Went into Port Angeles to see the doctor today. Just a periodic checkup.
One of my goals has been to get off of insulin, and I am right on the edge of doing just that. I need to get my createnin levels down a little more, but the trend has been downward ever since I got rid of the enormous kidney stone. It is not a huge deal, just an inconvenience to have to Carry around insulin and syringes.
On another front, when it was me VS the maple stump, I won, but not without cost.
I irritated my bad shoulder, which has settled in to a case of bursitis. This limits my activities. Not being able to exert my left arm makes working in the yard difficult. It is getting better slowly, just not quick enough to make me happy.
I talked to the doc about getting a cortisone shot, not being in any hurry to shoot up steroids, and he agreed we should delay. Partly because he felt if he gave me a shot and my shoulder started feeling better, I would go out and do something stupid and re injure it (who, me?). SO I agreed to delay it, hoping it would get better by the time I have my next appointment.
The fruit trees we planted are all doing fine. I doubt we will have any fruit this year, but getting them in the ground and established was the goal for this year. Mission accomplished. It will be fun to see what happens with the five-in-one apple trees
The vegetable garden is doing fine, but by next year I hope to have more raised beds. I am currently using every square inch of the three raised beds I already have. I did lose one tomato plant. It was kinda sickly when I planted it, and it never did recover from being transplanted.
Four of the five everbearing raspberry plants are doing fine, but the fifth just site there. It has some buds on it but they don't seem to be doing anything. Hopefully I will get SOME berries this year. I love raspberry freezer jam.
We went out and bought a John Deere riding lawn mower. I was not particularly in favor of the purchase, but Mrs A wore me down. I agreed that some day we were going to need one, but figured we could get by with our old Honda self propelled mower for a couple of years. Carol was adamant. If we would need it i a couple of years, why not now? I had no argument that amounted to anything, so I caved.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Vacation
Just rolled in last night from a week of vacation.
It might be a bit difficult for someone on the outside to discern the difference between being on vacation when you are retired. The difference is that if we were home I would feel like I OUGHT to be doing something, even if I am not, whereas if we are somewhere else it becomes moot, as I cannot do the stuff I would feel guilty about not doing, even if I was not doing it.
Three days at Cannon Beach Oregon, one of our favorite places. Very artsy craftsy, with some high end galleries. Not to mention the Driftwood Restaurant which has the best clam chowder anywhere (for you Seattleites, yes I believe it is better than Ivars).
Unfortunately a couple of days before we got there, a wind had blown ashore a zillion purple sail jellyfish. Once stranded onshore, they of course commenced to rot. The stench was pretty bad. Also unfortunately you could not get down below the tideline without walking through their rotting corpses. When we got back to the unit the shoes had to stay outside. Mrs A was in favor of burning them, but I sat outside and cleaned them with my Swiss army knife. But they didn't thing one of the uses for the knife was to clean rotting animal corpses out of the tread of your tennies.
Then on to Coberg Or to visit my cousins. Ginger and her husband Par were our hosts and Rick and his wife Robin were our cell mates, or fellow guests. A good time was had by all. but Rick and Robin had to leave a little early to take care of a domestic situation. (Damn kids anyway).
My first proposition: In nature, if you see a structure on an animal that seems disproportionate to it's function is for cooling. For example the ears on an elephant are much larger than necessary for hearing. Why are they so large? for cooling. Same with the frill of the frilled lizard etc. What structure does mankind have that is disproportionate to the other members of the animal kingdom?
The brain. I propose that the intent of the large cranium is to cool the blood. The more surface area it has, the better the job it does. Our brains are very wrinkled so as to add more surface area for cooling. So the brain is a cooling tower for the body. The fact that it also allows some of us to formulate rational thought is just a byproduct of its primary purpose of cooling. This secondary characteristic is not as prevalent in some people, whose brains seem to serve little more purpose than cooling the blood.
Second proposition: Sociologists have suggested that mankind was originally a nomadic society, who followed the seasons and animal migrations, and eventually settled down to agriculture to grow grain as a food source. It is my counter proposal that mankind settled down too grow grain, but for the purpose of making beer. The earliest Sumerian villages left evidence of having vessels specific to brewing beer. How long did it take for them to discover fermentation, and then design a specific vessel to use for fermentation? Hundreds of years? Thousands? They didn't really have to settle down to grow grain for the table, Grain could be found in season. But brewing beer would require facilities and a steady supply of grain. SO therefore beer is the foot of all civilization.
The third and last proposition is that a good marriage can be obtained by the frequent repetition of the following words; "I'm sorry dear, it's all my fault, I apologize."
It might be a bit difficult for someone on the outside to discern the difference between being on vacation when you are retired. The difference is that if we were home I would feel like I OUGHT to be doing something, even if I am not, whereas if we are somewhere else it becomes moot, as I cannot do the stuff I would feel guilty about not doing, even if I was not doing it.
Three days at Cannon Beach Oregon, one of our favorite places. Very artsy craftsy, with some high end galleries. Not to mention the Driftwood Restaurant which has the best clam chowder anywhere (for you Seattleites, yes I believe it is better than Ivars).
Unfortunately a couple of days before we got there, a wind had blown ashore a zillion purple sail jellyfish. Once stranded onshore, they of course commenced to rot. The stench was pretty bad. Also unfortunately you could not get down below the tideline without walking through their rotting corpses. When we got back to the unit the shoes had to stay outside. Mrs A was in favor of burning them, but I sat outside and cleaned them with my Swiss army knife. But they didn't thing one of the uses for the knife was to clean rotting animal corpses out of the tread of your tennies.
