A Spectacular Day!

I may be a mess when it comes to speaking, but yesterday I felt like a million bucks doing yard work. I’m enjoying working in the yard and gardens so much, I phoned my wood supplier to order three cords of wood, and I think that I may do the stacking. I’ll hire someone if it’s too much. But having lost 13.5 kilos and now being fuelled by Tezspire, I love working around Pinecone Park.

Yesterday, after we went for our morning walk, I got started on cleaning up the shed. It’s been a mess for a long time, and one shelf needed reinforcing. Plus, I wanted to have it organized and clean before the wood I order arrives. It will be stacked inside the shed on wooden rails.

The yard needs trimming with the weed whacker, the driveway needs cleaning up, and the watering is a constant responsibility, the cattery is desperate for a thorough cleaning, and I’ve things I don’t want to deliver to the Gabe Shop, and the car is also desperate to be cleaned. At some point soon, I must do some work for SPACE. National Disability Week is soon upon us, and we want SPACE to use the occasion to get some press that will advertise our survey about stutterers accessing social service providers.

The amount of work needing doing is overwhelming, but I’m in no hurry to do it all. I love getting up each morning and just getting at it. All I care about is making progress every day. I have so, so many reasons to want a rainy day.

What an amazing rebirth I’ve experienced thanks to Tezspire. Today I get my lungs tested. On July 8^th, I see Dr. Dorscheid and I’ll find out how they are doing. Two years ago, they were functioning at 20%. Dr. D. expects me to be at 100% today. The magnificent change is why I am having such a good time every day working in the yard. 

My Climbing Hydrangea is going to bloom magnificently this year for the first time, same with my Laburnum tree. Clearly, my gardens, now seven years old, have reached a maturity and established a good root. All my watering has made this possible. I hated watering in the past, but now more. I can’t hate giving life to plants. What a great, great morning I had.

At noon, I went to the clinic for my Covid shot. Then I filled up the car with gas and did a little bit of shopping, before coming home to do more work on the shed. It’s now done and ready for wood, and I’m chuffed as hell. I ended my workday by taking Her Highness for our afternoon walk, and then I came home for my greatest pleasures, dinner and movies with the family, and bed. (I ordered new sheets and pillowcases to make going to bed even more wonderful.)

I wore a mask and gloves when I was in the shed. The dust was scary. At 14:00, I stopped for a rest and to take some Ibuprofen because my bone spur foot was killing me. (I only take that drug once a week.) My very cool house brought welcome respite while the shed cleared of dust from me using the blower to get all the crap into a corner. But I was keen to return and finish the job.

Next up, was watering the front bed, the fruit trees, the edible garden vines and raised beds and almost half of the backyard beds. Because I’m in Nanaimo all day today, and it’s going to be another bright, sunny and hot day, I wanted all my babies to get through the day without any stress.

But what a magnificent fucking wonderful day! I’m stoned on garden and yard work. I can hardly wait for tomorrow to get back at it. I’ve decided to hire someone to do the bulk of the wood stacking so that I can keep at the beds and tackle the beautiful horror of the yard.

Sheba was active all day, so we didn’t walk in the afternoon. Yes, I have guilt, but today is going to be a very active one as well, with lots of walks to pass time on the big island. Instead, I had a spa to reward myself for a day well worked!

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Yesterday was the most fulfilling day that I’ve had in a long, long time. It ended at 17:00 in the spa, then followed dinner for all of us and then a series on Britbox. During a pause, I sat at my desk and to my right are two glass double-doors that give me a view of the courtyard (that needs a shave).

And I thought of my shed. So, up I got and out to the shed I went to revel in the beauty of a clean, orderly shed. My man cave. I so love it here. When I came out of the shed, I looked round the garden and saw a million things needing doing. I can hardly wait. So, I’m going to get someone to stack the wood so I can keep working on the yard and gardens.

When I came back inside and sat again at my desk to start writing this post, I’m so enthralled with the work I’m doing, it occurred to me to say that I felt like I was stoned on gardening and working on things needing doing outside. Having too much of everything requires a lot of maintenance. I have too much space, and too much land, but it is perfect.

And I am stoned. Not on drugs, but on oxygen. This is my first Summer in three years with breath. Last Summer: 20% lung function. I have lots and lots of oxygen in my blood; I have strength. It’s back, all back, and I feel young again because I can do things.

When I lived with the Tyrells, the Robinson’s across the street had a playground in their entire backyard. They lived beside a church, and the church ran a daycare operation, and so they leased the Robinson’s backyard to build a full-on playground. It included a sandbox.

Nights, we neighbourhood kids could play there after 17:00 and on weekends. There was never anyone there though. I’d get the sandbox all to myself every time I wanted it, and I never had onlookers. If someone came, I would leave. That was always my plan. I’d smooth the surface and contour it. I’d add a river and foliage using bits of things growing and thing’s I’d find. I loved dried old twigs I could find under the big Cedar trees in the Robinson’s front yard.

