The Bunnies Have Friends. Big Friends

Maybe putting hot sauce on the green beans made the bunnies mad.  Looks like they’ve gone out and found some muscle in their fight against the humans in the garden.

Half-eaten tomatoes and big bites out of cucumbers aren’t the work of rabbits; then today Bud saw a big groundhog waddle out of the garden between the rows of tomato plants.  I think he was carrying a basket of tomatoes and cucumbers with him.

I went down and picked what was ripe (why doesn’t anything but bugs ever bother the zucchini? -  I could afford to lose a few of those).  I finally got my first ripe tomato of the year.  Not the first one of the garden mind you, just the first one the critters left for me.

Look on the bright side.  Rachael came home from vacation and found a dead skunk in her garden.

Tabascoing the Bunnies

I love to garden.  And I love to watch the bunnies frolicking in my yard.  However, I DO NOT love to watch the bunnies frolicking through my garden, eating the green beans.

I took care of the problem, but have to admit to feeling a bit sorry for the little bunny seen from the kitchen window by my better half this morning.  Glad I was at church and missed it.

To back up, I went into the garden Saturday evening and found more bean plants chewed off to nubs.  I don’t mind losing a few, but this has gotten serious.  The plants are starting to flower, there are little beans on them, and they are disappearing rapidly (the plants, not just the little beans).  So I went into the house, filled a spray bottle with water, added about half a teaspoon of Louisiana Hot Sauce, and sprayed the plants liberally.  (Yes, it’s not Tabasco like it says in the title, but “Louisiana Hot Saucing the Bunnies” made it sound like I was cooking them up for dinner.)

This morning Bud watched a little bunny hop across the yard into the garden, and shortly thereafter watched it shoot out the back of the garden jumping into the air, doing back flips, and in general acting like it was berserk.

Poor bunny.  But he’ll recover, and when he does I’ll bet he leaves my beans alone.

No actual bunnies were poisoned, trapped, killed, or in any other way permanently injured by this method.  It works equally well with groundhogs, deer and other large herbivores.  CAUTION:  Do not use close to harvest time, and wash produce well before consuming.

Raspberry Fields Forever

Okay, so raspberries grow on bushes, not in fields.  But the five little starts I planted two years ago (really six starts, but one died almost immediately) have multiplied till it seems they are going on forever into my garden.  I’m giving a bunch of starts away Friday – third time so far this year, not to mention all those I have pulled up and tossed.

I’ve been picking red raspberries for a couple weeks now, and just today determined the bounty is about over for the season.  Or at least until this fall, when the second harvest comes on.  I have made batches of raspberry jam, raspberry pie, and sauce for ice cream.  I have given raspberries to Katie for jam, even though her 6-year old informed me they have lots of jam in food storage already.

Ah, but not raspberry jam, I said.  He was helping me eat  pick berries as we were talking, and he ruminated on the possibility of raspberry jam before pronouncing it probably better than all others.

That was this evening’s activity.  This morning was taken up by a three hour mandatory state training on the Sunshine Law – both Open Records Act AND Public Meetings Law.  Am I lucky or what?  Fortunately this training is only required once every four years.  Last time it was given the presenter made it so basic it was insulting to the intelligence, but this time?  This time it was given by an attorney, for attorneys.  You could even get continuing education units by putting down your attorney number, if you had one.  Of course I don’t, and neither did the other people in the room.  That didn’t stop him from giving it as if he were speaking to attorneys though.

I believe that law is keeping many attorneys living in well-above-average housing stock and driving luxury cars, based on how many times he said “be sure to seek legal counsel.”

This afternoon found me at a three hour drug task force meeting, complete with representatives from our federal congressman’s office and our state attorney general’s office.  Looks like prescription drugs are a huge problem across the state/country, and our community is not exempt.

A little time on church work late in the evening and the day was complete.  At least it ended on a good note.  Now for tomorrow.  One day at a time gets it done.

See Those Beehives Back There? They May Be An Endangered Species

One of my hives swarmed Sunday.  I don’t know if was the “nice” bees from the hive on the left, or the “mean” bees from the hive on the right (only one shows on this page anyway), because there is still one heck of a lot of bee activity in both of those hives.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we could float an ark back there right now, so I haven’t been back there to put supers on for honey storage like I should have been.  Something about mud and mire and duck poop and all that.  Anyway, the bees felt too crowded and swarmed, which means they made a new queen and half the bees stayed at home while the other half followed the old queen in search of a new home.

If you’ve ever been around swarming bees,you know they are so totally docile you can scoop them up by the handful and they don’t care.  They just hang out in a knot on a branch somewhere like they’re on drugs and wait for the scout bees to tell them where there’s a nice condo for lease close by.  Or something like that.  Anyway, these bees apparently swarmed about the time we came home from church, and the grandkids next door spotted them in the grey dogwood tree by the driveway and got all excited.  As did their mother, who was shouting and gesticulating wildly from her deck as I was futilely trying to get a few tomato plants in the ground before the next deluge fell upon us.  Futile.  Absolutely futile.  If we had to depend on my garden this year I would be buying clothes six sizes smaller for winter.

