It’s gardening time

Last summer, Larry built a raised bed for a garden in our backyard. He fenced most of it in to try to keep deer and other eaters of vegetables from getting all the food.

Then the raised bed sat and waited for spring to come.

Leaves gathered in the fencing during the fall.

Snow surrounded it during parts of the winter, making it look lonely.

But finally warm weather has come and stayed long enough to ready the bed for dirt and seeds. Today we’ll be busy beginning the work that I hope will lead to a nice harvest later this year.

By Monday, we’ll probably have sore muscles. But I’m looking forward to being outside and getting my hands in some dirt.

What will you be spending your weekend doing?

A study of periwinkle

Signs of spring have been slow to come in Central Virginia. But on Monday, I found a reminder of the season.

Beside our house, a rock wall was installed in the bank by a previous owner. Someone somewhere along the line planted periwinkle around it.

Every spring, I look forward to the lavender petals.

I liked the following description, written by Alex Niemiera, from the website of the Virginia Cooperative Extension: “The plant produces 1-inch blue-violet flowers in early spring that are noticeable upon close inspection.” Yes, I did have to look closely on Monday to see if the blooms had put in an appearance.

What have you studied outdoors lately?

In the battle against fatigue: Diet

I’ve written lately about my battle with fatigue: a sometimes overwhelming tiredness that I feel that lends itself to lack of motivation and procrastination.

Besides tiredness, I have also been experiencing the following on a regular basis:

*bouts of diarrhea

*terrible heartburn, especially when I eat bread, chicken, or potatoes

*bloating

*skin irritations

As I said in Friday’s post, my doctor and I discussed my problems with fatigue, and one of the things he suggested was to change the timing of my depression medication.

Another thing we discussed was my diet. I asked him how much validity he put in the idea that one’s diet could affect one’s mental health.

He said he had patients who had changed their diets—mostly giving up wheat and other sources of gluten—who had experienced positive results. In conjunction with medication and/or other treatments, he believed certain changes in diet might help.

I don’t believe in throwing out whole categories of food unless a person has real medical issues. For example, according to the website of the National Institutes of Health,  people who have celiac disease cannot consume gluten because they have an immunereaction to gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye.

I don’t have celiac disease. And I don’t have symptoms that are anywhere nearly as bad as those with celiac disease.

But I’ve wondered if I may be sensitive to gluten.

Perhaps it’s really a matter of too many simple carbohydrates. Maybe it’s a problem with wheat.

I already know that milk irritates my digestive system. Cheese and Greek yogurt don’t. I’m allergic to tree nuts.

I decided to try eliminating, as much as I can, gluten from my diet for a week or two to see how I react. It won’t hurt. If I feel better, then I can add back some foods gradually and get a clearer idea of whether or not food is affecting how I feel.

I had no gluten (that I know of) Sunday. For breakfast, I had a cup of Greek yogurt.

For lunch, we ate at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I had beef fajitas and ate just the meat and vegetables and a little of the beans. I didn’t eat the tortillas.

For dinner, I had the salad pictured above: Romaine lettuce, carrots, red kidney beans, apples, and pickled beets. After I took the photo, I added cheddar cheese and some tuna salad that Larry had made. I also added balsamic vinaigrette dressing after making sure it didn’t contain wheat.

No heartburn. No digestive issues. It’s too early to tell about the tiredness.

I am motivated to try this. Saturday was a bad day for me digestively. I knew what had caused at least of the problem: I had eaten some doughnuts.

As I lay down to rest, I decided that I’d had enough of feeling so bad. I needed to find out how to help myself.

Right now my plan is to stay away from gluten and to follow the new medication timing.

Have you ever found that a certain food, or group of foods, negatively affect how you feel?

Chase Bird, basketball and a haircut: Random 5 Friday

Happy Friday! I hope you’re doing well, dear readers, on this last Friday in March. Is it just me, or does this year seem to be flying by already?

One of the best things about Friday is being able to join Nancy at A Rural Journal for Random 5 Friday. I hope you will visit Nancy HERE and find other bloggers who are sharing their randoms.

Chase Bird relaxing on Larry's lap.

One

Chase Bird seems to be feeling better. It’s not that he had been sick. But he seemed subdued and was licking his fur a lot, enough to leave some bare spots.

He wouldn’t eat the hypoallergenic food, so taking that route to see if he had a food allergy didn’t pan out.

We are sticking to a few tried and true foods that don’t upset his stomach.

Larry and I have both noticed that he seems to be licking less. Fur is growing back in.

And he is playing more. I love to see (and hear) him galloping around chasing a stuffed mouse or other toy. He likes us to throw the toy out ahead of him so he can chase it and catch it.

I hope he has settled into his new life enough to feel less stressed. He is such a sweet boy.

Chase Bird snoozing.

Two

Can you stand me writing about basketball a little more? Virginia plays Michigan State tonight in the NCAA college basketball Sweet 16. Michigan State will be a formidable foe, but I am hoping Virginia will win. Go ‘Hoos!

