Nothing So Wonderful...

Porcupine in the apple tree!

 

 

 

 

 

There is nothing so wonderful as a slice of home-made sourdough bread, toasted ‘til dry but not brown, with some excellent unfiltered olive oil poured over it, sliced tomatoes from our own garden atop the oil, a sprinkling of winter or summer savory leaves, and salt with a little pepper: heaven. There is nothing so wonderful as that, unless it’s a peach from your own tree; or, a wonderful new discovery every fall, a pear from your own tree. Pair that pear (!) with a little locally smoked ham, but save the last bites of pear to fill your mouth and soul with its full pearness, which is unlike any pear you’ll ever buy in a grocery store.

There’s nothing so wonderful as those three things, unless it’s the fall golden raspberries in your own patch, ripening in front of your eyes, that you do battle with the slow-moving wasps who are also feasting on them, in order to get your fair share of juicy sweet nuggets. There’s nothing so wonderful as  plump fall raspberries, unless it’s the zucchini relish you make from the recipe Nan used to use, from the giant zucchinis and peppers and onions that you grew in your own garden, and that will sustain your spirit and delight your friends through the long winter. There’s nothing so wonderful as those two things, unless it’s the ripe cucumber pickles you also make with Nan’s recipe, redolent with cloves and cinnamon, in the years the cucumbers get away from you in their fecundity and turn yellow on the vine. There’s nothing so wonderful as those things, unless it’s the gleaming jars of relish and pickles and the garnet-colored jars of pickled beets, also fragrant with spices and cloves, also made from your own garden harvest, lining the shelves in the cellar.

Helenium

There’s nothing so wonderful as tomatoes and bread, olive oil and salt, savory and peaches, pears and raspberries, shining jars of pickles and relish – and don’t forget the dilly beans you made with your own garlic and dill and beans, and the curried summer squash pickles in their orange turmeric-y sauce , and the pesto frozen in small containers in the chest freezer that will envelope you with memories of your abundant summer basil on a cold night in January when you pull it out and mix it in pasta and shave excellent local cheese over all – unless it’s the most amazing musk melon harvested from your own garden at the tentative end of a summer season  when it stays warm enough just long enough to ripen the most amazing-tasting melons you’ve ever tasted and will never taste in one from the grocery store. Gramp used to put salt and pepper on his store-bought cantaloup; I just let the natural juices from my real melons run down my chin and arms, then lick it off. Twice, ‘cause it’s sticky.

There’s nothing so wonderful, when so busy one can barely think straight, as to say, to heck with it, I’m taking a day off and  - maybe even two. And going to a bookstore. And buying books that I don’t, at this point in time, have time to read. But there they are, stacked up next to the bed, and that’s a very good feeling – something surely wonderful’s waiting for me.

Fall anemone

There’s nothing so wonderful as, on OCTOBER 10, for heaven’s sake, a month after our usual frost date, going out to the garden and gathering the last pears (to finish ripening on the kitchen counter), lima beans --- lima beans! Never ever have I been able to grow limas that actually podded and produced beans in 65 years of gardening! --- and a zucchini, and tomatoes, and fava beans, and a leek and onion that got left behind, and string beans, and scarlet runner beans, and – basil, wonder of wonders – and pull some carrots and a couple of the parsnips the chipmunks haven’t yet devastated, and make Sunday soup with it all.

And even though today happens to be overcast and chilly, tomorrow’s supposed to be warmer. The cats are in the garden hunting and eating catnip; the chickadees are snacking on the now seed-heavy sunflowers; the trees are a glorious blaze of scarlet and maroon and yellows and oranges all around the back 40, and it’s a lovely day. The morning glories – no idea where they came from, they aren’t where I planted some – are in full jungle glory, tripping me up and keeping me from traveling down many of my garden paths. Everything is growing slower, ripening slower, except for the few cool-weather-loving plants, but yet, everything is still ripening, even a melon that’s nestled in close to one of the compost bins. 

Fall delphinium

 

And today is also our 40^th wedding anniversary, and you know what? We still love each other and are still glad to be married. And that’s pretty darn wonderful and amazing, also. Maybe even more amazing than pink and speckled lima beans ripening in NH in October!

