elainegrey

I've been thinking a bit about the Elephant In The Room, and what my needs are.( noodling )

So current action plan:

* Stay aware of my sense of balance, and when things tip to where i feel i have to carry more than i should, discuss with Christine;
* feel free to describe how things are going with L (my sister);
* review my self-care activities here.

These include
* continuing to delight in the landscape,
* getting out of the habit of video entertainment every night (I know i'm tired... we're tired... but evening numbing leads to "is this all" feelings),
* having a list of "work outside at twilight" exercise things to do & doing them, and
* interacting with other human beings (camera club, Meeting).

Things i feel i "oughta" but seem fraught with procrastination:
* exercise my ankle and get to a point where i can make some decisions about the need for medical attention or what,
* correspond with western friends and with family, and
* work with Christine as manager in getting photos in local venue.

--== ∞ ==--

On Tuesday i cleaned up a section of our road frontage. There is a small berm of soil right at the edge of the woods. I think it is associated with the power line easement. I like this berm as i suspect it provides a modicum of relief from the road noise. We want to have a visual barrier in that direction (as well as along our eastern perimeter), so my goal is to transplant holly and cedar seedlings to the top of the berm. The road is along the northern boundary of the property, so the shading will be along the road side. There are already some ferns (as yet unidentified) and some fan clubmoss (Diphasiastrum digitatum) growing on the north side of the bank, exposed to the road: they should continue to thrive in the shade of hollies and cedars.

I dug up two cedars (Juniperus virginiana) from the edge of the driveway and installed them on the berm -- much closer than the 10' spacing http://www.windbreaktrees.com/redcedar.html recommends. Well, i can always thin them. And it's much further apart than where they sprouted.

I was delighted to find many holly (Ilex opaca) and more cedar seedlings in the woods behind the berm. I'd like to get some Yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria): it's a native of the coastal plain, a traditional tea plant that has caffeine. Somewhere i read it is the only caffeine bearing plant native to North America. Yerba mate is in the same genus.

After the years in California, particularly the drought years, a gloomy, wet winter day is near novel. I'll admit, the delight and giggles of a bright California February day on the coast were in part because of memory of days like today. And, i've plenty of California coastal gloomy summer days as the marine layer socked in the whole coast with grey. [1]

I ought to go re-plant a pulled up violet as well as the pansies at lunch. I just did a little tour of the yard and found one pulled up -- not sure if it was part of the Sunday-Monday dining event and i didn't notice, or if it is a new dining event. With the wet, it should be clear if any critters are making themselves welcome in the garden. It doesn't seem they are, but the winter rye has finally sprouted. I was certain bugs had eaten all the grain. The scarlet clover and the "deer plot" greens are getting big enough to be seen at a distance.

I am pondering the "spook the deer" future. A scarecrow might be more of a scare deer, especially with some motion activated feature. I imagine using something like this Halloween motion activated decoration as part of a scarecrow. There are plenty of skulls that could be used, too.

There's a motion sensitive water sprinkler, too. That is also on my list of potential deer repellants.

[1] Is there a different idiom i should be using? "Socked in" sounds familiar, but....

LIFO, Last in-first out, is in my impression an "anti-pattern" for personal effectiveness. Get to the requests that came in first, respond to the oldest emails, etc.

I'm not 100% certain of that. I have grown to appreciate that opportunities are constantly making themselves available, and i periodically strike off old to-dos ("punt"), file old emails (email and comment bankruptcy), and in general focus on the present. So, that's what i tried to do this morning to get myself going instead of the "read the whole internet" strategy that i have been employing lately.

I must say, Usenet kept me fixated MUCH LONGER than the internet does today. I suppose the surfeit of choice makes me more picky. Facebook is excluded from my "read the internet," so that removes all sorts of trivia. I do have an extensive list of web comics, but they are optimized -- i have reading lists for each day of the week, and i simply open all the tabs in my bookmarks to have a cascade of amusing reading to do. I've added various local news sources that don't have RSS feeds.

--== ∞ ==--

Oh oh oh my soil tests are in!!

