…wobbly, really wobbly. I’m tired of falling, understand: the bones have been jolted enough the last couple of weeks.
So did I wear my crash pads today? No. I was too tired to wrestle with the damn tights, which hold them in place. I just skated in street clothes and hoped not to fall.
By the end of the session, however, I’d gotten steadier. Jane pointed to one of my besetting sins, a left knee knocking in. I started working on that—tomorrow I’ll add a patellar tracking band (Ace) and a wrap on that knee, and that’ll help. I gave it 15-20 minutes of steady outward pressure while skating, and it helped a lot, but when the knee started to heat up, I quit. Now I’m getting stiff.
The right knee behaves well: I spent 4 years in competition fencing, and the right knee’s quite strong, after all those years of lunges. Problem is, the left leg of a right-handed fencer gets none of that precise bending (knee over toe)–and can develop some imprecise habits. Like knocking in, or letting the foot rotate a bit to grip the floor, so as not to fall on one’s nose during a lunge.
Well, when it translates to skating, that left knee is being a pita, and a knee knocking in means it’s a real pita trying to rock the foot toward the left outside ankle to go onto the left outside edge without pitching onto your toe and really screwing it—you need to keep your knee bent and outward—read: toe/knee aligned nicely—re that inward tendency. Do that, and the rock to the outside edge happens. So does your turn. Do it wrong, and your left foot does a shimmy on the ice and doesn’t make solid shoves during the strokes. So…a little time off the ice has really turned a spotlight on the weakness, and this time it’s going to get fixed.

Sore, oh, yes. I sit down for 15 minutes and I’m feeling it.

We picked up 2 hemlock trees about 4′ tall—to put in line between the 40′ giants that stand between us and the avenue. I want to have understudies for those two stately trees, because trees have a lifespan, and they’re maxed in height. I got them at a bargain, 25.00 each; and then discovered they’re a different species of hemlock, but well, they’re a bargain.

And Jane found a Scarecrow water-jetter on half of half because the packaging was screwed up. That will frighten raccoons away from our pond. If it works. And it looks as if it will.

So I’m off to take some more Advil. 😉