I've Been Having Health Issues

 Do you remember how, in late March, DH and I went on a vacation to Arizona in which we hiked and hiked and did trails that were pretty much rock scrambles way more than flat, easily traversed surfaces?  

I do!  Mainly because my abilities then are a stark contrast to what I'm physically capable of now, a bit more than 7 months later.  Over the course of the summer and fall, I've gotten increasingly shorter of breath, easily fatigued, and prone to random strange muscle cramps (like the muscle that connects your upper arm to the back of your elbow--the muscle that you never hear of cramping.  Or the ones that are in your torso so that it feels like your ribs themselves are knotting up??)

In the beginning of the summer, we had several weeks of 'poor air quality' days.  Which is a term I've never heard applied to Michigan, in all of my 51 years of life.  Boy, did I feel those 'bad air' days.  Couldn't walk 25 yards without starting to cough.  Climbing one flight of stairs would elicit the same reaction.

Prior to that, I'd noticed that I was somewhat slower in doing tasks (such as stall cleaning), than I had been the previous summer.  Not significantly, just maybe an extra 15-20 minutes over the course of ten stalls.  But, I figured I was just, you know, getting older.  Being over 50 now and all.  And everyone was a little more short of breath and slowed down on the days you could practically taste the wildfire smoke in the air.

Except soon it wasn't just shortness of breath. Because even on days where the air was wonderfully normal,  DH and I would be working outside on fencing (or another project) and I couldn't lift and carry things that were normally not a problem for me to pick up and tote around.  Hold this heavy thing in position while DH fastened it?  Forget it, and watch your toes, because I just dropped it.  Hold this pair of pliers and untwist that wire?  Nope, and why the hell am I randomly losing my grip and the pliers are just nose diving out of my hands?!?  Why is working in the summer heat making me light headed?  I've worked in 90+ degree temps wearing jeans and boots for decades during Michigan summers, why am I feeling spacy at barely 80 degrees and a tank top and shorts?

Went to the doctor in late June for a physical.  Had bloodwork drawn.  My A1c is just barely over normal (I'd been off the diabetes meds and handling it just fine via diet and watching my carbs for 2+ years). So that wasn't the reason for my weird body troubles.

My iron levels, well, they were 'low', the doctor said (which has been an issue for me off and on the last 12 years or so), and it was recommended I go back on an iron supplement.  In hindsight, I wish I'd known then that 'low' was closer to 'this is bad' than 'meh, it's just a fraction of a percent lower than the normal human female'.  I wouldn't have dinked around all summer trying to find an iron supplement.

Because this time, I couldn't get a prescription for the iron supplement I'd been on last time my iron was low; apparently because that strength of iron is now readily available over the counter.  Didn't matter that that particular prescription iron was the only one I'd found that didn't affect my bowels in an excessively loose way.  I tried a couple over the counter brands again, and had really negative results.  Called the dr's office and they said sorry, try taking it every other day instead of daily.  So I tried another brand, and another, and then for about a month I said "F*** it, I'm not taking any because I can't live on the toilet".  So I didn't take any until I found yet another OTC brand, that I hadn't tried yet.

Then I finally got back in to see my doctor in October, told her of all the issues with fatigue and weird muscle cramps and loss of grip and shortness of breath and even light headedness that were still going on, some to a greater magnitude than they had been in June.  She ordered more bloodwork, with a few 'new' tests.

Apparently my iron has dropped to a big red flag level.  And looking at those new tests, some of which were never ordered before, prompted the Dr to order even more tests.  WHY?!? IS HER IRON SO LOW?!? being the underlying theme.  

Good news, all of the blood tests for cancer markers have come back normal.  My white blood cells are normal.  My 'ability to uptake iron' came back normal, whatever that means and however they figure that out from looking at blood. On the other hand, my red blood cells are 'microcytic' (smaller than they should be) and some have abnormal shapes, and there seems to be a higher percentage of 'immature' red blood cells than you should normally have.  We still haven't figured out why.  At least the doctor has submitted a request for me to be allowed to have the prescription iron again (the one that doesn't blow my gut up so I can actually leave the house), because I obviously must have some iron ingested on a daily basis.  Haven't heard back yet if that's been approved.  Meanwhile, I'm again trying yet another brand of over the counter iron in the strength I need (which doesn't come in 'gentle').  Also discussing the possibility of getting an iron infusion because it would be really bad if my iron continues to drop (it's that super low), and because I'm not just physically incapable of doing the majority of the things I normally do/need to do, this inability is beginning to really wear on me mentally.  And I ain't taking anxiety/depression meds when it's the iron issue that is the underlying cause of my problems. 

