Four weeks done now.

I think for a while the blog is going to become a bit more like a journal for me and my trip through the medical system, and back to good health. I will keep it garden oriented as much as possible, but I think it is likely going to slide into my current circumstances fairly often.

Last weekend I didn’t quite get to seeding the tomatoes in the greenhouse = a few other things got in the way. We canned another 58 quarts of tomato juice, I picked a few more seed tomatoes, and I picked all of the dried pods off of 6 or 7 varieties of beans.

Speaking of making juice, I think I have created a monster = Shaoling has never had a garden before, and had never done any canning before this year. I introduced her to canning with cherries. Now she wants to make juice out of everything in the garden and orchard.

At least 200 quarts of tomato juice (which is normal for this household anyway). Carrots are next on the list, if I plant enough, and celery, and onions, and all of the other ingredients for a good mixed vegetable juice.

We have already made 30 odd quarts of cherry juice, in addition to the canned cherries.. She wants to make plum juice, and pear juice and apple juice, and if we get a good producing peach tree going, I am sure peaches will be on the list, as well as apricots, if we get a good crop.

I will quite willingly go along with all of it, for the simple reason that walking through the garden with her renews for me the awe and excitement that got me hooked on gardening in the first place. It awakens memories of walking through the garden with my grandparents, at eye level with the hornworms when they were discovered, the explanations of who and what they were and would become if left alone, and why they were not left alone. I used to love running to the nearest free range chicken with one.

I am now walking 2.6 kilometers (1.5 miles) before breakfast, doing the first and last 400 meters (.25 miles) at 180 paces/minute (8.2 kph or 5.1 mph) and slow down to 120 paces a minute (5.5 kph or 3.4 mph) for the rest of the walk). I do the same walk 3 to 6 times a day, depending on how wired I feel, and what else there is to do here. I should have the same energy in the garden!!

Over the weekend I seeded 30+ tomato varieties using chemicals, and got another 20 varieties ready to put chemicals on, then got sidetracked for a bit doing other things = and had to leave them to ferment until next weekend. I will see just how they do, sitting for a week in the greenhouse, with its cool nights, and pass judgement on them when I get home. If they need re-doing, I still have the tomatoes available to do them, if not, then it’s just a matter of cleanup = then I can turn my attention to the other three trays of less ripe tomatoes that are setting int he greenhouse waiting for me to gut them. Cleaned a couple of squash, ripped up the Ethiopian Lentils and hung the bundles to dry under cover, for thashing later, stripped off all of the dry soybean and chickpea pods, and cut the grass int the pathways, some of the orchard, and the yard.

The Bradshaw plums are ripening now = I had forgotten just how good they can be = they are a variety I ate as a kid, and put in the orchard for the memories. Italian prune plums are coming on, apples and pears getting very close = The Asian pears have to be thinned a whole lot more than I have been doing so far = I’m only getting half sized fruit, because I am leaving far too many on the tree.

Time to start getting the spud pit ready for storage use = the carrots are sizing up, most of the spud plants have died back, and this year I will try sticking some of the leeks in the pit as well, just to see how they do. I have a rack in the bottom of the pit that keeps the pails off the ground, and holes drilled in the bottom of the pails to allow ventilation of the contents. Feed bags with fiberglass insulation go over top the buckets, and keep everything from freezing. I have already sprayed the interior of the pit with fixed copper, to eliminate any fungal growth, at least for the first half of the winter.

You can get an idea of what I am talking about from these photos =

I will take some more current photos when I am home again this weekend, and update this post with them.

I’m back at the lodge again, starting another week of radiation treatments. I am no longer taking Prednisone, and it’s two weeks until my next chemo treatments, so no other meds either. This will be the first period that my body will be dealing with everything on its own. I am supposed to be entering the period of my treatments, where I start to feel the effects of the radiation and chemo = so far, nothing much that I notice. I have had no steroids or other meds for 36 hours now, and still feel somewhat wired, where I am supposed to start feeling fatigued. I did try to counter the lack of steroids by drinking my four cups of coffee this morning, and it seems to have done more than that = I felt more wired than I did while drinking coffee and taking the steroids = time will tell I am sure, in the meantime, no more coffee = I could not sit still and felt extremely speedy for about three hours after the last coffee. Tomorrow morning will likely tell the tale about whether I stay energetic and hungry, or start to feel like they say I should.

And the adventure continues.