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Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Ongoing Negotiations with Quality of Life (Life is Good)

     Ok, I've driven the wife to work, replenished the dog and cat food on the way back home, and now I have a couple of hours to blow while waiting to go in to gestapo headquarters to have my nerve conduction test, which Wifey gleefully describes as a "torture session".  She is SUCH a sharing person, my wife.


      So, I will take this opportunity, while I am still of sound mind, to lend another post to this august blog, which has become famous the world over for it's erstwhile obscurity as blogs go.  I am on my sixth straight day of steroid therapy, with still no apparent side effects such as AGITATION or anything that would suggest I start taking the Ativan the doctor prescribed along with this stuff.  Not that I would necessarily be AWARE that I've become a serial killer or a Republican.........


     However, along with the lack of side effects, I have so far enjoyed no apparent relief of my back pain, which is supposed to be the result of inflammation resulting in muscle spasms.  Perhaps I'm being a little impatient here, I don't know, but I would certainly be pissed if all I got out of this was an infection due to immune system suppression or a life sentence for attacking a Jehovahs Witness at my door for no apparent reason.......oh wait.....silly me; there's tons of logical reasons for doing that....hehe......


     I just finished (pardon me for my wildly wondering subject matter, but I AM being medicated here) a fantastic book downloaded from the Amazon Kindle Store, "The Dirty Life", by Kristin Kimball.  No, it's not pornographic, but it IS a nitty gritty examination of what living in close connection with land and the food it can provide can be like, blood, sweat, and tears included.  I highly recommend it, if only for her fantastic writing skills.  She started out just wanting to do research for a book about the new crop of organic small farmers and ended up marrying one.


     Speaking of organic and farms and such, we here at Pendragon Hold have hosted various incarnations of gardens; in the ground, raised beds, pots, you name it, with various success.  So far we have learned a few things about gardening in Florida.  First and foremost, especially if you want to go organic, SAND SUCKS as a growing medium.  It takes an INSANE amount of soil amending to improve this stuff, and it all ends up washing back out thru the too-well drained sand in no time at all.  We have the goats providing lots of excellent manure in easy to handle pellet form, but we've been short on many of the other ingredients necessary to create good compost, since our acre has been pretty much buried in leaves, severely cutting back on our grass and weed growth this year especially.  Secondly, it is friggin' HOT here in the summer and the plants require almost constant watering since it either evaporates in the heat and humidity or soaks straight down through the sand.  So, if we are going to have any good shot at growing a few heat tolerant veggies here at the  Hold, it's going to require extensive use of raised beds filled with REAL dirt that veggies won't laugh at.  I never imagined the cost involved in finding and transporting genuine DIRT, of all things, but it's a genuine cost consideration.  However, once I get some grass and stuff growing out there on the barren half of the Hold again (the goats decimated our acre before I got them properly fenced off), we can try to tackle the compost issue again, or even try some "lasagna gardening".  Whatever we end up doing, it's going to require hard work, because we refuse to bow to using pesticides or herbicides, which means weeding and and all out war on pests using natural methods, including just picking them off the plants.


     But first I need to get fixed.  And in the spirit of positive thinking I invested in a nice large tub dump-wagon which will make it easier to move dirt and leaves and other such loose items around the property without promoting more bodily abuse.  I also want to get work started on our chicken coop so I can rest a little easier about the meat we put in our bodies.  I just have to make a point of not lending my chickens names when I get them.  I have problems killing and eating life forms with personalities, but I also know that these creatures were bred by humans to give us eggs and meat, the supermarket doesn't grow those breasts in the back in a frankenstein lab (although scientists ARE working on that).  


     Meanwhile, in the continuing saga of the COOL things that happen to me, a nurse friend of mine is GIVING me a perfectly serviceable riding lawnmower, I just simply have to get it here, which is taking awhile to coordinate, as I have no truck, and theirs is one of those jacked- up- in- the- sky- jobbers so high off the ground you can't get anything sizable up into it.  Now, it seems that the alternator in the tractor isn't working, because her husband has to jump the tractor from his car to start it up, but hey, for free, I can afford to fix it.  I just need something I can mulch up this half-acre worth of leaves with so I can encourage some grass/weed growth.  Plus, it could probably pull my new wagon around on a hot summer's day.........


     So far, the two new spring additions to Pendragon Hold are doing well, stout young Puck, the male, and our prima-donna little black girl, Flip-Flop.  They have learned from their parents how to complain loudly to be FED whenever they hear the car pull up in front of the house.  As always, though, I remained concerned that this oppressively hot weather will take it's toll on our young ones and visit upon them the same malady that took our sweet baby Thor from us last year.  I will remain vigilant this time for symptoms, but this "summer pneumonia" is a rapid killer.  I can only ask the Green Man to keep them safe for me.


     AND, while my mood is in such good shape considering everything, I want to send out some heartfelt appreciation to all of those fellow sapiens of mine who have enriched my life by sharing your own.  Each and every one of you have brought your own unique perspectives to dealing with life into my home and helped me ignore the worst aspects of my own by making me laugh and lending me moral support when I really needed it.  I wish I could give back even HALF of the value received from knowing you.  I hope our relationships can grow and strengthen in the years to come, whatever comes our way, raptures included.  We less-than-perfect children of the Gods need to stick together.....smile......


     So, blessed be to you, Anne, Judy, Cheryl, Sharon, Paul, Mike, Donn, Jules,  Annie, Darby, Jamie, John, Paul, George, and Ringo............


     And that's the news from this hot, humid, homey little acre of sand on the outskirts of Redneck suburbia, where buzzards are well-fed on road kill and the popularity of Tea party governors plummet when the chickens come home to roost.





1 comment:

jules said...

Blessed be back to you!

And I just LOVED that book. Makes me feel the sluggard though; they work HARD. Makes my little acre of dirt and gardens seem small(ish). But YES! great book.

Oh yeah, we're thinking of rabbits. The OTHER white meat. heh heh. We've already got a local egg lady we support.

I got a pull-behind-the-mower cart too! It's a wonderful tool for hauling firewood, dirt, sand, stuff. It will see much work at our abode. We've got tomatoes (7 plants) 3 jalapenos, two ghost peppers (velly velly hot), pole beans (who knew fresh pole beans would steam up in just 9 minutes, instead of having to cook them for days...), struggling green beans, and still some chard. We dug a new bed. Oh, and garlic! To ward off vampires, not serial killers!

Loves ya~