Last week was rough, that cold kept on lingering and I’m still dealing with residual effects from it. Then on Friday I woke up and noticed a lone star tick attached to my leg. About three years ago I was bit by a lone star tick and it gave me an alpha gal meat allergy, it was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I would of course have a allergic reaction anytime I ate food with meat in it, but as time went on discovered the reaction extended to anything with a meat byproduct in it such as gelatin. That meant when I took a Benadryl pill to help with the reaction, my body then had a reaction to the meat byproduct used to make pressed pills, and the reactions were so wide spread it even extended to using tooth paste. For five months I was suffering trying to figure out what was happening to me and we were able to fix it with acupuncture. There is a procedure invented in 1950’s France where they put micro needles in my ear, those needles had to stay put for three weeks before being removed. Afterwards things began to get better, but the experience still haunts me. For years I’ve asked myself what am I afraid of and never had an answer, this weekend I realized I’m afraid of those ticks, so when I pulled it off and saw I was bitten it was not a good day or weekend. We’ll see in the coming weeks if contract the alpha gal allergy though in the meantime I’m trying to deal with it knowing the solution that it should only be three weeks of struggle. Other than that I’m trying to get back on my feet since I haven’t been able to do anything except care for the baby for at least a week.
1 May 2024
On today’s episode of tantrum over nothing, I wouldn’t let the baby eat cashews. With being sick I went a couple days of eating practically nothing and I’ve been stuck between starving and stomach pain from over eating, so I had a bag of cashews to snack on during the drive to daycare. On the way out the baby saw the bag and wanted to play with it, at this point if she wants something she’ll throw a fit unless she gets it. Fine she can take the bag, I had plenty of other stuff to carry anyway, including her. Then when we’re driving she wants the bag open, cashews seem like a choking hazard, so I wasn’t going to let her eat them. The tantrum ensues since I won’t open the bag and I take it back since I need to eat anyway, we had a lovely car ride of screaming the whole way. It’s interesting to watch kids go through phases, I said yesterday that she’s unreasonable right now whereas a month ago she could be reasoned with. She’s still sweet in between it all and my lines are definitive. Eventually she’ll grow out of it and will start debating me with full sentences instead, after all why can’t she have Andes mints for breakfast? Food is food, at least I have the books on the shelf to prove not all food is equal. That does excite me to be to have conversations with her and to be challenged to new heights. I had said I don’t have anyone to look at for an example of growth, she will quickly catch up to me and show me where I need to go.
30 April 2024
Being sick hit hard this weekend and with the baby recovering from being sick takes longer since there’s no rest. I’m still feeling a little under the weather today and wasn’t going to write except we have a repairman here today doing maintenance on the HVAC system, so I have to do something while I wait. As the baby got over her sickness it felt like she had entered toddler mode where she’s been very clingy and fussy about everything. For instance I was trying to put her down at night and she asked for, I grabbed the book she pointed to, she breaks down in tears. When we had a newborn, her crying would shut down my brain to where I couldn’t do anything until it was resolved, now I’ve heard so much crying that I can at least manage. We were driving home from daycare and they had given her a tiny cup of water, the sort a dentist would have for the patient to rinse. She was chewing the cup and a sliver of plastic got stuck in between her teeth. I had to pull over so I could pull it out, but then she wanted to be held. We still needed to drive home and that’s what I did, she cried the whole way refusing anything I offered, no rest. Of course during these struggles, last Friday, the trash truck dropped our can in the truck leaving us without a place to put our trash, then they said it could take up to two weeks to get a new can. I still haven’t had time to replace my lawn mower belt, when it rains it pours. By the end of this week everything will probably be doing great, hopefully, once I feel better and can start cleaning up messes. For now rest as much as possible.