Long story short, after asking Sean if he would help me get the swarming bees in a hive, and being met with the best deer-in-the-headlights look I’ve seen in awhile, he and Bud did in fact whomp them into a hive.  While I took pictures.  Which were with Katie’s camera, so I don’t even have any to post.  Me, the one person who has actually handled swarming bees before, becomes the photographer.  But they did a fabulous job, so I’m not complaining.  Then the rains came down and we left the hive there between our houses, close to where the kids often play, and went in for the night.  And didn’t move them in the morning (bad, bad).  If you know bees, you know that means they came out in the bright morning sun, flew around to set their GPS bearings to their new home site, and flew off to get busy. 

That evening after they were all in for the night we did move them down back, in front of the two hives that were already there.  And the morning came and they flew out and got busy, but many of them forget to reset their little GPS’s.  So they flew back to the tree by where the kids play, and there was much unhappiness among the land next door.  And I said, “What the heck am I supposed to do?  Give them engraved invitations?  Put leashes on them?  Walk them home each time they come back?”

So the evening of the third day came upon us, and the errant bees had again formed a swarm in the grey dogwood tree by the driveway, and I wondered if perhaps they would still be docile due to their not having a home or a queen to protect.  So I took a bucket and whomped the branch into the bucket and the bees WERE VERY ANGRY!!!  (Did I mention I hadn’t bothered to put on long sleeves, or gloves, or even a bee veil?)  Long story short, I got stung on the arm and the lip, and several minutes later my husband got stung on the arm while pulling a few weeds close by (really??  he never does that and perhaps should go back to his previous schedule after what happened this time).

And that, dear friends, is how I ended up spending most of last night in the hospital emergency room while my husband was being treated for angioedema.  I always thought if your body, face, mouth, tongue, and throat swelled dramatically that was an anaphylactic reaction, but no, they tell me that’s angioedema.  You also need a drop in blood pressure and adrenal collapse to be full blown anaphylactic.  They’re right next door to each other though, and last night portends that next time we better be prepared. 

We now have an epi pen in the house.  And those bees back there?  He says we can keep them, but I’m thinking I would rather keep him.

I Could Float An Ark In My Back Yard

I haven’t blogged since February.  Really??  February????

Guess I need to get better organized.  But then, I’ve been really busy.  Really, really busy.  And last month I got even busier, what with the new calling at church and all.  I’m not complaining mind you, just trying to justify my neglect of things.

Before I continue, look at the beautiful green grass behind my garden in the background photo.  Doesn’t that look nice?  I really, really would like to plant my garden for this year, but a lot of that grass you see back there is currently under water, and there is about a half-acre pond in our woods (“our” meaning ours and Katie’s).  We’ll be buying grass seed in bulk when it finally dries up.  It’s really very pretty with the ducks paddling around, especially with the sun filtering through late in the afternoon.  As soon as we get a few hot days it will begin to stink and start breeding mosquitoes though, so I’m not getting attached to it.  Voice of experience here – it’s happened twice before in the 28 years we’ve lived here.

The garden is above the water table and Bud tilled and enlarged it for me today, bless his heart, but it’s all clumps of mud.  Nothing is dry enough to work.  There’s a possiblity of rain in the forecast every day this week too, so my little pepper, tomato, cabbage, and tomatillo plants will have to wait to get their feet in the ground.  And seeds would rot in this cool, soggy soil.  It’s way past time to plant the spring garden – sigh.

So instead of planting today I did some canning.  I just took 16 pints of chicken out of the canner, and will add it to the 12 jars of strawberry jam I made last week.  There is something so very rewarding about putting your own food up.  Between the gift card for the local nursery from Elaine and the one for Amazon from Lolly (there are men involved here too, but I know who does the shopping), I am set for the season.  The Amazon card went toward three more books on food storage and backyard self sufficiency, and the other card bought the veggie plants.

Anyone else putting in a garden this year?  If so, may you enjoy it as much as I do.

Secret Two Week Report

I said ask me in two weeks if the Secretropin is making a difference.  It has been two weeks.

All I can say is WOW!

I haven’t felt this good in a lot of years.  Energy, endurance, mood, strength – you name it and it is improved.  I spent almost half an hour on the treadmill at the fire station yesterday, talking to a friend while she was on the elliptical machine.  I was doing an uphill 18 minute mile, repeatedly bumping it up because I was having trouble getting my heart rate up to the target range, while carrying on a conversation almost the entire time!  (Okay, you young people who run on treadmills, don’t mock me for going so slow.)  I could not have done this a few weeks ago – I could have walked the treadmill, but not carried on a conversation without getting out of breath.