This is part of the reason our building project for the summer (fencing and horse stalls) has taken way longer than planned.  And why my garden went to weeds right around the middle of July.  Because I just physically cannot do the work. And why I told DD1 that I just couldn't babysit on a regular basis this school year (and have had to guiltily still tell her sorry, no, on a few 'emergency' babysitting type situations--when either she or Honorary Son ended up having to take a day off work because there was no babysitter available). If I push myself, I end up basically in bed for half of the following day because I am so worn out.  Or I get horrible muscle cramps.  Or so spacey that DH (and me too) is afraid I'm going to keel over. I haven't done nearly the work with my horse this summer that I'd planned on doing because of the days I haven't had the breath or the strength to safely work with her.

There's another test being done in a few weeks.  I'm really hoping it will show us the root cause of this iron problem, and then we can know an appropriate way to fix it, even if it means a surgery or regular infusions of iron for the rest of my life.  The band-aid approach--take an iron pill that's going to turn your gut contents to high pressured mush and here, if you're down in the dumps because you feel like an invalid we can add a mood stabilizer--that's been the method employed by doctors for the last dozen years and especially this summer obviously isn't resolving the source of the issue.

Fingers crossed that I'll be up to normal iron levels, and my normal 'balls to the wall' activity level, in early 2024.

Apples Everywhere!

 This year was a great year for apples.  My apple trees were loaded, my daughter's apple tree was loaded, everyone I know with an apple tree (or several) said their trees were loaded.

So, since about the middle of September, I've been picking apples, using apples, storing apples.  And I can't keep up with al the apples!  If it weren't for the fact that the chickens and the rabbits and deer and other wildlife at this little place here also love to eat apples, I'd feel rather bad about not being able to take care of every single apple on my trees.   This Fall is just too busy with projects and other things (like picking up DS1's kids after school on days he has appointments after he gets off work--he works first shift.  And emergency babysitting Buck--a 9 hour day--when his regular babysitter has gotten sick; or Buck himself is sick.)

This year, I'm doing what I can handle, and just not allowing any guilt to creep in (from myself or anyone else) over the apples I just can't handle.  They'll get eaten, just maybe not by humans.  I did, briefly, think about putting and ad on Facebook or Craigslist for anyone looking for apples and getting them into the hands of humans.  But you know what?  I don't have time to deal with answering an ad, setting up times for people to come u-pick, making sure strangers aren't coming by my house at times that aren't good for me--like if I'm gone babysitting unexpectedly, or dealing with any of that.  I certainly don't have time to pick them and transport them to food pantries or soup kitchens (which honestly aren't all that prevalent in my immediate vicinity).  So the wildlife get what me and my family don't get to.

Meanwhile, there's been apple crisps and apple pies for desserts.  Fresh hot chunky applesauce with meals. Apples for snacks. Applesauce canned, and still more apple sauce to be canned.  Apple juice yet to be made, and, hopefully someday soon, apple rings dehydrated into apple chips (which is a process that consumes more hours than I so far have foreseen being home to keep an eye on the dehydrator on any given day.)

MacIntosh from September

More MacIntosh in early October

Cortlands and Red Delicious in October

Granny Smith in late October

The Yarn Thief 'helping' me pick apples.

Thankfully the weather is cool enough now, but not below freezing yet, that I can just let those approximately 3 bushel of apples sit in my garage and wait for me to get to them a bit at a time.

Sewing and Stitching Update, November

 Since the last sewing and stitching update, I have sewn nothing.  Not one thing.  I had thought I would, but it didn't end up working out that way.  My time has been spent on other, more pressing things.  After all, it's not close enough to Christmas yet to say "I must stay in and sew on this good weather day."  And even on not good weather days there's been other things to fill my time. 

Did I at least get some stitching done?  Yes, a bit.  I finished the back-stitching on the Cardinal Santa I've been cross stitching, and I began doing the beading. Not much beading, because that requires good natural lighting, and, well, on good sunny days I've been not in the house.

We've been making progress on other things, and they'll have their own posts later, but I still kinda feel like I'm not using my time well (because, man, I really want to sew some stuff, and get the beading finished on this Santa!)  Although with firearm deer season coming up (opening day is a week away!) I know I'll be in the woods, not at my sewing machine, until November is over.

Some Frugal Things Lately

In October, I did some fairly good on money-saving things, even though with our 'finish the horse barn' project it feels like we've been hemorrhaging money since Summer began.

The biggie was paying off our 2017 truck.  Whew!  I so hate having loans, and DH was adamant that because the interest rate on this was pretty much lower than any other loans we carried (mortgage, credit card, etc), we were just going to make the regular payments and not pay extra on this one (so we might be able to pay a little more on something else each month).  So, to me, it felt like we had this loan forever.  And now, finally, we've made the last payment.  Which means starting in November we have all that much more cash to roll into paying off the higher interest rate things.  