26 April 2024
The end of the week and it’s been rough to get to this point. At the beginning of the week the baby started getting a cold, so of course now my wife and I have colds. This is when we transition to survival mode, my way of looking at this is to run out the clock until the next time she goes down for a nap. Right now naps are also hard with the baby coughing frequently, it can be hard to tell if she’s crying in her sleep because the coughs hurt or if she’s awake. Plus I’m going in at night to give her medicine and milk when she wakes, then she wakes up earlier in the morning then usual leaving me sick with less sleep. And we’re having another one, my goodness. It’s alright though, running out the clock is about all I can do, or “this too shall pass”, soon everyone will be feeling good and back to normal. A silver lining can be found in my lawn mower belt breaking since that kept me from mowing yesterday, right now I shouldn’t be spending energy on something unless I have to. With that said I’m going to nap while the baby naps, have a good weekend everyone.
25 April 2024
The animal friend in today’s photo is a pretty moth I met on the same porch my bird friend hangs out on. The moth was willing to let me take some up close photos which is great since there is a lot of detail on it’s body. My report on yesterday was so-so, the bees are doing well though the photos I took were blurry. They seem to have moved onto collecting pollen for food as the their combs have a yellow tint to them and they’ve started laying. They’re still building their own combs perpendicular to the ones I provided, I moved some frames so they’re at least building into the frames from both sides. They also hadn’t eaten all of their sugar water over the last week which leads me to believe they’re getting pollen on their own. In the coming weeks I’ll watch their consumption of the sugar water to see if I want to pull it until Winter when they’ll need supplementation again. A good deal of mowing got done yesterday, though not as much as I would like, I was clearing the tall grass next to a tree and got stuck on a small stump. After I got free my mower blades stopped spinning and either that had knocked the belt off or damaged it enough to come loose. I’ll put a new belt on when I can since there’s no point to putting a damaged one on and today I’ll look at the pullies under the mower to check for damage. I keep saying to myself this is why you finish the grass that needs to be done before doing anything risky. The tree wasn’t obviously risky, but I could have waited until the end to go around them. Live and learn.
24 April 2024
Today’s photo is of my bird friend, we’ve been getting comfy with each other the last couple days and they will now sit in their nest while I sit. The photo I’ve shared before of my peach trees was taken from a balcony on the second story and that’s where this bird is, nestled in an upper corner. Yesterday I had the dog on the balcony with me and he was not chill with our bird friend barking, the dog and bird might not be friends but we still can be. I suspect soon the bird will lay eggs because that sort of thing tends to happen in birds nests in the Spring. At my last house it came with a broken above ground pool where a bird had made a nest in a support pillar. I took a photo of the babies that hatched from that I might be able to find. After the chicks have left the nest or by Fall I will probably remove the next from this location, otherwise birds will continue to build new nests on this old one and eventually damage part of the house. I had thought about putting a bird house in the same location to see if someone will pick up residence there, we’ll see, for now I’m happy to make friends with the bird pal and hope them the best of luck this year. Once I’m done here I’m going to see the bees, we had a couple days of cold temperatures and will see how they’re doing as well as restocking their food. The bees have likely continued building their hive in a way that is contrary to what I’ve provided them and I’ve got some ideas on how I might rearrange things once I’m in there to encourage them to build on the frames without destroying the work they’ve already done.
23 April 2024
On my regular walks with the dog I spotted something in the distance, a shiny black and I know from painting that black is not a color normally seen in nature. There was a sizable snake sitting on a vining branch. I took a photo and on the right side can be seen the green poles that represent the edge of my property. At first I thought a predator waiting on the boarder for the unsettled wildlife my work creates seemed fitting. The thorny brier I cut down is only a menace to me, for a creature like my dog he weaves through effortlessly and for something even smaller like a groundhog or mouse the thorns offer layers of protection. When the brush is cleared the sanctuaries are exposed and they must go somewhere they won’t be disturbed. Looking up the snake it appears to be a black racer, not venomous and a protected species in my area. They are also more likely to flee so I’ll welcome the snake pal. The new house has offered many new animal friends and I wanted to share the photos I took of them over the next couple days. The other thought I had on the brush was that it is important, as are the younger trees, I’ve removed something from the ecosystem and I have to replace a new species of brushes and vines, or the soil will erode and the sun burn plants accustomed to more shade. The new brush will be without thorns is all. Possibly with edible fruit, usually I like to have an edible area and a aesthetic shade area, there are many options and I’m not rushing to do any of that soon. The shade plants and the nurseries will reveal themselves.
