Going to have a few bruises, but all ok.
Figure skating was one of our really good smart moves. You learn how not to fall on slick surfaces and how to fall if you’re going to…which boils down to, walk like a penguin on frozen surfaces, ie, flat-footed in small steps, never set a heel down…you’ll notice hockey refs using penguin steps; b) watch for slope c) if you do hit a slope center yourself and squat as much as you can (shorter fall) and d) if you’re falling, fall—don’t fight it; keep your head upmost and put your arms out sideways or straight up like Superman taking off, so you won’t break bones. A belly flop hurts, but it rarely breaks anything if you can avoid hitting your chin. Ditto a back fall—curl like a kidney bean, hug yourself, and try to land on your curved back rather than hip or head. Note that Walker Shortbread tins make a very poor landing spot.
I have about 2/3A of Xmas trees beside the house I run as a U-Cut this time of year. An elderly couple came for a tree this afternoon, and in chatting she brought out that she runs some hens in her spacious back yard (some are old pets, 13 are about a year old and will begin laying in spring. She can count on 10-12 eggs/day!). I haven’t been eating eggs, because the commercial things in the grocery stores aren’t really eggs. But I’m going to become one of her customers!
I’ve considered doing it myself, saved up a stack of egg cartons from when I did, but it really ties one to home. But If I can buy real eggs locally, I’m in!
Yum! Wish we had a source!
If you can get your mitts on homegrown eggs, that’s a good thing.
Go to Northwest Seed & Pet, 7302 N Division St, Spokane, WA, and ask around. Post a note on their bulletin board. You can find a source if you look.
It’s really worth it! We were chatting about not just “cage-free” but “free-roaming” hens’ eggs. He said they’re better because they don’t get the antibiotics commercial producers have to use. My counter was: good enough, but ignore that and they’re still better just for taste!
Thanks, Paul. 😉
If you go for bantam hens, the half-size ones, they don’t need too much space and are easy to care for. You might have room for them in the side garden, though I don’t know if hens could deal with your snowy winters without being kept in a barn. We get a bit of snow now and then, but not feet of it.
I’ve got 3 Dutch bantam hens; they need about 1 square meter of run per hen, plus a simple but waterproof/ snowproof coop with a perch and 1-2 nesting boxes. I’ve got a low 1.5 x 2m mesh run plus a taller (2-level) narrower bit with the closed coop on top of that narrow bit of the run, with a little plank ‘ladder’ up to the entry. There’s mesh on top as well to stop the buzzard and the neighborhood cats; when I’m in the garden I can let them out to forage (though not when there’s new young plantings as they will really hoe them all up!).
I floored it with the simplest sidewalk pavers that you can often pick up for free around here (you could just use wire mesh there as well), put a plank around the bottom edges of the fencing, and filled the run with sand about 10-15 cm deep.
The coop perched above 1/4 of the run means at least that bit will always have shade and stay dry, so that’s where their food and drink are. The little silos they eat and drink from hold about 3 days of water, and at least 4 days of dry food, which means that if I am away over the weekend they can manage without fresh new food & drink for a day or two. They also get grain strewn around their run, and some greens or fruit when they can’t forage in the garden; but they can do without those for a weekend when I visit my parents, if the neighbors can’t feed them either.
Putting an old newspaper in the coop under their perch makes it very easy to clean ; the nesting (shoe)box can have hay or something like that, though in summer I prefer fine shell-pieces to avoid them getting too hot and going broody.
If it gets really cold, say more than -10 degrees Centigrade, in winter I’ll put a layer of hay or straw on the floor of the coop, and keep them & their food and drink inside that for a few days, until the days warm up a bit again.
For the rest they can manage, here in Holland, like the wild birds do, without extra heat except for the small element that keeps their water from freezing.
Keeping them without extra heat and light in winter means they stop laying; so I get half-size eggs from them from march until about the end of september.
Mine lay every other day, which with 3 hens keeps me well-supplied with eggs all summer. Their bantam eggs are half the size of large chicken eggs and more tasty because they have relatively large yolks.
DH and I just spent about 2 hours detouring people around a car-eating flood zone on the main artery a block below our house. We had a series of rain squalls blow through today, and by 8:00 p.m. water was ponding 2 feet deep on the road. We walked down to make sure my library was intact, and on the way back noticed traffic backing up as people discovered the lake, tried to drive through, and got stuck if they weren’t in oversized pickups or Hummers. No police were on the scene (and none ever came), so we spent the time redirecting cars up our street and explaining how to get through our residential neighborhood and up to the highway above.