There’d always be a home. Sometimes it was teepees, sometimes a cabin that I’d build with things I’d find in the woods. The woods, was what we called a very large yard that was forested. It was the primary playground for older kids. This is where you came when you were too old for Robinson’s playground.

What I’m doing here at Pine Cone Park, feels a lot like what I did a great many times back in the day in that sandbox. This time it’s my life.

Twenty years ago, or more, I read both of Simon Winchester’s books about the origins of the Oxford dictionary. One book, The Meaning of Everything, explains the overall achievement. It should be read first. The second one, The Professor and the Madman, is about Dr. William Chester Minor. Both books are excruciatingly wonderful.

Dr. Minor’s story is one of the most compelling biographies that I’ve ever read. He was a brilliant field surgeon during the American civil war who developed not only PTSD, but psychosis. His illness emerged while he was living in England. One night he hallucinated that people were coming into his room through cracks in the floor, to kill him.

He ran outside and shot and killed the first and only man he saw. He was the first man found not guilty by reason of insanity, establishing that legal precedent in British jurisprudence. He went into treatment after the trial and once he was stable, he was installed in a British prison where he had supervision and was safe from acting out should his illness flare.

The prison knocked out a wall between two cells, and they furnished his cell to make him feel comfortable and dignified. He chose to pay a monthly stipend to the widow of the man he killed. He was a good man.

While he was in prison, James Mason, the primary editor of the team charged with creating the Oxford dictionary, launched a public campaign to build the dictionary. He invented the process. He advertised on streets and in newspapers for people to send him words, words that were unique. Not the day-day words, not our base operating level of vocabulary. Fancy, odd, weird words, and that was how the dictionary was built.

And one of the most voluminous contributors was Dr. Minor. He had a literary pimp. The widow of the man he killed bought books and gave them to Dr. Chester to help him find words to submit.

All my life I’ve had heroes. When I left the church that I loved when I was a kid, I missed belonging. I lost my support network, all the saints and prayers. It wasn’t a plan. It just happened that as I read my way through my life, I focused exclusively on non-fiction. It was how I continued my education, and there were no exams.

I read about great scientists and musicians, but what I loved most was what I call humanitarians. Stories about people of great intelligence, faith, science. I loved reading people of achievement and sometimes people became my heroes. My new and chosen saints.

I have many saints. Oliver Sacks. Two of my grade five teachers. Jane Goodall. Simon Winchester. My supreme saint is Luther Burbank, a research botanical scientist, and a highly ethical humanitarian. I’ve been to his farm in California, which is now a museum. I have been to Jerusalem.

Best guess: I spend, on average, 97% of my time at home. I think of Pinecone Park, my sandbox, as my comfortable cell because one of my saints is a murderer. And like Luther, I’m doing public good building a resource for medical professionals on how to interact with dysfluent people. Our course will be part of the provincial medical development resource library.

I’ve never aspired to sainthood, but I am going for angelhood. All my professional life involved doing public good. Feeding the soul from the stage, or teaching by editorial, in the classroom, in my textbook—that s old 500 over the bestseller threshold in Canada, thank you very much!

First, I fixed the shelves. I threw out a lot of stuff and that bottom shelf
I reinforced it underneath. It was going to collapse.

Ready for wood.

Lots of open space for working, all tools hung or in sorting bins on
the table above the gas jerrycans.

The purple foliage! 

The courtyard is really maturing and looking good. The fountain is beloved
by the bees and the birds.

The bed besude the courtyard, Soon my hugem white, gorgeous
Hydrangea will be up and blooming.

The Laburnaum is soon going to be stunning. It is dripping with blossoms
about to make a golden shower of blooms. The yard is wild. I leave it like
this to feed the pollinators while my fruit trees are blooming.

The Laburnum up close.

The small new bed between two drees.

These beds under the trees are challenging to maintain, but now, after
seven years of growing. They are looking pretty good..

This was what I once called The Wasteland. But now that I leave all the
natural plants to grow, I love it. I sometimes have lunch on the bench.

The back of the garden under the trees looks kinda nasty, but when the
big Hydrangea blooms, it will look nicer.

Looking at the house and loving the density of the foliage. The Butterbur
is huge and a source of terrific amusement for guests.

Soon, this trellis will be covered in white blooms of the 
Climbing Hydrangea. I can hardly wait.

The edible garden beds have bird fencing that is not particularly attractive,
but I don't want them getting caught in the filament of the net.

The front yard in all its wild glory.

I don't know what this plamt is, but it is beautifully fragrant with a slight
citrus smell. It is beside the hot tub, so I smell it's gorgeous scent as I soak.