Broken Dreams

It is time, once again, to try to find a place we can call home; a place that we can enjoy, a place we can settle down, a place we can garden to our hearts' content, a place we can live a low-carbon low-impact lifestyle. Since this is not that place, thanks to the nightmare of bureaucracy, we will be moving on.

True to my promise (threat?), I want to get rid of at least 25% of what we have before moving. It will be a few months before we can untangle ourselves here and in the meantime, I'm cleaning house, literally and figuratively. Until we figure out our next move, though, we won't be able to decide how much to ditch. For instance, my ton of compost... I want to keep it if we stay local but it's not reasonable to move it if we decide to also ditch this state, or at least this county.

Back to living in limbo. I hate limbo. I really, really do.

Lightening the Load

Whether we are able to stay here (don't ask) or have to move on, we've decided to lighten the load. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: Why didn't they do this before they moved?

The best answer I can give you is that since we didn't know what we'd be moving into, we weren't sure what we'd need to keep. So, we kept darn near everything, it seems. Now that we're here, it's easier to determine what we can really use and what is extraneous. And, if we move again, we expect to move into something much smaller, maybe as small as a 5th wheel parked on a little chunk of land somewhere. In that case, obviously, our belongings would need to be pared down.

With all these thoughts swirling around, I decided to take a look around the house. The kitchen was the first stop. Someone recently mentioned on their blog that they had only three pots in their kitchen. I realized it was time to get rid of some duplication in mine.

I don't need two pressure cookers. Thanksgiving is probably the only time I have both going at the same time. I chose to sell the newer one because I'd already picked up a spare gasket for the older one, which is also the one I always reach for when I need to pressure-cook anything.

The newer, better Cuisinart food processor I picked up at a yard sale recently is too fancy for my tastes so I'm going to just stick with my old one. When it dies, I'll simply do without. It's not that much harder to chop veggies by hand, and some tasks can be accomplished in the blender.

Nobody is going to want my stainless steel large tea kettle because it's missing the whistle part. I don't really need it either when water can easily be heated in a regular pan. It will likely end up in the thrift store donation box.


Fans of traditional Mexican molcajetes rave about how good homemade salsa and guacamole taste when made in one of these. However, the curing process takes a long time and, quite frankly, my shoulder isn't up to hours of grinding rice into the basalt pores. I don't make guacamole very often and I've had no complaints about my salsa, so this baby's up for sale, too.


So far, the only other two items we've set aside to part with are light fixtures. This house has nice overhead lighting in every room so there is no need for additional fixtures. We love our lamps, though, and tried hard to find places to fit them in but they just don't work in this house. Because of their size and design, they also would not work in a smaller place, so we are sadly letting them go.


This 5 foot long lamp was perfect when we had a big open wall and ceilings twelve feet high. It will hopefully be on its way to a new home this afternoon.


We picked up this stained glass lamp for its artistic qualities as well as illumination, but can find no place to use it here and don't wish to have to pack it up for another move.


Once the last of these items have been cleared out, I will start to go through other parts of the house to see what we truly don't need. I've already warned my sweetie that if I have to move again, we are getting rid of at least 25% of what we have. I am not, I repeat, not packing all this stuff back up again!

Trying to Get My Head Screwed on Straight

Lest you think the title of this post is simply a figurative statement, let me clarify: my head is on crooked. At least that's what the physical therapist told me this week.

The atlas, or first cervical vertebra, provides support for the skull, much like the outstretched arms of the mythical figure, Atlas, support the world. (Click on the links to see photos.) Well, it seems that my atlas is slightly rotated, which explains why my neck always hurts and I have lousy rotational range of motion.

It also means that my head, quite literally, is not on straight.

Like I really needed someone to tell me that.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that my head is, figuratively, not screwed on straight either. My sweetie and I have been discussing, in light of the stressful crap the Universe keeps throwing at us, that perhaps we are not looking at things from quite the right angle. We stressed for two years over finding a new home and finally found one. Yet our stress has not been reduced, thanks to all the family health stuff going on lately.

