The Canary

I have been wishing for some inspiration for a new blog entry but I didn’t expect this.  I have been busy the last few months with the fall garden and being a caregiver for my husband who went through his fourth major surgery in the last two years.  I have been feeling really well except for some aches and pains that came with chopping wood, raking leaves and performing my bodywork sessions for others.  That was, until today.

Today I awoke before I was ready but got out of bed as I was unable to sleep even though it had only been six hours.  I couldn’t breathe due to the congestion in my nose, my upper back hurt even though I had not done anything physical over the preceding 48 hours, I had a dull headache and I was sick to my stomach.  These were familiar feelings, but they used to be the aftermath of a night of drinking alcohol. 

Two years ago a blood test revealed that my body could not handle the ingredients in the beverages that I had frequented and so this year’s Christmas celebration was alcohol free.  So since it wasn’t the alcohol that was making me feel this way, what was it?  As I reviewed my previous day’s food and drink consumption I realized that I had ingested more sugar and simple carbohydrates than usual.  At the time it seemed as if I was making better than usual decisions; drinking sparkling fruit juice instead of soda or alcohol and using organic sugar with raw goats milk in the organic coffee; dinner was wheat and dairy free even if it was a bit high in simple carbohydrates; dessert was a small piece of raw brownies with caramel frosting which used dates, maple syrup and coconut oil for sweeteners; but then the ‘dessert’ continued.  As we relaxed and watched television I continued eating over the next four hours: another small raw brownie; two large pieces of chocolate candy; another sparkling fruit juice; and a large serving of sweet potato chips. 

Except for the chocolate candy these were all better choices then I once would have made but the shear quantity of simple carbohydrates that I had eaten had obviously overwhelmed my system.  It is the only thing that could account for my symptoms.  Back in the day I would have taken some OTC pain-killers and drank some milk or Pepsi to help myself feel better.  But now that I know: about the problems with masking pain, the health concerns surrounding cow’s milk and how even diet soda depletes my body instead of adding anything to it; what was I going to do?  Nothing, I decided. I would just be with it.

As the day wore on I found that I was not interested in doing a thing.  Even though I had made myself a list a few days ago and knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish today I did not have the mental or physical capacity to do much more than the simplest of things: unload the dishwasher, water the garden, shell the dried beans.  As I sat outside in the sunshine, which I seemed to crave, I realized along with the physical manifestations I was experiencing, I was feeling depressed. 

Was it the self-recrimination I was going through for doing this to myself, or the fact that I was being so obviously affected by my eating choices while my husband who had eaten all of these same things, according to his report was unaffected?  Was it my frustration at a society that places such an emphasis on pleasure and fulfilling our wants that we are willing to risk our physical, mental and financial selves or the fact that I am encountering many people that sweep under the rug their health issues, thereby not helping others to avoid the same pitfalls or making their own problems worse by trying to ignore them?

I decided that since I seem to be the canary in this mine I wasn’t going to go down quietly and so I went into the house and wrote this blog. I have decided that the depression that I was experiencing, something I have battled with ever since I was a teenager, was due to both my physical as well as my mental condition.  Three days later I am happy to report that I am back to my new happy self.  As I reflect on this blog from this place of balanced blood sugar I realize that had I not changed my diet, I may have never left the world of depression.  And Big Pharm is NEVER going to tell us that!

Our First Summer’s Gatherings

I have managed to grow some summer vegetables after all!  At one point I didn’t think I was going to harvest my own squash until the year 2012 at the earliest but in the last 2 days I’ve picked 5 Romanesco Zucchinis, 2 handfuls of green beans and 4 Ronde de Nice Zucchinis.  It was wonderful.  They are beautiful.  I wish I’d had the time to take pictures but it’s been a bit busy around here.  We roasted them on the BBQ last night for dinner and they were marvelous.

After planting our first bed with beans and melons I was directed to plant squash and cucumbers in the second bed.  It seemed to me that it was all too late in the season to be planting any of this stuff at all, but who was I to question the Devas I thought to myself?  Here is the first bed that was planted in mid July.

And here is what the area looked like before we started construction.  I like the comparison.  I like seeing how far we have come.

