traipsing, or being swept down, the sweet path.

News of no import.

2012-01-24T11:08:00.002-05:00

Man, we have had some amazing food lately. Wild game gumbo (which also included chicken and chorizo, but also had bunny and squirrel), pulled pork, and last night...bangers and mash. My husband is a whiz in the kitchen, but I feel bad sometimes because I swear, he spends 99% of his time at home in the kitchen. I really need to get off of my duff and cook that man a meal. He's on a roll these days, though, and I hate to interrupt.

Deschooling is going well. When the boyo came back from his Florida vacation, the very first morning, he got up and turned on...drum roll please....a nature show. Not cartoons. A show about the planet's deadliest animals. Yes, on purpose. There has been much watching of "Clash of the Gods" around here (thank dog for the DVR), as well. Last night they were watching the one about Perseus, and it was talking about how Medusa came to be a Gorgon. I had told boyo that he could watch them all, and there was no problems, but how do I explain to my 7-going-on-8 son what rape is, and why Medusa's tale is so tragic?? Better yet, how do I decide whether to go back on my word and turn that off and tell him he CAN'T watch it, and STILL have to explain why? At one point, there is talk of how Zeus fathered Perseus, and I made the comment, man...Zeus really needs to keep his penis to himself. And of course, I had to explain that. Some days it's difficult to know what concepts are too adult, and what concepts need to be explained. We had a playdate with some unschoolers yesterday that would've went ever so much better had I not overdosed on caffeine and made myself very ill. *facepalm* It was nice to get out, though, and lovely to see friends.

This weekend I managed to pick up an electric skillet on the cheap for batiking. Hi ho temperature control. Maybe this will assist the wax in penetrating the muslin better. I, of course, am absolutely stocked with ideas. I need to start writing some of this stuff down, because maybe some day, I will actually be able to have a few hours free in which to work on crafty projects.

Speaking of crafty projects, it will be the seventh wedding anniversary for me and the mister in a couple of weeks. Wool is one of the seventh anniversary materials, so I am knitting him a pair of convertible mittens. He spends a lot of his limited free time out in the woods, and I'm sure they'll come in handy. Hah. Har har. Handy.

Still waiting on our appraisal from the bank for the short sale. We're really in a holding pattern now. We have a possible rental, but it's currently got tenants, so I'm not sure if it will be made available to us or not. We both have our hearts set on it, it's on 8 acres and the house is just barely big enough for us, and within our budget, and it all seems too perfect...I am just waiting for something to come up and mess it up. *sigh* Gotta keep our highest good in mind, not "me me me what i want gimme gimme gimme". It's owned by my friend's mother, and I've talked to her about it, but it's really her son's, so...we'll see. Lots of convolution goin on there.

Until we find a bigger place, or a place with a basement, I have zero room to craft and sew and create...I think since we already have an offer, it's time to take the bed out of the third bedroom and try to re-organize it and maybe get some projects moving. The other problem is that by the time I get little stinker bean to bed, I am exhausted. Who else has a baby that doesn't go to sleep until 10 and gets up at 8?! CMON. How is THAT fair? And she still wakes up 4-5 times a night, too. Sometimes more. AND thrashes about in her sleep. You cannot keep this child still. Not that I'd want to, but she's far removed from how boyo was at this point. Good thing there's so many years in between them, because his babyhood is just a distant memory now, and I hate comparing (although I often do).

I am trying to convince the mister that we need to order seeds, just in case we do wind up in the house we really want in time for planting. The biggest problem is that we've always started our seeds, and only bought transplants as needed. If we do get the rental we want, and the garden is approved by the landlord (which I'm sure it will be), I'm hoping it'll be planting prime time (think April or May). But because it's not a given, I am terrified to start seeds and then wind up somewhere where they'll go to waste. I guess we could go with transplants this year, if all goes well. I am also so nervous about the timing, because if the bank decides to hurry up and approve the short sale (fat chance THAT'LL happen), there is a contingency in our offer that says we have to be out within 30 days. What if the house isn't available? What if what if what if? Luckily, if we do get to rent the house we've got our hearts set on, there will be plenty of room for transplants, and maybe I can finally order some transplants from Richo Cech @ Horizon Herbs. And maybe we can build a portable hoop house....

In other fun food news, we just ordered half a pig. And I got my 10 pounds of bacon from the bacon co-op. And just placed a sizeable order for dry staples from Country Life Natural Foods. And I'm about to order a bushel of oranges from a grower in Florida for putting up. I wonder if I can make fruit leather with citrus? I'd really like to get my hands on some key limes directly from a grower, I should probably check localharvest. I also need to make some soda with the eldest, our water kefir grains are probably as ready as they'll ever be, if I didn't kill them. It's so cold to start a sourdough culture, but I think I'll start that today too. And strain yogurt for whey. Of course, this is all dependent on getting my disaster of a kitchen cleaned up. Good food makes a good mess, that's for certain.

In fun non-food news, Herbal Roots Zine is having a giveaway for their latest issue, which features Birch medicine. Second place winner gets birch medicine supplies from Mountain Rose Herbs. I am quite partial to Mountain Rose. If I can't get it locally, I order from them (some of the time). You can check it out and enter a chance to win here.

Some day, I will have the time to make all the medicines I want. For now, I'll just do what I can.

a long overdue update, part...whatever.

2012-01-18T12:17:00.004-05:00

um, wow. so, it's been a few years. a lot has happened, a lot has changed. I'm re-taking-up-the-hobby of blogging. I do a lot, and I like to share, a lot. Or maybe that's overshare?

In any case, cliffs notes version.

November 2009 - got help for my drinking problem. Happily sober since 11/23/09. Hard work, sometimes it sucks, but overall, I've never lived such an awesome, happy, authentic life, and I get to do cool things now, like...oh, I don't know...act like a grownup. Have real relationships. Be happy. Take responsibility for myself. Live in the now. Live with integrity. Moving on...

February 2010 - start living my dream and working full time as a massage therapist.

August 2010 - Find out I am pregnant with my second child. Know I want to do things much differently. Join an amazing super secret local group of attachment parents.

September 2010 through April 2011 - hardest pregnancy ever. Well, I mean, by comparison. Had to quit doing massage therapy. LOST weight being pregnant. Sick, painful, ouchie. Get ready for the birth and care of new sweet baby girl, whom, I might add, is extremely feisty in the womb.

December 2010 - take up fiber arts in the form of knitting. This is followed by crocheting (a little bit) and spinning my own yarn (hardly, but I have the supplies). Also, hand embroidery (taken up earlier in the year) and machine embroidery (taken up earlier in the year).

April 2011 - Sylvia Fae is born. Her birth kicks my ass. 40 hours of labor, vomiting, dehydration, horror, 51 minutes of pushing with her having her back rotated towards my side, me screaming all the time about how my hip is breaking... I would do it again in a heartbeat. Most amazing, breathtaking, powerful experience I've ever had.

One week later - realize my exclusively nursing babe has a cleft palate. Uh, no, they didn't realize in the hospital. *sigh* Break out the pump and start pumping for her. I am happy to say I made it six and a half months attached to that horrible device, through 4 rounds of severe mastitis, raynauds, plugged ducts, thrush, falling supply, and plenty of naysayers. Many make it longer than I, but I am at peace.

April through August 2011 - my beautiful daughter spends most of her time screaming her lungs out. Does not sleep much. Mostly just screams and cries. The dreaded colic.

August 2011 through present - my daughter rocks. She has turned from a screaming demon into this amazing, beautiful, fun, happy baby, and I credit that entirely to attachment parenting. Cosleeping, babywearing, the works.

October 2011 - go back to work a couple of days a week as a spa manager/massage therapist. Put our house on the market for a short sale.

December 2011 - pull my now 7 year old son out of school for home schooling.

December 2011 through early January 2012 - fail miserably at deschooling, making us all miserable. Back to the drawing board.

Which brings us up to today! My son has been on vacation with his grandparents for 8 days, and I miss him terribly, and am looking forward to actually DESCHOOLING when he gets home.

Working on other fiber arts...tie dyed some stuff for my daughter the other day, turned out awesome. Tried my hand at batiking, turned out sucktastic. There are some supplies I need that can be had cheap that I plan to acquire shortly before I make another go-round.

On the home front, we're waiting for a determination from the bank regarding an offer we got. This may take some time. I'm so sad to see our home go, but have made peace with it, and await our next adventure. I will miss our gardens, and want to dig up our perennials and take them with us (strawberries, asparagus, blueberry bushes, various herbs), but that'll have to wait until we find a place, which will be a rental for quite some time anyway. The amazing part about being inspired is that no matter where I go, it will always be home, because I'll make it so.

Current kitchen magic - just pulled off a batch of homemade yogurt from our milk share. It's chilling for a bit, then I'll strain half of it for the whey and probably lacto-ferment something. It's been awhile, but all of a sudden I'm manically (is that a word??) inspired. Husband made wild game gumbo the other night, holy christmas. There's some kitchen magic if there ever was some. I need to pick up some rice flour to start a sourdough culture (yep, still GF). And I've also got water kefir grains out, anxiously awaiting A's return home, so we can make some "soda". Contemplating ordering a bushel of oranges to put up, also paid for and waiting for a ten pound order of local bacon (meat candy co-op? amazing), considering a half pig and a quarter cow from a local farm. It's really hard to come up with cash up front, but there goes a ton of our grocery budget for the whole year, if we can just scrape it together.

So! Onward! I'll be closing down my tumblr which was sporadically updated and shifting the posts over here if I can backdate posts, and I'll be moving on!

and so the season winds down.

2009-10-04T15:12:00.002-04:00

oh hai there. looks like i've taken my usual two month break from sanity and the world, and i'm coming back around again.

in the meantime, our garden has pretty much ended, some food has been put up, other stuff has been eaten, and unfortunately, some did go to waste.

this summer i managed to accomplish: pickled beets, pickled peppers, apple butter, strawberry rhubarb jam, mulberry jam, honeyed applesauce. there may be some i'm forgetting. we also managed to put up dehydrated peaches, frozen corn, berries of all kinds, and peaches in a light honey syrup. we've got a quarter cow on the way, as well. local, grassfed, and delicious. i also somehow made yogurt and yogurt cheese. delicious.

currently hanging in the garage is: lemon verbena, mint, chocolate mint, thyme, winter savory, two bundles of sage, and god knows what else.

i've learned a lot in the garden this year, and i hope to know more before the season starts again next year.

i was asked about the coldframes we had planned. unfortunately, during my hiatus, in addition to my broken dishwasher, my fridge finally decided to die. the money (or lack thereof) that we would've used to build the frames incidentally went to replacing our appliances. there's always next year, and we've got a whole winter for planning.

fall activities for us include mushroom hunting and hunting in general. no, not me, that's for sure. as a former vegetarian, i can't even think of killing anything, and as wes sat out back and skinned the lone squirrel he managed to shoot, i was horrified and had to go inside. baby steps, baby steps. what will we do with it? why, wait for three more and throw them in the crockpot.

wes has managed to pick maitakes, hericium, hedgehog mushrooms, and even a late season puffball. so, we're doing a lot better this year, on all fronts.

i also finally got around to starting my herbal blog: look for me at waywardherbalist.blogspot.com.

on the GF front - blood tests were negative. however, i can tell within twenty minutes when i've eaten something with gluten in it. it's not pretty. so, i've foresworn a life of wheat filled goodness, since it makes me feel terrible in a multitude of ways. i also discovered the hard way i even react to "gluten free" oats. this comes with the fun side effects of a violently runny nose and sneezing. pass. no thanks.

on the book front - i took some time out from productive reading to pick up something fun. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, is one of the funniest books i've ever read. i'm currently reading a book about homesteading on a quarter acre. it's definitely informational.

and huzzah, i just found out that my favorite GF blogger is actually a cookbook author of vegetarian books from way back. i have, and love, one of her veg cookbooks, which were written pre-GF for her. let me tell you, her baked risotto with brie and fresh sage is KILLER.

so hi. i'm back. mostly in action. see you around!

the invasion begins.