Fairly acid, pH 5.5. Potassium is good, but it seems like there's very little phosphorus. The report is given as an index, and the lawn area reports very very high phosphorus. I don't know if the index is so different because of the difference in planned planting (a grass that doesn't like being over fertilized vs a vegetable garden) or if the previous owners fertilized the fenced in lawn area to death. The area near the lawn, that has been the target of much of our clearing, i specified would be for apples. It took seems to have an extremely low phosphorous rating.

I want to find out if tobacco cropping leaves phosphorus depleted soils. That might hint at the land's history.

ETA Hrm, this 1927 report http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/tobacco_bulletins/tb_7.pdf says tobacco is not a heavy phosphorus feeder.

I finally felt I could cry today, so I decided to take time off from work. We all spent sometime in the morning light and tears began to finally come.

By taking time off, i could take my laptop that was no longer stopping to the Apple store. It's near where my sister works, so i was able to eat lunch with her at her office. My sister shared that my father had shared with her the story of the Red Strings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Strings) and we discussed wearing red strings -- and i thought i would tie red string to my mailbox.

When i drove up to the shopping center i was a bit surprised. I was certain i knew where the store was -- because i was remembering where it was in a very similar mall at Stanford. I did make it to the appointment, a little late, and had to wait and wait to check in. I knew my anxiety about being late and missing a chance to be helped was unreasonable, and i practiced breathing and trying to be calm while i waited to be checked in. No one cared i that i was late, and eventually my machine was checked and diagnosed as needing to be shipped off for repair.

I ran some errands in town, getting bone meal (phosphorous) and muriate of potash (potassium) for the potatoes. I'm not really sure how different processes to extract a mined mineral may or may not be organic: apparently certified organic farmers have to make sure their muriate of potash is certified organic. I am hoping that once i start getting my garden going that i will be able to just use compost to return the nutrients to the soil -- but right now i'm starting with red clay and my compost isn't ripe.

At home i discovered that instead of red strings, it's safety pins that will be worn to communicate solidarity. I might still do something with some sort of red cord.

Tomorrow i will galavant around the county from antique stores to craft fairs to a molasses festival with my mother and sister.

Wow, the journaling is really falling by the wayside, and i suspect i'll rant to read back on what this first year is like. Ah well.

Last week flew by with the distraction of a foggy mind and some sort of sinus unhappiness. Midweek my dad let me know our rescheduled trip to the mountains would need to be rescheduled again due to a doctors appointment he had forgotten. I think i was disappointed, but i decided to keep the day off as i was feeling run down.

One lunch Christine and i went to walk outside in the front woods we've cleared back from the future driveway. A dog came trotting up the driveway, ( and we walked him home. )

( Friday furniture )

I woke at 3:30 am on Saturday, thinking about the yard. Happy thoughts: where to plant what, what to tackle next. But i couldn't manage to quiet the thoughts to go back to sleep, so i got up and did some tidying and unpacking, and some reading. The moonlight is wonderful.

Eventually Christine woke, and we had a pleasant breakfast before i prepared for a day of yard work and she prepared for a friend/client meeting. I worked on the path around the porch and deck, transplanting violets, Heuchera americana (Alumroot), and some other attractive ground-covering plant. I am guessing the alumroot is wild, but given the proximity to the house, it might have been an intentional planting.

( mystery plant )

They were transplanted to a "shady" garden outside our bedroom window. I hope it will be shady next summer, but i have cut back a number of saplings and cleared out the honeysuckle and Japanese knotweed. I've only left a small redbud in the area i consider the flowerbed, and a dogwood does reach over the area a bit. It may be much more sunny though, than it has been. There are three moss covered rocks that act as focal points as well as the huge stump from a tulip poplar tree. (The rest of the tree still needs to be removed -- the previous owners cut down trees and left the logs and branches in the woods.) I planted the 15 yellow daffodil bulbs in this area too, did what i could to encourage moss growth, and hope that it becomes a verdant little area.

After all day outside, i cleaned up and dressed up. Christine and i were guests of a "table captain" at the Equality NC Gala. Conversation was impossible, but that was a plus for me as i was feeling shy. The program was very good - lots of NC House Bill 2 politics and politicians. Lovely to see such a large community of LGBTQ supporting NC politicians! The past mayor of Houston spoke and it was fairly inspiring. The program ran long though, so that was exhausting. I drank a bit more than i usually do, mainly as an analgesic. Oh, did i ache from the yard work. People watching was fun, although pretty sedate.