Wow!
I remember the time I ripped the pocket out of a coat while falling on a slick spot. “Baby steps” is how I walked all winter in Montreal as a young adult. One winter, I saw an elderly woman fall backward and crack her skull. Ice is dangerous to walk on.
This bipedal locomotion is really not +as easy as it looks.
Please do remain in one piece and fully functional, undamaged.
Heh.
Item the 1st: On the hazards of being a font fan: I got a business card from a tree service guy working the neighborhood the other day. So what do I notice?
Besides that my dorky cat is trying to lie down on the keyboard, that is?
The AVA in NAVARRo is not kerned at all, and should be, but the point size is small enough, the software’s auto settings didn’t do it for whoever set the cards.
That, and I can’t ID the font used for the business name, and it’s nice, so I’m likely going to hunt through similar fonts to try to ID it. Hah.
No, cat, you really must not do that. I’m already paying attention to you. Don’t mess up my keyboard.
Item the 2nd:
Have you ever sat down to write on one story, but an entirely other story starts coming out? That happened this morning. I am going to try to write the, uh, third idea which appeared in the meantime. I got enough down of the other two, I may rememer where I was headed with those. The third is a different take on the first, but seems promising. Really hoping it will pan out. A sort of ghost story with a twist.
* I turned in my old iMac last Monday, it arrived before the end of last week, and they emailed back that it may take about two to three weeks to process, to see if I do get the rebate or get zilch. I am really hopng I get the rebate. But either way now, I don’t expect to be able to buy a new one until after January, likely. And that will likely max out my credit card and give me more than I want to have to pay off each month. Sigh. But I don’t feel I have a choice. I need toget back to font development, my best chance for income at present, independently. Waiting like this, being too tight on budget, is the pits.
I expect, however, to be able to get groceries for a nice Christmas dnner. A rotisserie chicken, ’cause I don’t want to cook too much this time. Veggies to go with, a pie, maybe a cake mix if I can. ;tus bit badm tgat, Ut us kuvabke,
…Cat thinks I am ignoring him and has one off to pester the other cat, or stuff his face with kibble. Kitty, I just stopped and petted you a minute ago. Little guy. Heh.
Official paperwork that might improve things for me is still in bureaucratic waiting mode.
I am going to write some, because the idea is there, and then take a break and read more in Finity’s End, and one other book I’m in the middle of. And I will hen be a convenient cat-sittting curling-up body. Heh. Not yet evening, o I want to et more done.
/Thursday and Friday and Saturday, it was near freezing at night. Today, it’s back near or above 70 in the day and expecged 50’s tonight. Yep, typical winter here, it can change like that.
Too early to know if it will be cold or mild, dry or wet for Christmas, but it has been rainy off and on the past week. Not complaining, we need the rain. Again, pretty typical.
One problem: Augie’s and Robby’s stories remain unwritten. There’s part of an idea there, but it isn’t jelling when I try to write it. It wants to be bigger and interconnected, and I don’t yet see how, quite, though I have some ideas in there. I will be surprised if I get a story out for either of them before Christmas. Maybe inspiration and a bout of furiously fast typing will occur, though.
I keep writing, but other stuff is coming out instead. heheh. I don’t get it
Mom had a small stroke last week. She’s getting better, she can walk a bit again, with a walker or indoors with one or two walking sticks. It probably hit the same spot as the first time, in 2003, when she had her whole left side affected. This time it’s mostly her leg and also (but a bit less severely) her arm, luckily not her face and throat as well.
We’re happy she’s feeling better and her mobility is improving, but it’s scary to contemplate this happening without reason (the first time was after flying halfway around the world, which turns out to bring a risk of deep vein thromboses which can cause strokes or heart attacks – we didn’t know that beforehand).
She recovered very well from the first, ans since she’s showing improvents withong 3-4 days of it happening, we’re hoping for the best. Still, it’s hard to deal with the realization that my mum is mortal, and even harder for my dad – he’s completely stressed.
Oh, no! Best wishes for your mom’s full and speedy recovery. The holidays have enough going on around them without adding illness to the mix.
