folks put out a booth and people from town can go look is Tuesday afternoon, with just a touch of after work time.

I ordered a new, bigger collar for Avallu. He'll let me brush his right feather but not his left so I'm glad I'm working on it a little at a time. He's really enjoying this routine brushing, as am I. He's getting extra snuggly. Now if only I could maintain a routine.

Did I mention I have like 275 apple seedlings growing? Extraordinary. I feel so lucky.

I've been listening to a podcast called "Evolution Talk" lately. I was initially skeptical about 10-15 minute episodes written in an easy-to-digest style since I normally like very fact-based deep dives. The guy comes from a radio play background too, and has voice actors for folks like Charles Darwin. I've found over time though that it's a delight: short enough episodes that I can usually keep my attention through one without having to turn it off and rest, and he's a very clear but comprehensive thinker. He also does a bunch of series on a topic and he really digs into subjects like popularly-unknown folks who worked on pieces of the idea of evolution, multiple theories and how they're supported, etc. He also has his sources on his website which is becoming a requirement for me to take something onboard.

It's been raining and snowing and raining and sleeting. My towels are out on the line and have been for a couple days. On the other hand it's supposed to be 25C next weekend? This is a very springy spring.

Anyhow, very long update but I'm still in here. I'm just less physically and emotionally able to internet than before.

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greenstorm

December 2025

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Greenstorm's Journal

watching the cycle: leaves to mulch to soil to leaves

Entries tagged with update

When is hibernation?

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More medical stuff

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It balances out?

Inversely productive

Tl;dr

Been awhile.

First Snowfall

Family keeps growing

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Dust

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Good, actually: plants, pottery, and internet

I don't have nightmares but sometimes they're over anyhow

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December 2025

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