 

herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

10 October 2021

All photos Deb Marshall

Beautiful "weed"

 

 

Covid Updates End of August

 

Jacob's Ladder

 

The Delta variant is extraordinarily contagious; at the moment, it’s suspected that it can be passed on by asymptomatic carriers.

Both NH (only about 52% of population vaccinated) and VT (around 82% of population vaccinated) are experiencing larger numbers of patients with Covid hospitalized, and rising deaths, than have been since last winter. There are also in both states uncomfortably numerous positive cases confirmed in vaccinated people. Other states are experiencing greater numbers of deaths from Covid than ever.

So what does this mean? You (vaccinated) could be a carrier and not know it (no symptoms = asymptomatic), even if you’ve been vaccinated. Your best friend (vaccinated), or that person standing next to you in line not wearing a mask, could be an asymptomatic carrier. You could have what you assume is a summer cold (symptoms of Covid and summer colds can be similar) but actually have a mild case of Covid because you’re vaccinated. You could have a wicked nasty summer flu (fever, nausea, diarrhea, cough, congestion, or some combo of these) and actually have Covid, even though you’re vaccinated.

And you could be passing Covid on to the unvaccinated; or to the immune-compromised; or to unvaccinated children.

What do we do, as responsible members of society?

   We wear masks indoors in public spaces, even though our states no longer mandate it.

   We wear masks near old people, young people, the immune-compromised, unless we live with those people and/or maintain excellent Covid hygiene and vigilance.

   We maintain social distancing in public spaces, and if you really want to stay safe, do so AND wear a mask even at outdoor venues.

   We don’t drop our habits of carefulness, hand-washing and sanitizing, mask wearing, and limiting contact with people we don’t know for certain are being as careful as we are.

   We don’t assume the Covid pandemic is over: it very much is not.

   We keep in mind that travel, especially on airplanes, and especially to certain parts of the country and the world, is not risk-free.

   We quarantine if we suspect we might have been in contact with someone with Covid, even if we’re experiencing no symptoms. It can take some time for the virus to settle in or cause symptoms – wait 5 days after possible exposure to get a more accurate test result. If the result is positive but you remain asymptomatic, continue to quarantine and re-test after another 10 days.

Being vaccinated and contracting the virus may mean you don’t get sick enough to die – though that’s not always true – but you can get sick enough to need hospitalization, or fear that you will need to head to the ER any moment now.

I know 4 vaccinated people who caught the variant recently; of the 4, patient one had strong summer-cold-like symptoms that lasted longer than 2 weeks and sent him to bed for a week of that time, at which point he got tested and tested positive – no idea how many people he exposed first; patient two had no symptoms for a week, got tested because she’d been exposed to patient 1 and tested positive; then developed mild symptoms two or three days later. While asymptomatic, she infected patient 3, who developed a fever of 103 that lasted several days, diarrhea, nausea, and a bad cough; it took her two weeks of bed rest before the cough subsided and she still suffers from exhaustion and lack of appetite 6 weeks out; patient 4 caught the virus either from patient 2 while she was asymptomatic or patient 3 before she showed symptoms; patient 4 also developed a fever that ran intermittently during the day for more than 2 weeks, a very nasty wracking cough with a lot of sputum, body aches, exhaustion, and lack of appetite; it took more than 3 weeks for her to return to almost normal.

Covid is still with us, it’s still dangerous, it’s still very contagious. Protect yourself and the people around you – use your masks, and your hand sanitizer, and your common sense, and don’t take risks with your health or the health of those around you!

 

Heron Dragon Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine; Deb Marshall, L.Ac.

 

I HATE HUMIDITY!

Giant kohlrabis!

I HATE HUMIDITY!

Today it’s just getting worse, and starting to remind me of the humidity in that place I was that starts with FL, which name I’m trying to avoid saying or thinking about this week. I’ve almost stopped having nightmares about it, so it seems to be working –ish.

