Good News

Rob is coming to visit. I have a massive crush on him; I shouldn’t but I do. He’s straight but he’s very affectionate with me and because I trust him so, I enjoy his human touch very much. He is kind and dealing with a serious disease as I am and so we find comfort in each other. He’s a crazy and kind man; that’s why I love him.

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Thank God for the healing power of sleep. My neck pain is slowly getting better. Sunday afternoon and evening it was so bad it made me feel sick to my stomach and I worried about how I would cope with the animals Monday. But I can move around without the severe shards of pain now.

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My blog is called Notes from Pinecone Park now. Did you notice? I began the blog as Chris Walks in April 2013 to record my sojourns and that is what it did for quite a while — that and post photos I took. But it evolved to chronicle all my activities as my interests in life changed: My baking and baking courses; my paper dresses and their script, Armour: The Defiant Dress and the emergence of C-PTSD, its symptoms and how I deal with them. Now it’s about island living.

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My fence is covered in birds. They take turns at the perch so the fence is where they line up. There are scores of them at once. They’re at the suet and the seeds; its hypnotizing non-stop action and now its super easy to feed them.

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Leave a drawer slightly ajar — it’ll be emptied. Leave a sewing kit on a table: Pushed onto the floor and emptied. All bags will be shredded and emptied. Bugs: Killed! Toilet paper unsecured will be unraveled. Paper towels too. Wires? Are they not for chewing? Something missing? Fred has taken it somewhere. If it smells, it’ll be investigated with vigor. You should see Fred take off with bags of food, a shoe, flower bulbs … anything really. Yesterday he was dragging my entire pie across the counter to crash it onto the floor.

And they race around. Not only that: These slight, lithe, beautiful and graceful creatures somehow sound like Elephants when they run.

And then they tire and curl up together by the fire and I think they are the sweetest living things on earth and I adore them. It turns out that “Fred” and “Ethel” were good names choices. They feel like a perfect fit to me.

And last night, awakened by Sheba for a pee at 1:30 am, I was delighted to find us all sleeping in the same room. Fred was in Sheba’s bed. Sheba was under my bed and Ethel was curled up in the clothes I left on the dresser.

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My goal yesterday was simple: More yard work. I burned a ton of twigs and branches from the property and dumped wheelbarrows full of pine needles, rocks and wood too wet to burn into the woods behind my fence. My back/neck pain came back with a vengeance when I started raking so a rest today is in order.

As for professional progress here at Pinecone Park: Rod is coming with the new cistern switch today so today my manual well duties end (with luck). Darrell and his invisible partner (his wife Elaine who is accounts receivable and head of research) are in Nanaimo on a scouting mission for materials for both the studio and the sunroom. And I’ve called a fellow about installing the wood stove.  

And I’ve ordered a whack of things:

• some solar spotlights that I’ll use to light up parts of Pinecone Park.
• coat racks for the house
• a floor lamp for the house
• a sofa bed for the studio
• a rug and two chairs for the studio
• and a coffee table for the studio

And then, because we’re on puppy time, we went to bed at 8:30.  It’s like camping.

Why Do I Love This?

Later that same day....

Pain! I loathe it. But a bucket of it is in my upper back/neck. At times, when I move the wrong way, it’s excruciating. Sigh! But it will pass, I know. I’ve an excuse for rest but the pets have neither understanding nor empathy.

Above is the view out my office window. I took the photo this morning before the sun disappeared. Sadly, the photo does little for me whereas the actual view is inspiring. The way some tree trunks are sunlit and others are dark gets my heart pumping.

You can see the bird feeders on my fence posts. I’m ripping through seed keeping the Chickadees, Jays, Thrushes and Woodpeckers fat and happy. One feeder also hosts two suet bricks. The curved trees, leaning left, are where the Peregrine Falcon was perched last week.

Inspired by the light I went out to attend to today’s major duty: Sawing up Darrell’s waste wood and cleaning up the studio.

The table saw made the work easy but it’s a soul killer; the noise is deafening (and sensitivity to sound is a particularly strong symptom of my PTSD). However, I have an abundance of kindling and all the waste wood is gone. I swept and tidied as a way to subtly thank Darrell and to show my respect and appreciation for his work.

My alter ego, Moss Planter, took over once the sawing and stacking was done. I pulled some moss out of the depths of the ditch and I put it down on the scars left by the old rotting woodpiles I removed from Pinecone Park. Sheba absolutely loves to sleep on the thick plush new moss and most of the black stain of rot is covered.

