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In the thick of it
It seems I am probably a bit further into my journey to menopause than I realised last time I posted. During this time, one period was completely missed and my body is currently trying to play catch up so it’s wreaking a bit of havoc on the body, enough that I wonder at what point I should see a doctor. It’s a bit more complicated than that but it seems likely my hormones have been a lot more off than they had been. Still no hot flashes. :)
Yesterday I had all sorts of problems with my computer and it soon came to my attention that I no longer had Malwarebytes running on my system. It seems to have stopped back in July and after considerable effort (helped immensely by the Scientist) it was apparent my installation was corrupted. Eventually I was able to uninstall it and reinstall. All seems to be running fine at the moment.
The problems on my computer led me to finally getting two step verification on some email accounts set up so that I can access them on the devices I want to use. This took quite a bit of going back and forth between accounts and setting things up but that also seems to be working properly and I can now check the email accounts with frequent use on my current phone, old phone, Ipad, tablet PC and desktop with no issues.
My temporary/casual job finished on the 12th of this month so I am back to the usual day to day stuff. I kind of miss the idea of work as I was earning a bit of money to add to the family accounts. It is nice not to have so many days wiped out at the moment though, particular at those times when I have to take a child to an appointment.
It’s been several months since our old lawn mower died on us and over the winter, the grass had grown rather tall in some areas. The Scientist and I went to a few places to check out potential replacements and after some indecision, we settled on another low-end sort of electric one which is probably a bit better than our previous model. I immediately set out to mow our front yard and after well over an hour, had made good progress. I was mowing along the side of the driveway, back along the side of the carport when the power disappeared abruptly as I accidently mowed over the power cord. We’ve only ever owned electric and I’ve not done this before (although did run over the solar light cord under tree several years ago). Â I discovered that not only had I destroyed the power cord but caused the power to go out in the house. It was too late to do more mowing so I didn’t end up getting a new cord until the next day. By then it was raining so I’ve now had to wait for things to dry again. I did get enough done to make the front yard look much better, much bigger. It’s amazing how much space tall grass seems to take. The backyard is still untouched but I will hopefully get to that in the next couple of days unless we get more rain.
Cutting the grass soon will be quite beneficial for the dogs, who are off to the groomer tomorrow. Little boy dog will get a full clip and finally get all the knotted fur cleared out. It seems to get so difficult to manage once it reaches a certain length. Fortunately it’s now spring so I don’t have to worry too much about him being cold. We had the warmest recorded day in September on Saturday and on Sunday, the high was not much different than the low had been overnight. It’s been considerably cooler the past few days but seems to be warming a bit again. I know to expect changes in temperature but I would prefer to avoid such drastic changes.
I was very happily surprised to find out Neil Finn is playing a concert at a winery down in Margaret River in November. It’s a one-off show and features one support act I’ve not seen but would like to and another one I’ve seen two or three times before. The downside is it’s a 3.5 hour drive to get there, which means a return trip of similar length. We considered trying to stay overnight but it seems there aren’t many options due to this being during a food and wine thing happening during this weekend or week. Anyway, we are going to try to wing it. I suspect it will mean that the Scientist does the driving there and I drive back since I will be more awake.
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That darned honeysuckle
A couple weeks ago our neighbors knocked on the door and the dogs went bonkers, of course. I didn’t hear the knock but did see one of them walking back down the driveway. The Scientist went to investigate and returned to say our orange honeysuckle plant was weighing down the shade cloth they had between the fence and their house. This is the plant that I have cut back to nothing several times and it always comes back. We hadn’t done anything with it in ages and it had grown up and over the fence again. It was bigger and stronger than ever. I immediately set about cutting it back with the Scientist joining me when he wasn’t working. Between us we got almost all of it off the shade cloth. I continued on a couple days later and removed lots more of it. I also managed to clear a huge space on the ground where it had been. There are still some strong roots that will need more tools to remove though.
