two kubotas, no waiting -- with update

our neighbor larry has 2 kubotas. different tractors for various jobs. one has a nice powered augur for digging post holes, but it has no way to exert the downward force required to drill into very dry soil. so i am piloting the other kubota and using the front bucket to press down on the augur on the other machine.



success!! all holes drilled and only a few mistakes on my part. fortunately these are very robust machines.

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i suppose i should have mentioned the garden fence project. about 300 feet of field fence to enclose an ambitiously large garden space. well we don't have to fill it all right away.

these tractors go forward when a foot pedal is depressed. backward when a different pedal is depressed. the forward-going pedal is close to the brake pedal. not a problem when stepping on the brake in error. a bit of a collision when stepping on the go pedal at the wrong time. thus my appreciation for their robustness.

i have put up a fair amount of fence. this is the first time the post hole digging has been mechanized.

wordless wednesday

himself in the amazing quilt that arrived tuesday. thanks to the awesome kathywithcats who organized this and sewed together bits from many friends. i am already crying and will be comforted by the love sewn together to ease my way thru chemotherapy.

ok. almost wordless

moving on

i've had enough medical stuff for a while. there will be more, but for now i have a garden to tend.

we may not have a winter garden in this year, but the little summer garden that was here is full of fine food. the broccoli and cabbage were scrawny little stalks that overwintered. we nurtured them and they have rewarded us with edible leaves and flowers. there are two kinds of kale that we planted, and potatoes and red peppers. we will have carrots galore and beets aplenty. when the broccoli and cabbage are done we can plant onions and get a crop this fall. oh. tomatoes in pots and planters too.




thanks again for your support and encouragement and wise counsel about properly recuperating. i have been comforted and humbled, in a very good way, in moments of pain or depression and in moments of exhilaration. in the morning i was to leave the hospital i walked out in the patio and the plants were vibrantly colorful, a magpie sang to me and a black cat appreciated a pet.

happy birthday

this was a smaller display. i wanted to get the moon in the frame. other displays filled a frame twice this size.

a view of the wharf from our house.

the city of capitola (our house is in this picture) was incorporated 60 years ago. maybe it was a partnership or a sole proprietor before that. i was 7 then and it looked the same to me as it did when i was 6. beach, wharf, lagoon. a month or so ago there was a street fair sorta 60th birthday celebration for the city. wednesday evening the city bought us all a fireworks display as a last big birthday hurrah. the obnoxiously loud PA was playing "it's my party and i'll cry if i want to" as the celebratory fireworks began. the launch pad was on the end of the wharf, which by google map reckoning is about 1000 feet from our house. wow. it was LOUD. the house shook with each stunning explosion. robin hid in the back bedroom. i have never seen big fireworks up so close. i watched some and took some pictures. it was over by 9:15. aahhhh. quiet. well, relatively quiet. there were still thousands of people and hundreds of cars to disperse.

but wait, a phone call from a hospital? my mom was in emergency after complaining earlier in the day of a painful neck. tests show nothing. probably a sprain or cramp, but she has to leave the hospital and is groggy from pain meds. off i go over the infamous highway 17 to san jose, to the same hospital where i came to see my father in 1975 when he had a major heart attack. he had successful bypass surgery and died of stroke complications in 1987. mom was indeed groggy and woozy, but ready to go home. i took care of her and got back to the birthday city at midnight. i saw her thursday morning. all ok save for a sore neck.

Six Months Later

(February 19, 2009)

In February there were secrets here. Life at its beginning. Egg sacs and caterpillars. The stages of things unseen. Late winter sleep. Early spring promise.

(August 20, 2009)

We see them now. Their lives are as brown and gold as these fields. Wings are ragged and tattered. We hike all the way down, past where the parched field drops off.

We hear it now. It's in the wind fanning the leaves. A sound that we know right away. A change in the seasons.

republican activism

students take to the streets to protest loss of habeus corpus beer tax.

way to go republicans!!!!