So as it happens, I managed to NOT catch Covid even though everyone else in that place did – I think I missed it by a day. Everyone else is either recovering slowly or recovered relatively quickly, but two of the vaccinated-who-caught-it got very ill, though not hospital ill. So if you aren’t vaccinated: GET YOURSELF VACCINATED!  All the nonsense you’ve heard about what terrible things the vaccine can do to you, including turning you into a zombie, is just nonsense: I heard a ration of cow-pucky about that this weekend from someone who should know better. If you really believe that silliness, please ask yourself: when did you start believing that science fiction and fantasy tales are real? Seriously – when did you, an otherwise sane and normal person, start to believe in the unbelievable? And what were you drinking/smoking/eating just before you did?

 

A seat for admiring the thyme and garden

These past three weeks when I’ve been home quarantining and trying to recover from exhaustion have been time to catch up on the silliness going on in the world and the real evil being perpetrated by folks who should know better – about the environment, about poor people, about vaccines and the pandemic, about politics, about a whole lot of things, and another period of my thanking the stars that I’m 65 and not 25. The next 10 years aren’t going to be fun, no matter what; the next 70 are going to be hell on earth unless some rich old farts come to their senses and either get out of the way and open their damned wallets, or the God they believe in strikes them dead, which seems like it would be actual justice. And that goes for the ones who believe in other Gods, too. [[I have no idea what's going on with the alignment in this paragraph and why I can't fix it.]]

Like I said, I’m glad I’m not 25. Doom is hanging over our heads.

On the other hand, it’s beautiful out here in the Northeast, where, I’ll remind you, about 20 years ago some Tibetan Llamas who’d come to make a sand mandala at Dartmouth were given a tour of the area after the mandala was washed into the river, and they were asked how they liked the area. One of the monks replied, “Very nice. Soon be seacoast.”

The heather in my yard is all abloom and the bees are going crazy. I have 5 big patches of it: one blooms white, the others bloom various shades of purple. The thyme which took over most of my yard from six small plants I stuck in the front yard 35 years ago, and continues to expand its territory, is also blooming another shade of purple. So looking out a window is like looking onto purple haze. Hmm, Purple Haze – could that be what is causing the insanity that’s running rampant in our country and a large part of the rest of the world….?

But I digress. The skies are also pretty hazy, thanks to the giant fires out west.  And the humidity and temperatures are rising. But the last several days, when the sun was behind clouds, and there was a gentle breeze, it was lovely out on the wart under the tent roof. The cats and I – well, the visible cats, we still have one Invisi-Cat hiding somewhere in the house we can’t locate – luxuriated. And fell asleep. Then we went out to the garden to work (me) and lounge (them) and chase critters (them) and cuss the chipmunks who have completely eaten all my beets and one bed of parsnips (me doing the cussing – cat’s cuss a different way).

So today I have options: Go to the dump. Go out to the garden and pick yet more of the beans that surely are needing attention and processing. Go to the post office – if I do that, I should probably go to the dump, too. Now I know I don’t have Covid, go hug my mother who I’ve been avoiding since I returned from the evil place, just in case. Bring my niece her birthday present, now 6+ months late, per request (something to look forward to). Lie down in the air-conditioned house and a) read, or b)watch a DVD  - my excuse for sorting them, or a) + b) + c) take a nap. 

 

Instead, I decided to write a blog!

 

California poppies; a self-seeding annual! I haven't planted these in years - same with dill, Johnny-jump-ups, corn flowers, parsley - well, that's a biennial - and summer savory!

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com      11 August 2021

All photos Deb Marshall

 

EXHAUSTED

 

Exhaustion is an interesting state of being. Eyes don’t want to open; body doesn’t want to move; brain gets stuck in places it can’t find its way out of. Willpower sometimes rises – I am from New England, after all, so just like all Granite Staters and other northerners, one does what needs doing until it’s done and exhaustion be damned – and sometimes just sits around nagging when brain and body won’t respond. Very annoying - willpower can be very annoying, sometimes it just won’t shut up. Which when you’re exhausted, is more exhausting.