2009-08-05T11:29:00.002-04:00

aphids, loopers, and powdery mildew, oh my!

oh my indeed. my once lush and beautiful garden is now depressingly wilted, and in some spots, bare. between the powdery mildew and aphids, we've sacrificed the evening primrose. i should probably pull the lettuce and spinach, both of which bolted some time ago.

word of advice, future self - when the planting instructions tell you how far apart to plant your little sprouts, follow them. i don't doubt that overcrowding has contributed to the problem. and my sugar snap pea vines are wilted and yellow. i think i'm going to test the acidity of the soil. i don't know. i've got my hands in too many projects right now, so it's hard to think straight and figure out what could possibly be contributing to some weird plant diseases.

my cherry tomatoes are finally starting to come in. my eggplant, however, is still doing lamely. we've gotten heads on the broccoli...finally. they're tiny so far. and no more peppers, aside from the yellow wax ones which will be pickled this weekend.

so far, in addition to the jams i have put up, there has also been cherry preserves in an almond syrup (tastes phenomenal mixed into plain yogurt), and yesterday, a bushel of peaches. part went into the dehydrator. most were blanched, quartered, and packed in a light wildflower honey syrup. i know dumping raw honey into boiling water negates the healthy nature of the raw-ness. but that honey is delicious and i will have wes pick up a lot more from the farmer's market. dehydrating...is a pain in the ass. i am having a hard time telling if the peaches are done or not. i mean, there's ones that are obviously done, but others...

i've got a few new projects i plan to take on as well. i've been charged with making a hot pepper jam (ew ew ew) and a habanero vodka (ew to the tenth degree). can you tell there is a spicy food lover in my life? i am tempted not to make these things for him, as he suffers from gerd, and hot food gives him horrible, horrible indigestion. but hey, it's his own body, so...

on the gluten free front - rechallenged. it did not go well. we are talking unholy levels of nausea and cramping. anxiety attack (yeah yeah, i know, par for the course for me). brain fog. exhaustion. runny nose and sneezing. okay, then. i get the message. had the anti-gliadin, IgG and IgM blood tests run, they came back negative. Does this mean i'll push myself to eat more gluten? probably not. i feel better for not eating it, so GF for me, i guess. we've had a good number of gf bread baking failures. bob's red mill makes delicious bread mix...that we never fail to mess up in some way. i still have not gotten motivated enough to make my own mix. soon, soon.

reading - still reading the four season harvest. haven't been reading too terribly much lately. or getting much of anything done. my bad.

so much to do, so little time, so much enjoyment.

2009-07-12T22:57:00.002-04:00

holy criminy.

last weekend, in addition to the mulberry jam, i put up strawberry rhubarb jam, blanched and froze beans, snap peas, and kale, and then all was quiet for the rest of the week. (aside from my roommate passing his driving test, but that's not really in the scope of this blog.)

had an appointment with the surgeon re: the abscess. she looked at my leg, looked at me with some derision, and was like, why are you here? I hadn't had the chance to check it out that day, we were running late. I had noticed some shrinking, and the draining was done. The thing shrank from the size of a nickel and all puffed up to the size of a pea at that point. She prescribed me antibiotics for the staph infection (which I didn't fill for a number of reasons - one, there was no sign of infection left, and two, my regular MD didn't think I needed antibiotics, and I heartily agree) and told me to come back in six weeks. Now it is the size of a b b and still shrinking. It's almost gone.

I accredit this to elecampane. Wholly. This thing has been around for months and has never shrunk beneath the size of a pea. No amount of poulticing, draining, whatever, has ever made it shrink smaller. I've been taking small doses of elecampane 3-5 times a day for something unrelated. I had read that some historic uses (think the bible and hippocrates) were for abscesses and skin issues. I was hoping maybe to clear up the main problem (chronic sinus funk) and possibly see something miraculous with the abscess. Well, the sinus funk is still at work, but the abscess is almost gone. It's a freaking christmas miracle. Score one for herbs.

This weekend was insanely crazily busy, with class on Saturday and another amazing workshop today - earth plasters. There is nothing quite as satisfying as mixing your own building materials from home made wheat paste, straw, water, and dirt! Three of my favorite activities rolled into one - learning, spending time with wes, and working with my hands. I wish I had pictures, I'm covered in mud from stem to stern. Deanne Bednar is incredible, and I'm glad I decided to take the workshop, even on top of class, a wedding reception, and a going away party this weekend. Her home is incredible too - check it out at strawbale studios.

Speaking of busyness this weekend - the great basil harvest of 2009. We harvested a ton from 8 plants. Wes made a giant batch of pesto that's currently in the chill chest. His uncle offered us a stand up freezer for free! We just need to find a spot for it. Our garage will be filled to the brim with kitchen appliances. We have one beer fridge, we're about to get another, and a stand up freezer? I'm in heaven.

Book wise, I finished In Defense of Food today, another gem by Michael Pollan. Quick and easy to read. (I'm not sure if I mentioned finishing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but I did. Also fantastic.) Being done with school for now is heartily awesome, I'm catching up on so much reading. Botany of Desire is on tap, but I just dug into Four Season Gardening, as I need to get a jump on the fall crop planting. I'm blown away at what the authors are growing and harvesting all winter long just by using cold frames. They're also Zone 5. Thinking about fresh salad greens from my back yard with the low technology of wood and windows and harnessing the energy of the sun and the earth during our low point of the year has me pretty excited. Also pretty exciting - an upcoming permaculture talk on July 22nd.

So, all in all, lots of things are kicking. Makin medicine, takin medicine, growin food, puttin it up, learning, loving, laughing. Life is good. The only failure this week was something that was neither happy nor foolish, nor anything I have any control over. My big sweet baby Morrison has been diagnosed with feline aids. I'm heart broken, and I know that we've got a long road ahead of us that will be difficult, but it's my goal to keep him as happy and healthy as possible, and make him as comfortable as possible. He's such an amazing creature, and he really helped show me what patience and kindness can achieve. He was a feral kitten that showed up in my yard one day a couple of years ago, and through patience, ended up befriending me. Now he sleeps in my lap, lets me hold him, and in general, is one of the sweetest cats I know. He's a big baby. My mother took it harder than I did, and was sobbing on the phone with me for an hour. :/

On to happier things - Oooooh, managed to somehow finangle Wes into letting me buy 2 books this weekend - Nourishing Traditions and Well Preserved. Drooled over recipes in both...I love my kitchen. My garden. Food. Health. Life. I'm a tactile person, and tactile things are the things that comfort me and make my heart sing. A good meal. A soft blanket. A warm hug. So, while paging through these wonderful books, I laid in bed, nibbled on some Godiva chocolates (hush, I know), and even shared a couple with Wes.

Next up on my stuff to make list - I am thinking about making a plantain and ragweed salve for andrew's mosquito bite problem. Oh, and cherry almond conserve. And some other wonderful foods. And a motherwort tincture. THIS WEEK. Because the motherwort is almost completely done for. And I need to get out and look for Monarda. And possibly St. John's Wort, although that's possibly done for the season as well. Crap. I was hoping to make a st. j's wort oil this year...

and now for something completely different.

2009-07-04T17:18:00.002-04:00

squick warning, if you're grossed out easily, you may want to pass over the next paragraph.

completely different and sucky. so, i've had a boil (or abscess, whatever you want to call it) on my right leg for some time now. I get them from time to time, they're usually not a big deal, although very painful. I got one about 3-4 months ago that refused to fully drain and go away (I know, squick, right?) It'd get big, get small, get big, whatever. Well, I had spent a day taking echinacea to head off what I felt could possibly be an oncoming bout of nastiness, as I felt feverish and yucky. The next day, the boil proceeded to become very, very large. and very painful. (echinacea, I feel, definitely contributed to it's growth. My immune system was like, okay, screw this nonsense, we're just gonna push this mess right outta here.) I couldn't wear pants, couldn't sit, couldn't walk, it was ridiculous. So, I went to my friendly MD and had her cut it open. (Squick again.) Because of the location, it's extremely hard to find a good way to tape it. Plus, the skin is incredibly sensitive, and hey, I can never get it taped without pulling out some short n curlies. This was Thursday. By now, the skin where the paper tape has been applied and reapplied is red, raw, angry, and very, very painful. (The abscess looks fine, though, so it's not some kind of spreading infection.) With limited options for taping, I hobbled to the pharmacy, got GIGANTIC surgical pads in hopes of covering the entire raw area in addition to the abscess, and some of that "it sticks to itself not to your skin" style of tape. Kind of like an ace bandage. Proceeded to wrap the entirety of the top of my thigh in it. I feel totally ridiculous, but at least my skin doesn't sting as bad. I would probably call the on-call doc and ask about when i can stop covering it up, but it's the 4th of July and I'm not dying of any complications, so that feels a little frivolous.

Anyway... in the garden. Wes and I finally waged war on the back yard today. I hoed the long bed that was overrun with weeds, yanked weeds out of the boxes, Wes cut back the weed mayhem and grapevine disaster along the side of the house, and I gave some plants a haircut, pulled out the arugula that was way past edible, and in general, cleaned everything up. I now have grape leaves to brine, I need to get the kale & chard at least partially harvested and blanched and put up, same goes for the green & yellow beans.

One disaster has befallen us so far - we had one beautiful delicious looking purple pepper that we were anxiously awaiting. It was just about done. Today I found it over by the fence, all clawed up and gnawed on. Some woodland creature BASTARD stole my pepper. I know that the animals have to eat, too, and our garden is a sitting duck, but cmon. First all the strawberries and then my pepper? :/

Another thing I don't love is the bugs. Holy bejesus if I were a landscaper I'd have already died of DEET poisoning. Being bitten by mosquitoes can send me into endless fits of "omg what if I contracted equine encephalitis..." I know I let my imagination run away with me, but I've had so many health issues over the last year, dying of some weird disease due to a bug or spider bite is a scary thought.

In good news, I put up my first batch of jam. Mulberry jam, to be exact. It's deeeelicious. And I did it all by myself. :D We harvested the mulberries out of the back yard. I was going to do the strawberry rhubarb jam tonight, but it's looking like that's not going to happen. My first priority is dinner (a delicious squash blossom frittata, which I should probably already have started on), and then dessert (gluten free brownies with gluten free frosting), because being around so many delicious home made treats that I couldn't have last night at my dad's party pissed me off. So, when we went to the store to pick some stuff up for dinner and some stuff for jam making (CRAP I FORGOT THE SUGAR), I saw some gluten free treat mixes and was like, BINGO! I get back to the cart and Wes is all, what's this crap? After he had just offered me a donut he and Andrew were sharing. If looks could kill...he looks at me shooting daggers at him with my eyes, and goes "what?" and then it dawns on him that I can't have any and he's all, oh, sorry.

The treats aren't even the worst. The worst is the beer. I miss it. I miss Huma Lupa Licious, which is currently on sale. I miss being able to sample Wes's home brew. I get to smell them, sure, but it's not the same. A glass of wine does not satisfy, and a mixed drink does not sound appealing. It's the harsh, bitter beer that I crave. Oh well.

Time to make that frittata. And brine those grape leaves. And make the brownies. And think about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow (make jam, harvest veggies & put up, do some homework, harvest and tincture some motherwort in the back yard). Oh! Later, I'l post pictures from our recent garden & field & woods adventures. Scout's honor.

food and medicine.

