A Big Book Buy ❤️

Yesterday began under clear bright skies. The sun, so low on the horizon, made all my trees glow with radiant colour. It’s such a gorgeous time of the year. I feel very good when it’s sunny. My mood is elevated, making walking the Trailhead 6 trail a spectacularly pleasant and fragrant. There was one place where the fragrance took me back immediately to days when I walked to elementary school and when I played soccer outside on Fall mornings. There’s a special fragrance that only comes in fall, and I love it as much as a beautifully fragrant flower.

I didn’t feel nearly as tired yesterday as I had on Monday. And my back wasn’t bothering me nearly as much either. I feel recovered from the splitting and stacking, but there’s more to come. All the big rounds I have stored in the shed need to be split with metal wedges. I can borrow some from Kevin. He told me it’s easier to split the wood when it is green. My plan was to do it next year, but now I reckon I must do it soon—with help.

At noon, the sky began clouding over, and it got dark. And I thought of the long days of little light ahead, and so, after a quick trip to the village, I bought some books online. I love Thriftbooks! I bought myself eleven used books, so I’m set for quite a while.

I stayed gently busy all day. I made a large batch of pasta sauce loaded with veggies, and then I tidied up, just ahead of my Zoom SPACE board meeting that convened at 17:00. It was a great meeting. We have fundraising to do. We are going to find out how committed board members are because we need each of them to do something. Thankfully, I love fundraising, and Aidan knows that.

Our evening together, the feline twins, Sheba and I, was lovely. Everyone loves the fire. After dinner they we are all close to the heat.

This morning, the sky was alive with stars when I went out to fetch wood, and toting the wood back into the house went smoothly. My body has recovered from the day of splitting and stacking with Pete. I Zoom with my fellow stutterers in the UK this morning, and the rest of the day will be for chillin’!

If I don’t have a seizure today, and I won’t, I will have gone a week without having one, and that is very good news. I am getting my confidence back about socializing. And that’s a good thing because Monday night I am going to dinner with Pete and Ali to the home of the woman for whom I baked eight cakes this past Summer. (That’s something I will never do again!)

Relief!

Well, well, well: America redeemed itself and the faith of the world last night. Don the dumb ass is doomed. Hooray! Now we get to watch the orange turd, and his gang of sycophants slowly sink into the sewer. Whoever gets the Democratic nomination to run for president, if the Democrats make a sensible choice (not Kamela), is certain to win it would seem after last night.

Meanwhile, at Pinecone Park, I did nothing. My body ached from all the splitting on Monday, so yesterday was a day of healing and recovery. I had two long naps, and I went to bed early and happy. I’d seen enough of the American election returns to go to bed confident of the outcome.

We walked twice, of course, and Sheba continues to walk well with me, and she seems relaxed and happy. Last night, at 3:00 I got up to pee, and she was not in the bedroom. I have never known her to sleep apart from me; last night was a first, and it worried me. But when I rose at 4:00 and walked into the living room, I heard the thump, thump, thump of her tail beating against the back of the chaise. We had a lovely reunion.

By the end of the day yesterday, my body was moving and feeling better. I was happy to fetch wood this morning without any backache. And I was happy to find myself speaking well with Sandi, whom I met on the trail, and Dianne, with whom I Zoomed. I’m on my way to a week without a seizure, and that is very good news. I feel my latest crisis has passed.

Today, I Zoom with the SPACE board, and we’ll go into the village to shop after our morning walk. Otherwise, slacking is the order of the day!

A Work Day

At 9:00 yesterday morning, I was out moving wood to make space for the huge rounds of bucked wood that I planned to roll into the shed to dry out during Winter. Come Springtime, I may be able to split them with Kevin’s iron wedges and a borrowed sledgehammer. I wanted to get some work done before Pete arrived at 10:00. It would give us a head start on the work of the day. Sigh.

But oh, how tired I get, and how quickly I run out of breath. Walking next door to Dave and Ursula’s to fetch the wooden blocks onto which we will place the splitter, and then toting the load back to my place wore me out. I don’t see Dr. Dorscheid until Spring, so I won’t be able to ask him about my breathing until then.