Sunday i couldn't bring myself to go to Meeting. We had a fairly quiet day, the highlight of which was going to the nearby mill town of Bynum to a native plant seed swap. I had nothing to swap, but the organizer was happy to send me home with seeds, and i was thrilled to get seeds of plants i've wanted for a while. (Pawpaw! Waxmyrtle! Buttonbush!) I'm trying to figure out how i am going to start the seeds. ( seed starting )

Yesterday i managed to finally get soil samples together. I have to get them to the state soon: In November there's a charge.

There was shooting in the large woodlot next door yesterday. I worry it's going to be hard on Christine hearing hunting going on: deer and turkey season start in a month. She's sensitive to sounds like that, sounds she has no control over. Being well isolated has reduced her stress compared to living in a dense suburban situation in California: i hate to think how she's going to be affected by the shooting.

Looks like lovely weather through the week.

[1] AKA Neighborhood public road. I think it means that the state doesn't maintain it. http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/ByArticle/Chapter_136/Article_4.pdf

The drama about the plumbing took a different turn on Tuesday. The plumber had left the bathroom tidy and we set off into the hills to visit various vistas, Los Trancos and Russian Ridge in particular. Periodically my phone would beep with some received message but it wasn't until we pulled into the parking lot at San Gregorino State Beach that we were in signal when someone tried to call.

Dad asked, what is this about Laura finding vandalism at the house?! Our adrenaline surged and i promptly got off to call my sister -- but as i did, i realized i had texted her about the bathroom drama. It turns out she asked Mom, who didn't know about the black water and plumbing snake during the closing. Laura was exasperated: she had repeatedly explained to Mom that nothing was wrong at the new hose. I called my Dad back and let him know it was the known issue with the apartment.

What a game of telephone!

My mother's confusion -- and her certainty of incorrect information -- is part of why i am glad we are moving closer to them, and is going to be one of the challenges. I've found her to be an unreliable narrator for many years, previously predicated on the extrapolations and interpolations she would make and then treat as fact. I certainly extrapolate and interpolate, myself, but i try very hard to keep my speculations clear from the facts. Mom would impute some psychological drama to a family member and reason from there, coming to various conclusions and then treating those as fact.

Now it seems that the leaps are getting a little more wild and correction even harder. I think Mom knows this to some extent. The amount of deference to my father is novel, she is more cautious in the face of new things.

Shifting from exasperation -- from years when it seemed she almost willfully misheard or misrepresented or selectively forgot details -- to a recognition that Mom's capability is diminished is important now. My first challenge, i think, once settled, will be to get her a baseline cognitive screening.

--== ∞ ==-- Meanwhile --== ∞ ==--

I placed most of my plants out for people to take last night. My heart was heavy as i did so. All the plants look so scraggly when pulled out of context, and so many of them are volunteers or survivors -- not carefully groomed specimens.

And i need to leave my Meyer lemon tree. I read the USDA recommendations and NC plant importation rules. While i wouldn't be moving citrus from a quarantine zone, the last thing i want to do is bring something harmful to our new paradise (because it appears i will have plenty of weeds and established invasives to deal with). In particular "phytophagous snails" seem to be a concern for NC, with California a source, and i know i've got slugs in the garden and there are plenty of snails around here.

Phytophagous was a new word for me: Greek for herbivore, i guess? Hmm, "Plant" is from Latin, but "eater" seems like its good Old English.

Anyhow, my heart aches and, as i smell a lemon picked from the "tree" (very very dwarf shrub), i tear up. Christine has cried on my behalf: i feel my stoic wall go up against the feelings, i know i have little signs in my mind: "Do not enter, distressing feelings here."

I've been avoiding the deck garden for months, knowing this time would come.