We are now dealing with a new stressful situation, one that threatens our belief that we found the right home after our long search, and have decided that something has got to change. We have to approach our lives from a different angle.

Instead of focusing so much on how we are going to make it through climate change, peak oil, and economic challenges - future events that may play out in many different ways that we really can't predict, we want to get back to living in the present and actually enjoying our day-to-day life. This doesn't mean that we will turn a blind eye to the direction things are going, but it does mean we will no longer allow thoughts of and preparations for it to be all-consuming.

I'm hoping that as I get my head screwed on straight mentally that the physical therapists will be able to help get my head screwed on straight physically. In the meantime, I don't know where this blog will be going. It may nod along slowly as it has been lately, it may angle off in another direction entirely, or it may support a new platform for attempts to bring about necessary change. Stay tuned.

Inconsiderate People Suck

Granted, life's struggles lately have left me rather irritable and short-tempered, but inconsiderate people are really tickin' me off.

I got double fingers today from an old man who thought I made him wait two second too long as I pulled out from my parking spot. He would not have had to wait those two seconds if he hadn't been speeding through the parking lot in the first place and got up to where I was much faster than I'd anticipated. In any case, giving me the finger - from both hands - did not seem to be a reasonable response.

Immediately after that fun experience, I went to a shipping store to make some copies only to find that two out of four machines were out of order and one of the working machines was color copies only. A self-absorbed guy took his time making his copies at the one and only working black & white copier while three people waited to use the machine. He had his papers spread out and carefully read each document before deciding whether he needed to make a copy of it. If he did, he then removed the staple and selected the pages to copy. Once the copies were made, he re-stapled the originals and also stapled the copies together before reading the next document....

....while the rest of us waited with all our papers unstapled and ready to copy. I finally asked him how much longer it would be and he claimed to only have a few more copies to make. When he finished, he refused to use his self-service key to close out his copy transaction so that I could get started, even after I clarified that I did not need him to move from the counter space where he was organizing his material. I finally had to ask the store clerk to come over and close out his order, over his objections, so that I could do my copies. I had my 28 copies made and was ready to pay for them before he even finished putting his wallet away at the register. I got out of the way of the next customers while I organized and stapled all my originals and copies back together.

Why is it so incredibly difficult to get people to consider the impact of their actions on others? Everyone is so self-absorbed and selfish that expecting them to be nice, helpful, or at least not a total jerk to others is like asking them to give you a kidney.

Even people in the service industry no longer bother with decent customer service. At the closest grocery store to my new home, the checkers visit with the customers they know in their lines. They do this even when that person is several places back in line and totally ignore the customer whose groceries are being rung up. "Hello? If you want my money, you'd better tear yourself away from chatting up your friend and ask me for it. Nicely. And then don't friggin' say, 'Thanks for your support' at the end of a transaction where you completely ignored me."

I told you I was grouchy, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable to ask people to pull their heads outta their iPhones or butts or wherever they are, and act like decent human beings!

The Secret to Regularity

The secret to regularity is peaches.

On Saturday morning, we drove to a U-Pick orchard with delicious peaches. When we go, we try to time it to arrive when the first of the apples are also ripe, usually the Galas. At the orchard, we picked up a cart, some 5-gallon buckets, and a fruit picker for the apples. It's a bit of a walk out to the peach orchard, but the dogs really enjoyed new sniffs.

Once we got out to the trees that were ready to be harvested, we had to decide what kind of peaches to pick. We sampled a Red Globe and were impressed with its juicy and sweet flesh. In the next row were Suncrest which were tasty but not as peachy or juicy. Since I wasn't planning to make pies or cobbler, for which I think firmer peaches are better, we opted for the Red Globes.