The Secretropin definitely gets two thumbs up from me.  It is supposed to increase energy and endurance, and it is. It is supposed to turn fat into lean muscle, and it is doing that too (how much is DHEA and how much is this I don’t know, but the rate of improvement changed A LOT once I got on the Secretroptin).  Here’s hoping it’s doing all the other things it’s supposed to do, too.  You can get info on what it does and how it does it  at these websites.  Or if you’re like me and like to dig deeper into medical studies there’s this one.  I have searched for info on negative side effects and there appear to be none.

This whole supplement regimen is making a dramatic difference.  I can’t help but wonder why I was so very deficient in so many areas to begin with though - for my age the average human growth hormone reading is 100-150 and mine was 41.  The doctor says ideally it should be 300-500 for optimal health throughout your entire life.  So, no wonder something that makes my body produce more growth hormone would make me feel better.

I had kicked around the idea of going to a wellness doctor for several years before I finally did it – skeptical whether it would really make a difference or would just be a placebo effect.  Now I have no doubts and wish I had done this a looong time ago.

Amazing

Five days on the Secretropin and I can’t believe how good I feel.  Between that and the DHEA, which I’m pretty sure gets all the credit for the noticeably increased strength I’m seeing from one day to the next, it is truly amazing.  I may still look like me, but I feel so much better, so much (dare I say it?) younger. 

A friend started going to the wellness doctor and had her big three hour appointment yesterday.  When he asked her what she thought about wellness doctors and the regimen he is putting her on she was very blunt.  “I feel the same way about this as I do about Christianity,” she said.  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.  She continued, “It’s either the greatest gift ever given or the greatest scam ever perpetrated.  I’ll let you know which after I’ve tried it for awhile.” 

It is not a scam.

Sunrise, Sunset, Swiftly Fly the Days

What a day!  By 8:00 a.m. I was in a meeting about starting a community garden, followed by a visit to the county commissioners, then the auditor’s office.  That was followed by five hours of working on township business - talking with a state EMA (Emergency Management Agency) rep and two appraisers about the grant for the house that floods, taking a bunch of nuisance calls, editing our Policies and Procedures Manual, and creating the agenda for our work session.  The work session started at 4:00 and lasted till almost 6:00.  Then Bud and I went out to dinner, followed by two hours of working on the historical society’s newsletter that has to be out by Thursday.

I’m tired.

However, I do want to report on the DHEA I’ve been taking recently.  Amazing stuff.  I continue to feel daily changes, like increased strength and flexibility.  Now if I could just remember where I put my keys and where I’m supposed to be tomorrow…

Just kidding.

Bud went out and bought a bottle of the DHEA today.  Guess he’s tired of hearing me say how great it is and decided to try it himself.  It cost less than $10 so he can’t really go wrong.

Oh, and the spray bottle of Secretropin finally arrived Saturday.  That’s not “secret” as in secret, but “secret” as in secrete.  It’s supposed to help your body secrete its own  natural growth hormone.  Ask me in a couple of weeks how this one is going.  I’ll need at least that long to see if it is making any difference.

Peace and Pitas

Solitude.  Who knew I needed it so much.

The basic difference between introverts and extroverts is that the first recharge their batteries through quiet solitude while the latter draw energy from being among people.  I’ve always known I’m an introvert, but even I am surprised at how much the quiet of the past two days has been a balm to my soul.  Bud is at Elaine’s housesitting and he was hardly out the door when I turned off the noise. There has been nary a radio or TV turned on in the house since he left. 

I feel so rejuvenated.

You have to understand he can’t stand quiet and always has at least one TV and one radio turned on at any given time. Well, except when he’s asleep; he goes down to just the radio then. I have been known to walk through the house and turn off two TV’s and three radios in rooms he’s not in, while he still has one of each creating noise near where he is located.  It’s never quiet here. 

Except now.

I miss him, but I don’t miss the noise.

In fact, this evening I was in such good spirits I made pita bread, just to see if I could.  It was amazingly easy and they turned out quite well.

I wonder what I would get accomplished if I had a couple days of quiet every week?

Nothing Like a Haircut

When you need a lift there’s nothing quite like a haircut.  Cleans up the shaggy, makes everything lie down neatly, gives you a sense of being “cared for.”

Next week is state township conference and I didn’t want to go without the haircut first, and Kera did a fabulous job today.  Now I feel good AND look good. (Relatively speaking you know, all things considered.)

On the wellness front, the last bottle of pills from Douglas Labs arrived Monday, and the spray bottle that’s supposed to help your body produce its own growth hormone is on its way UPS from the doctor’s office, so by tomorrow I may finally be taking everything he prescribed.  Still feeling better in many ways and can’t wait to find out if these last two things cause any discernible changes.

I’m giving credit to the vitamin D3 (I’ve been taking for over a month now) for escaping the mid-winter doldrums that usually set in by now. Some doctors recommend D3 to those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and while I don’t get depressed in winter I’m usually way past ready for it to be gone by mid-January.  Not so much this year. 

I am anxious for gardening season to begin, but that’s an entirely different thing; I just love to dig in the dirt.