The sleeping-late daze and SAD have probably blocked me for the past few days and i find myself wanting to note, "Oh, and this happened!" about the past few days. Unpacking my mind follows:

Ah-ha! Openhouse Meme had three requests for the past five days! I'll add five to the dates and answer up. (You too can pick a date and give me a question or prompt at DW or LJ. I might miss the date, but i intend to answer!)

( Notes )

Learned a great deal about Scaups, but no one has confirmed that these are images of a female Barrow's Goldeneye.

Once the long eight hour slog of meetings was over i retired to the deck, still poking at work tasks while taking some time to read the news and journal entries. I could look over and see my ripening tomatoes, an unfamiliar variety, with orange, elongated, almost heart shaped fruit. They glowed, and i glowed back.

And then, there is the squirrel, tomato in mouth, bounding along the rial RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.
My shouts had no effect.

This is not the first time i've been witness to the theft of a just ripe enough tomato by a squirrel.

Having some heartache about the management error today. Must do my best which also means not avoiding the impact but carrying it as gracefully as i can, so as not to cascade the difficulty around the team.

Tonight we are off to see Jackson Browne as part of Christine's birthday celebration. I didn't really know much about the musician, so on her birthday proper we watched Jackson Browne: Going Home. This helped me see why Christine called him "The Amy Goodman of Rock and Roll." I asked her who the Bill Moyers of Rock and Roll would be. This morning she woke to suggest maybe Stink or Joe Strummer, Jerry Garcia must be the Charles Kurault. Bob Dillon, she opined, would be the Walter Cronkite.

I'm sure your milage will vary.

Now Michael Stipe is the Bill Moyers.....

--==∞==--

In New Director news, the Wednesday trans-Atlantic director & manager meeting is canceled for this week. I appreciate this much more than a cancel at 6:30 am, too late to keep me from preparing for the 7 am video conference. There's no "critical" agenda item, New Director claims. On the other hand, apparently he "caught it" two weeks ago (remember the car in the parking lot meeting cancel?) over our monthly reports. Last Monday there was a burst of a communication about how he would be giving us a template because it is too hard for him to pull the information out for his report.

Said template is not yet available.

--==∞==--

Wednesday afternoon i will be meeting with the Career Counselor. One of the reflection questions was what was i going to do to keep moving forward. I hope that this investment does help me figure out a good forward for me. The schizophrenic pull towards more management and leadership and pulls towards anything but that is, i'm sure, because the management and leadership is what i know. Fix the broken process, damnit! I found myself daydreaming about giving the as yet unnamed new president a piece of my mind. What if he turned around and offered me New Director's job? The question just hung there in the daydream, and i came up with the questions i would ask back. "Would my position be backfilled?" is the question i remember now. The daydream points to my desire to be recognized as competent and respected, not to my desire to do more of this management stuff at the Whale.

--==∞==--

Frost has continued in the morning, here, but perhaps this morning will simply be heavy dew. The sweet gum tree at the end of the sidewalk has lost many of its leaves now, and the spiked seed balls hang as bird feeders. Over the weekend i noticed a flock of goldfinches pulling seeds out; yesterday morning a junco fed at the tree.

My potato has survived the frost: only the top of the vine has been nipped back by frost. The pimento pepper looks very sad, though, despite being pulled back under the eaves and sheltered by the dropped outer blinds. I think it might drop its leaves, but survive: that should be sufficient for it to be robust next year and produce a bit more fruit. The deck is a mess, though. I've either been sick during rainy weather or busily distracted during cold weather. I look forward to a chance to tidy it.

I'm taking Friday off: that might present an opportunity if we do not go kayaking in Half Moon Bay. The Groupon offer expires in February, but Christine is feeling overwhelmed right now. With today's concert and tomorrow's beginning of classes (and classes Thursday night) i understand the sense of worry. I'm not pressing for the outing, and i suspect i can put the time to pleasant use without an outing. At the very least, i think i might hie myself to Edgewood or into the hills to photograph plants or fungi.

amabei posted yesterday about pickled green peppercorns, which led me to read about capers on wikipedia, which has led me to desire greatly to grow a caper plant. Apparently notoriously difficult to grow from seed, i find my best deal is a plant in 3" pot for $45 http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/capspinoza.htm .

Maybe i should just pickle nasturtium seeds for a while.