I had a very successful trip to Goodwill in early October.  Things I found there: 

• Fabric!  Normally I don't have much success with finding sewing fabric, but this time I came home with a 4 yd piece of quilting cotton for  $4.99,  a 2 yd piece of quilting cotton for $1.99, and 2 yds of flannel for $4.99.
• Duplo bucket in excellent condition for $5.29; missing a few of the pieces listed on the bucket, but had many extra pieces not shown.  After consulting with DD1 she said she didn't care it wasn't totally brand new, so I bought it to be a Christmas present for Buck.  This is the size and type of bucket that was $9.99 brand new 20 years ago.  Brand new now, they are definitely out of my price range of one item for a grandkid.
• 2 dress shirts for DH that look like they've never been worn (maybe bought just before covid for a guy that hasn't had to go into the office in person since?) $5.29/each
• 4 books like new (will give as gifts to grandkids) priced at 2/$2.29

Other successful grandkid related deals I scored in October were 40% off kinetic sand (birthday present for Faline) and 50% off kids waterproof mittens (presents for Faline and Rascal).

I gave DH a haircut, which is the only way he's had his hair done in something like 25 years.  I have no idea what a man's haircut costs these days.  Wish I could talk him into trimming mine, because I really hate paying to have it trimmed an inch or two twice a year.

A big money saving thing was that we were able to price match t-post caps online for $7 per 10-pack savings over buying in-store locally (needed 20 packs).  That made our horse fencing project cost $140 less, which is about equivalent to the price of an 8-foot metal gate for a pasture

My pumpkins in the garden were a complete crop failure this year.  I was rather bummed out about not having pumpkins for the grandkids to pick for their jack-o-lanterns at Halloween.  Turned out they didn't mind going somewhere else for a pumpkin.  I thought I was okay with being personallhy pumpkin-less, but about 10 days before Halloween I decided I was going to spend $5 and get a pumpkin from one of the small farm stands nearby.

For $5, it was actually a nice sized pumpkin.  A little flat on one side, and slightly tilted on the round side, but a good deal.  To make it an even better deal, I came up with the idea of carving two faces into it, saving the cut pieces and cooking them down.

So, I was able to enjoy having a jack-o-lantern, and ended up with exactly enough cooked pumpkin from the eyes, noses, and mouths, to put in the freezer to make a pumpkin pie with for Thanksgiving!

two faces

Having the pumpkin carved the way I did it actually worked really well for putting it at the top of the stairs to my front porch.  Going up the stairs you saw one face, and when you stood on the porch, you saw the other.  I just might carve all my pumpkins that way in future years.

Knitting Update, November

My Traveling Woman shawl is finished!  (Except for the blocking). Boy, am I glad I did stripes, otherwise I would have been sweating it playing yarn chicken for sure. Plus, I like the effect they make.

I really like this shawl (and so does Rascal, who wanted me to wrap him up in it when he saw that it was off my needles.)  I think I'm going to like it even more after it's blocked and the lace opens up a bit and is more pronounced.

Truer to actual colors.

After working on that through the whole summer, I am a little at a loss for what to knit next.  Being November is here all ready, I feel like I should cast on for Christmas knits.  To be honest, though, I don't have any knit gifts planned.  A few quickie sewing things for the grandkids, but no knits.

I have been wanting an ear warmer for myself, for when it's not so cold that I want a hat, but I do want to keep my ears from freezing. So I downloaded the pattern for the cozy cable knitted warmer and made one for myself out of some bulky yarn that's been in my stash a few years.  Only once I was done with it, I realized that, being purple, DD1 would probably love to have it.  Luckily, there was plenty of yarn left on the skein, so I knit a second one for her.  And there was still a bit of yarn left, so I knit one for Faline (who is really into being like Mommy or like  Daddy, depending on the day).  I ended up with three completed ear warmers and only about 9" of yarn to spare!

warm ears for Faline, DD1 and myself

It didn't take long at all to make the ear warmers; maybe three short evenings of TV watching.  And now I'm again wondering what's the best thing to cast on next??  

--An afghan that's been on my list for a while (and could be a present to someone in 2024)?  

--A pair of socks (although I know my mom is going to be requesting socks for herself, made with yarn she has chosen, for February)?

--Some extra hats to have on hand for grandkids this winter?  

--Some dishcloths to replenish my dwindling stock?

Changing the subject from knitting to reading, I've apparently not read much recently.  I didn't finish the Rick Rubin book I listed last month, although I did read Meet the Frugalwoods all the way through. 

Right now I'm about halfway through Mocha, She Wrote by Ellie Alexander.  Overall, I'm enjoying the storyline.  There are some typographical/editorial errors that I've noticed though, and that's something that detracts from my opinion of the book.  Nothing huge, just a pet peeve of mine.