Meanwhile, two large piles of cuttings appeared near the fence and sat there for a couple weeks. We’ve had several days without rain and the forecast is for rain from Tuesday onwards. I decided to work on shredding some of the green waste before it got wet again. This didn’t work as well as I’d like but I did manage to get through the better part of one of the piles. There have been other cutting from shrubs and trees, dried along the periphery of the yard so I used some of those branches. After a few hours of work, I found I had one box filled with shredded plant waste. Those piles took up considerable space but the shredded material fit quite neatly into the big box our food processor came in.
One of our goals is to clear the honeysuckle completely, along with other weeds and yard trash, enough so that we can have a patio installed outside. We’ve only lived here nineteen years but still have no covered area outside. I’m hoping we can complete this before the end of our winter. With so much cleared away, it actually looks like there is quite a bit of space there. Here’s hoping we stick to our goals this time.
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Mowing
I got a blister on my hand today. It was warm today and dry and I was motivated. So I went outside in the latter part of the afternoon and mowed…and mowed…and mowed. All the weedy grass that had been pulled a few weeks ago was still there but now it dry and crispy, leaving its seeds everywhere. It looked about as horrible as the tall grass did. I didn’t finish the mowing job but I managed to clear large sections of the back yard and the side of the house before moving to mow the front yard. It all looks so much better now. The Scientist came out and helped by pulling out more weeds/grass even though he should rightfully have been taking it easy as he’d done a blood donation in the morning. Between the two of us, the garden is looking far more respectable now.
We have a few ideas of changes to the garden. We’ve got some large pots that have nothing growing in them so I plant to buy some herbs to add to the garden. The chilli plants are coming back to life so I might buy one or two more of those. I don’t know if I will bother with jalapeño or not as they just don’t seem to survive here. I also moved a pot that previously held a thai chilli along with a fig tree growing wild. The chilli plant is long gone but the fig looks like it’s growing a bit. I moved the pot to the back of the house to see if it will be okay with a bit more direct sun.
A less immediate plan for the backyard is to have a patio installed. We may or may not get that done this year but it’s one of our planned major projects. Our idea is to try to mostly enclose the patio so we can move exercise equipment there but also to have one end open to allow for eating outside under cover. This will be good for the dogs as there will be a decent covered area to stay in outside. We are still considering possibilities at the moment and clearing up some of the mess in that area so that we can get a proper quote on it.
In the front yard we have a few lavender plants that have been there for years but most of them look a bit scraggly.  The old plants are most likely to be removed. One of the plants is almost all deadwood so it’s not exactly pretty there. We are considering adding lavender or something simillar on the side of the driveway. We’ve had terrible luck with most plants there so I am not very optimistic of our chances. Meanwhile new lavender plants have grown wild under our drain pipes next to the carport. We also want to till all the ground in the front and try to do over that area properly and make it mostly natural,
One thing I noticed while mowing the front yard was there were so many seedlings growing from one of our shrubs. We bought one of the plants years ago and it uprooted during a storm. But in the years since, several plants have grown and it’s actually turned out to be an invasive plant so I really don’t want it any more. The main plant is now stretching out towards the street and one day I will cut it all out. But there is also an old bottlebrush tree that is now dead in the midst of all the living plants and that will most likely be the first to go from that area. It had pink flowers on it but never really grew much even though it lived for probably fifteen years.
Anyway, with all the mowing I did, a blister developed right under my right pinkie finger. I don’t think that’s ever happened before so I guess I did a lot more mowing than usual today. Â Next weekend we plant to do the side of the yard and to finish up the other areas with whippersnippler and other fixing up.
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Catching up
I keep procrastinating about writing posts and never get around to them. Maybe I need to make a list of things I want to write and tick them off as I do it.