"A group of Bay Area College Republicans took to the streets of San Jose Friday evening to protest a subject near and dear to them - beer.

More to the point, they wanted to rant about a state lawmaker's proposed tax on beer manufacturers that would add nearly $2 to the price of a six-pack as a way to help the state plug its giant budget deficit.

"This is a tax on poor students," said Leigh Wolf, 21, of the San Francisco State University Republicans. "They're using a bunch of studies to justify this beer tax, but you don't need a study to know college students drink a lot of beer. This is our way, after a long day of school and work, to sit down and relax.""

i guess they haven't heard of 4:20.

Night Lights

Something woke me at a quarter to midnight last Thursday night. It wasn't a sound, but a very bright light. I didn't remember turning the motion sensor lights back on, but that didn't mean we hadn't. The light was shining in from the front of the house. Strange. I got out of bed and walked around the house to investigate. We live out in the country, there are no streetlights, or close neighbors. So it was eerie and surprising for things to be so bright. When I looked out the office window I could see that there was a car in our driveway, and it looked to have its high beams on, shining right into the spare bedroom and the office windows. I went back into the bedroom and woke Roger.

"Hey you might want to take a look, there's a car in our driveway shining a bright light right into the house."

He jumped right up, threw on his pants.

robin wakes me.

she says i've got to see this light outside. i go to look. WOW!!!!!!!! there is some kind of large vehicle in our driveway with a VERY BRIGHT SPOTLIGHT shining at our house. the spare bedroom is lit up like daylight. i slide into the room in the slim sliver of unilluminated space by the door to cautiously peek out. i can't see shit for the damn spotlight shining directly at me. the office room right next to the spare bedroom is sheltered from the direct glare by a tree outside. out the window here i can dimly see a vehicle with parking lights on in front of the thing with the BIG LIGHT. this is weird. i am not going out there. "call 911" sez robin. i'm on it!

I said, "Please don't go outside. Call 9-1-1."

the 911 operator asks where i am. i give her my name and address. she sez "that's a deputy sheriff out there arranging for a car to be towed, i'll ask him to turn off the light" and hangs up before i can ask anything further. a minute later the light goes out. okay. it's the deputy out there. but still. why is there a car in our driveway? why is the deputy there? WTF?

What? There's a car that needs to be towed from our house and deputies have come to arrange it? Somehow none of this makes sense, and not just because we had been sleeping and it is the middle of the freakin' night.

The deputy turns off the spotlight. Ah. Now we could see that there are two cars out there with their headlights on.

i turn on the outside lights to show that we're alive in here and venture out to investigate. by now there is a wrecker in the road. the first guy i see isn't in uniform, but what do i know about the local deputies, so i ask "what's going on?" the fellow i asked, who turns out to be the wrecker driver, says something like "drunk driver. we're towing her car away." then the actual deputy, who has been looking through the car itself from the side away from me, looks up and says "oh, this woman tried to hide in your driveway when the other deputy sheriff tried to pull her over for erratic driving. he arrested her for DUI." okay then. my work here is done.

With that information Roger came back into the house. There was still a lot of commotion out there. They decided to drive the car out on to the gravel road that leads to our driveway before they hooked it up to tow away. That was nice of them, I thought, but it still took me quite some time to fall back to sleep.

Later the next day when I had time to think about it, it occurred to me that the deputy should have called us to let us know what was going on right outside our front door. What do you think? I wouldn't have wanted him to knock on the door in the middle of the night, but I think we should have been apprised of what was happening out there rather than waking to this eerie and surreal scene. They were content to shine a spotlight on us and leave us in the dark. That is really not acceptable.

holy shit

i went to my "welcome to medicare" physical exam. my last exam was in 2004. i was in good health then. psa low. cholesterol low. heart good, etc. i was not in the least concerned about this exam. i'm healthy, i feel strong and good. i didn't expect surprises. the nurse doing intake took my temp. normal. took my blood pressure. whoa!! 175/105!!!