2009-06-30T14:54:00.002-04:00

For someone incredibly lazy and out of shape, I sure did a lot of physical activity this weekend. Friday ended early, and I got to go out to Proud Lake with Wes, who had already been all over Ortonville Rec and was hot, sweaty, smelly, and scratched to hell. It's funny how it ends up with us, he's looking for mushrooms, I'm looking for plants, so one of us is always waiting (slightly impatiently) for the other one. We went in the back way, parked by some rocks, and not ten feet from where we parked was a giant clump of exactly what I'd been looking for - monotropa uniflora. A strong sedative, nervine, antispasmodic, as well as for "sore eyes". (Funny how so many of the tinctures on hand are sedative and nervine...) I've also heard (read) it is a strong pain reliever, and have seen anecdotal accounts of it used for shingles, severe muscular pain, and other extremely painful conditions.

I had Wes take a picture of me lovingly cradling this beautiful and amazing plant as I carefully dug it out of the ground (it bruises badly very easily, much like mushrooms), but the only thing he got a shot of was my cleavage. *grumble* actually, several shots.

Speaking of bruising like mushrooms, indian pipe is epiparasitic to the family russulacae, so...lactarius and russulas, from what i understand. that's so wicked.

We walked around after I quickly tinctured it, found some chantrelle pins, a couple of chantrelles, and what we believe to be a blewit. Also, an old hericium?? How could that have survived the winter?! It's not the right season for hericiums. There was also pink wolf's milk slime, which was fun to play with, and some stinkhorn corpses. I harvested about 2 ounces of fresh hepatica triloba, which is mildly astringent and mucilaginous. Wait a minute... *looks around* where'd my big ol bag of liverwort go? I'll hurt someone if they threw it out.

After that, it was out to cass benton for some ill fated disc golfing, because my buddy (whose AMAZING psychology for dummies blog can be found here) lost his disc, and then we had to pick up my roommate and take him to work. we drove by a fire department training session on the way home, only I didn't know that's what it was, all I saw was this huge conflagration, thought it was someones home, and nearly burst into tears. Haha.

Saturday it was off to class, and jesus lord. When my teacher says up hill and down dale, he's not kidding. It felt like 100 degrees out, brightly sunny, and he's trucking along up and down big ol hills. I felt my out-of-shape-ness then, very much, and was quite embarrassed.

Something interesting happened though. A classmate was talking about something one of her family members is afflicted with called dufresne's disease. And I had a little mental spasm, mimicked a contracture with my hand, and then totally interrupted my teacher (like the ass that I am). Wait, that produces contractures, doesn't it? Du-fray-ns. Yeah. So my teacher goes, OHHH, trigger finger! And then starts explaining to her what happens in the disease and the best course of action. I just thought that was really flippin weird, on my part. I've never had Dufresne's, nor known anyone who did. I have a vague recollection of learning about it in massage school (good god I loved pathology, was my favorite class and still is), and it was neat how my body accessed that memory, like my hand involuntarily was like, hey, contracture. Makes sense though - kinesthetic learner accesses memories kinesthetically. go figure.

Sunday was strawberry picking day with my sister, so we rounded Andrew up, threw him in the car, and headed to Ann Arbor for pickins. It was hot, it was tiring, we were hardly finding any strawberries. End of the season, everything's picked over. And this was just the first twenty minutes. My sister and I moved to greener pastures, ie snap peas, which were easy, and we could sit in the dirt and gossip while harvesting. Wes utilized his best wildman talents, moving down rows with the speed and ease of someone who often forages and finds delicious mushrooms and interesting things. I was shocked when he wound up pulling about 8 pounds of strawberries out of said plants. Took me a couple of hours to wash and hull them last night, with help.

in the vein of reading politically charged books on food, i started on animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver. it's pretty good, i'm perhaps a third in and i started yesterday. i went up to the vitamin shoppe on lunch to grab some elecampane tincture, of which they were out, but one of my favorite parts about going there are these delcious fruit and nut abominations of granola bars. they're gluten free and delicious, my favorite being almond and coconut. as i was driving home, i happened to glance at the label...it was from australia. i munched guiltily the rest of the way home. here i am reading about a woman who makes her family eat only things which can be had from their county for a year, and i'm eating something flown in from australia. *cringe*

in which i am inspired.

2009-06-24T16:25:00.002-04:00

re: the garden. mary, mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? certainly not with silverbells, but with lots of stuff popping up. (and yes, i'm certainly quite contrary).

i don't understand why i can't seem to do right by my spinach. this is the second year in a row we have had some sad ass spinach. but! the beet greens are coming along splendidly, and i do so love them. we've been harvesting lettuce and beet greens, and of course my arugula bolted. everything is growing nicely, and i can say i have yet again failed as a gardener, because jesus, those squash plants are crowding everything else in the bed. i mean, i knew they would, but still... our kale & chard is looking good, but the broccoli is looking sad, and we lost another watermelon plant. we had some good rains last weekend, and two of my large evening primrose plants decided to collapse. weird. never seen it before. so we staked 'em. ugh, the weeding. my in ground bed has been taken over something fierce with grass. i could weed all week and still have some left. i need to go get a hoe and see if i can somehow manage to hoe some of the weeds and not have to pull them by hand.

other good things this week: bought a pair of keen targee II hiking boots at the REI garage sale. original price? $125. paid? $10. the seam ripped on one side, nothing some shoe goo won't fix. hopefully quickly, as i have a hike coming on saturday and we're supposed to have some nasty weather. haven't decided if i'll go or not if we do happen to have nasty weather. survey says, if we're at a high chance of nasty thunderstorms, i'll be passing that one up, which is really disappointing; not only do i really want to be on that hike, but i've paid a good amount of money for the ongoing intensive. stupid thunderstorms. stupid anxiety.

stopped eating wheat...when? not last week. the week before. so, i'm in week three of no wheat, i think as of today. i've eaten plenty of gluten free bread, though (couple of slices in the morning, and sometimes a mid afternoon sandwich). :/ and some brown rice pasta. it's not terrible. i feel pretty good, actually. now, in another week and a half, i'm going to add it back in and see how i feel. i'm thinking my first wheat containing meal will be four cheese agnolotti with freshly snipped basil from the garden, some nice fruity olive oil, and cracked black pepper. holy crap, that sounds incredible.

sinus infection is officially old news. in the end, i did opt for stronger antibiotics on top of facial steams, nasal irrigation with a variety of tinctures, positional drainage, etc. i had been taking some astragalus, but stopped taking everything when i began a round of omnicef. it has worked well in the past with little to no side effects, and kicked the shit out of the severe sinus infection i had last fall that would. not. die. now that i'm done with those, i'm taking a bromelain sinus ease nutraceutical (which i normally detest, but i'm terrified of it coming back), the usual gaba glutamate balancer, and astragalus, over the short term. i have not been taking my vitamins. i heartily dislike the vitamins i have, and think i'm going to re-order the deva vegan ones. the ones i have now make my stomach hurt, and they make me feel weird.

last night was a rare night indeed. roommate didn't have to work (and thus didn't need a ride), and went out with friends, so wes and i had the house to ourselves, and had a quiet evening, the likes of which we haven't seen since...january? february? we sat out on the porch, he with a glass of home brew, me with a glass of delicious red wine he picked up for me, and talked about what we want out of life, what we'd like to try our hand at, what our goals are. it's really neat to see how far we've come from where we were two years ago, when everything was falling apart. we're headed for the country. i don't know if that's upper middle class suburban conceit that makes us want to be back-to-the-landers, or if it's something deeper than that. in any case, we're working on a plan.

ordered the rest of the crap i need to do some water bath canning, finally. i'll be making mulberry jam and strawberry jam next week/weekend, so if you know me, don't be surprised if i push some off on you. i can't believe i waited so long. we'll be picking strawberries with my sister on sunday. my kiddo's coming, too. :)

wes will be getting his turkey hunting permit next month. he's talking about deer hunting again too, and there's something strange and wild in his eyes when he talks about it. it's not blood lust, per se, but there is something so organic and earthy about doing it yourself, and wanting to take part in the cycle of life, death, and rebirth (as a delicious meal). as a former vegetarian, i'm a little appalled at myself that i'm encouraging this sort of behavior, but something has changed in me, and i'm not quite sure what it is.

finally finished the omnivore's dilemma. holy crap, how did i ever put that book down? i had gotten about 60 pages in, and abandoned it (don't ask me why). finished reading the last 200-300 odd pages over 3 days, it was so good. highly recommended.

and in inspirational news, hobby farms is about to put out a magazine aimed at the urban (and suburban) crowd looking to do some urban homesteading. it's called (how appropriate) urban farming. i'm excited. now if i could just get a couple of chickens into the back yard without getting busted by the city....(it's illegal unless there's 175 feet between your birds and your neighbors house, and our WHOLE LOT is 120 x 60)

it's not funny. okay, it totally is.

2009-06-09T10:31:00.003-04:00

so, a couple of years ago, i bit the bullet and bought a prius. it was a good idea at the time, because both my husband and i drive all over hell's half acre for work, and we used to love road trips. i've been working at home since last september, and going into the office maybe twice a month. we get great gas mileage, and the car did well in the snow until the tires went bald. it's been almost two full years, and i have few complaints, until now.

wes lost my car keys. both of them. gone. we ended up having to pay $400 to get one replaced. AND my car had to be towed in. AND it had to be dragged down the driveway and up onto the truck, because there is no way to override the car and put it in neutral without the key. AND i had to sign a damage waiver for that. and in a bitter twist (which i knew was coming) he found the car key this morning. a week later. that earned an " i hate you" from me. (i don't, really, but it's not like we had $400 to throw away.)

anyway....

what have i learned this week?

my vegetables are growing....slowly. one of my kale plants bit the dust. ditto on one of my watermelon plants. saw what a garden is SUPPOSED to look like, instead of our hap hazard collection of disaster. in a month, those beds are going to be overgrown and probably overcrowded. went out to my friend's parents property, spent awhile in their back 40. harvested wild geranium and solomon's seal. ah! that's what i learned... solomon's seal root can look very, very different. i emailed my teacher (mentor??) about it, and he was like, i've seen them thin as a cocktail straw and thick as my fingers, don't know why they're different. anyway, i was under the impression that solomon's seal wasn't widespread. boy, was i wrong. i really need to get more familiar with jewelweed. i'm pretty sure i saw quite a bit, and that would've been useful to harvest, since my father in law has poison ivy. wes also found the first of this year's oyster mushrooms.

and we walked several miles. which is good, because i'm lazy.

i'm really, truly starting to suspect a wheat allergy in myself. lots of beer=return of the sinus infection. which, you know, could also be lots of sugar=kills the immune system, which was running at a low clip anyway. but it seems suspect i have such bad sinus problems, get infections easily, and have some other issues which could possibly be related. i'm rampantly addicted to bread and pasta though. :( i made it about a week without and wanted to kill myself. or someone else. maybe, over the short term, using "substitute" products like gluten free bread and brown rice pasta, and then switching more to a protein based diet...

also pressed out violet leaf tincture and nettle seed tincture this weekend. put up lemon balm & sage tinctures, and i'm wondering how in the hell anyone manages to tincture ANYTHING fresh, 1:2 (same goes for dried, 1:5). 1 ounce of wet plant material fills a pretty good volume as compared to 2 ounces of liquid. i mean, i've shoved it into smaller jars, like jelly jars, and i cannot seem to figure out how to tincture such an amount in a 1:2 manner. i feel like an idiot, and like i'm missing some important point, so i guess for now, until i feel less embarassed about asking such dumb questions, i'll just continue with simpler's, but this doesn't satisfy the scientist in me.

i was poking around on our insurance provider's website today, because i'm about to get a quote on new health insurance, and holy jesus, they have a HUGE section on CAM. i didn't realize i get discounts on vitamins, massages, acupuncture, nutritional counseling, etc. like, big discounts. *rubs hands together* i wonder how to get onto their provider list for massage. would probably help to be licensed, i guess, but i don't want to be until i have to be, and i'm not paying $300 to get papers through NCTMB or MBLEX until michigan decides which one is mandatory. plus, i think that also requires having an office. i'm not licensed to do business through my city, and they won't license me out of my house, i don't think. and i'm pretty sure if you're linking up with an insurance company to offer discounts to their clients in order to drum up more business for yourself, you need to not fly under the radar. just a thought, though.

re: vitamins. i was looking at the women's multivits that i get discounts on, and pass. i do not want vitex in my vitamins. nor do i want green tea leaf extract in it. a - if it's caffeinated, that'd be very bad, as i don't respond well to caffeine, typically. i try to keep my caffeinated beverage consumption to 1 cup or less a day, or else i start freaking out. b - even if it's decaffeinated, i already take a gaba/glutamate balancer with decaffeinated green tea in it, and how much is too much? i'm not hip to taking bilberry every day, either. i'm going to continue to poke around, but... eh. i was also surprised to see that they've linked up with a nutritional treatment for health issues site. not to mention, some of the "anxiety" recipes sound FANTASTIC.