Then on to Coberg Or to visit my cousins. Ginger and her husband Par were our hosts and Rick and his wife Robin were our cell mates, or fellow guests. A good time was had by all. but Rick and Robin had to leave a little early to take care of a domestic situation. (Damn kids anyway).
My first proposition: In nature, if you see a structure on an animal that seems disproportionate to it's function is for cooling. For example the ears on an elephant are much larger than necessary for hearing. Why are they so large? for cooling. Same with the frill of the frilled lizard etc. What structure does mankind have that is disproportionate to the other members of the animal kingdom?
The brain. I propose that the intent of the large cranium is to cool the blood. The more surface area it has, the better the job it does. Our brains are very wrinkled so as to add more surface area for cooling. So the brain is a cooling tower for the body. The fact that it also allows some of us to formulate rational thought is just a byproduct of its primary purpose of cooling. This secondary characteristic is not as prevalent in some people, whose brains seem to serve little more purpose than cooling the blood.
Second proposition: Sociologists have suggested that mankind was originally a nomadic society, who followed the seasons and animal migrations, and eventually settled down to agriculture to grow grain as a food source. It is my counter proposal that mankind settled down too grow grain, but for the purpose of making beer. The earliest Sumerian villages left evidence of having vessels specific to brewing beer. How long did it take for them to discover fermentation, and then design a specific vessel to use for fermentation? Hundreds of years? Thousands? They didn't really have to settle down to grow grain for the table, Grain could be found in season. But brewing beer would require facilities and a steady supply of grain. SO therefore beer is the foot of all civilization.
The third and last proposition is that a good marriage can be obtained by the frequent repetition of the following words; "I'm sorry dear, it's all my fault, I apologize."
Sunday, April 03, 2016
Spring!
I have neglected my blog as of late. My main excise s the weather. It has been too damned beautiful to sit inside on the computer.
I have been gardening. We have three 4' X 8' raise beds off of the patio. They were bereft of growing things when we moved in, so I planted Grandfather's onions in one and waited for spring. Well, spring is officially here, so in go radishes, lettuce, carrots and purple pod beans.
I bought and planted raspberry starts, I planted a "Fruit Salad" and a bush cherry. Then Lisa and Kieth brought over a bunch of stuff Two Bing cherries, a couple of "Five-in-one" apple trees.
The apple trees are cool. they have five varieties of apple on one rootstock. Then they had included four tomato starts, three cabbage starts, three broccoli plants and some flower bulbs an a couple of roses.
We split the flower bulbs 50/50. Half for the meadow, half for the flower gardens.
As I was planting there was something tattling around in the back of my head about Bings. Went on line to check, and yes Bing cherries require a pollinator. So I had to go in to town, and I found a Black Tartarian cherry at Home depot. Plants can be weird. A lot of plants are self pollinating, that is the blooms carry both male and female sex organs, so they can have reproduction all by themselves. Some species have male and female plants and require one of each to reproduce, and some, like Bing cherries require pollen from a different variety to produce.
In addition to the planting trees, I cut down a good sized alder tree and cut it into sections, getting it ready to turn into firewood. I have about half of it split and in the wood shed.
Unfortunately, I have had to take it a little easy, because I gave myself a bout of bursitis when pulling the maple stump out of the ground. So fay the treatment plan is: take a pain pill and keep on keepin'on. While that works out functionally, it doesn't do much for healing.
One of the common complaints here as far as gardening goes is the deer. All those succulent young green growing things are like a dinner table specifically set for the deer. As I mentioned to my buddy Dwight the other day when he commented that his money was on the deer "But I have automatic weapons" mind you the automatic weapon is a reproduction 1924 Thompson submachine gun that only shoots 6mm airsoft pellets, after a few ties of getting stung in the ass, I am sure that deer will get the idea. If thy don't I may have to step in up a notch.
I have been gardening. We have three 4' X 8' raise beds off of the patio. They were bereft of growing things when we moved in, so I planted Grandfather's onions in one and waited for spring. Well, spring is officially here, so in go radishes, lettuce, carrots and purple pod beans.
I bought and planted raspberry starts, I planted a "Fruit Salad" and a bush cherry. Then Lisa and Kieth brought over a bunch of stuff Two Bing cherries, a couple of "Five-in-one" apple trees.
The apple trees are cool. they have five varieties of apple on one rootstock. Then they had included four tomato starts, three cabbage starts, three broccoli plants and some flower bulbs an a couple of roses.
We split the flower bulbs 50/50. Half for the meadow, half for the flower gardens.
As I was planting there was something tattling around in the back of my head about Bings. Went on line to check, and yes Bing cherries require a pollinator. So I had to go in to town, and I found a Black Tartarian cherry at Home depot. Plants can be weird. A lot of plants are self pollinating, that is the blooms carry both male and female sex organs, so they can have reproduction all by themselves. Some species have male and female plants and require one of each to reproduce, and some, like Bing cherries require pollen from a different variety to produce.
In addition to the planting trees, I cut down a good sized alder tree and cut it into sections, getting it ready to turn into firewood. I have about half of it split and in the wood shed.
Unfortunately, I have had to take it a little easy, because I gave myself a bout of bursitis when pulling the maple stump out of the ground. So fay the treatment plan is: take a pain pill and keep on keepin'on. While that works out functionally, it doesn't do much for healing.
One of the common complaints here as far as gardening goes is the deer. All those succulent young green growing things are like a dinner table specifically set for the deer. As I mentioned to my buddy Dwight the other day when he commented that his money was on the deer "But I have automatic weapons" mind you the automatic weapon is a reproduction 1924 Thompson submachine gun that only shoots 6mm airsoft pellets, after a few ties of getting stung in the ass, I am sure that deer will get the idea. If thy don't I may have to step in up a notch.
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