November

November and I have always had an agreement.  I have a hard time enjoying November and she has a hard time pleasing me.

There is that time change and then there is that adjustment to the temperatures becoming cold. I have to hook up the stock tank heater. 

I have to prepare for the dreaded 9 day deer gun season. I don't dislike deer hunters, don't get me wrong. I dislike having to stay in close to the house and dislike the fact that I can't wander about like I normally do.

Those 9 days are spent washing walls, ceilings, collecting cobwebs, organizing the storage down in the little basement and thinking about decorating cheerfully for December.

If we don't get snow, the grass turns brown. The woods turn brown. Everything seems barren. 

I have to try to enjoy November, she and I have to come to agreement. I give her the nod as I put on my insulated coveralls and find reasons to like this part of the year.

Hiking is incredible because I can see through the woods and appreciate the unique land formations. No bugs. No bugs. 

I have to think about Thanksgiving. It used to be a reason for families to get together and enjoy each other's company and conversation.

That changed when my MIL could no longer travel. When I became the soul driver for two folks with severe medical conditions I asked other family members to visit us instead of us making the long day trip.

So now hubby and I have a lasagna dinner on Turkey Day. It passes with just barely a blip. This was how it was pre pandemic. Nothing much has changed.

This November won't be the same. I have decided that I will get along with Miss November... and we will make the most of it.

After all, after November, comes December and we all know what that brings! Short days and colder temperatures. But that is fine. Once the hunters leave the public lands I can go hunt for ice formations. I can proudly wear my Skunk Hat. 

And there ARE no Bugs.

Plus there are those very fond memories of A Hateful Woman or a Stupid Man invented Tree Stands. 

I go back and laugh and laugh at that incident. Hard to believe it was 11 short years ago. I miss those stupid and fun incidents. I really do.

Welcome November!

The calm of the Forest

Day two after Vaccination. Rich told me I had to rest and relax and chill.

I told him I was fine. He argued that I wasn't. Our vacation from MDD is on its way out. He is entering another black zone. It creeps up quietly and it ebbs and flows. Things are worse when you combine MDD and dementia. Anyway I won't write about it here much. I'll drop my thoughts in The Long Road later.

First thing I did was go searching for the trees that could possibly help me find morels. According to the experts, Ash Trees don't produce tons of morels. I will beg to differ with them. The ash trees in our woods have always produced as they die from the emerald ash borer.

Below is the inside of the bark I found at the base of the tree where I find the first of the morels each year. There is a stand of trees that are slowly dying off and ... well, if we get rain, I should have more morels. Well, that is the hope.

I did pick the one I found and cooked one single one for Rich. Seems a steak and morels always make him smile.

I found this tiny bee working on a dandelion in the pasture. My pony and the goat just adore the dandelions blossoms!

For your entertainment. Goat and Pony at work in the Junk Yard section. MIL's car is there. Hubby is sure there is stuff he needs to get out of the trunk. He is sure it runs. He is adamant that nothing is wrong with it. So having it hauled away is proving to be an issue....but I digress...

I did find Black Tulip Fungi while seeking out trees. They are related to the Red Cup Fungi and is a sure sign that spring is here. 

These two were growing nearly side by side in a tiny grove of dying trees.

They were growing close to some forest lilies that are very small. It was here that I sat on a log and watched the wrens flutter about picking nesting materials. I really think I could have stayed there all day.

I did go back to the house. Rich went back to bed and slept for most of the morning. I decided it was a good morning to wash the porch windows, screens, and then the siding on the porch. Then I cleared the porch off and sorted everything.

A rinse was in order. Perhaps it was my spring cleaning of the porch! 

I'll wash the ceiling of the porch later this year. I have to work on plants to put along the front of the porch. I haven't decided what I want yet. Something colorful and very heat tolerant. 

The year I had zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers was so fun. I could watch the bees and the birds from close up. The other half didn't like it. 

Photo from my 'porch' garden two years ago:

I spent the rest of the day doing stuff, like grooming the mules and cleaning up the spring flower gardens. 

It was exciting to watch a storm cell come in and we actually had rain for a bit!

[Infrared shot of the storm cell coming across the pasture. The clouds and sky really pop out with IR.]

This weekend I plan on finishing up pulling and piling dried burdock to get rid of and put the 'kids' out in one of the wooded pastures.