2009-06-03T22:49:00.002-04:00

Well! A goodly long time has passed, the seasons have changed a couple of times over, and we find ourselves on the cusp of spring and summer. What's old? I still have a sinus infection. (No, I kid you not.) It's not the same one, although I have had a couple between now and then. I had just kicked one over the last couple of weeks, and after this weekend it came roaring back. Why? Well, if I weren't so lazy, I'd walk over and get my Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine and start citing studies about how sugar impacts the immune system. Suffice to say, spending the weekend overindulging in tasty adult beverages was apparently not what my body had in mind, so it gave me the big middle finger, and I'm sick again.

Current protocol: nasal irrigation 1-2x daily with a saline/xylitol blend, with 15 drops of goldenseal tincture in 2 cups of water. 1 ml of an alcohol free extract of astragalus twice a day. rest, rest, rest, and lots of fluids. mullein/garlic oil in the ear. (lots of popping and squeaking when i blow my nose, doctor has affirmed that there is fluid in my ears). a vegan multivitamin/mineral supplement. and as always, a gaba/glutamate balancer to ensure i don't totally lose my mind. :) I will probably be switching astringents though, as goldenseal no longer appears to be indicated, my snot has changed from thick green and yellow to thick white. i keep meaning to run up to the local shop here and get an elecampane tincture, i hear it's fantastic for pulling out old infection, as well as catarrhal conditions that irritate the stomach/lungs, although I fear that won't come in handy this time, as it's used for yellow/green catarrh. I'd have to check with someone more experienced than me, but I think for the time being, it's a consideration best put off.

I wish I could say I've been eating well lately, but I certainly haven't. I know that doesn't boost the immune system.

So what's new, and what's good? Well, got lots of culinary/medicinal herbs planted (meaning, ones that have dual purpose as medicinal and culinary). Wes constructed two 9' x 4' raised beds for me, since our plants last year got all diseased and from what I understand, a lot of it came from the soil. Last weekend we went on a planting extravaganza, and between the culinary herb bed (which also contains beans, garlic, leeks, shallots, and onions), the small hole in our patio (which now contains evening primrose and a blueberry busy), and the boxes (which contain a laaaarge variety of vegetables), we should be all set once we get the watermelons planted. We're going to try a method culled from Mother Earth News, and plant them in 40 pound bags of organic compost with drainage holes cut in the bottom. We tried another of their no-dig planting methods when we realized that we had overbought for the beds - laid newspaper down, soaked it, covered it with topsoil, covered that with compost, and planted the remainder of the plants in there. It currently houses 4 broccoli plants and 2 kale plants. My greens are all looking a little sad right now, I've got red leaf lettuce, kale, spinach, head lettuce....and something else, I can't remember. My arugula's been planted for weeks, and is taking off quite nicely. The pepper plants look awesome, but my strawberry plants keep getting pillaged by the squirrels. Damn squirrels.

You learn something new every day. I was looking at seeds at the local hardware store, trying to find some parsnips for a fall crop, and came across cat grass. I happened to glance at the latin name for cat grass. AVENA SATIVA. ....are you kidding me? How did I not know that milky oats and cat grass are one and the same?! Delicious, indeed, and nutritive as all get out. I have dried oat straw, but I had no idea where to get fresh tops for a milky oats tincture. Guess I know where I'll be getting some now. From my garden, if I can keep the cats out of it. (Alex has taken to peeing in my raised bed...I wonder how many times I'll have to chase him out with the hose...)

good things come in small packages.

2008-10-02T15:11:00.000-04:00

so, i stopped getting better, got my antibiotics switched, couldn't handle it, switched back.

marsh mallow infusion mixed with salt & baking soda in a neti pot is not my idea of a good time. however, i'm definitely getting better. actually, the last couple of days, i've not been feeling too bad. still coughing up greenish/brownish goo in the morning, but other than that, no pain in the face or head except maybe some transient achiness. i'll be done with my antibiotics tomorrow. definitely got some good suggestions from the herblist.

especially one regarding nettles being drying. uhhh...i thought they were moistening. looks like i haven't been doing myself any favors there. that might explain some things. that, and the fact that nettles=magnesium. and magnesium is not good for the absorption of cephalosporins. durrr.

in addition to the neti pot, i've been downing kefir and yogurt and acidophilus like there's no tomorrow, so...that's good, i suppose.

got some mullein & garlic oil in the mail. yay! i'll probably shove a few drops in the ear tonight, it should help with the congestedness and fluid behind my ear drum. it's still there, it's just not as painful. not nasally stuffed up anymore (not that i was much to begin with). i still haven't manned up and put sesame oil in my sinuses. *shudder* plus, i only have a little tiny bit of calamus root, and i really look forward to working with it more. *sigh* i'll probably just order a little bit and infuse some sesame oil with it. how? how much? how long? dunno. i'll have to find out.

also, used the amazon.com gift certificate i got from my mom, ordered another matthew wood book and a couple by david hoffmann. *drooooool* i need to finish the matthew wood book i've been working on before i get into the second one, but i've glanced through it, and read up on wood betony. needless to say, i' m super excited to get my package from mountain rose. go go gadget wood betony! i haven't read much over the last month, since i've been sick as crap. i've been doing a little bit of reading here and there, and finally got on top of, and ahead of, my homework. picked up A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick. finished it in two days. it was awesome.

ohhhhh....the garden. most of our tomatoes bit the dust after the remnants of ike charged through. too much moisture after a dry month. we got perhaps a half inch of rain in all of august, and then 5 and a half inches in 2 days! my tomatoes all got radial cracks and then became bug infested. ugh. however, my zucchini came on like gang busters, and was the most successful plant in the garden. mini harvests of beans, the melons never fruited, and my cukes croaked. a good experiment.

in two weeks, wes and i are taking a week off. first "vacation" we've had, either one of us. we're staying home and addressing all sorts of stuff - fixing the wasteful water faucet out front, and putting our raised beds in. i should probably figure out how we're going to do that. it'd be a good idea.

and now for something funny.

i got a call from credit union one today, they were looking for wes. apparently he stopped by the westland branch last night on his way home to deposit his paycheck....they think he drove off with the tube. good job, sweetie. wouldn't surprise me.

slowly getting better.

2008-09-28T11:14:00.000-04:00

so. you could call me a coward, and that would be ok. round two of antibiotics, FIGHT!

yep, went to the ol family care physician for the sinus infection, because it just became too much to handle on my own. a sinus infection?! too much?! yeah, i know. it's easy for me to deal with other people's illnesses and make recommendations based on what i see/feel/hear/know, but when it comes to my own maladies, my brain seems to be AWOL.

round one was amoxicillin, it did nothing, other than cause problems. went back last week and was given cefdinir, which is what wes usually gets for sinus infections, and it's working. slowly but surely. it's not causing me any problems, so there's a high compliance rate, you could say. no secondary infections, no discomfort, no gastrointestinal distress, whereas amoxicillin makes me pretty ill. the right side of my face still has transient pain, i still have blurred vision, and i'm still pretty wiped, but i'm definitely starting to feel better. also doing nasal irrigation. i have not yet tried a recommendation for sesame oil dripped down each nostril (one of the primary factors in my constitution is overwhelming dryness.) i'm being a little bit of a sissy. funnily enough, wes also went to the doctor the same day for the same problem, but he's got totally different symptoms. i've got dryness, post nasal drip, fluid in my ears, blurred vision, and severe facial pain and headaches. he's stuffy with a ton of nasal discharge, he's got an ear infection, and then also the headache and the blurred vision. same antibiotics, same amount, etc. we've both got nasal irrigation systems so we don't cross contaminate. they took his blood for allergy testing, seeing as how he's gotten so many of them, and the doctor yelled at him to get his cat scan done. (which he's put off for approximately 6 months).

met with an herbalist who i have immense respect for last week. it was fabulous. my only regret is that my donation was much smaller than i would've liked it to have been, but hopefully i'll be getting some more commissions soon, and as such, can throw a bit more his way. he gave me some excellent recommendations for all sorts of goings on, especially the anxiety/panic attack situation. i'm happy to report i haven't had a true blue panic attack since the beginning of last week. (tuesday the 16th). oh, i've definitely had some anxiety, sometimes pretty overwhelming, but nothing like the "oh god, i'm dying, i have to go to the hospital" type of panic attack.

so, he gave me a little hunk of calamus root, as it's indicated by several different issues i've got going on, and i'm playing with that a little. nibbled some of it tuesday night, went to bed, slept like the dead, woke up feeling extremely....thankful. that was nice. nibbled on a little bit more of it last night, was out cold within 1/2 an hour at the extremely early hour of quarter to 11. did not sleep well. could not wake up last night. i was just....done. didn't feel any different when i woke up this morning. calamus root is something i'm going to spend some time working at, just sitting with, and seeing it's effects. she sounds as though she could be a really amazing plant ally for me, if she'll let me.

the problem i'm currently facing is...when. when do i sit with calamus? i, of course, am a little afraid, because if i'm going to be knocked on my rear every time i nibble on the root, i can't do so while i have anything else to do. this includes work, school, parenting, personal studying, "alone time" with wes (wherein we're usually watching cartoons or playing scrabble anyway, but it's nice to just spend quiet time together). then, of course, i'm afraid of the gastrointestinal effects of "too much" calamus. of course, you'll never see me choking down 6-8 inches of root (oh man, the erowid vault for calamus...hilarity), but hey. i'm afraid of everything. and then, of course, there's the self preservation side of having been an anxious wreck for years. what would it feel like not to have anxiety anymore? and that's a little scary too. it's almost like a self defense mechanism.

so, i figure if i nibble a little bit here and there, we'll see what happens.

i've been keeping up on my bio work given to me by my new counselor, so that's a good thing. i'm usually fairly lazy when it comes to doing something that will actually take care of me and serve me, and often hit big road blocks with that. i haven't done it every day, but nearly every day, and that's more than i would've expected out of myself.

more goings on:
got my kitchen aid mixer. with a grain mill. woo hoo! good for milling flour for bread. good for brewing beer. speaking of, i've had 1/2 a beer in the last month, so that's great. being on antibiotics helps with that too, beta-lactam antibiotics + alcohol = total misery. not just beta-lactam, but several in the cephalosporin family specifically cause a disulfram-like reaction, and i don't wanna mess around.

made a couple loaves of bread with the mixer. man, did i screw that up. that's ok, that's what experimentation is for, and that's how you get good at it.

i'm taking the second week in october off, and we'll be putting in our raised beds then, and fixing the water spigot on the front of the house that's wasting water and has turned my front flower box into a swamp. if i had some more cashola, i'd be painting the living room as well.

wes and andrew are currently off stumping around the woods, and i'm sad i couldn't go with them, but my homework is two days overdue, and i really, really need to get a jumpstart on the next module.

i'm applying (again) for a student loan, this time with a cosigner, and will hopefully be able to take care of my balance with ACHS for the current class, and also hopefully will be able to take holistic pathophysiology in november. the classes that are most important for me to take with them are going to be the pathophysiology/pathology/business classes, and those are what i'm going to aim for the most over the short term. other than that, going to keep doing stuff locally, get to know our bioregion's plants, and read as much as i possibly can. it would be awesome if i had friends with similar interests/experience levels with this stuff, or a local mentor, but hey, what can i do? there's tons of email lists and forums and such that i lurk on, so...that's something. and i get to share a lot with wes, especially about wildcrafting.

speaking of wes, he'll be ordering some supplies next commission check to start doing some homegrowing mushroom stuff. we went to the bookstore last week and i happened to see Mycelium Running, by Paul Stamets. I picked it up for him, and he complained that we really didn't have the money for it, but I told him if he didn't buy it, I'd use my gift card for amazon to order it for him. He bought it. He's torn through it. I don't think I've ever seen him read so fast. I'm so happy he's found something that interests him.

man. i'm wordy.

all hail the sinus infection hell!