I am glad I did follow the Deva’s instructions.  Now I have 2 beds full of summer goodies that are just starting to be ripe for the picking and we have a month left of 80-degree daytime temps to keep things moving.  Before it is all said and done we will have harvested 3 types of zucchini, yellow squash, 5 types of cucumber, 2 types of dried beans, 2 types of green beans, purple beans and edamame.  There is a slight chance of some melons and I will be really happy when they materialize.  Here are the two summer vegetable beds in all of their glory.

But wait, that’s just the summer vegetables!  Since planting the summer stuff in July we have been working on getting the fall beds ready.  I have now planted 5 beds with fall vegetables.  There are also over 100 seeds planted in 6-paks for placement into the beds later in October.

We have 3 types of broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, radish, 4 types of carrots, red Russian kale, golden chard, red chard, red cabbage, bok choy, 4 types of lettuces, spinach and my favorite, brussel sprouts!  I love to eat these little babies and I can’t wait to grow them.  Have you ever seen them growing?

Are these puppies weird or what?  They look like they have cabbages growing on the tops and yet we eat the small buds growing along the stalks.  I can’t wait to try out some new recipes for these.

We have been dealing with critter control this year.  Some of you may know of our issues with the raccoons of late mostly surrounding the issue of their eating Daphne’s cat food.  The short story is that they are quite smart and nothing we did seemed to outsmart them.  We went so far as to make some “hot” appetizers hoping that it would dissuade them from every wanting cat food again.  But we must have a Japanese-American raccoon because the cat food encrusted wasabi balls we made were eaten all up.  Twice.  I can almost see them licking their cute little fingers and sighing, “Aaaaah”

Finally, we just started locking all of our sliding doors (as they easily opened them and tromped through the house one night) and placed cinder blocks in front of the cat door (it closes but does not “lock” and they opened this pretty easily and when I blocked it off from the inside they got pissed off and all but tore off the flexible plastic door).  The next day when I removed the cinder blocks so that Daphne could come and go as she pleased I noticed a bunch of red muddy raccoon prints.  First I noticed them on the sliding door that is next to the cat door and then I saw them 4 feet from the ground on the white wall of the house.  I could visualize them standing on the top of the cinder blocks slapping at the house yelling, “Let me in (Raccoon Explitive)!”

One of the issues with vegetable gardens is keeping enough for you to eat.  The beds are lined with galvanized metal cloth to keep the underground populations at bay.  I see the vole holes in the walkways and mole tunnels around the edges of the beds but they can’t get through.  We have never seen rabbits so that isn’t an issue at this time but I will be securing the bottom perimeter of the fencing soon just in case.  Our main concern has been the deer that come through the property on a regular basis.  The cost of extending the 5 foot fence another 2-4 feet just wasn’t in the budget but I had read somewhere that deer have depth perception issues.  So instead of spending hundreds of dollars I spent less than $25 and purchased some wire, shelf brackets, and reflective ribbon.  Here is the deer fencing I have installed.

It may be difficult to see at first, but I installed the brackets on the upright posts and strung wire between the posts, then I tied pieces of the reflective tape onto the wire.  Now I know the deer love bean plants as they continually ate all of the leaves off the 3 plants I tried to grow in containers last year and now I have about 60 bean plants which have all managed to stay intact.  I have also learned that they like grape leaves so I am going to make sure to cultivate our grape vines for them, especially since they are on the other side of the house, away from the garden.  I am happy to even sacrifice my roses for them as long as they stay away from our garden. 

I am not exactly sure why they have left our garden alone because a friend of mine has her garden surrounded by a 7 foot tall fence with the bottom staked into the ground and still they have all but destroyed hers.  My guess is that I am continuing to do this as a co-creative partnership with Nature and along with the Nature Sanctuary I set aside on the property, it is keeping things in balance.  

It's Planting Time? Then Where's my Garden Deva?

It is finally time to start planting seeds in the garden.  We have 13 beds constructed and 9 of them are filled with the awesome soil that we built.  The bed building ended up being a 2-person job as I have just not developed the upper body strength to enable me to manhandle getting those 3 inch deck screws all the way in.  I had hoped that my husband, who enjoys woodworking, would be the second person and we would push these things out like clockwork, but that proved not to be the case. 

So I just became more flexible as I know this is one of my lessons.  Moving from one task to another depending on the weather and who if anyone was available to help me.  After we had about half a dozen beds complete and I had no help, I started moving dirt instead of building. 