I hope she recognized it, called 911, and they got her to the hospital in the “Golden Hour”!
Thank you for your sympathy.
Paul: No, she doesn’t like making a fuss so she didn’t even wake dad, and they didn’t phone me or make a doctor’s appointment until more than a day later.
Since this time the symptoms were different and less severe than in 2003, and her mouth and throat weren’t affected, she thought she’d maybe just practiced her new exercises for strengthening the broken-hip leg too hard when her muscles kept shaking and she couldn’t trust her legs to hold her, and couldn’t coordinate her movements properly. Oh, my poor dear self-reliant and rather retiring mum!
I’ve talked to her and explained how important it is to get medical help quickly, but I’m not sure if she will call the family doctors’ offduty center if something should happen again at night.
That “don’t be a bother” conditioning runs very deep, and waking up hardworking people in the middle of the night is a tall barrier for her to cross, unless she feels as if she’s dying right now. Also, dad panics easily if she’s in any danger, and he sees things as more threatening than she does so she doesn’t want to wake him and scare him unnecessarily.
But she is very practical, and I’ve explained that the offduty doctors center is manned by people who are awake anyway all night, so she might as well phone them if something scary like this happens and she doesn’t want to wake dad for ‘maybe nothing’.
I’ll program that number into their upstairs phone next weekend if they haven’t done so by then, and hope for the best.
WOL: this time she didn’t have the FAS symptoms (she had them in 2003, the first time); she lost strength and coördination in her legs and to a lesser degree in her arms; in the tests she had on Monday it was clear that the left side was now much weaker than the right side. Because her right side leg was the one with the broken hip which had not been used correctly the last 2 years (because the hip replacement had been put in at a bad angle) she felt that both her legs had suddenly become weak and unreliable, and didn’t get the clear signal that her left side was most affected.
On Monday during the tests she could lift both arms and hold them up, but touching het nose with her eyes closed, from that extension, her left arm moved slower and less certain, and wobbled towards the end.
Both sides affected is possible too with a stroke, the doctors said Monday, if the damage is in the undivided “little brain” (I don’t know the English name) that sits atop the spine in the center back area of the skull and runs some more primitive things in your body, including some movement, if I understood and remembered it correctly. Luckily her scans didn’t show damage there, just one black spot of 1×1.5cm in her right hemisphere that didn’t belong.
So not having the lopsided smile, slurred speech, and too-strengthless-to-hold-up arm doesn’t mean that you needn’t call a doctor! Please do so!
cerebellum?
Brainstem maybe. (Pons, in medical-speak.)
(I’ve described it on occasion as the main connector between your brain and your spine: all the important stuff goes through it. It isn’t really retrainable through therapy.)
Hanneke, Hope your mom does well at regaining function.
Signal boosting this, especially for those of us with elderly parents/friends: The acronym is FAST:
Face – ask them to smile. Is the smile symmetrical?
Arms – ask them to raise both arms. Can they? Does one drift down?
Speech – has their speech changed from their usual?
Telephone – If any one of these symptoms are present, call 911 (999). If the person is having a stroke, time means brain cells!
So sorry to hear, Hanneke—hope all goes well.
I brought my father home this morning. He was most happy to be in his own chair in his own house. I bought groceries yesterday, and made sure he had everything he needed before I headed out to tutoring.
(I gave the presents to their mom, then gave her a gift certificate, which surprised her. I hope they enjoy the presents. I tried to get them each something they’d like. Her gift certificate was for a manicure/pedicure at one of the best salons in town)
Hanneke, hope your mother is showing continual improvement.
Aging is hard for children to accept, but also difficult for those of us who of a certain age.
Joe, glad to hear that your father is home. It’s entirely possible that his healing will be much faster now that he is in his own comfortable space.
CJ, toes crossed that there were not too many bruises from your fall. Ice is such a tricky thing; I now try to keep my phone on me whenever I am alone outdoors. Aging is not for the faint of heart!
More entertainment: Last night we were going to celebrate the completion of a major art installation at the library (multi-panel stained glass window), and the power went out. Panic ensued. Fortunately, power came back on again half an hour before the party commenced, but in a back-handed twist, the air conditioning didn’t. We have a call in for service, but the temperature and humidity are both rising to uncomfortable levels, and if they are unable to fix it soon, I’d like to be able to close.