2008-09-17T09:09:00.000-04:00

the hits just keep coming here.

so, saturday when i woke up (i may or may not have posted about this), i had a constant stream of clear goo running from my right nostril. little bit of stuffiness, but definitely some pain and tingling on the right side. fever, achy, etc. went to work anyway. wound up with a nice headache. have had a headache every day since.

started to feel exceptionally ill yesterday, got a terrible headache, again just on the right side of my head. wound up having a surprise panic attack (aren't they all?) on the freeway again. this particular brand of fun lasted about two hours. it was great. i was on my way to lunch with wes. got there, couldn't eat anything, nearly threw up in the parking lot, thought i was dying, thought my headache was an aneurysm, the works. wes was going to drive me home from lunch, but i decided i'd man up and just do it myself. got home and started to cry. this is unusual, i'm not good with crying. i don't do it very often.

anyway, the headache never abated, despite my best efforts. finally broke down and took some tylenol. it still didn't let up. all this time, i'm not really drawing the parallel to the drippy nose and fever i had this weekend (which i didn't treat with anything). i'm massaging my forehead, and it hurts. ...idea strikes. touch all of my right sinuses, hey. they're all excrutiating. and as soon as i touch them, i can feel, from the inside, that they're FULL. i mean, i'm breathing just fine, and i'm not really having any drainage, but there's definitely something going on. start massaging my right masseter, and my ear hurts. possible ear involvement as well.

so, hot towel on the right side of the face. nasal irrigation. voila! post nasal drip. i get up this morning, and cough up something orange. unless someone put some cantaloupe in my nose last night....that tears it. i've got a bloody sinus infection.

this, on the heels of the flu and a resurgence of panic attacks, which i hadn't had in a very long time, and i don't know if i've ever had them this frequently. they take it out of me. afterwards, i have to lay down and have a good nap, and i usually wake up pretty depressed.

i've got an appointment tonight with a woman from the bio self emergence institute in southfield. i've gotten numerous recommendations to go see her from close friends. ye ol primary care physician is bugging me to go get counseling, as she says panic attacks are a sign that something deep inside you is very wrong and crying for help. i figure i'll go see donna @ the bse first, and perhaps start traditional therapy later.

something i found interesting...i was reading about either a tcm or ayurvedic view of sinus infections, and how they tend to be linked to people who cannot, or will not, cry. ...yep. sounds about right.

add in the ear pain and the dizziness, and there's probably an ear infection going on too. we'll see. sinus infections really shouldn't be treated with antibiotics, in my opinion, but i don't know about what may well prove to be an inner ear infection (makes sense, and fits a whole hell of a lot of stuff i've had going on lately). sinus infections usually do well with nasal irrigation and hot towels and steams and stuff, which i've started on. i AM going to my primary care physician today, but mainly to confirm ear infection, and to see what she recommends. also possibly for some antivert. i'm not really one to treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals (so no xanax for the panic attacks), but if you've ever had vertigo....for weeks at a time...it is one of the most disconcerting and awful things i can think of.

the thing is, i've gotten antivert in the past for an inner ear infection, and then never took it. sometimes having the safety net helps. i have a bottle of xanax in my purse, i've never taken so much as a half. (usually, when i have a panic attack, i think i'm dying anyway, so i'm even less likely to take it, since my panicking self usually tells my brain, oh, you're having an aneurysm/viral meningitis/a heart attack/whatever, if you take a xanax, you'll fall asleep and die.)

in the process of making an appointment with an herbalist i respect highly to discuss some things i've noticed and see what his recommendations are. i'm good at helping other people...i suck at helping myself.

stuff from all over.

2008-09-14T11:45:00.000-04:00

so....been a little negligent of the ol blog here.

what's been going on over at the ol house here:

my grandma came and spent last weekend with us. if i hadn't been ill, i'd probably have utilized the time better.

my tincture press came. *squee*

went to bed, bath, and beyond and ordered my kitchenaid mixer. and the grain mill attachment. helpful for making one's own flour, and also for beer brewing.

harvested a crap-ton of tomatoes, more zucchini, more beans. omg heirloom tomato salad. so good.

did some research on benign prostatic hypertrophy and wrote a paper for school. more on that later. learned that hops not only contain phytoestrogens, but also has been shown to produce breast cell changes in those susceptible to female cancers. very interesting. makes me wonder about the overwhelming breast tenderness i experienced during the last few cycles in conparison with the amount of beer i had been drinking. however, no conclusion can be drawn from that, because more late night beer drinking equals more coffee equals i already have fibroadenomas, and that's one of the things you're supposed to stay away from, in the event of fibroadenomas. i've found lately i can't really drink coffee anymore, more than about one cup and i get disoriented and panicky. fair enough. doesn't matter anyway, i can't drink beer on a regular basis, i get pretty bad rebound anxiety from it.

my sister is here, she drove through the torrential rains we had last night to come hang out and eat oreos and pizza and watch back episodes of shin chan and it's always sunny in philadelphia.

speaking of torrential rains, fall out from ike is predicted today, complete with high wind advisory and chance for severe storms and tornadoes. last night while we were at bed bath and beyond, i guess a tornado hit an apartment complex i drive past twice a week on my way out to plymouth. crazy. i'm sitting outside right now, and it's trying to clear up, which is actually not good, because it means more chance of severe weather later. i'm missing an herbwalk today, i'm a little bummed about that, but at some point, it's going to start pouring, it's a long drive to and from, and damn, i'm tired. the spa is actually picking up, so in addition to my 10 hour workday thursday, i went and worked thursday evening at the spa, and all day yesterday.

pressed some tinctures out this morning - cramp bark, wild yam root, licorice root, and calendula. good yields from all - 70-80%. nice.

wes has spent considerable time in the woods lately. my new favorite story is how he got screwed by the michigan mushroom hunter's guild. he went out to proud lake last weekend while the MMHC was having their annual walk there, unbeknownst to him. he would've had an impressive haul, but every clump he came across was picked clean by them. he ran across bears head tooth, chicken mushroom, and some other stuff. he went out in the pouring rain yesterday and had a pretty impressive haul of honey mushrooms, bears head tooth and other hiriceums, and small puff balls. spore prints definitely point to the honey mushrooms not being deadly galerinas, but i'm still suspicious of them. there's a few other look alikes that grow here that are not good edibles. he's going to give them a try later, and if he's not sick and dying for the next few days, well...i guess they're not poisonous. i say feed them to the neighbors. don't know that i'll be eating them, myself.

okay, back to BPH. Benign prostatic hypertrophy occurs often as men age, which is essentially a swelling of the prostate, sometimes cutting off urine flow completely, since the urethra runs through the prostate. I was reading a few articles in addition to my reading for school, and I was struck by the coincidence of the rate of BPH in concordance with a "western" diet. there's a much higher incidence of men with BPH if they're eating the "western" diet, which i take to mean more highly processed. BPH occurs when there are higher levels of estrogens in the body than there are free testosterones, is one of the theories, and the prostate becomes less receptive to DHT, which is a form of testosterone. Westernized diet=more estrogens? Fair enough, especially when you consider a lot of highly processed food contains a lot of highly processed soy. While these men aren't necessarily sitting down and eating a cake of tofu every day, they ARE consuming a crapload of processed soy. I'd read somewhere else (don't quote me on this) that processed soy is more prone to causing cell changes than unprocessed soy, like edamame, or tofu, or even homemade soy milk. Japanese men following a traditional diet with tofu & stuff still have lower levels of BPH than their counterparts eating a westernized diet....processed soy??

anyway, that's all hearsay and conjecture, for certain, but something interesting to think about, and whether it's processed soy or higher levels of garbage in processed foods, it's pretty clear - it's bad for you in more ways than one. apparently that didn't stop me from eating oreos for breakfast. *grin*

we're starting to formulate more of a plan for the mushroom growing stuff. the shed's probably going to be unsuitable, so wes is talking about building another one. he talked to the farmer's market guy about selling mushrooms n stuff there, and the guy was like hell yes! so now wes is trying to talk me into selling teas and tinctures and massages and stuff at the booth. i'm interested, but like everything else, i'm scared. teas would be easy enough, but tinctures? i'd have to look into the legality of that...massages also shouldn't be a problem, but there is an issue with having to be licensed within the city of farmington. i'll have to look into that. then there's also the fact that i don't have an office and don't really want to refer people to the spa all the way up in keego. not to mention, it's freaking EXPENSIVE. good lord. i don't know that i'd ever pay that much for a massage. not that i get most of it, but i get a healthy cut, when compared to how some other places pay their MT's. plus, the table, sheets, oil, music...it's all provided. i've been thinking about leasing some office space in a historic building not far from downtown farmington, but i don't have the extra income to sustain an office without much of a client base. the office space in the building is quite cheap, but i'm pretty sure part of the process of getting licensed in farmington also applies to the space, and i'm also pretty sure that you need to have your own bathroom. i would love to get a couple of other MT's into sharing a space...something i should work on. i don't do chair massage right now, and don't have a chair for chair massage, but that wouldn't be hard to acquire, both in terms of skill and materials.

i have a new client next week with fibromyalgia. i remember very little from school regarding fibromyalgia, so...research time!!

i am afraid.