And that is it.

I have a hiking date today to show Bill how to get to the bird blind to watch cranes and geese nesting in the ponds.

Late this afternoon, I plan on working on my Forest Garden. Thank goodness for spring and all the work I can do in the forest.

 

Grow up?

Rabbit to Bear:

It's hard, I know. But together we can get through these tough spots.

Unicorns, dragons, teddy bears, and dinosaurs. I really enjoy them. If they are really small, I like them even better. They are easier to carry in a pocket or section of a backpack.

Toys sent to me by
a childhood friend

Some of my garden
'toys'

I mean come on, don't we adults need to play once in a while too?

I did have toys as a kid and I wasn't a disadvantaged kid at all. I think we did pretty well. We had those funky hard plastic and brittle legos. We had little soldiers, we had erasers that we used as toys instead of erasers. I had a dragon, my sister had a pink kitty, and I don't recall what my brother had. We always were 'setting' up battles on the ping pong table in the basement with the soldiers. We made the Kitty Motel out of legos. 

We did horrible things to our Barbie Dolls and once hung our GI Joes from the iron beams in the basement with clothesline rope. 

In the summer at the cottage we had wooden blocks that had come from construction of the tiny place we lived in. 

We had marbles we had decks of cards.
We had the outdoors. My sister and I had trolls.

Summers were spent with no phones and no TV. Play time was what we could make of it when not working in the garden with our grandparents or helping with the processing of vegetables.

Oh well, I digress. 
I like toys. I like to take them out and use them for Still Life or stories. I used to do that with Morris and his collection of toys. 

I asked my childhood friend if she thought I was nuts and she said "No, I just love that you still find time to play and keep your mind creative."

As a kid I always made up stories to go with the things I was playing with. We'd set up toys be it the rubber erasers or perhaps our stuffed animals and we'd dictate what we imagined they were saying.

Bones to Unicorn...

Wow I thought you all 

were extinct too!

I love unicorns and mythical creatures. I have forest critters too and for a couple of years, my neighbor kids adored the adventures of The Doe Story. I took photos of a deer figurine I had and she had wonderful adventures in my woodlands with unlikely characters.

Dino to Doe: No worries!

I'm a vegetarian now!

I shared those online for her kids. 

It morphed into other stories too.

I'm glad to know that that kid that is still inside likes to come out to play once in a while.

After all, who can resist neat little toys? 

So many of those toys were donated.

Cast off soldiers find their way often into my pockets:

Halt!

The Creek Bears

at the Desk

The toys entertain me when I am at loss as to what I might want to photograph. I like taking them out into the forest and finding places to pose them.

Rabbit to Bear:

I'll sit with you.

Maybe I will never fully grow up. I guess that is okay too. 

Wait until you see my new Dragons!

Back to ... the new normal

I'm not even quite sure what a new normal is. Maybe it is just silence, no schedule, and farm life. The difference is I have no schedule like I had before. 5 days a week I planned things around going to the gym and the store and Rich's VA appointments which included PT. 

Now I plan less trips into the public and it feels like I have no place to be...and that I belong no...where.

We do have an appointment at the VA next week which will be a long drive. Labs, ENT, and Oncology. 

I am also going to pop up to Mental Health and ask why Rich hasn't had a new doctor assigned to him since Dr. Schiffman had retired. I hate getting a 'new' doctor but I think 6 months is an awful long time without having a mental health checkup for Rich. Maybe I am poking the bear, but we are getting into that time of the year when things get tough for Rich.

--------------------------------------

That said, I am still doing CrossFit at home. It is the one regular challenge per day that I can look forward to on my own. Yesterday's work out was actually pretty fun for me. It was Box Jumps and modified Handstand Pushups. Since I cannot do a Handstand Push up, I do a much lower one. 

When I started CrossFit I could barely do a push-up at all because my shoulders and arms were so weak. Box Jumps were a bit beyond me. I went with a small box and did mostly step ups. 
It will be two years in October. All this movement has helped my arthritis significantly as well as blood pressure and mental well being. 
Staying mobile is a big deal for me. I'll be 65 next year and I want to continue to stay mobile as long as nothing strikes me down. 
Anyway, that is my goal.