Success Out West

 Elk hunting is something DH talked about wanting to do for many, many years. How many, many? At least 25. When he was a very young child, his father and uncle and some friends of theirs would occasionally go out West and go hunting.  Apparently that made a big impression on him; and, when his dad died when DH was only 24, DH inherited his dad's hunting rifle.  I didn't know it at the time, but back then DH set a goal for himself: to one day harvest an elk with his dad's rifle.

In 2021, for the first time, DH had the opportunity to go out to Colorado and go elk hunting.  So he did.  And he came back empty handed, with the desire to go again in the future.

In 2022, DH again went to Colorado and went elk hunting.  He didn't get an elk, in fact he didn't even hardly see any elk, but he was able to harvest a mule deer (the owner of the land he was hunting on had permits for mule deer, so DH bought one of his permits.) He was really happy about the mule deer, but he still wanted to harvest an elk.

This year, DH again went to Colorado (to that same land owner's property) and went elk hunting.  This year, he returned home with an elk!

As elk go, it wasn't a huge one, but it was decent sized. It's what they call a five-by-four: five antler points on one side, and four on the other.

Success!

Even being not a giant elk, it is a whole lot of meat!  DH quartered it, and brought it home packed in dry ice in two enormous coolers.  And then he and I spent probably somewhere in the vicinity of 10 hours over four days (around work and meeting schedules) getting it all deboned, cut, and packaged for the freezer.

We forgot to weigh the meat before putting it in the freezer, so not sure of the total yield, but one hind quarter alone gave us 16 packages of steaks, and we ground over 50 pounds of burger!  The day after DH got home from Colorado, we had three of four kids and all the grandkids over for an elk steak dinner (so that meat never got weighed either, as it didn't even make it into packages for the freezer). He also made a batch of elk jerky in the smoker out of at least two pounds.  As a rough estimate, DH thinks we ended up with a minimum of 150 pounds of meat.  Our freezers are full, for sure!

In addition to the jerky, steaks, stew meat, tenderloins, backstraps and elk burger we have, DH also made a 15-pound batch of elk summer sausage.  It's delicious! In the picture below, notice the slice of sausage; we of course had to sample it while getting the majority of it vacuum sealed for freezing.

DH is very excited about his dream of shooting an elk with his dad's rifle finally coming true. Twenty-nine years in the making. And I'm really glad about all the meat in the freezer!

Flowers For in the House

 I like flowers. But I've never really had them in my house on a regular basis. We're just not 'buy flowers' people.  I can count on one finger how many times DH has bought me (cut) flowers in our 30 years of marriage.  I can count on one hand how many times, in that 30 years, that I've bought myself (cut) flowers.

Last year I started thinking that I'd like to have a vase of flowers in my house on a fairly regular basis during the summer time.  Not year round, just the summer time, because that meant I could get my bouquets for next to nothing by growing them myself.

This year I consciously planted a few types of flowers that make good cut flowers.  I also tried to be more aware of what I all ready had growing around this little place here that could be cut and brought inside.

Like the peonies that have bloomed reliably for 20 years (funny thing; I brought the crowns with me from our previous house when we built this little place here.  Those peonies had rarely bloomed at the other house in the 7 years we owned it--they came with the house.  Didn't like the amount of sun--or lack of it--there I guess.)

There are also tulips and daffodils that, planted years ago, come up annually.  Well, the daffodils do.  The tulips have been decreasing in recent years; probably because the deer have gotten bolder and actually come up right by the house and eat the tulips down to the ground as soon as they send up buds.  Doesn't leave much greenery to feed the bulbs for the following year.

Then there's the miscellaneous perennials I've tried to get established out at the rock wall between the lawn and the garden.  This year I was able to make a couple bouquets out of bee balm, prairie coneflower, brown eyed Susan's (I know they're black-eyed, but my grandma was a Susan who had brown eyes, so my family has always called they brown eyed), daylily, plus some Queen Anne's lace, volunteer sunflowers and the earliest zinnias.

Last year I ordered some dahlia tubers from a fundraiser a friend of mine was participating in.  They're a little higher maintenance than my other flowers, having to be lifted in the Fall and replanted in the Spring, but not too terribly difficult to grow.  And I do like the big blooms they have!

I bought a packet of zinnia seeds and a packet of cosmos seeds and planted them in a couple of spots in the garden.  Not only do they attract lots of pollinators (good for the veggie yield), they also bloom for months until a hard frost kills them.

This summer I've been cutting bouquets of zinnia and cosmos weekly, as well as inviting family members to cut their own bouquet to take home when they are here visiting.  They've been a big hit.  DH has even mentioned planting a wide swath of them on the edge of the field, out near the road, in the future.  And he's not a flower kind of person!

We had a good, hard frost here on Sunday night, so now the flowers are done until next year (except the hardy mums, but I don't use those for cut flowers).  Looking forward to more 'free' bouquets to beautify my house next summer.