It didn't take long for the dogs to decide it was too hot for them so my sweetie headed back to the car to give them water and find a nice shady spot to hang out. I continued picking peaches, planning to fill one of the buckets with nice tree-ripened fruit. Sadly, there were a few peaches that, once picked, I noticed the birds had taken a few bites out of the back side. Not one to contribute to the waste of food, I ate the unmarred juicy parts. By the time I headed back to the apple orchards, I'd probably eaten the equivalent of about four large peaches. And by large I mean half-pounders.

It was starting to get hot and crowded, but I forged ahead and picked a few pounds of early Jonathans and Galas. Then it was time to stand in the long lines to weigh and pay for the fruit. Transferring them into boxes for transport home took even longer and I realized quickly that I should not have focused so much on picking the perfectly ripe fruits. They were bruising very easily.

We capped off our time at the orchard with a couple slices of peach pie ala mode. I noticed too late that they were now offering a veggie version of the apple-smoked burgers. Maybe we'll do that next year.

After the long drive home, I discovered that my diet had apparently been lacking in sufficient fiber lately. All the fruit pectin and fiber in my system did a great job of clearing things out but, honestly, I got a little tired of having to head to the bathroom so often! Of course, this didn't stop us from having peach ice cream for dinner. Yes, for dinner, not dessert. And this morning, I had fresh peach slices on my cereal.

After defrosting the chest freezer, I spent several hours this afternoon slicing peaches. I added each peach to a large bowl, where I tossed them with lemon juice. When the bowl was full, I added sugar and tossed them again. While I washed the next batch of peaches to peel, my sweetie scooped the juicy slices into bags to freeze. We have one bag left from last year, each bag containing just enough for a small bowl each when we defrost it halfway for an icy treat.

I bought over a bushel of peaches last year but did not get as carried away this year. I will remember, though, to grab a bag from the freezer the next time things are not going as smoothly as needed!

Itchy Madness

It's time for my annual summer lament about mosquito bites. For those of you new to the blog, I am like crack for mosquitoes. They flock to me like flies flock to fresh dog droppings. The word is out that my blood is super tasty.

Like every other summer, I am covered in mosquito bites. I just dabbed a baking soda paste on no less than three dozen itchy welts on my legs. There are a few more above the legs, but I mostly seem to be attracting ankle biters this year. The weird thing is that I'm not seeing them or even hearing them. Sure, outside last night, we were swarmed by mosquitoes as we tried to enjoy the cooler evening temperatures, but inside? I've killed two in the bathroom. That's all I've seen. They must have stealth cloaking devices.

My sweetie doesn't get any bites yet I turn up with several new ones every night. In the past, I've been able to dissuade nighttime biting by tucking the sheet tightly around me in bed. I never get bitten on the face although the bite last year along the side of my hand, exposed next to the sheet, was painful. This year, however, they're getting me no matter what I do.

As always, the bites take forever to heal and itch like crazy in the meantime. It's all I can do not to scratch my legs bloody. Out of desperation this morning, after looking up mosquito bite relief suggestions online, I took a hot bath with a couple cups of vinegar added to it. The first several minutes were awful, with the heat and acidity seeming to make each bite flare up. Then, however, they calmed down and I had complete relief for about six hours.

Unfortunately, once one bite started itching about 15 minutes ago, they all started itching. I can't really crawl in the tub again midday but, believe me, I'm going to be soaking again tonight before bed. Maybe I'll finally get a full night's sleep.

So much for saving water and lowering the gas bill. At this point, I'm even ready to soak in a vat of calamine lotion, no matter the cost!

Why I Do Not Support a Plastic-Free World

I am too clumsy for a world without plastic. Without plastic in which to store my leftovers in the fridge and freezer, I would most likely die a death of a thousand cuts.

I do not co-exist well with breakable items, be it ceramic, glass, heck, even plastics. But when glass breaks, it results in a dangerous spray of sharp-edged pieces and slivers ready to embed themselves in any soft human (or canine) appendage available. It wastes a lot of resources to clean up because, honestly, how many people are going to keep and launder rags covered in glass. Do you really want to pull on a pair of underwear and discover the washing machine did not wash away that last sliver?