22 April 2024
Another good weekend, mostly time was spent with the family. My wife went for a walk in the forest with me, she hadn’t been back there in sometime and before started clearing it out. The photo she took of me and my trees, it’s always nice to share my work with people. When I’m in the dark forest being attacked my thorns I can wonder why I’m doing it if no one will know it’s been done. The audio book I currently listen to while working is the Chronicles of Narnia, and it feels appropriates when I take someone to my world and it’s unlike anywhere they’ve been. The food forest is the long term goal, to make an Eden substitute, that will really shock people though it will be a couple decades. Other activities the family did was my daughter jumped on a trampoline for the first time. There is a full size trampoline in the grass that came with the house and I’ve slowly been getting the baby used to the feel of it under her feet. This weekend the baby and I crawled inside with mom watching the entrance. For the most part sat still since my jumping would be too intense and the baby ran circles around me. There’s a video of her discovering that she can jump and what happens, she screams in joy, a fun thing about kids is when they become overwhelmingly happy they just scream, better than bad screams. The podcast is starting to get off the ground, I ran a YouTube ad for the video I posted Saturday and I’ve almost doubled my subscribers since then. My new hats should be delivered today which is also exciting, it’s a new adventure. I had a friend tell me about how they started gardening, it’s interesting to watch them start a new adventure that has taken over my life.
19 April 2024
All the mowing yesterday went well and so did the podcast recording. We’ll have to change something in the future because currently we start recording at a time that is later than my bedtime. I know I go to sleep early, but sleep when the baby does. The other guys I record with both work night shift, so they’re recording early in their morning. Both bois also had their show shirts on last night for the first time. Like my costume hat, I had shirts made for the show because I like designing clothes, but up until this week one of the guys had never received his shirt. Thinking of mowing again, hopefully my life isn’t consumed by mowing though it feels that way sometimes. Yesterday I mowed the South lawn where the peach trees are, I’ve yet to mow the West lawn. Since the sun sets in the West and there is a boarder of trees, the western lawn is covered in shade the most. The path I was clearing the day before in the forest got mowed, everytime I clear part of the forest, more to be cleared is revealed. What I really like about the forest now that I’ve cleared a significant amount in the center is it feels like a massive room. As high up as I can look there are trees and trees in every direction wide, truly a peaceful place to spend time.
18 April 2024
I’m in a hurry to mow today, yesterday ended up with more resting than I had initially planned and the grass is closing in on me. The grass isn’t too bad though it does bother me, at least I would like to create a lot of different paths in the tall grass that we can walk from one place to another. I do need to get in some long mowing sessions though, probably need two a week and I’d like to mow the pool area this weekend with the push mower. The work I did get done yesterday was brush clearing on the back end of the property, I’m so close to the edge I can finally see it. More brush clearing will be needed before I can get the mower to the back edge and before I start today I want to take the branch loppers and cut some thick brier. Part of my mowing today will be going over the brush I cleared yesterday that way the paths will be opened up. A lot of the smaller brier escapes my work, but the mower makes quick work of it. The reason I have to go through with the trimmers and chainsaw first is because the brier gets viney and bundles, meaning at some points I can’t drive through it and if the vines are cut down they’re likely to strike me when I’m not looking. After mowing I’ll hope to get a little rest before picking up the baby, then we’re recording the podcast tonight. We finally made it to 10 episodes! I feel like we only began to figure ourselves out in the last two or three, I’m excited to see where we can take it especially because the other guys have been more help than I was anticipating when we first started.
Chris' Morning Pages 