Tuesday, September 25, 2018

a tad grumpy today


I didn't sleep well last night because I could not find a position where I wasn't in one pain or another. Sunday morning I had a small ache in my lower back, nothing that isn't too common. Usually a little yoga stretches it out and makes it better but didn't really help Sunday morning so I went out and cleared the other raised garden bed. It had rained Saturday afternoon and I didn't feel like getting totally dirty so instead of using the shovel and climbing in/on I just leaned over and dug with my hands trying to remember to bend at the hips instead of the back but the ache wasn't any worse by the time I finished...at least until Sunday night. Yesterday was a misery. The low backache turned into sharp pain at my left hip/fanny/tailbone. I'm having a hard time finding the precise spot with the kink. Anyway, hurts to sit, hurts to stand too long, hurts to stretch. I finally broke down and took 3 ibuprofen a little while ago. The sharp pain is gone for now and I can sit more comfortably but still a dull ache across my hips and down my leg a bit. This happened earlier in the year too and it took weeks to finally go away.

I'm almost finished with the sunflower wax which means I probably have a couple more hours work on it and I need to set up the lizard with 10 petal anemone model I made earlier in the year to have it's mold made. Going to try and get that accomplished today. We'll see. I may just lay on the couch all day and read.

Rocky showed up yesterday and worked all day painting. He's got it all done just about except for the three areas that need repair, the door, and the shutters though no sign of him today.

We had a pretty fabulous sunset the other night, one of those that makes the air pink.


And my night blooming cereus bloomed for the second time two nights ago after giving me 5 flowers about three weeks ago.



Not the best pictures I've taken of these but I was holding the flashlight in one hand trying to take pictures with the phone in the other hand and waving off mosquitoes at the same time.

A year after the flood things have bloomed crazily or not at all. The penta, which blooms profusely for most of the year is blooming but only about half the size it usually is by this time of year. The orange double day lilies, as mentioned before, are blooming in September after their spring and early summer display, something they have never done before. The toad lily which was the biggest and fullest I have ever seen it before Harvey which died to the ground afterwards is about a fourth the size and doesn't look happy. Only one stalk of the yellow butterfly ginger has bloomed and sparsely at that and none of the others even look like they are thinking about blooming. Same with the white butterfly ginger though they are starting to fatten up at the tips now after all this rain. The orange cosmos have grown to nearly 6' and still have not bloomed which is what they did the first two years after I planted them but then they settled down and bloomed on knee high growth just about all year. Some of the chinese fringe flowers are blooming which I don't recall them doing in the fall before but then they didn't bloom this spring.


Everything else seems pretty much normal and I think I'm going to go take a nap.





14 comments:

  1. Do hope your back improves - very best wishes from here. Your pink sky is stunning and I know just what you mean about the air

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  2. Backs are proof that humans are not really from this planet.
    Well, that's a theory. Rest. Get better.
    I think Harvey must have whacked your plants out for this year, at least. Hopefully, they'll be back to normal by next year.

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  3. Could it be a pinched nerve? How about a chiropractor? There is nothing worse than perpetual pain. Sounds like the flora is recovering from Harvey - that cereus is amazing!

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    1. possibly. I've had a pinched nerve there before. I had a great chiropractor when I lived in the city. the one out here went to school with the one in the city. I haven't been to him but took my sister. he charges extra for heat packs, for the massage table, for the little mechanical thumpers he used on my sister's spine, essentially anything used besides his hands was an extra charge. that just sort of struck me wrong.

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  4. May you find relief from your back pain soon. A nap sounds like a wise choice.

    During my senior year of high school in 1966-1967, I was living 25 miles south of San Francisco. My high school English teacher, Marilee Sorotskin, wrote poetry and spent time with poets in San Francisco. She invited a poet named Hilary Ayer Fowler to come to our classroom and read from Mind Dances, a book of poetry she had published in 1966. Somewhere I have a copy of that book. One of Hilary Ayer Fowler's poems mentioned a night-blooming cereus. I don't recall ever knowing for certain what that flower looked like. In my mind, it has always been an imaginary flower. Your splendid photos give me no doubt as to why a night-blooming cereus was at the center of one of her poems.

    http://www.bigbridge.org/BD-RK-G1.HTM

    https://www.rarebooklink.com/pages/books/98-1704/hilary-ayer-fowler/mind-dances

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  5. Nothing worse than the back pain and yours sounds like the sciatic nerve. That sunset was unbelievably beautiful. I don't think I've seen one like that.

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  6. Back pain sure stinks. You have to get ahead of it. Three ibuprofen are not enough! Take three more a couple more times. And, spend your time on the couch, with a book and/or a blanket, as you wish. If you read the Princess Bride you will laugh, and that would hurt. I just finished the Making of the Princess Bride. I didn't laugh so much, and it was good.

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    1. and that's exactly what I did plowing through book 4 of the Outlander series.

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  7. The night blooming wonders are gorgeous!

    Back pain is shit, I usually resort to heat, rest and after day 1, movement (walking). Arnica ointment if you can get hold of it. May you get better very soon.

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  8. I like you am in mid back spasm and pain. My chiropractor is gone this week.........ugh. Mines more on the right so maybe a mirror image pain sharing.

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  9. Take care of that ache. You might need some physical therapy. beautiful sky, beautiful flashilt flowers.

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  10. Sounds like maybe you have a pinched nerve or something...? I hope it subsides over (not too much) time. I love the pictures -- the flashlight actually creates a very cool effect! Almost like the flowers were lit from behind.

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    1. I was lighting them from behind. it's the only way to show the detail. shine the light from the front and it washes them out.

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