It's also expensive. While I can brew another pot of coffee to replace what splashed all over the floor today, it will cost a bit more to replace yet another coffee pot. The salt spilled when the salt shaker was dropped a few months back was inexpensive but it took a number of trips to thrift stores to replace the salt shaker itself. And it's really annoying when dinner is almost ready to be served and the cook drops the jar of seasoning as she's taking it out of the refrigerator.

Every time I break something, I feel that much more clumsy and frustrated. I'm worn out from cleaning up the messes. And I'm tired of people saying it's critical that I give up all my plastic storage containers - yes, even with all the nasty chemicals - and replace them with glass.

That just ain't gonna happen, folks. I'm not out buying new plastic pieces every week (or even year) so my contribution to the plastic problem is small enough that I refuse to continue to feel guilty about it.

Proof of Pain

Some time ago, I wrote about how I am rather adept at injuring myself in bizarre and unusual ways. I closed out my post with the rather unbelievable claim that I'd once been stabbed in my big toe with an eyelash. As expected, most people gently skirted around the issue, not quite saying they didn't think that could really happen.

Well, folks, today I offer up proof. After dragging myself out of bed this morning, and believe me I really didn't want to, I noticed some pain in my left foot. I broke a light bulb the other day and thought perhaps I'd stepped on an errant sliver, for it was the kind of pain one gets from a slender sliver of glass.

I brushed the bottom of my foot off and saw nothing. I also felt no relief. It wasn't terribly painful so I went ahead and made some mint tea. The pain was persistent, however, and becoming annoying so I pulled up a chair underneath the bright overhead kitchen light to see if I could see reflection off the glass in my foot.


First, though, I needed to brush this little white hair off the bottom of my foot. Hm, no, it turns out the little white hair was the problem. Hubby walked by just then and I made him grab the camera so that I can finally offer you proof.


Yes, I do get hairs stuck in my feet, and yes, it hurts, dammit.

Going on a tangent here, observant readers might notice the little toes are curled under a bit. This is not due to the pain of the embedded hair - it wasn't that bad. It is the unfortunate result of finally succumbing to the last option - surgery - offered by my podiatrist to treat really bad plantar fasciitis almost twenty years ago.

The plantar fascia is the band of tissue that runs down the bottom of your foot, attaching to the middle of the heel and the back end of the ball of the foot. It can become inflamed - "itis" means inflammation of whatever word is in front of it - making it incredibly painful to put weight on the foot.

Many people easily resolve this by simply doing stretches. The calf stretch also stretches the plantar fascia. However, some of us do not respond to simple treatment. After all, pushing on a shovel for two weeks in hard, rocky soil while wearing tennies can really do some damage, especially if you don't know that you should never, ever push with your instep. So, my course of treatment proceeded through all the options: anti-inflammatory drugs - both oral and injected directly into the foot, taping, custom orthotics (not covered by insurance), massage therapy, electric stimulation, and finally surgery.

Choosing to have the plantar fasciotomy surgery was a mistake, but at the time I was desperate for relief from the pain. Instead, I got new pain that has come and gone over the years, initially neuritis (inflammation of the nerves) and currently Morton's neuroma. And my toes curl under more on that foot. I have always loved that my toes were nicely shaped and had beautiful symmetry. Not any more.

I wish I had known prior to allowing a doctor to slice through an inflamed part of my body that I had another option for reducing the inflammation and resolving the problem without such drastic intervention. I refused surgery on the other foot so I was still dealing with the plantar fasciitis pain for it. After reading about the link between the protein in dairy and inflammatory conditions, I removed all dairy from my diet. In two weeks, my pain was reduced by 95%. By adding dairy back to my diet, even in just one meal, I could make the pain return.