2008-09-04T20:31:00.000-04:00

i've been thinking about this lately. a lot, actually. and while it's not horribly diy related...in a way, it is.

i'm afraid. of mostly everything. here's a great for instance - i've now been sick all week. minimal fever, but nasty gut pains, like i'm loaded with hot rocks. nausea, dizziness, lightheadedness, the...uh...back door trots. no appetite. and this makes me afraid. i am rarely sick. i have no control over it. i'm also afraid of thunderstorms. yes, thunderstorms. specifically, those with high winds, or the threat of *gasp* tornadoes. i'm afraid of airplanes. car crashes. fire. burglars. the list goes on and on and on. i really am afraid of damn near everything. it would be easy to reach for a bottle of xanax every time i was afraid of something, but i won't let myself do it. i haven't in yeaaaars. because i know when the fog lifts...i'll still be afraid.

these are all things i can't control. you know what else i'm afraid of? people. i recognized at least one person at the UpS conference, but said nothing...because i was afraid. i've got an amazing opportunity to drive across the state and learn food preservation skills from a woman who's been doing it for years at a pretty good price...and i'm afraid. what if i have to drive in the rain all the way there? what if i hit another deer? same goes for herb classes that are an hour away from me. what if i commit and then we have nasty weather? what if i have to drive in the country in the dark? what if other people see i'm afraid?

i have another opportunity to go to a couple day retreat in the woods of pennsylvania to learn about scouting, and to learn more about myself. this opportunity is given by an amazing teacher who i've communicated with for over a year now...did a weekend bootcamp with him last summer and it changed my life. he doesn't teach you how to do...anything. but you get to try on different modes of being and it stretches your perception. and guess what? i'm afraid. afraid to ask wes if i can have the money, because it is A LOT of money. it doesn't fit in with our plan which is to throw any money we can toward our debt. wes's car is dying, and we'll soon be a one car family. i'm also afraid to go be in the woods for a couple of days with strangers.

of course, i'm not afraid to make mistakes. and i love owning up to them. i don't mind playing the fool and letting people laugh at my failures. (but i am, on the other hand, afraid of a pressure canner blowing up in my face.) so, i'm putting it out there for all to see - i'm freaking afraid!! one of my teachers rags on me - why do you smile and laugh when you're in pain? because i do. and it's hard for me not to laugh at myself right now, but i know that i would just be covering up the fact that it pains me that i'm afraid.

there was more i wanted to say, but i'm on a conference call that promises to be amazing.

we have a winner!

2008-09-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

this has been driving me nuts for some time. it's such a cool looking plant, and we had no idea what it was.

well, i took the whole day off, and i'm feeling a little better. not making a mad dash for the bathroom every 20 minutes, so...that's better. still have gut cramps, especially if i try to eat anything. managed to choke down some real food, and it hasn't given me too much of a problem.

so, on this whole day off, i've done nothing, which has felt INCREDIBLE. i've laid on the couch, laid in bed, read a little of Matthew Woods' book I'm working on, messed around online quite a bit. Catching up on herbalist's blogs. So many got to go to the WHC. ...someday. someone had posted a picture on her blog of a woman holding Montropa uniflora.

which is....indian pipe. which is....in the picture above. plant id'ed. booyah. this makes sense, because proud lake seems to be blanketed in russulas, and indian pipe is parasitic to members of the russulacae.

i'll save the happy dance for another day. i should get off the couch and make some dinner. ...not going to happen.

finally. pictures of my yard.

2008-09-03T09:58:00.000-04:00

it's been pretty quiet over here, if by quiet you mean anything but.

my birthday was friday, out to dinner and to bowling with some friends, had some people over until the wee hours. that didn't end quite the way i had in mind, and was a great motivator for everyone involved to stop drinking. i know at least 4 people who are cutting back or stopping altogether after friday.

i, for my part, seem to be suffering from an untimely case of gastroenteritis. i actually took at least the morning off, not wanting to get too far from a bathroom. boo. i've been sick for a couple of days now. this is not the most fun i've ever had, but at least i'm not dying from viral meningitis or something. so, not being able to sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time, i finally took pictures of my yard.
A view of the left side of the yard. In the back corner the raised beds are going. We'll start on those sometime this month. The shed is apparently being turned into a mushroom house, according to wes. i have no arguments with that. he's already done a bunch of research, and i'm fairly certain he'll be growing oysters, although he did mention something about maitakes. i don't think he'll grow maitakes, because they're SO easy to find here at the end of summer and in the fall.

my sad little vegetable garden. also, more space for raised beds. it's going to be hard for me to balance my overwhelming desire to farm the crap out of our back yard while still leaving plenty of space for my son to run around in.

we've got a dog run we've always longed to do something in as well. mostly lambs quarters and grape vine back there now, although you can see a rogue zucchini that my husband tossed back there, as it was eaten alive by bugs.

cucmbers on the top, poor things. there are actually cukes growing, but who knows what'll happen to them. the zucchini plants (on the bottom) didn't do so bad. well, comparatively speaking. we let the zuccs get as big as ball bats before we harvested them. there's a flower back there that i would pick and cook if i weren't nauseated enough to require a stockpot next to me at all times.

melons on the top, only one plant survived, and poorly, at that. planted far too late, for certain. on the bottom, my broccoli plants are finally growing, but a pest is eating holes in the leaves. i believe those are pepper plants behind them, which just started to grow last month. behind that, the beans. we've made a few small harvests. they're tasty. and purple.

big plans for this little plot of land, that's for certain.

now, for a cast of characters. or, my unruly band of felines.

on top, off in the distance, you can see bummer. he's not mine, but spends a great deal of time in our yard. bottom is morrison. he and bummer look like twins. morrison was a feral, and a rescue. he's a lover now. very vocal. here, pissed i am taking pictures instead of petting him.

this here is mr. alex. another rescue. this picture belies his size. he's an 18 pound power house. he was nowhere to be found while i was taking pictures, but decided he wanted to come in and "help" while i was uploading them. if by help you mean....sit on my lap and claw at my hands while i was trying to get stuff done. this is his favorite game. in the background, you can see morrison doing his own brand of helping. this consists of sneaking behind the laptop only to walk on it moments later. (and yes, my couch is red).

shu on top, charlotte on the bottom. both are fairly skittish, and prefer to hang out mainly in the bedroom. both are kittens of rescues we've taken in.

and there you have it.

even though i feel wretched, i think i'll do some studying today. i need to accomplish something. other than a nap, which is coming up shortly. i've been sleeping greater than 10 hours a day. i think i'll also order my canning supplies. tincture press is finally on it's way.

2008-08-26T11:09:00.000-04:00

the no-poo experiment is going quite well. hair looks minorly greasy, but not overwhelmingly so. i think it'll look better once it's grown out more as well, right now it's in that horrible inbetween stage that's prevented me from growing it out for a couple years now. made the simple mistake of too much essential oil in the acv rinse, so instead of my hair smelling mildly of frankincense, it was almost like black pepper. thankfully, that faded within about 12 hours, but i'm not sure how wes slept next to me without getting a headache.

this week, the focus for me will be on finding my balance again. spend a little too much time socializing and cutting loose last week, a little too much drinking, a little too little focus. tuesday, thursday, friday, saturday, spent most of the last two days chitty chatting on the internets whilst getting my overdue homework done and working.

man, my cucumber plants look TERRIBLE. although, we've finally spotted a few little cukes growing. harvested two zucchini this weekend the size of baseball bats, stuffed them, and had them for dinner. and lunch. and dinner. andrew LOVED it, which is great. harvested purple and green beans as well. don't think we've eaten those yet. ...why can't i remember? one melon plant is growing well, the other took one for the team and got eaten by japanese beetles. broccoli plants are doing well. still two mammoth zucchini to harvest, my blasted heirloom tomatoes are finally starting to turn beautiful colors. four giant tomato plants....all will ripen at once. this does not bode well. my little loose leaf lettuce plant is still pretty small though. yes, way to plant a cool weather plant in the middle of the summer. tim and eric awesome show, great job!!!

hops seem to be a wonderful relaxant for me, but i will say, too much beer....not so great. i've come to love the bitterness of ipa's. however, liquor just doesn't bode well for me. i don't often drink enough to get a physical hangover, but it does not take much to give me a brain hangover. this effect is usually felt not the first day after drinking, but the second. sluggy thought processes, disconnection, tiredness, some anxiety, some depression. the longer the period of drinking, the worse the brain hangover is. i'd like to tincture some hops and see how that works.

speaking of tincturing, my 4 tinctures should be ready now - calendula, wild yam root, licorice root, cramp bark. i was told to hold off on my pressing, and it didn't dawn on me until later why wes told me to wait.

....i'm getting a tincture press for my birthday.

also, so far, i've gotten some more sewing supplies (i haven't sewed in a couple of years, but plan to pick it back up perhaps this winter). got myself a book: The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism by Matthew Wood. got a gift card from my mom for amazon.com. can't decide if i want to get more books or put the money towards a dehydrator. dehydrator is winning, for now. we'll see.

wes apparently got a wild hair across his backside and is now fixated on the idea of turning our humble little shed into a grow room for mushrooms in the summer. being one of extreme logic and rationality, he has costs associated with it, methods to achieve his goals, failure rate percentages....etc. good thing one of us has a brain and gathers information before wasting time and money. so, that may be in the works for next summer.

went stomping around a little protected patch of woods a few miles from our house, along 696. started to go down a trail that was an offshoot of the main trail, and happened upon a doe happily munching away at some plants. she looked up and saw me and just kind of stood there. then her fawn comes frolicking along. we took a couple tentative steps toward her, she straightened up, squared off, and started to walk toward us. i, of course, got spooked. seriously, when does a deer walk TOWARD you? the only thing i could think of was her being pissed that we were in her territory, and she was with her fawn. we beat a hasty retreat.

one of the sad things about that little patch of forest is how many trees are dying or dead. kind of creeped me out.

still haven't addressed the student loan issue. will do so this week. last couple of weeks have been hectic - two deaths (only went to one viewing), friends in from out of town (due to one of the deaths), saw an age old friend (due to the other), a wedding, a birthday. family stuff. the usual.

and uh....that's about it.

it has a nice ring when you laugh.

2008-08-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

latest happenings:

jarred up some peaches in a light syrup. the jar promptly broke. put the peaches in a bag to ripen and get bagged and frozen. left them in the bag a day too long and lost half of them. bagged and froze the rest in a light syrup. i'm freaking SHOCKED nobody around here sells canning equipment. so, i have to order it. not to mention, leery of pressure canners. with my luck, i'd lose an eye.

wes has tried valiantly to save our dishwasher. it started with a clogged hose. then wes flooded the kitchen with what smelled like raw sewage. got that taken care of, snaked the hose, cleaned it out, got it hooked back up, and the motor has died. it's cool, though. no matter what happens, i'll be happy. we've talked about replacing it in a month or so with something that'll have one of those hard food thingies in it so it doesn't get clogged, but i think i'd be just as happy to put a rolling cart where the hole in our counter will be to have a place to put cookbooks and jars of food n stuff. not having a dishwasher is not the end of the world, although it's inconvenient.

something i forgot to mention - we saw a reishi type mushroom on our neighbor's lawn. i should go back and snap a pic of it. i didn't think reishis grew here. wes said it was probably a tsugae, but i don't know that those grow here either.

i have miss dig coming out to mark off lines and such so we don't hit anything while destroying our lawn.

there should be a new book waiting for me when i get home. andrew's got a school picnic tonight, so it's going to be torture!!

i got denied for a student loan. bummer. no idea how that happened. my credit should be great. could be all of the cosigned stuff though, like my house, and only counting my income. i'll have to pay off achs another way, i guess. or get a cosigner.

money, money, money. nobody's got any.

so, i shampooed and conditioned my hair for possibly the last time last night, if all works out. i'll be doing baking soda and apple cider vinegar with some essential oils thrown in. gotta get a natural bristle brush to distribute the oils, though. i can't remember the last time i BRUSHED my hair. maybe a couple of years ago when i had hair??

there is a crispness to the air at night i love. it reminds me fall is coming soon.

took a long hard look at my diet. realized i'm getting next to no protein aside from the occasional egg, and cheese. and yogurt. hmm. no wonder my hair is falling out. this could possibly be behind the dizzy spells as well, i don't know. been reining it in, though, and been trying to follow a balanced diet. stupid pms bloat gave me 5 extra pounds. now that pms is over, the 5 pounds are gone. who does that?! seriously! does anyone else gain 5 whole freaking pounds when they have pms??

wes kindly burned me some basmati rice in the rice cooker, so today's lunch was just as dismal as yesterday's. a couple of cups of rice with a peach on the side. yesterday i had two egg sandwiches. one for breakfast, another for lunch.

spent some lovely social time this week. i often forget about how young i am. i've been a wife for 3 years, home owner for almost 3 years, a mother for more than 4, i've worked a "grownup job" for 8 years, etc. i haven't looked to validation through socialization in quite awhile, it feels, but spent some amazing time socializing with a group of funny and kind folk at my favorite hideout downtown this week. not only was it refreshing, it was an out and out riot.

lessons learned this week:

+get some freaking canning equipment and do it right.