Every once in a while my coach asks for a photo of what I am doing or using for a specific movement. So I usually set a camera on a timer and put together a small collage.

Box Jumps and Elevated Push ups

Burpees with Charlie

Sumo Lift

and Wall Balls

Modified Pull ups with a rope

Front Squat 

Back Squat

with car axle

My daily routine this month has circled all around canning tomatoes, freezing sauces and finishing up the garden goodies.

September has rushed right on in along with very cold weather! It is 42 degrees out there this morning. We may have to turn the heat on today. I'm hoping arrange things so I can take a few longer hikes this month as the colors begin to change in the leaves.

The hay is ordered and will be delivered, the garden is just about done, and I am figuring out how to winter the pony and goat together as they are now best friends, except when Little Richard has enough of Sven's shenanigans.

Fall prep for the long winter.

It seems we are always preparing for something doesn't it?

In that sense, the new Normal is the Old Normal.

Regarding Covid-19, the numbers in our county are jumping quickly more people are hospitalized. Schools are open with in person classes, but as more positives come from the schools, I imagine it won't stay that way?

Carry on. 

Be well.

How things change

When one becomes a 'CareGiver' life changes. I used to work 30 hours a week and do odd shifts as a security officer.

When Rich had Throat Cancer I had to drive him 180 miles a day for his radiation treatment. My bosses re-arranged my schedule to work on the weekends. I did that until the day he had an Anaphylatic shock to the chemo treatment. 

Two days after getting out of the hospital I was getting ready for work. It was the weekend and I had an early shift.
He got up to go to the bathroom and had a TIA. 

The hits just kept coming. He had another very serious stroke in 2017 that the doctors were not sure he'd recover from.
The social worker came into the room and said that they were searching for a room at the VA hospital or the VA nursing home as he could not go home and be left alone. I made the decision to give up a job I'd had for 9 going on 10 years to stay and take care of Rich. Any career choices were now eliminated.

The Pulmonary Emboli that should have killed him the next year didn't. And my new career which had been ongoing since his cancer diagnosis was now in full throttle.
I had to care for a man who was diagnosed with dementia [not severe at this point] and a long list of other health issues. The most difficult issue to deal with was the severe depression. 

So what did I do for myself during that time? In October of  2018 pre PE, I joined CrossFit to get out of the house for an hour a day during the week and to get some social and physical time. I was falling into a trap of sitting at home and watching Rich's every move. 

My care responsibilities had increased.

Of course this was about the same time that Rich's mom had been diagnosed with dementia and that huge mess. I'll skip all of that. The end result is that for a while I was the CareGiver for two people and eventually the court appointed a guardian for his mother.

Phew.

When I look back and wonder how can 5 short years have so much change in our lives?

So what have I done for me? I eventually decided I needed an out more than just hiking. I joined a gym and began to enjoy the physical and social aspect of creating friendships that were not dependent on CareGiving. 

My doctor had been concerned on my last physical about my blood pressure. Sure, it was going up and up. Now? I average a very good reading.

Maybe I am taking the right steps to self care. But perhaps I can learn more about Care...Giving...and Self Care. That's why I signed up for the Virtual Class.

One of the more interesting things about this progression of events is that I have not become hateful or bitter or even resentful.

Sure there are days that I feel frustrated and short tempered when dealing with my loved one's apathy and disinterest or his forgetfulness. I am only human.

I still find moments with him that cause me joy and laughter. That is the important part. I don't regret leaving the workforce [well, I sort of do, I loved the job, but not the stress of all the strange hours].

I've branched out to learning new things to keep myself occupied.

Covid-19 has really managed to change the whole playing field. No more gym, no visits, and isolation from others. No long day trips. Getting groceries is an adventure in masking and avoidance of others.

I'm looking now for things to do to keep my mind occupied for the winter. [The reason I decided to do a toy story book and a photo book about 2020].

I may even start sewing stuffed toys again. 

So ... Things Change, yet they stay the Same don't they?

Good and Bad

Old Fred is at least 33 years old. You can see it in his face. The mule who hates being caught, let me approach him and give him a long grooming!

He is still the feisty little pony mule but a bit less 'full of it'. He loves his Senior Feed and comes running for it.
Here you can see the age in his face and across his back. Time awaits no one, right?