I’ve been exhausted for months. I’d like to tell you it’s the Covid thing – we’re all exhausted by the Covid thing and its restrictions and its protocols – or that it’s politics – and it was indeed an exhausting last four years, without doubt, and there’s a particular political party which is still exhausting to think about or hear from – but my exhaustion has more to do with Florida.

Florida is a state I’ve been in three times in my life: once, decades ago, when I went with my friend to meet and visit her parents who benightedly moved there when they retired from the military – this visit was at the end of May while we were still in college – and after that trip, I swore I’d never go there again. The season was what they considered to be still winter, so the A/C wasn’t on; it rained every 15 minutes for about 5 minutes; and every time I opened the door to step outside hoping for just a little fresh air, someone would shout, “Watch out for the alligators!”

I HATED Florida.

I managed to avoid Florida for upwards of 40 years. When my friend still lived in New England, we visited each other, but when she decided to move to Florida to be near her folks after she divorced, I never saw her again – at least, that’s what I expected. But her mom died many years ago, and my friend’s an only child; about 6 years ago she and her aged dad began living together on and off, for companionship and to lower their individual stress levels; and then three years ago that part-time living situation became permanent and full-time. And I promised to come to Florida to help when her dad, who had a heart condition, died.

Which he did this spring. His heart finally failed him. And after attempting to get my PCP to tell me that no, I absolutely shouldn’t go anywhere near Covid-ridden Florida, I had to go. My PCP pointed out that I was vaccinated so there really wasn’t any reason to go.

My friend isn’t well, but I couldn’t tell how much so over the phone. I’d heard about some of it, but her voice was normal, she thinks as well as any 68-year-old, she has many interests, and she told me how she was taking care of Dad and he was taking care of her – she gave me a little insight into the memory problems, the physical problems, the energy problems, but I really had no idea how bad things were. When I got there, I was shocked.

So exhaustion started. There was too much to do, too much to set in place, too much to see to in the short three weeks I was there. Cousin Paula, who also lives many states away and is the only relative, went down a week after I left and took over some of the chores. But still there was too much for either of us to do efficiently around jobs and distance, and everything had to be done, because my friend is physically and energetically and psychically incapable of doing it. I’m not complaining, I’m just describing: all my free time has been devoted to another life for the past 4 months, and I’m exhausted. 

In-between chores, I got the garden planted, but everything else has been put off. Now I’m back from Florida for the 2^nd time, and hoping I’ll not have to go there again for a very long time, and I’m more exhausted than I was. My garden got out of hand during the weeks I was away; my CEU classes didn’t get taken; I’m pretty sure I missed a Medicare deadline; the chipmunks took out yet another tomato plant, ate all my beets, and have started on the parsnips; and still there’s some paperwork that needs sorting, pursuing, checking on, dealing with, from Florida.

And this time in Florida, I was exposed to Covid.

I have no symptoms; I’ll find out next week if I’m an asymptomatic carrier. The person who exposed me was vaccinated and asymptomatic, but since I’ve been back, I’ve heard that my friend, who is vaccinated, is running a fever and coughing hard; her part-time care-giver is running a low-grade fever and coughing; and the person who is the well for this spread caught it from her vaccinated husband, who thought he was just suffering from a summer cold.

 

The Delta variation is a bastard. It’s easy to catch; it’s easy to pass on. We all need to be wearing masks again, and sanitizing, and distancing, and being aware and careful, even around vaccinated people. WE ALL NEED TO BE VACCINATED. No excuses, I’m sorry, the small minority of people who really shouldn’t get vaccinated is a lot smaller than the group of people who aren’t vaccinated, even here in northern New England where willpower generally gets us to do what needs doing.

It’s dangerous, and it’s not fair. Before I found out I was exposed, I exposed my husband and possibly a friend. I can’t see patients; I can’t earn my rent, or money for food and electricity and all that jazz. My patients can’t get treated, and have to worry about when it’ll be safe for them to come back for treatment. I can’t go see my 89-year-old mother; I can’t go to the post office, or shop for groceries. I may have put my husband’s biggest money-making event of the year at risk.

And I’m exhausted.

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com    1 August 2021

All photos Deb Marshall 

Balloon flowers; and weeds. Don't judge me, I've been away and I'm exhausted!