I had the key to controlling the inflammation simply by choosing what to eat. Why, oh why, didn't I discover this before the surgery?! The neuroma on the cut foot does not respond positively to diet, but I can still control the plantar fasciitis on the other foot by what I eat. Yes, almost two decades later, choosing to eat white chocolate and a pizza with cheese will still cause inflammation of the fascia and result in foot pain. Better to stick with dark chocolate and cheeseless pizza.

Nothing, however, will uncurl those toes on the left foot and I just hate that. But I have digressed far from my original post topic. Moral of the story: wear boots when shoveling and press with the ball of your foot, and be willing to experiment with what you eat to see if it makes a difference. Oh yeah, keep your floors clean; those hairs are vicious!

Weed Farm

I'm not a great gardener. My skills lie in making compost, pruning trees, and removing dead plants. Growing plants from seeds or starts seems to be contrary to my nature, but luckily not my sweetie's. He loves to garden but is neutral when it comes to making compost or pruning, although he knows they are important for the garden and happily leaves those tasks to me.

However, with no effort whatsoever - actually more through neglect and inattention, I have managed to cultivate large expanses of plants in my new yard. OK, I suppose I should give credit where it is due and say that these weeds are really the result of nature taking its course when a property is totally neglected for a couple of years and then liberally doused with summer rains.


What was mostly bare ground in the dogs' yard is now a lush-looking spread of green.


Beyond their yard, there were scattered plants until the rains began. Now the weeds are ankle high and growing daily. I'm not sure what these are but they look like they'll have some kind of pretty composite flower.

I have not dragged any of my plant books outside to positively identify what is growing in the yard yet. I do recognize several of the plants, though, because they are unpleasant ones to deal with once they've gone to seed.


Russian thistle, aka "tumbleweed", starts out as a rather innocent looking plant. It is already prickly, though, at this stage and will rapidly grow a foot and a half high and wide. After putting on tiny unimpressive flowers, it goes to seed, dries out, and then becomes a real nuisance. After drying out, it breaks off and rolls about with the wind, scattering seeds as it goes. Every self-respecting Western movie features tumblin' tumbleweeds in at least one desert scene.

Supposedly the young plants are tender and edible. I've never tried eating them because they are prickly as soon as they sprout and I just can't imagine that would have a good mouth-feel. 'Course if TEOTWAKI ever really does happen and I find myself starving to death, I probably will be willing to saute up on Russian thistle on the rocket stove.


Amaranth is one of the most common plants in the dogs' yard right now. While it also is edible, it becomes a nuisance as well once it goes to seed. You can see the beginning spike of stickers on this one, which once dried out catch on dog fur, socks, and bare feet. I do not think any amount of rinsing would make me willing to eat this harvested from the dogs' yard but I might be willing to try some from beyond the fence.


Not pictured is the worst weed of all: puncturevine. Puncturevines produce goathead stickers. These are hard pea-sized seed casings with several long and very sharp spikes protruding out from the center. They are incredibly painful to step on and can even penetrate through the thin soles of flip-flops or sandals. Dogs hate them, too. I am trying to pull as many from the dogs' yard as I can see, but I'm sure I'll miss enough to cause us all some pain later.

According to this site, the seeds can stay viable for up to 7 years which means getting rid of these is nigh impossible. Since we won't be using Round-up for chemical control, our only option will be manual removal (preferably before they go to seed) and possibly trying to burn the seeds later. The linked website sells weevils that kill the seeds, so that may be another option.

I wonder if goats will eat the plants...


We do have one more edible weed in the yard that does not produce nasty stickers. This sprawling purslane is a tasty tender little plant with a tangy flavor. Again, however, I will only be harvesting from outside the dogs' yard.

I'm guessing that a number of these could be fed to chickens, too, once we get a few. I'd think purslane and amaranth, but I'm not sure about the Russian thistle or puncturevine. There was also lots of London rocket when we first moved in, which I know they love. What kind of weeds do you feed your chickens?