Life carries on as usual at the lorikeet household. Last week, the Scientist and I celebrated 20 years of marriage. We’d been together a few years before that but this was the official date. It was a very good day, starting with a gym visit and shower before going out to a mid-afternoon meal at Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant here in Perth. This is one of his Italian restaurants and it was absolutely lovely there. The complimentary bread was some of the best I’ve had. The olive oil and balsamic vinegar served with it were just wonderful. I had a pasta dish with prawns and linguine which was quite nice. I only ordered an entree plus a salad on the side…plenty of food for me. We did have a starter of baked mushrooms and the music bread with that was also rather addictive. For dessert I was brave and tried the pannacotta. I’ve tried it many times before and was always disappointed. But I had hope that Jamie’s recipe would work and I was right. Strong vanilla flavors and fresh fruit and sweet and creamy. It’s not part of the usual menu but I hope to have it again. The best part of the meal is that it didn’t cost a small fortune to eat there and was reasonably priced. Not bad for a celebrity chef restaurant in the city. Add to that the great dinner companion and I couldn’t ask for more. The Scientist and I enjoyed a stroll through King’s Park afterwards and probably worked off a few calories from the meal. We climbed the DNA tower, which is two spiral staircases designed to look like DNA. It has a good view at the top and it was sunset so we were both snapping away with our cameras. I made it up and down the stairs without much problem, which was a nice change…funnily enough I had more trouble on some other stairs and steep paths along the way…strange. It’s weird to think it’s been 20 years since our wedding day…sometimes it seems so recent and other times it’s a lifetime ago…
I’ve been out in the garden this week, cutting branches off a tree I want to get rid of. I don’t know how we will get the trunk removed ourselves as it’s very big but I plan to cut as much off as I can. It’s a shame since the tree has been there since we planted our first shrubs…but it was taking up a massive part of the garden and was too big for the yard. We have another one in the front yard but will leave that as it is for now. Aside from many piles of branches, there is a lot more space in the side/backyard than there’s been in years. Little Maromi won’t be able to hide as easily when this is cut down like he does now. I also noticed today it gets so much more sun in that area now. I’m thinking of trying to plant a hibiscus and see what happens…but we may think about a few other plants too.
We’d truly gotten into the chilliness of late autumn/winter this month but the last few days have been a bit warmer and even the nights haven’t been quite so cold. Last week I went outside to hang wet clothes and even with a warm robe and bed socks with shoes I was feeling chilled. A couple nights ago, it felt more like a summer night and the clothes didn’t even draw damp. We’re supposed to get some rain but I haven’t seen much evidence of it so far. I did, however, see a beautiful moonrise on the way back from tai chi. It was hidden behind clouds at first but came into full view by the time we were home. I noticed a little while ago it’s still quite bright although much higher in the sky…no clouds blocking it at the moment so I wonder when this rain is due to happen…
I had more games news to add but it turned out to be so long I will make it into a separate post.
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Latest happenings
I went to give plasma again today and it all went well aside from a bit of blood leaking out from the site of the needle. There’s a high demand for plasma so I offered to go back in a couple weeks but there are no appointments available until next month. So my next donation will be in early June. I seem to have become a bit of a regular at this now. :)
We are bracing for the first major winter storm of the year. Unless one counts that nasty storm that came through in mid-March and left a fair bit of damage around the town. Seems the next few days are going to be nearly cyclonic conditions with heavy rains and thunderstorms and strong winds. So far we’ve only just got the rain with a bit of wind around here. Game Fanatic is kind of happy for the wintry weather since that means it will be good stew weather and he loves his stews.