I warned Pete about how weak I am when he arrived, but I also said that what we can do together will be of great help to me, and what we cannot do, will get done some other time. He was fine with that. He’s such a wonderful early-going fellow! We got to work and I was amazed. After an hour of splitting with the splitter, we’d slit almost half of the splitable wood. And I’d rolled half of the rounds too large to split into the shed. I was thrilled by our progress!

I couldn’t believe it. We were finished by 12:30. The huge rounds we couldn’t split, are in the shed to dry until Springtime. They’ll be easier to split with iron wedges once they have dried out. I expect to split them late in the coming Summer. With Pete helping me and using the splitter instead of chopping the bucked wood, we moved fast. Pete thought it would take all day. I thought it would take more than a day, but we got everything done in 2.5 hours! It felt very, very good to be done and back in the warm and cozy house. 

Bless this generous man! Pete came back to work on my studio roof for a couple of hours. He removed all the forest fall and cleaned the gutters. What a guy he is! I, however, do not feel comfortable then he’s working so hard for me and I’m on my fat ass in the house. But every year this happens. When he cleaned the house roof, I helped him the entire time. But not yesterday. He did the roof of the studio and the shed, and he used his enormous blower to clean up the courtyard and front sidewalk to my front door.

I went to the calendar where I recorded my first monster seizure. I wanted to add the second much less physical seizure. When I did, I saw that it was five days ago, including yesterday. I thought ten days had gone by since the second seizure. I want to get through this week without seizing.

My whole body is hurting. It’s not major pain; it’s just low-grade pain all over. Carrying wood into the house this morning was torture on my back. I reckon that I should be bringing in lighter loads and making two trips to the shed.

I shall be spending the day chilling, letting my body heal. I’m so glad that I have absolutely nothing on my plate today. There’s a lot of rain in the forecast. Except for tomorrow, it is predicted to be warmer and wetter.

Audubon Photo/Video Awards

 

Sunday morning, I love to listen to Choral Concert on CBC Radio, and yesterday, blessed with a gloriously bright and sunny day without a single cloud in the sky, it was particularly lovely listening. The only slightly off-putting moment was when Frédérika Petit-Homme played a piece that sounded an awful lot like a Christmas carol, and I’m not ready for Christmas music yet.

At 9:30, Her Highness and I went for our morning walk. It was lovely, but a cool 6°. I loved every second of the walk because I kind of dreaded the work I undertook when I got home: more splitting and stacking and nursing the very sore back that comes with the work. I resolved to stop when the pain came on strong and/or when I was out of breath, and to take a good break before returning to the barrow and maul. 

But I didn’t pick up tools when I got home. Instead, I watched my favourite vloggers. Watching Martijn Doolaard is one of my favourite things about Sunday. I’ve been watching him weekly for five years. We had lunch and then I got to work and I chopped and stacked for three hours, taking lots of breaks. I had to. I’d get so out of breath.

Pete came by at 14:00, and we went next door to Dave and Ursula’s and got the splitter, so tomorrow Pete’s coming over at 10:00 and we’re going to use the splitter for the rest of the splitting. And knowing he’s going to be helping me, and I won’t have to chop the wood, I decided to take Her Highness walking and then to have a spa. After all, it was My Day.

But I was chuffed that I was able to do as much of the splitting and stacking as I did. It was good for me to discover that I can still do physical labour, albeit slowly and with lots of breaks. It makes me feel more optimistic about my future; I want to stay in this house for as long as I can.

So, today shall be a workday. I’d rather be on the chaise, but at least it’s going to be a sunny day, and I love Pete’s company and tonight will be wonderful. I’m already looking forward to a roaring fire and a movie. And there’s only ten more days until I see Dr. S! 

Ornamental Cherry. One of two.

Red glory by the spa.

The Japanese Maple and Ornamental Cherry in
the orchard area of the yard.

The Japanese Maple by the spa.

Japonica in bloom.

My workspace yesterday: chopping bloc on the left, chair for
resting on the right.

The wood we must split today and, probably, on another day.

This is the wood I wa sable to split with my maul. The stack is
up to my waist. I'm chuffed by what I was able to do in three hours.

Fuchsia in bloom.