I needed to clear out a row of the finished dirt so that a bed could be laid down on the hard-pack clay dirt and later refilled.  After the first row was cleared my body began complaining.  I did some iliopsosas stretches, took some homeopathic Arnica and took a couple of days off from bending over and shoveling.  But when I got help placing the beds and started filling them by clearing out the next row and walkway, my body just about quit.   

So I got even more flexible.  This time I called Nick Fox, a local young man who did not have a summer job and asked if he would like to come and assist me for $8 per hour.  Now up until this time all of our work has been on a volunteer basis but his aunt said she would help to defray some of the cost so I went for it.  He had already done an ROP construction course so he was good at handling the power tools so I provided the counter pressure and together we finished building all of the 20 beds.  Then we worked together to place, fill and water them.

Nick Fox

Nick shoveling and Claudia watering.

N

Basically all of the first year building of the garden is done.  I can invest no more money into materials and no more free wood has materialized.  There are about 9 more beds that this space can handle, 5 of which are needed if we want to grow corn or sunflowers.  But we do have the meditation bench installed with two large terra cotta planters thanks to Nick and Christopher Fox.

Meditation Bench minus the flowers

And now it is time to plant. 

I should be really excited but my life has taken a really weird turn over this last month.  Up to now I have been using my connection to Nature to guide me in all of this, but I do not feel like I am getting a good connection for the planting and I can't figure out why.  Over the last couple of weeks when this has happened I just moved on to something else, tried to get more flexible, shoveled more dirt.  But there is just so much life hitting me in the face that I can't seem to find my focus anymore.  We planted one 8 foot bed but I am not happy with it.  I am almost sure that we have too many plants all stuck together and it looks as though melons should have been planted at least a month ago at the latest, although the beans will probably do well.

Besides not feeling connected I am being presented with a myriad of other situations that affect the garden and my back is not letting me continue to shovel dirt every day like my mind would like it to.  The landlord finally admitted that there was an ulterior motive to changing from a long term rental to a short term rental agreement and that he will be raising the rent in January by at least $300 per month.  My husband has become increasingly ill and has not been able to help out around the house, much less the property and depends on me to even schedule out what he should try and accomplish each day.  He is also going to be scheduled for surgery within the next 2 months which will take him out of commission for at least 2 months, assuming everything goes well and his compromised health does not impede his healing.   I am even wondering if we need to move somewhere in town to a small place with nothing outdoors to take care of and for me to get a traditional 9 to 5 job. 

You see, as I continue on my healing journey and get healthier and healthier, my husband is on his journey and gets sicker and sicker.  Even though we both have suffered from the same ailments and for the same reasons (depression and colitis), I got indignant when the medical community said they didn’t know what else to do for me, meanwhile I have watched my husband fall into despair and accept their last ditch effort by cutting out parts of his body.  I guess if it had worked I wouldn’t be so worked up, but unfortunately it did not.  One year after a surgery where he almost died and spent 3 weeks in the hospital, where they removed his entire colon, his physical and mental condition is close to the same as it was before the operation.  Why?  Because he has lifestyle diseases and he has not done enough lifestyle changes (in my humble opinion and those of most Naturopathic Doctors) and his medical doctors do not prescribe changes in lifestyle, just more medication, surgery and electroshock therapy.

I was surprised to learn today that my husband did not really understand my motivation for this garden.  I did not build it just because I love to grow stuff, although it is this thought that keeps me shoveling even when I want to give up.  I did not build it because I liked the work of building it, in fact it has been a lot of really hard physical work.  It is a concept I am after here.  I am building and growing this garden because of how important I think it is to help others learn to eat well and stay healthy.  I have named each of the four rows of beds after my grandchildren because I don’t want them to grow up learning to eat poor quality food like I did.  I don’t want my grandchildren to be plagued by preventable diseases like diabetes and depression that they have genetically inherited tendencies towards because of addictions to white flour, white sugar and processed foods.

A few years ago I realized that as our retirement accounts are dwindling that I would need to work for most if not all of the rest of my life.  Well I mused, in that case I had better get healthy now so that I can work and enjoy life and I had best find something to do that I love so that I never have to feel like I am working.  I can honestly say that I feel better than I have in years and I know I will feel even better when I figure out how to use my passion for healthy eating and Myofascial release healing to pay the rent.  Until then, I am as always, on the road.