I was going to go to the gym yesterday since I had my blood donation today…but then I spent a bit of time in our yard and realised a lot of work needs to be done. So instead of spending an hour at the gym I spent a couple working in the garden. I finally planted some chilli plants that have been sitting in our kitchen window for ages. One has grown quite tall and has two chillies on it and another one has some small Thai chillies on it. The jalapeno plants nearly died as small seedlings but they came back to life for a while. I suspect that one might survive…assuming it doesn’t get too battered by the storms ahead. The other plans should be okay as they are a bit more solid. I also planted out mint seedlings into a big pot and assume they will be okay as they tend to be quite hardy. I also did a lot of hacking on some overgrown bushes out there. One is a tea tree that pretty much takes up a huge part of the yard. I’m trying to cut it back and eventually remove it…but it’s quite big at the base so I’m not sure how that will go. There were also shrubs overhanging the driveway and making it difficult to get in and out without them scratching the car…it’s now all clear even though the one shrub looks a bit bare on one side. Hopefully I’ll get out and do the rest some time soon so make it look a bit more balanced…The nice thing about this one (a bottlebrush) is that I can hack it up and it comes right back with no trouble. Then today I went out to check on plants and noticed something growing up into another bottlebrush tree at the back (different type)…turns out it’s a wild passionfruit vine that had found it’s way up the tree. Then I found another one up there and realised we have to get rid of those soon as they will choke the trees out back. They have lovely flowers on them but are truly invasive around here. :(
Also marking the start of the winter season…Lego Lover woke up with a sore throat today. I’m not quite sure how he got it as he hardly ever goes out and he stayed well clear of anyone when we went to a family lunch on the weekend. The Scientist thinks it’s possible one of us has brought something back and he’s picked that up and we haven’t as we are both healthier and fitter than he is. We bought him some honey and lemon throat lozenges and he wasn’t too sure about them but tried anyway…and said they helped even if they tasted rather revolting (my words but his sentiment).
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Late garden
I seemed to lack much motivation to get out into the garden this spring and summer. In the spring I was still finding many of the gardening tasks a bit awkward with my knee so I procrastinated a bit. The Scientist has kept things alive out there by making sure it’s all watered on our appointed watering days. We have a large bottlebrush tree/shrub that has grown up and out and finally about half the tree started tipping away from the main part of the tree. One large branch hovered over our garden table and it was difficult to get to the table for the overgrown tree. The Scientist and I were trying to cut off some of these branches when the last grass seed made itself apparent in Maromi’s ear. The Scientist managed to get almost all of that main branch of the tree cut off but there’s still a couple more parts to remove. It all looks rather bare out there now and the sun is shining on areas that have been in shade for much of the last year. As the other main branch of this tree has split slightly, we are aware that the entire tree may eventually have to go. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it to see if the roots will be strong enough. It would be really sad if the tree has to be removed.
I am suddenly reminded of returning to Perth after our year in Canada to find one of our two protea shrubs had died for no apparent reason. It had been quite healthy when we left and dead on our return. I remember feeling a great sadness at that loss as it was one of the first shrubs we planted in the yard of our brand new house. We’ve had other plants planted and die since but that one was in such great shape when we left that to find it gone was quite a shock.
We have a tea tree on the side of the house that we do plan to cut down. It’s another of the original shrubs but it hasn’t served much useful purpose in recent years as it’s just sprawled out over a large corner of the yard and it’s hidden usable space behind it. Even though there may be twinges of sadness to see it go, I think it will be better for that part of our yard in the end. We also plan to get rid of pretty much all the grass in the backyard as our plan is to turn it into a natural area instead. Finally there’s a grape vine that we planted a few years ago that has never gone anywhere but not died either. It may be a fatal move but we plan to transplant it to a hopefully better location once it goes dormant again. There are many vineyards near us so I think we are in a good climate for growing grapes…if we can just work out the specifics on getting them to grow.
Yesterday the Scientist and I ventured into the garden center at our local major hardware store for the first time in months. We do have nurseries around us but none as close as this store and it sometimes gets our business just for the convenience. That said, it’s also fairly well kept compared to the same centers in other branches of this chain. In fact, it’s also better than the closest nursery which just makes me cringe when I go into it. We had a couple of missions when we arrived. One was to find a replacement water sprinkler for one that is broken. The one we found is far more expensive than any other we’ve purchased before so I hope it is very, very good. Our other main goal was to buy chilli plants to replace our old ones. We have five large pots in the backyard and each has held a chilli plant in the past. A couple grew quite well and produced heaps of fruit. Another one has never been terribly successful and borne only a small number of fruit. One was quite good for a year but died during the winter. One of the more successful plants had a fig tree start growing in it unexpectedly more than a year ago. We didn’t know what it was for a long time until I recognised the shape of the leaves on another plant in the garden center. The fig is still alive in that pot although it’s not really much bigger than it was. The chillies are gone and the plant is either dead or nearly dead.