After that, I had a (short) shower, after which I added well water to the cistern. This will go on until the switch is installed — likely this week. It was right after the shower that I started noticing the pain.

Sheba and I went to town. We thought we’d check out the stores we’ve not yet been to and see what they carry in case we can lead an even more hedonistic lifestyle. (Although it’s hard to beat the daily thrill of bagging pet poo and the constant slivers.) Plus, I had to drive into town to get cell service that allowed me to deposit a cheque. The stores were fabulous. One has a vast array of incredible gourmet cooking supplies.

I needed pie. After the Spartan shower and all the sawing, I earned it. And that was the last reason Sheba and I went to town.

The balance of the day has been devoted to pain management: I’ve been resting, applying a heat pad and waiting for Grantchester.

Sunshine!

It was supposed to rain, in fact storm, today. But, as if to compensate for my first Sunday in ages without The Durrells (and in particular Josh O’Conner), the day has dawned brilliantly clear. What a total treat! It means a pleasant day of yard work and sawing in sunshine. And it means Miss Thing will be tired tonight.

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The entire area of my former home in Vancouver was 700 square feet. And guess what: My studio here — my first dedicated creation space — is a whopping 500 square feet and it has an eleven-foot ceiling!

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I’ve lost the feeling that I’m visiting and that soon I’ll have to back home in Vancouver. Manually pumping my daily water, feeding the pets and maintaining the fire has become routine; perhaps it is these routines that make us bind with our space. Soon I’ll have been here two months and I’ve not been bored for a second. And I think that with time my body will stop hurting as it becomes used to mild work all day every day.

Yesterday I raked the outside edges of Pinecone Park. It looks great and it’s a hell of a lot easier than picking things up one at a time. I’ve eight gallons of pinecones drying in the shed that I was going to use as kindling but they are begging me to become a dress.

Next I’m going to fertilize everything — all the Salal, Ferns and even the moss. I like the natural growth. I want to assist it and make it as lush as possible. A truly euphoric moment yesterday was finding a Broom plant growing in the backyard. I absolutely love Broom and it’s a bonus that this plant grew here on its own.

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Three o’clock in the morning is just too early to start a winter day but that’s what we do here. We’re on puppy time. I get up, questioning the point because the pee is already in the carpet. I clean it u p, I light the fire and feed all the pets, I let water into the cistern, I do the dishes I was too lazy to do last night, I replenish the indoor wood pile and then what do I see? Sheba’s gone back to sleep.

I go back to bed around six. I’m living like citizens of pre-industrial Europe who had a pattern of bi-modal sleeping. They went to bed when there was nothing to do. “First sleep” happened a few hours after dusk. But then they would wake up a few hours later for a couple of hours (mid-sleep) and then they’d have a “second sleep” that was longer and lasted until dawn.

My first sleep is the long one. Then I get up and do all the above before going back to bed for a short second sleep.

(Period diaries reveal that mid-sleep was a time for people’s leisure activities. They would enjoy what they did, refreshed by their first sleep. They would relax, read, sew or have sex. The pattern lasted until the seventeenth century when upper classes started sleeping through the night.)

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I wish everyone could have seen the gorgeous (and huge) male Pileated Woodpecker that was hanging around yesterday. He was truly majestic but when he called out, his voice sounded like a squirrel in distress. It ain’t a pretty sound.

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Yesterday was the last day of destruction in the studio and Darrell began construction. He has the place wired now and when he comes back next week he starts insulating and lining the new ceiling with Pine.

He’s lent me a table saw so I’m spending today sawing up long pieces of accumulated waste wood into burnable pieces. This old body continues to adapt to tools, ladders, lifting, bending and constant motion.

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If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. I get the water fixed — well almost fixed — and as I’m washing my glasses for the umpteenth time I stop. I realize that I’ve cleaned my glasses several times already this morning. The light dawns: I close my right eye and all is good. Then I close my left eye and I realize my right eye is foggy. Cataract? All light has a milky halo. At least it doesn’t hurt.

Taking down the blinds, too, I noticed I couldn’t see what head of the screwdriver without a magnifying glass so my glasses probably need a new prescription too. If it ain’t one thing, it’s two others.

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I dropped my rock anchor into the cistern this morning. It was bound to happen. But I found another. By the end of the week, I should have the new switch in and water drawing will be automatic.