+don't freeze narrow mouth jars. even if you leave the cap off and leave what you think is enough head room, it could break. (wide mouth jars may work better for this, i don't know.)

+take a break to see your friends.

+if you don't have money, ask to barter. don't be a 'tard and miss opportunity just because you're broke.

+give sallie mae the finger.
(seriously. between wes and i, we have 9 or 10 student loans through them. all are paid on time, and double the payments. we both have good credit, all obligations are paid on time, or ahead of time, and they won't give me a student loan? thanks for the loyalty.)

+time doesn't stand still, even if it feels like it. life marches onward, and you are responsible for yours, and the meaning it has.
(i mean, i already knew that, but it was reinforced by a funeral i went to, and how life just thrummed on outside of the funeral home.)

+participate more in email group discussions.
i've traded emails with 4 people this week that i would never have talked to if it weren't for opening my trap once in awhile. these emails have enriched my life.

where does the time go??

2008-08-16T14:58:00.000-04:00

i had planned to do another planting for fall, but never got around to it. not to mention, those vegetables i planted in the too-hot middle of summer are starting to come out of dormancy.

Lessons recently learned -

+when books say separate the seedlings, they mean it. i have 2 gigantic zucc plants growing out of each planting. same goes for about every other vegetable in my yard. jesus haripod criminy.

+my son is super freaking awesome. ok, i knew that already. but still, totally reinforced this morning. we went for a walk to collect leaves and twigs and flowers for a wax paper windowpane. and then he helped me weed the garden, and ate a bunch of stuff out of the garden. lemon balm, fennel (blech!! he loves it, though), sage, creeping woodsorrel, lambs quarters, basil. he'd take whatever i handed him and fearlessly stuff it in his mouth. what a trooper.

+come to think of it, my whole family is awesome. seriously, we're probably the neighborhood wierdos. i don't know how many other families around would pour outside and exclaim how awesome a giant hairy spider is. (the thing was awesome, though. looked like chevron stripes on his back, and he was HUGE. he's still hanging out on my door that i'm sitting next to.)

+i have some unidentified weeds growing in my yard that are driving me nuts, because i can't seem to figure out what they are.

+Freecycle is the best invention ever. In the last week, I've given away about $200 worth of quilting fabric (and it was all stuff that was gifted to me that I never would've used), a crap ton of baby toys and clothes and accessories, and a fish tank. Yes! Please! It helps me clean out my house.

Some thoughts i'm currently cogitating on - i've got a bunch of scrap wood in my garage, that's actually FROM the garage. The previous owners had built shelves and stuff, and we pulled them out. I'm wondering if that wood would be good for the raised bed boxes for next year, and if they need to be treated with anything. The area where I was thinking of putting the boxes does get full sun, full day. So...that's good. I'm dreaming of a greenhouse. Some day. I should've bought a lottery ticket.

Also, what to do with a peck of peaches? I'll probably slice and freeze some, and then can some others. That requires going out and getting some accessories, though. Not a big deal. Maybe a $10 expenditure. Also going to order a book of Matthew Wood's. Need to get my student loan figured out. Boo.

My genius self was going to take some pictures of my yard (and my pathetic garden) for posting, then I realized that my camera was at work. Double boo.

Oh. Definitely going on a diet. Good freaking lord. I stepped on the scale this afternoon, and while I realize I'm swollen with PMS bloat, there's still been some poundage that's crept up on me. Need to balance my calories, for sure. Lots of cheese and bread lately and not much else. For SHAME.

After my dad comes to pick up the sproutlet, we're going over to some nice lady's house to dig up her Rose of Sharon plants. Oh man, the resurgence of hibiscus tea. Mmmm. I've got some roses as well, and some lemon balm. Drank some motherwort tea last night, the viewing for the suicide of the girl I knew in high school was a little more traumatic than I expected. Closed casket, and I was only there for about 5 minutes. I felt like an intruder. The astonishing thing is that this is the 7th or 8th suicide amongst that particular peer group in the last 12 years. As my friend Thom was saying, it's been one every year and a half or so. It's very hard to understand, and it also makes me paranoid and worrisome that perhaps there's something in the water here. I didn't grow up here, but all of these suicides did, and now I'm raising my son here. Hmmm....

I don't fiddle with meditation nearly as much as I should (and I say that because my mind is like a hamster wheel and only shuts up if and when I meditate), but I decided to bust out and blow the dust off of one of my favorite meditative tools - a tarot deck. I don't necessarily think the universe is trying to tell me something, but I definitely believe in the pattern seeking of the human mind, and as such, no matter what card I pull, there is a message for me there, it's up to my subconscious to make the connections and to think about it. So, my card for the rest of the month is the Prince of Pentacles. Of course, as per usual, this totally random selection made me smile.

The PoP - This card is usually called the Knight, but in some modern decks appears as the Prince. Traditionally, this card in this suit pictures an overseer of fertility and growth. His period of ascendancy is during the quiet years between conflicts, when everybody can collaborate in raising the collective standard of living. His horse is usually huge and thickset, more suitable to pulling a plow than riding swiftly into battle. His temperament is easygoing and relaxed, he's moving at the rate of the flow, because he knows that you can't hurry time.

Seeing the bigger picture, like a farmer planning for the future, he doesn't allow momentary fads or fancies to distract him, and he doesn't take seriously those who do. One can feel his stability and dedication -- he is totally responsible and even somewhat predictable when it comes to his projects. He is earthy and gentle, as simple and deep as the soil he tills and the flowers he loves.

Of course, my other favorite meditative tool is coloring mandalas. Probably won't have much time for that this weekend, as we'll be out digging within a half an hour, then off to a wedding, plus have to process that peck of peaches. Oh...and then there's my homework. *sigh*

ok, so the sky really isn't falling.

2008-08-13T11:28:00.000-04:00

last night, after a mini freakout (ok, who am i kidding...i went postal), i went out and trimmed off leaves affected with powdery mildew. my squash plants have it too. big surprise there, since it apparently has something to do with heat & humidity. (hi, michigan? this is sarah calling. seriously, you're killing my garden. knock it off. yeah? i know i have no idea what i'm doing, but please. spare a little mercy?)

a few things i neglected to mention in my spilled milk post:

+wes went out foraging yesterday. he got out of work early after pulling an all nighter, so instead of going home to nap, he went out to proud lake. scooped up what we're sure is probably the last of the chantrelles, and a little specimen of chicken mushroom. he's going to look into other ways to cook chicken mushroom, because as of yet, i've only had them one way that i can stomach. honestly, it truly is like eating chicken, and it grosses me out.

+went to Nature Made in Detroit yesterday, and met the hermit and self taught herbalist Gary ....W. I can't remember his last name. i had seen jim mcdonald's post on herbwifery.org (yet another lurking spot of mine) about gary being one of his favorite herbalists, especially locally. gary's an awesome guy, and really inspired me to kick my school addiction and learn it myself. also, we talked about all sorts of alternative energy stuff, he gave me some really cool tips as far as greenhouses go, and we talked about heat pump technology.

+in poking around on other people's blogs, i discovered that yes, there are urban homesteaders. and yes, there are two within 20 miles from me whose blogs i've discovered. (this discovery was this morning.)

this makes me slap my forehead and bemoan my lack of brain power. who needs an acre to homestead? i've got a 120 X 60 lot, i'm sure i could put much more of it to good use. and why in god's name did i not think of growing stuff in containers on the patio, thereby freeing up future above ground boxes for stuff that DOESN'T grow well in containers, like greens? freaking...triple duh. geez.

+ i've learned so much this summer about gardening, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. for instance, the plantain and woodsorrel that run riot in my yard both indicate acidic soil. the clover? mostly infertile land. this helps me to figure out how to amend the soil. score!

+decided what to do about school. (inspired by DIYers the world around). There's some things that I definitely do better with a little direction and exercises, like learning A & P, pathology, pathophysiology, etc. so, for those, i'm going to continue with ACHS. just for a few more classes. after that...(thinking about something Gary said to me..."when some guy was teaching an herbal class for $300, I thought to myself, how many books can I buy for $300??"). Also, I do intend to do a summer program with Gaia over in Ann Arbor, as I think this would give me more vital hands on experience I am sorely lacking. Add in the fact that I'll have to do work study, as I'm always broke, that's more experience, both in terms of wildcrafting and cultivation. Plan to take as many of jim's classes as I can possibly afford. blogs, herblists, and websites are so invaluable to me, as people relate their experiences in the world of herbal medicine. also plan to do some stuff with other correspondence courses, but that's not going to be for a bit, as I need to finish up some stuff with ACHS, and nobody else is going to take a student loan.

+another huge duh. who's got years of experience with natural medicine? my internal martial arts teacher and good friend, rick. he was trying to tell me how to make lye when we were bowling on friday night. i had been drinking, and subsequently promised to pay him a visit. saturday didn't work out. sunday didn't work out. this week hasn't worked out. i can't even afford to spend the gas to go out there right now. not even for class. i haven't left my house aside from going to and from work in days. (also the tincturing calendula dilemma? hi. i'm an idiot. i forgot to grind the herb up. ...or just cover it in alcohol. rick says - you remember from the school of cultivation and practice, sarah. the method is not the truth. once you get the feeling, get rid of the method.)

+figured out what i'm missing, i think. i had said something before about cleavers, chickweed, and mullein. dunno where mullein came from, but i'm pretty sure that's not what i had in mind. cleavers, duh. good for sluggish lymph system. (we'll not go there now). chickweed? bigger duh. full of vitamins & minerals, especially zinc, which is sorely missing from my diet, due to vegetarianism. and the biggest duh of all? oatstraw. duh, duh, duh. good for anxiety, and extremely nourishing to the body. jim mentioned it in some emails we passed back and forth. i've read about it. it just didn't strike me.

also, need to do nutritional overhaul, for certain. i've been eating like crapola lately, with the exception of lots of fresh stuff. i just need to balance a little better, and address some gaping vitamin/mineral holes.

also planning on doing an about me post, as there is surely a reason i (usually lightheartedly) call myself a fool. all inquiries as to the nature of the beast can soon be directed there.

Houston, all hell has broken loose.

2008-08-12T19:38:00.000-04:00

The universe must get a big kick out of me. I mean, anyone should. I make beginner's mistakes, and reap beginner's rewards. Which, let me tell you...are pretty slim pickins.

Not having weeded my garden in a couple of weeks, I failed to notice some major problems developing. I knew one of my tomato plants had blight, and I have a sneaking suspicion this has to do with having my garden backed by a chainlink fence backed by my neighbor's garden, where their tomato plants have a serious case of blight going on. (The blight first showed up on a plant where our foliage touched their diseased foliage, but I think it may also have to do with the soil). However, they are now all showing symptoms of blight.

Wait, it gets worse. My cucumbers? Oh, right. Those have powdery mildew.

My bean plants have yellowed leaves on the bottom. I don't even KNOW what that's a symptom of.

I wish I had known about my neighbor's experience with blight last year. I wish I had, you know...maybe studied what I was doing before I decided to dig up a big patch of lawn to plant vegetables. This would've told me half the plants I was planting do better in cooler temperatures, and that the 90+ degree weather with 80% humidity for the past month might be a reason why some of them would not grow at all. Speaking of, since we've cooled off in the last week, I've had three plants decide to grow. ...I don't even know what they ARE. I didn't label them.