i kinda tossed it off. my bp has always been way normal. 120/75 or something. the nurse says some people have "white gown syndrome," meaning nervousness in medical situations. i tell her, only if you have a needle in your hand. she says maybe i'll check again before you leave. i wait for the doctor.

he arrives. he was recommended to me by a good friend. this worked out well. very nice guy. tres thorough. asks what concerns i had. we talked about what i thought is arthritis in my left elbow and what he applied his knowledge of anatomy to, and suggested is tendonitis --- i have tennis elbow. try aleve for a week while resting that arm, to reduce the inflammation. ok. can do. my other concern is my skin. i have that thin anglo skin that bruises easily and is subject to sun damage. i have in the past had a doctor freeze off bits here and there. medicare is sending me to a dermatologist.

he also asked many questions about my general health and diet and had his assistants schedule two more appointments for me. one for an echocardiagram and one for AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysms) screening.

on the way home i drove to safeway to check my bp on their machine. 175/107. it's official. my blood pressure is way too high, stage 2 on some scales. the doctor gave me a DASH diet printout. (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) it describes fairly well my diet for most of my adult life. certainly the past 30 years. not much room there for DASHing. various places on the intertubes list genetics as a large factor in hypertension, which can lead to heart problems. my father had a major heart attack and both of his parents died of heart attack. that could be a clue.

after i got home i caught on that many of the doctor's questions had to do with hypertension. so now i'm trying not to think of the elephant in the room. more tests will possibly add some info. i don't feel any differently than i did before i had my bp measured. except i'm totally numb and out of my body, and thinking of the worst possibilities. but no physical symptoms.


my new digital friend and my arm. this is after i've plied myself with good wine and good food. the doctor suggested that i monitor my BP for a while, so we got this neat hitech sphygmomanometer. i've gone from no-meds, no worry to aleve every 12 hrs and BP measure every 6 hrs. i've been medicalized. i am back in my body now and back to regular life, but the realities of age and mortality are in sharper focus.

the machine's memory of robin's BP.

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i'll add an update here, instead of replies to each.

thanks for your concern and well-wishes and advice. there is scant room for improving my diet. we do use salt, but eat zero processed food. we use salt free tamari. we eat mostly vegetarian. some chicken, some eggs. rice. pasta. lots of veggies. lots of garlic. i checked the Resparate which was recommended by def59485. it is a biofeedback device to aid in breath control. i can maintain a rate of 6 breaths per minute fairly well on my own, which is below the target rate of 10, and that did drop my BP down to 145/96. i'll endeavor to maintain a longer, deeper breath rate throughout the day.

my concern is mainly that my diet is already good and has not changed for many years. i do get less exercise than i did when i was a working carpenter, so i will have to add some exertion somewhere, but i'll wait for the heart and circulation tests to find out if i have some physical problems. drugs are pretty much out of the question for me. i have found on the internet some interesting herbal remedies.

more exercise, slow breathing and sipping wine all day wouldn't be such an onerous regimen.

my best wishes to all of you for your own continued good health.

i did wonder if robin and i could average our BPs and declare ourselves a healthy duo.

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another update---cuz i'm trying not to use my left elbow, while taking aleve, which i forgot this am....and i don't sit still very well...

thursday 7;16 pm---- 137/93 blood chem report report from the nurse " the doctor says 'you're a picture of health'" details later.

ok. i won't go on. bp does seem to vary widely! i have a haphazard past to draw on for yoga and meditation. i'm on it. i'll consider meds if required. this doesn't seem to be as bad as i had feared.

good night and good luck to us all.

medicare birthday, 65

today i am an official geezer, medicare and all. last year's picture will have to do. i look much the same. the usual birthday at chez bums starts with a birthday card, then maybe a hike in some forest or along the shore, or maybe a day at home working in the garden. we end with a finer bottle of wine than we usually have and a meal at home. we don't do presents. well, whimsy is good.