The more people in a building, the more heat and humidity…
“Note that Walker Shortbread tins make a very poor landing spot.”
Is there more to that story?
Ah, but the revenge could be short and sweet. Just sweet enough. And crunchy, a bite to it. Which could be useful if you get in a jam. So to speak.
Yes, I think my puns are getting worse.
Had a dental appt. in downtown Portland this afternoon. That’s about 10-11 miles from home. Snow started on my way into town about 1. I got out at 2:30. Got home at 6:30! (The 11 o’clock News shows some commuters are still out there!) Thought once or twice about chaining up, but even though I fishtailed a little now and then, obviously nobody was moving fast. Chains wouldn’t really have helped much. The thing I did was stayed our of the rut as much as possible–drove on the uncompacted show at the edge and center of the lane–off the icy compacted snow. Did turn around once when I was stopped behind a quarter-mile of brake lights, and looking ahead to a rather gentle slope–no taillights going up and one set of flashers. The detour I took was some of the fastest I went all afternoon/evening!
Importantly, touched no one, no one touched me. (Did slide sideways once but it stopped.)
There have been some gusts in the Sierra that have topped 100mph. They expect the Russian River to rise by about 20 feet.
Forgive me for venting again, but God is an iron, and our family feels like a pair of pants with a hole scorched in the butt (to paraphrase Spider Robinson). This afternoon, DH got the Civic back from the local tire place after replacing all 4 tires, both front wheel bearings, and a front end realignment. A quarter mile down the road, a lady pulled out of the Salvation Army and whacked him. Car is now on its way to the local body shop with front end damage. Insurance will cover most of it, but “If it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.” Sigh. At least the library a/c was repaired yesterday afternoon.
My mother once took the car in and had the fuel pump replaces, only to have the new one go out after driving a half mile (from the dealer to the supermarket and back). The #$%^&*(s at the dealer wouldn’t let her use the phone to call me to come collect the groceries, and she said that she was sure the men there were thinking “stupid woman doesn’t know she’s out of gas” – which was absolutely not true. (My mother said she gave the service manager a piece of her mind.)
And in much more recent irony, I went in last week to have my eyes checked, and now have prescriptions to lower my blood pressure (which was dangerously high) and my cholesterol (which is at its usual level of about 400).
I believe that last bit falls under “Good luck? Bad luck?” and works best if you are a Zen Buddhist.
Ah, me. My dad once got the car out of the shop after somebody hit him—and somebody hit him on the way home. Right back to the shop.
And my dad was one of the best drivers—field rep, on the road in all weather. Defensive driver to the max. Lady that hit the car the second time—not so much.
We’re having slushy rain here in Vegas. I am guessing that it’s quite a bit colder elsewhere?
I was speaking to a client in New York this afternoon (his morning). He said it was 19° with maximum of 27° predicted today. Here in Cape Town it was about 80°, but very windy. 😀 The beaches will be crowded over Christmas and New Year.
Most of the time, I wish I could just get in a car and drive anywhere, anytime, just to drive, to clear my head. I envy being able to drive oneself.
But it’s a good thing I don’t drive; I couldn’t. Though there is a great, darkly funny scene in the movie, “Sneakers,” where the blind hacker (Dan Aykroyd, I think) has to drive, directed by one of the others, while in a chase scene.
But hey, hearing y’all’s good/bad luck with cars…. Yeah, I don’t envy y’all that. So sorry. Ouch, ‘spensive.
You may find you have a great deal more independence when autonomous cars become widely available. I’m at an age where I’m very much looking forward to the freedom of having a car available but not actually having to drive it.
For clarification – I see autonomous cars as having the potential to combine the best characteristics of taxis and zip-cars. Sign up for service with a provider of your choice; call a car when you need one; pay only for the time you use the vehicle; and best of all, have the car come to you wherever you may be, and take itself back to it’s home base once it gets you to where you want to be.
I think sometimes the killer on that may be waiting for the car to come to you; I can see it for trips where the wait is figured in, but for other times where going is more urgent, not so much. If I have to cool my heels for 15 minutes with ice cream melting at the grocery store, or with a screaming child, that’s a disincentive right there. I don’t know if autodrive rental cars or cabs will become so ubiquitous as to cut down on wait times.
or Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman” driving a Ferrari… 😉