So I asked, begged, and egged my husband to see if I could get some dirt for a project that I've wanted to do for a while now. I wanted him to take dirt from an old compost pile of manure and put it under the kitchen window on the east side of the house.

Much to my surprise, while I wasn't paying attention to Rich who had been sitting on the porch...I heard the skid steer start up and viola!

The bearded wonder had not only gotten into the skid steer out in the shed, but had started it and delivered dirt!

Somehow I think this Hermit Life is working for him perfectly!
[The day after this photo, he clipped his beard and now sports a clean face with a goatee and mustache.]

Above is the area that I wanted to make into more garden. I wanted a place to put out my 'non' Fairy Garden.

First load...

 After the second and third load of fresh compost.

I had a LOT of shoveling and raking to do. I sort of had a plan, but nothing fixed in my 'head'. I knew that I wanted a walk way down the middle of it so I could weed from the middle when the plants were up. And I wanted a nice looking border, but decided to use what was available already.

So ....there are the rocks from an obscure place that I'd stored them years ago. The plastic is from old round bale covers that were shredded. I found some flat rocks to use as stepping stone and  filled the missing 'steps' for now with old bricks until I can find the perfect rocks and carry them up from the creek.

I love rocks. I'd love to display the rocks as much as the garden so it will take me a bit to get the just right rocks for the pathway.

I added some gnarly stump pieces from the woods. They will be part of the Unicorn and Dragon hideouts.
After all, can't I just be a kid and have some fun? I don't mind gnomes either, but apparently they are not welcome in this garden either....

As I said, a Dragon/Unicorn garden. The Fairies can go find another place, however they will probably show up.

A look at the walk way that needs mulch and new stones...

I had to spend most of the day waiting for a UPS delivery that has to be signed for. The new way of doing things is that the driveway physically has to see the person to make the delivery and then he signs for you so there is no contact between him and the customer.

After getting the meds, I decided to listen to some music on my phone and get down to the business of picking out the weeds from my vinca ground cover bed and dig out the areas that I'd plant 4 o'clocks in if I can't get petunias or marigolds.

The rest of the afternoon was spent planting two rather sad looking tomato plants in buckets along with moving dirt and weeding around the rest of the house.

This requires very close work on the knees or sitting. I have to be careful to pull out last year's dead stuff and pick only the crabgrass and other tiny weeds that surround some of the bulbs that haven't come up yet.

These are blazing stars.

My daffies blossom first near the house. The bleeding hearts join in a bit later along with the irises. 

The vinca provides a pretty dark green ground cover with purple flowers.

Late summer I hope to have some pots with blossoms of some sort in them.

It all depends on how available these things are and IF I can actually shop for them safely.

I went into my seed bucket I kept in the basement. It is a bucket I use to deposit all the seeds I've picked from my sunflowers and other flowers that I gather the seeds for each year.

I was upset to find that mice had somehow found my seeds! I have plenty of orange cosmos and some zinnia seeds, but most of the 4 o'clocks were eaten along with the sunflower seeds.

Good thing I keep back up packets!
Next year...I'll keep them in a sealed container. And the mice will have traps to contend with!

I hope to get some mulch today for the 'walkway' among other things. I figured to get this done before the large veggie garden and the mowing take over my time!

Note.
Two days ago we had our first confirmed case of Covid-19 in our county. It isn't like this virus knows county boundaries.
I see some friends who are now calling the outbreak a scam and that we should all just get on with our lives. I get that. They have families to feed and their hours have been cut. Things are dire all over.

I was told that the numbers were 'fake', deaths were 'fake', wearing masks was not warranted.
Let me rant here.

I get it.
But the state numbers are still creeping up as are the deaths. I don't have the answers but I know that I am deciding to keep isolated as much as possible.
The Hermit Life has been excellent for Rich. He is doing much better now than in the past two years!

He has been operating the skid steer, taking an interest in grooming, taking an active interest in what I am doing in the yard and gardens. This is HUGE!

So keep your 'fake' deaths, drink your disinfectant, believe the liar liar pants on fire. Go ahead and protest, yell, scream, ... but don't ask me to.

I'll go ahead and plant my Dragon garden, I'll enjoy being isolated. And yes, I am one of those lucky people at least for now...that can stay home.

I have a duty to protect my husband. And I will do so.