THANK FOR READING MY CHECK IN
The further I get from the call center Hell, the more i see signs of improving mental health. At the height of my despair I was self medicating by eating an entire pint of ice cream every day just to get a taste of the seratonin and dopamine that was being consumed by trauma. That is how I gained 50 pounds during the lockddown. I made the concious decision to not care about weight gain. I decided that during the apocalypse, with a plague, climate change, rampant local white supremacist...etc, that if obesity was going to kill me, well, it needs to take a number and get in line.
I realized this morning that it has been months since I have eaten an entire pint of ice cream. I did have some, but just a taste, then I put the rest back into the freezer where it remains in touched.
I said to Sam, "Let's grow old and fat together." He readily agreed, so I said, "yay! I'll start!"
I think my overall diet has vastly improved too, now that I've got more time than 30 minutes exactly to prepare and eat my lunch. I was on a strict diet of microwaved processed meals at lunch and only those ghat required less than 5 minutes to heat.
Not being able to snack was one of my least favorite things about working the phones instead of chats and emails.
Now that I'm out and about anyway, I can have anything I can afford for lunch. My regular diet is Safeway sushi. It's affordable, fresh, and tasty. With the sushi I have kombucha or mate to drink and a combination of fruits. I eat so much more fruit than I ever have because I stopped being hung up on paying a bit extra to just be able to dig in. No peeling, cutting or dealing with the gooey seedy part of a honeydew, or leftover watermelon that goes bad while taking valuable realestate in the fridge. Mangoes are consumed daily, a legit childhood dream come true. Sam eats pineapple and strawberries every day.
I cannot eat the acidic fruits anymore. If i try to enjoy fresh citrus, strawberries, kiwis or pineapples, i get blisters in my mouth.
Speaking of fruit, I've added to my backyard orchard. The cherry tree is huge and makes lots of bird treats every year. The asian pear and grafted plum trees are mature and established after all these years. I have tried and tried to graft the peach and persimmon that were broken down to the rootstock without success and am resigned to cutting them down and replanting new trees in their place. I'm not sure the locations are still viable. When I planted the peach and persimmon, there were no other trees there to shade them. But now the mullberrerries and plum shade those spots and I'm not sure theres enough light. I woll take down the two though just to free up the resources for the others.
The new pear tree I put in last year got broken. I have replaced it with a Comice last week Those are the ones Harry and Davids takes the best of for their gift boxes. The imperfect ones go to retailers.
I also put in a 4 in 1 apple tree. My Honeycrisp had it's bark mostly eaten by rabbits. It will neither thrive or die. The new tree has Gravenstien, Macintosh, Fuji, and Galas.
Last fall planted two chestnuts and two almonds paired together for pollination.they are not three feet tall yet, and seem to have wintered over fine. The fig also did not die back the ground like it's done for the last 5 winters and is a good sized shrub.
The mulberry I planted to replace the one that suprised me by regrowing after a three year dormancy is a great bearer of fruit. It has to compete with the other because they are planted in basically the same place. The original tree is a contorted variety that is ungrafted and will always come back true. It's twisty, bendy branches are lovely and i dont want to try to remove it. We'll see who wins out I guess.
I'm going to stop here because I need to get to work. Thank you for readi g my farm report.
Here's a duck butt for you.