The icing on the cake? One of my backyard herd of cats decided to use one of my big ol unripe tomatoes as a scratching post. I bet it was Bummer, and I bet he thought it was a toy. The Corporal Cuddling treatment will not work on him, as he is feral, and I can't get near enough to him, and it would probably result in a removal of my eyeballs and a large patch of skin.

Rookie mistakes. Wes is cheerfully optimistic. This is usually reserved for me. He says, hey, at least we learned a lot this year, and we'll do better next year. This includes planting before and just after last projected frost instead of the beginning of July (don't even ask what the rationale for that was, I don't even want to go there). Replanting grass along the fence and doing a big above ground patch near Andrew's swing set. Picking disease resistant varieties, perhaps.

At this point, I don't even know what to do. I hear fungicides work for mildew, but I don't know that I'm willing to do that.

assassin bugs, good food, and other misgivings.

2008-08-08T21:04:00.000-04:00

assassin bugs. specifically, immature masked hunter bugs. if you see these things, freaking...run.

so, this morning, i was screwing around with my glasses. the screw had fallen out of one side last night, and i had secured it with some wire that i snatched off of a needle threader. well, when i took my shirt off this morning, it pulled the wire out of my glasses, so as i was trying to get it back in, i stabbed myself in the finger. good enough to draw blood. this, of course, pissed me off. i ended up breaking off part of the wire as i was putting my glasses back together. a minute later, i put on my intended shirt, rescued from the pile of clothes on the floor. i walked out to show wes where i stabbed myself, and i thought i had the fallen wire stuck in my shirt or something. SEARING PAIN. so i rip my shirt off, and i'm wondering why it hurts in two totally different areas. i look down, and oh ho, dear readers, this was no wire poke. within a minute, i had two swollen blood blisters a little smaller than the size of a pencil eraser, and wheals around the blisters the size of half dollars. so, i'm thinking, great. brown recluse or black widow in my shirt, i'm going to die. way to stay positive. i examine my shirt, and instead come up with this delightful little critter:

keep in mind, this thing is freaking small. and the size of the bites i got..well, not so small. i didn't know at the time it was an assassin bug, but the skin reaction and ensuing numbness and tingling in the area of the bite (which were on my left breast and underarm) freaked me out, as did the stomach ache. so, i called Botsford. they said, sounds like an allergic reaction, mosey on over. i scooped up the critter in some tupperware, brought it in, talked to some doctors. they didn't know what it was, and treated the reaction as an allergy - prednisone and antihistamines. the swelling is nearly gone, and the pain is under control. you can read more about masked hunters here - http://ping.fm/f7LoQ

When they say that assassin bug bites are some of the most painful, they're not messing around. it felt like a hot wire. it was excruciating. i've been stung by bees and wasps, even bitten by fire ants. it does not compare. not even a little. ...bastard. thank god we're too far north for those to carry chagas disease.

moving on here...
i've been noticing a RIOT of purslane in the parking lot here at work, as well as other stuff like perennial sowthistle, wild lettuce, lambs quarters. it really makes me think about and appreciate that some plants do much better without cultivation. i work in a heavily polluted industrial area, and here is this green and red stuff just bursting out of the cracks in the pavement...it's amazing.

i also saw some prostrate spurge, and they certainly do look much different. whereas purslane has thick glossy leaves like jade plants, the spurge has papery leaves, a much more straggly looking red stem, and a red tear shaped drop in the center of the leaves. also, there's the stuff that comes out of the stems when you break them. like latex, only it pissed my skin off.

cooking (and eating) adventures this week have included:

+ raw food mushroom tamales with mole sauce and salsa, courtesy of holly
+ pan fried stuffed grape leaves my sister and i made with grape leaves harvested from my back yard, fresh raw milk mozzarella from zingerman's (oh dear god that stuff is good), basmati rice, chipotle, lemon, cabbage, garlic, onions, tomatoes, and butter toasted pine nuts. This recipe was courtesy of Loba's Lovin Kitchen, and can be found over at the Anima Center's blog - http://animacenter.org/blog/?p=245
+fresh raspberries and sliced peaches both nights for dessert, a winning combination. With homemade whipped cream on it, when my sister was here.

plus, i got to share the delicious parcels of grape leaves with my neighbor, who hates my grapevine and asked that i cut it down (i did, it grew back). she liked them.

i got the costs associated with the associates degree program, and they are remarkably high. i have to sleep on it for awhile....i just don't know if i can commit that much money, especially not when HHP's are not licensed here. plus, there's other people i want to study with. i don't know. we'll see.

up yours, tidy bowl man.

2008-08-03T21:16:00.000-04:00

so, as many know, i like to stick it to the man in nice, small comfortable ways. and by this i mean, if it's going to land me in jail, i probably won't do it, but if it saves me money and requires testicular fortitude, i might.

so, my house is a mess. i mean, really really nasty. i hate cleaning, i always have, my dad used it as a punishment when we were growing up. as such, my toilets need to look like something housing a creature from the black lagoon before i'm like, hey, i should probably go ahead and clean that. well, today we were out of pretty much everything we use to clean, minus some ms. myers counter spray, which we were running dangerously low on. i've got a book called, clean house, clean planet, and it's got all sorts of recipes for do it yourself cleaners, as well as tips for doing things naturally (you know, like washing your windows using newspaper for a streak free shine). so i whipped up a batch of "hollywood bowl" using castile soap (thank you, dr. bronner), baking soda, vinegar, water, and tea tree oil. cleaned the toilets better than commercial products, and it smelled nice (if you like the smell of tea tree. if not, sorry man). So, that's right, up yours, clorox. up yours, tidy bowl. my cleanser smells better and my kid probably won't die if he decides to eat it, although he might throw up. i made it myself, it was cheaper, it cleaned better, and it smelled better.

however, my cats might die. i made sure the lids on the toilet bowls were closed, and didn't clean the outside of the toilets with them. i'm wondering what good antibacterial EO can be usen in something like that that's not overwhelmingly toxic to my four legged friends (or enemies. depends on who threw up in the bed and who i've caught pooping in my garden.)

bonus? i've got a recipe for castile soap in my inbox. but it uses lye, and that's not something i keep around the house. someday soon, i'll get some and keep it in the garage.

let's see...what else.

united plant savers conference was awesome. herb walk with jim mcdonald, class on medicinal mushrooms with george vaughn, a lecture by althea northage-orr. i meant to go to the fermentation class, but was in the wrong building. whoops. overall, it was pretty great. watched what i thought was going to be a plane crash while out on the walk, i nearly lost control of my bowels. it even freaked wes out, and he doesn't get freaked out pretty much ever. it was SUPER low, way under 1,000 feet, and quite loud, coming in sideways. come to find out later, romeo airport was about 10 miles away. it was a 4 engine plane, we guessed a cargo.

today was busy - made some tea for my mom, went over to visit her for awhile. made a summer squash souffle, 2 loaves of zucchini cinnamon bread, the toilet cleaner, cleaned the house, changed the beds, planted fall veggie seeds, put up 4 tinctures, one of which was calendula, which i am sure i did wrong.

herein follows my horrible account of putting up tinctures with no practical experience, reliance on someone else's formula, and no in-person teacher.

dried calendula flowers are light as air. to make a tincture, it's a 1:5 ratio, wherein you need 1 oz herbs to 5 oz liquid. calendula needs 70% alcohol, so if you're using 100% ethanol (grain alcohol), you'd do 3.5 oz of alcohol, the remaining 1.5 oz should be distilled water. first, you can't get grain alcohol here, and it's illegal to ship alcohol into the state as far as i know. i picked up a bottle of polish rectified spirits, which is about 76% alcohol. so, it was about 4.6 ounces of the spirits, the other .4 oz were water. that's all good and fine, simple math. then you run into, is that oz by volume or oz by weight? because an oz by volume of rectified spirits is different than by weight? i did by volume, which is what michael moore of SWSBM says to do. here comes the problem. are you ready? an ounce of dried calendula flowers is like....80% of a quart sized mason jar. no lie. 5 oz by volume of fluid does nothing. it sits in the bottom of the jar like swamp water. ...wth? i wish i had a real teacher. i'm not nearly far enough into my curriculum at ACHS to have anything more than a basic recipe (1 oz dried herb to 1 pt fluid, which is not really a recipe, but more of a general guideline), and i routinely fail to make connections... man. i know people make calendula tinctures all the time, but i'm a fish out of water. i need help. i'm considering posting to the herbstudent list...but i hate looking like a douchebag. Gonna have to do it, though.

Tinctures should be ready in two weeks. they're for my mom's diverticulitis. good thing they last a year and a half, too. i'm sure she'll have another attack before then.

this week - finishing up the liver unit @ ACHS. harvesting grape leaves (pan fried grape leaves a la The Anima Center, oh yes). i HAVE to finish the vegetable garden book and make more tracks on the canning book. i need a pressure canner. raw food extravaganza. cooking with my sister.

butt pimples, BS detection, and arsonists.

2008-07-31T21:36:00.000-04:00

some of you may remember me mentioning putting up an herbal vinegar made with freshly picked plantain awhile ago. well, it's ready. yesterday, i developed an uncomfortable butt pimple. no lie. it happens. it was bugging the crap out of me, so i decided to try some herbal vinegar on it when i got home (plantain being especially good for boils, bites, and stings). no lie, it stung like crazy, but as soon as the sting went away, so did the discomfort. i checked today, and it has shrank considerably and is no longer a problem. score one for herbal medicine, zero for my untrustworthy backside.

speaking of untrustworthy, i was thinking about this earlier today whilst dealing with some dishonest clients and friendly neighborhood machinery dealers (and also a great conversation on the nature of a long lasting and adult friendship). having been brought up around addicts, one of whom is a 7w8 which makes him a commensurate snakeoil salesman, i have a fairly strong BS detector. this makes me a good salesman, because i pick up on BS long before most. it also makes me a fussy friend, because i am paranoid and not apt to put up with a lot of monkey business. it's essentially one strike and then my BS meter always goes off. if you're living an inauthentic and duplicitous life, you will always be under suspicion. this is okay, though, because i don't tend to surround myself with people i do not trust. it is actually a blessing and i am thankful for when myBS meter goes off, because it allows me to question my own mode of being and motives for socializing. it also allows me to notice where i get hooked in and dragged into other people's crap.

also, we have an arsonist in our neighborhood. literally. http://ping.fm/AxnfB
that school playground is about a block and a half away. the cars were maybe three or four blocks. sweet. if by sweet you mean....i am never going to get to sleep tonight, then yes. i think i'm going to send wes up to the store to get a lock for our shed. i dunno what to do about our garage door. it's easy as crap to open.

i got my package from mountain rose. i'll be doing daily nettle infusions now. something's missing, though...there's something else that'd help me as a daily infusion. lemon balm sure as crap would, because it's been one outbreak after another (which points to A - a possible thyroid and or immune problem, which could be the result of ingesting common allergens like dairy [thank you lactose intolerance] and possibly wheat, which would also explain why my boobs hurt so horribly bad last month, or B - emotional issues), but i feel like i'm missing something else. ...ah. mullein or chickweed or cleavers. those are what's coming to mind, and i believe i have all in stock. i should make the herbal blend for my mom tonight. i have this gut feeling she is destined to have colon cancer. i also have a gut feeling that i am well on my way to breast cancer and a double mastectomy.

my sister and i made a delicious eggplant manicotti with creamy pesto last night. used a lot of ingredients from my garden. it was fabulous. but also contained ricotta. which means by the end of the evening, we were both gassy and this morning i was nearly doubled over with intestinal cramps. seriously, dairy free is the way to go for me. dunno why we keep eating this crap.