Three

I got a haircut on Thursday. Larry had an appointment, and we see the same stylist. We were going to Lynchburg together—I had a doctor’s appointment—and I suddenly got an urge to do something with the shaggy mop I had been sporting. So I called up Jenny, who said she could fit me in.

She just trimmed it and cut some layers around my face. I want to keep it long enough to put up and braid.

She made it look so much better. I wish she could show up at my house every morning and style my hair for me.

I took a couple of selfies to try to show you the newer look, but they didn’t turn out well enough to share. I’ll blame it on the cell phone.

A random photo of Larry walking along the Staunton River in early February.

Four

My doctor’s appointment was at 12:15. The doctor called me back at 1:15.

When I arrived, I was told he was running behind about 40 minutes. Could I wait? Yes, I told them. I came too far not to wait.

It takes me 45 minutes to drive to his office. That’s not terrible, but it’s in an out-of-the-way part of Lynchburg and the traffic to get there can be heavy.

He was running more than 40 minutes behind, obviously, but my irritation was outweighed by the fact that he’s a terrific doctor.

But I set my next appointment in the morning. I’ll be his second appointment of the day. He can’t be too far behind by then.

Five

My doctor and I discussed several options to try to combat my tiredness. One of them is to take my depression medicine in the evenings instead of the mornings.

Seems simple enough, and I’m anxious to see if I notice a difference.

I usually take my medicine right after I get up in the morning. But an hour or two after I get up, I have been experiencing such fatigue that I feel like I could go right back to bed. I’ve wondered if it was the medicine, since I take a higher than usual dose.

I also don’t sleep well at night. I wake up every one or two hours.

So I hope to see good results from this small change. I’ll be working on some other changes, too, that I hope to share about soon.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Good Fences

Happy Thursday! Today I am joining Theresa (TexWis Girl) at The Run*A*Round Ranch Report for Good Fences, a fence photo meme.

Theresa was inspired to name the meme after a line in Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall”: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Visit Theresa’s blog out HERE to join in!

This is our rail fence on one side of our property. In this photo, the fence seems to be surrounded by deep winter. But it was taken just this week during a spring snow.

The fence doesn’t do a lot to keep anything out or in, but I’ve always liked the look of wooden rail fences.

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A snowy day in spring

March 25, 2014, side yard outside our house

The weather forecasters were calling for an inch or less in Central/Southside Virginia areas on Tuesday. We got more.

So here’s a look at probably the last snow here (but who knows?) until next winter.

March 25, 2014, trees on our street

You can tell I like the look of snow on trees. My camera lens just pulls my eye in their direction.

March 25, 2014, front yard of our house

March 25, 2014, tree on Main Street, Altavista

You know how I love snow. But we’ve had a lot of warm days lately, and it is almost April. So while I enjoyed walking in the snow Tuesday, it’s OK with me if it’s the last of the season.

As we welcome spring, let’s look back one more time. What was the most fun thing you did this past winter?

My weekend and habits

Sunday was a rainy day, but I wanted to get some pictures of the daffodils anyway.

The daffodils that came with the house—we didn’t plant them—are at the edge of the yard where the woods begin. They bloom every year and are an early reminder that spring has arrived.

I haven’t taken pictures of anything lately. On Saturday night, as I planned the next day out loud, I mentioned getting some photos of the flowers. Larry reminded me that it was supposed to rain.

I’ll go out before the rain, I said.

Sunday morning I slept in, and it was raining before I finished my shower and got dressed. I decided I wasn’t going to change my plans.

I held the camera close to my body and shielded it the best I could. The rain wasn’t coming down hard. It didn’t feel like a gentle spring rain, though, because the air had a cold bite to it. Winter hasn’t fully let go.

I got my photos of the flowers, and then came inside. I left my camera sitting out of its case, letting any dampness evaporate.

One reason I didn’t want the rain to get in the way of my plans was because I’ve been letting too much get in the way of my plans lately. Procrastination and lack of motivation—are they the same? Whatever they are, they’ve been visiting me lately. Again.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I sometimes struggle with procrastination. It’s not fun. So I do what I can to fight it. I try to get one thing done. Then another. Then another. Step by step.

I also try to remember what I did experience. I didn’t do a lot of work this weekend. But the weekend held inspiration and love.

Larry and I attended the funeral of the former mayor of our town, our Rudy Burgess that I wrote about last week. It was a sad event, of course, and also a spiritually uplifting one. As I said last week, Rudy was a person who inspires me to be better.

Larry and I spent some fun time together watching basketball. Sunday’s Virginia game was the focus, but we got interested in a couple of other games over the weekend. It’s funny how you can know nothing about the two teams playing, and yet you pick out a favorite and cheer for them like you’re a real fan.

I finished reading a good book, Mad River, by John Sandford.

And I got my pictures of the daffodils.

What did you experience this weekend?