In the past, it was always easy to find all the different varieties of chillies but this time we must have just missed them all the first time around. It took a bit of mixing and matching but we finally decided on half a dozen different plants. These will all go into the planter where I’d put the tomatoes and basil last summer. I also bought some mint plants to put into one of the empty pots in hopes of having a good crop. The Scientist found some really nice succulents to add to our front garden. The one thing we didn’t buy was more potting soil which I will need to fill up some of the planters now.
One other thing we looked at yesterday was cushions for our garden chairs as the dogs have destroyed the old ones. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything that suited our chairs and none at a very good price either. It would be cheaper to buy a new set at this point but we hope to find something suitable elsewhere.
Hopefully now that we’ve got going with this idea, we will carry through with some of our plans and make the yard/garden a much nicer place again.
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Spring has sprung
The season announced itself with quite a splash this weekend with the temperatures reaching a glorious warm high of 29C yesterday. It’s days like yesterday that make you want to never turn back to the damp and chilly days of winter. Our yard has become quite overgrown with grass and weeds over the winter so the Scientist and I have plans to get out and cut it all down before we start attracting snakes or, more likely the nasty moth infestation that has hit us the past two years. I have ideas of planting beans in the big planter I used for tomatoes last year. I’m also contemplating buying another planter for the tomatoes to be place in a shadier location in hopes of it lasting through the season this time.
I managed to take dogs out together for walks both weekend days. This was a first post-surgery and Saturday went pretty well considering it was a novel idea. Little girl dog seemed to enjoy going out more with her sibling along for the walk. Yesterday didn’t go quite as well. I had both on the leash and opened the kitchen door to go out when little boy dog started barking like it was an emergency and nearly pulling me over. This started little girl doing similarly…it seems the cat was under the car and that made the world totally wrong, at least in little boy’s eyes. As the dogs were both straining quite hard on the leashes and both out of control, I required assistance from the Scientist to return some sanity to the proceedings. The actual walk wasn’t so bad but there was much more straining of the leash from both and it often meant they were headed in opposite directions. Little boy dog did his share of mad barking whenever we encountered another dog or other people. I much preferred their behavior on Saturday.
The gym routine is continuing pretty well so far. I think my knee is gradually getting stronger. Sometimes it’s quite deceptive because I feel like it’s totally back to normal when it’s still just getting there. I have to force myself to slow down when I feel that good as I have such a bad habit of overdoing it at such times. I decided to try using the cross trainer going backwards the other day and realised I’ve neglected to work on those muscles. It was quite difficult at first but I seem to be building up strength much more quickly than when I first started using the machine. It’s still a bit early but I think it might be helping me get better at handling steps. I tested out my ability on a step stool and I was able to get up even though I was a bit unsteady during the process. I have to believe it can only get better…so far, getting that leg to lift me up just hasn’t worked so I think it’s progress.
The big trade-off with this lovely warm weather is my body’s reaction to all the pollen blowing around. I think all the rain from last month has pushed the flowering plants into overdrive and there is pollen everywhere. I usually get mostly stuffiness and nasal congestion but this year I started with the runny nose and the sneezing…and today got the stuffiness too. Not sure how I can have both at the same time but I do. I nearly took a Claratyne tablet last night as I was feeling pretty icky but I’m glad I didn’t. My body has gone really dry, presumably due to the Sjogren’s syndrome, so the anti-histamine would have made it that much worse. I am just glad I started on the Beconase last week before the allergy symptoms started kicking in.
A couple posts should be coming up, including:
- Lego Lover and I took a trip into the city in order to see one of several exhibits being displayed here from the Museum of Modern Art in NY.
and- A dental appointment, also involving a trip into the city
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Outdoor living
We built and moved into this house over fourteen years ago now. When we moved in, it was like a small house in a big sand pit. We did add some native plants early on and many of those are still around, including several bottlebrush bushes that aren’t really much bigger than when they were planted and several of another variety that have grown exceptionally well. Some grass was planted and various other plants have been added over the years with varying success.