imagine my surprise two days ago when robin spilled the beans that something, unnamed, was due in the mail for my birthday. she was concerned that it would not arrive by today. she asked if i really wanted to know what surprise she had arranged. i said no. surprise me. yesterday i picked up the mail. there was a package. i recognized the distinctive handwriting of a dear old friend even before i saw the name, and i knew what must be inside, because the package came from far australia .... down under. we were friends and lovers back in hippie days in the 70's in humboldt county, california, and have remained friends all these years. she moved to australia sometime in the 80's, and visited robin and me in california with her husband in the early 90's. time does roll on. i suppose this is a thing of the 00's.

mmmmmmmmmm ginger-lemon-lime marmalade !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i first got this at trader joe's and then at a local store in santa cruz called shopper's corner. when we moved north robin found an online distributor who would have a case delivered to our door. i have been eating this on toast in the morning almost every day for maybe ten years. two months ago when she tried to order more the distributor informed us that they are no longer importing it from buderim, australia. moving on, we found other ginger spreads, but none that were quite so tasty. so my wonderful robin, who even found a jar of crushed ginger to add to orange marmalade to replace my favorite morning spread, and it is pretty good, e-mailed my friend and conspired with her to give me a lovely present.

so i have a reprieve. three jars of reprieve. gift wrapped.

the image on the card is most assuredly not my friend. the text in the card says "so much for aging gracefully." she adds "was it really ever an option?"


here's another present. datil peppers. our internet pal florida cracker sent us seeds two years ago. i got them started too late last year for them to bear fruit. this year i was on it. i am proud to have the first datil peppers west of the mississippi. okay, i don't know that for sure.

the best present of all though is waking each morning and having tea and toast with my honey.

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UPDATE.... 7 AM .........

robin's homemade bread with our respective spreads. raspberry jam for her. imported marmalade for me.

the update is actually today, august third. the main post was written yesterday evening. i had to change all the "tomorrows" to "todays" after i had written it, because of course it was intended for consumption today, as is the toast.

A Story From the Naked Country

I had been wondering where the line, "There are eight million stories in the naked city, and this is one of them..." came from? I was thinking about it and noting that the same thing is true in the country. It's on a different scale, but everyday so many things happen, little things and big things, things that take our breath away, things that compel, delight, or make us scratch our heads and wonder. There are more stories than we can tell, so most of the time we don't tell any of them at all, not about the goldfinches that gather in throngs under the birdfeeder and fly off in unison at any imagined hint of danger, nor the abundance of raspberries on this year's canes, or the way the moonlight pours through the skylights and makes night into day. There is a poem or a post in everything we see, but we don't write it down or photograph it, we just notice.
Roger was walking from the sauna, around the house to the gate when he noticed something fall or fly from the garden-hose caddy to the ground. He assumed it was a bird, but when he went to investigate, he found that it hadn't exactly fallen to the ground, but into the valve tunnel for the outside sprinkler system. He grabbed a flashlight, and saw there 18 inches below the surface a little chipmunk, scared and trapped. Okay, now what? We didn't want to put our hands down there and try to grab the little thing, even with thick gloves on. I googled "rescuing trapped chipmunk" and read one account where a chipmunk bit its rescuer all the way through leather gloves. We eventually settled on putting a piece of pruned wood from one of the fruit trees down into the hole. We figured the chipmunk would have to know how to climb up and out on such a familiar piece of bark. I waited a while with the camera ready, but it was not going to oblige me my timetable. So, I left, walked to the mailbox, talked to the neighbor about rescuing chipmunks, and when I returned, it was gone. Yay!

It's just one little story, but one that took some of our time and attention on Saturday. On Sunday, we had a moment of reckoning with our real estate agent and came to a mutual agreement about cancelling our listing agreement. I would have hated being on the receiving end of the letter I sent to her. I don't pull punches, and I am very straightforward and to the point when I am disappointed. So, now we start all over with someone new, or not. Perhaps we'll just try to sell it ourselves. We don't know yet.
At least the apples in the orchard are abundant and beautiful this time of the year, aren't they?