I became the default family gardener, which is quite amazing since I am not a gardener. I’m getting better after many years though. I’ve been making attempts at growing vegetables almost every year for a while and this year I may have hit a small jackpot. Tonight I felt like we might be on to a good thing for the first time ever and even the Scientist joined in with adding fresh sugar cane mulch as the light disappeared tonight. Perhaps it was a matter of getting started earlier in the season or perhaps it’s the fact I’ve put a lot more effort into it. Today I harvested enough lettuce to make a small salad for dinner. It was extremely cool to eat food grown in our garden. I have several varieties of tomato growing well and showing promise of decent crops. Nothing like years past when we basically snacked on the food that grew because it wasn’t enough to do more. I think the real test will come when the bigger tomatoes grow. If we succeed there, I will be extremely happy. It’s not even just a matter of the success of growing my own food. I want tomatoes that actually taste good for a change. It will be worth the toil and the massive amounts of money invested in compost and mulch. It’s going so well right now that we are planning on adding more. I have a tray of basil seedlings to plant along with oregano and mint. I was going to plant the basil tonight but I started too late and it got dark so it will have to wait.
Anyway, I have gone off on a tangent. Over all these years, we’ve hardly spent any time outside, aside from the occasional splurge on plants where we do really well for about two weeks and then we lose interest. We spend too much time inside, to be honest. This year, I think we may have shifted priorities enough that we will make a decent attempt at creating an outdoor space to enjoy. Some of the changes planned or already done are:
- The Scientist moved our clothes hoist (rotating clothes line) from one corner to another. One of the trees/shrubs had pretty much grown into it over the winter which rendered it nearly useless. I had cut back the tree considerably and free up most of the contraption but it was still blocked by an overgrown branch. Now it’s in open space (over mostly sand) but it moves freely.
- I bought a garden arch to attempt to train the passionfruit vine over. This is essentially in the same location as an earlier one but since the vines never took off, it was removed. The passonfruit has already taken to the new structure and looks much happier in the open. We recently added a grape vine to climb the other side. I don’t know how successful that will be but there is a major grape/wine center just down the road so I think our climate and soil must be reasonably suitable.
- Today I bought a table and chairs so we can eat outside once in a while. We already have a couple cheap lawn chairs out there but until recently we hadn’t made much use of them. Since the clothes hoist was moved away, it feels right to sit in that area and we do. My mother-in-law is bringing her station wagon around tomorrow morning so I can get it home without paying expensive delivery fees.
- At the request of the Scientist, I bought a string of solar Christmas lights to hang outside. It’s a fairly small string that eventually found its way onto the mostly bare arch. It charges during the day and lights up at night. No electricity needed and it looks great. The Scientist also went out and got a set of ten solar garden lights. These used to be quite expensive but this year the price has really dropped. Lego Lover helped his dad put the lights out and they also look really great. We’ve been sitting outside enjoying the warmer weather and the lights the last several nights.
- We are finally going to get a fence with a gate installed between the house and the fence dividing our property from our neighbors. There has been a small picket fence going across from many years but it doesn’t go completely across and the gate has been broken for several years and has to be lifted to get it open. There is no privacy and no real barrier to intruders at the moment.
- We’re planning to have a patio running from the new fence to the back of the house (or a little bit beyond that). This is going to be a pretty major expense and will include a roof and some sort paving (probably bricks).
- These all pretty much center around one section of the yard. There’s a whole big area on the western side of the house that needs a lot of work. At the moment, cleaning it up and clearing it out will be our main priority. I’ve done some major pruning jobs on some of the shrubs and it already looks far more spacious than it has for years. There’s a giant pile of branches and foliage we need to either put through the shredder to make mulch or have it removed.
And the list goes on and on…but I feel like there is hope for us now that we are creating a nice space to enjoy outside. I’ll hopefully update as we progress through our plans this summer.