Wanna smell fabulous? Bundle herbs for hen health. =)

Isn't this what everyone does on a Saturday?

Making bug-repelling herb sachets, and herb leaf mixes,

to festoon my chickens' abode.

Sage, mint, lavender, rosemary, & garlic cloves

are allegedly useful in this regard.

Sachets are posted at the nest boxes and doors,

and sundry herb leaves and cloves

are scattered in the next boxes & on the floor.

This year I bought & planted lavender, rosemary, oregano, and dill.

Goal = a steady supply of herbs for us and the chickens.

'Course, now I'm getting greedy & want more, more, MORE!
And someone down the street has 2 huge bay trees abutting the road,
so REALLY want to pluck a few leaves from there...

Will keep you posted.

And chickens & myself scented beautifully.

xobb

I wanna' live! And other thoughts on the flu

 
I'll post something normal once I'm better enough that checking e-mail isn't disorienting.

Just moments ago I looked at the list of messages in my inbox. And stared.

"Uh...how do I do this? Which one do I read first? The bold ones, right? And why are they wiggling?"

Eating 2 meals in 3 days is NOT good for your IQ. Or your eyesight, apparently.

FYI, if you find yourself in your undies, curled up in the fetal position on bathroom tile at 3 a.m., and then ask (between moans and "ow"s) for a pillow and a blanket, you are not well.

This is the first time the flu has ever scared me. I can see how it's killed so many people.

Jeeze.

So teetering around the house today, trying to get re-oriented to my life. Not exaggerating.

Had to ask Bear yesterday "When was I really sick, was it last night?" "No, the night before." "Oh." I really had no idea. That's a new symptom.

I feel like I must have fried some brain cells, 'cause I keep not knowing what to do.

"What do I usually do when I'm getting over the flu?"
(p.s. imagine long pauses between each thought, with NOTHING in between. Just dead air = bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
"Should I nap?"
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Make toast?"
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Do the dishes?"
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Plant lettuce?"
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Annnd she stares out the window. For a while. Then gets a glass of water. Hooray!

The one thing I do know I should not do is work. This brain is not in any state to edit other conscious people's text. If they had eaten within 24 hours of writing their papers they're way ahead of me.

xo

bb

p.s. Case in point, 1st draft of last sentence above I wrote "paper's"!!! I committed the ever-more-popular writing tic of adding apostrophes everywhere possible and completely unnecessary (as in your basic plural). My #1 pet peeve, of late. Not well.
p.p.s. And "dead air" took me 5 minutes to come up with.
"Blank air?" bzzzz "Flat air?" bzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Blank air?" bzzzzzzzzz "Flat air??" bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

medulla oblongata -- animated!!!

  

Okay, how much do I love the internet?? This is FREE.

The red area is the medulla oblongata.

Images are generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB).

[CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)],

via Wikimedia Commons

Per the Wiki:
"The medulla oblongata is the lower half of the brainstem.

The medulla contains the cardiac, respiratory, vomiting and vasomotor centers and deals with autonomic, involuntary functions, such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure."

"The medulla transmits signals between the spinal cord and the higher parts of the brain" (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

So, the next time you are, shall we say,
"rejecting" your last meal,
you feel like a helpless, base,
sweaty mammal-creature,

it's because you are.

The medulla oblongata made you do it.

You are one in a long line of helpless vertebrates
trying not to die
from some horrible thing you ate
in the simplest, most direct of ways.

get
it
out

The m.o. is involved in basic physical sensations,
movement, complex issues like
"am I still standing upright?"
"...breathing?"
"...heart beating?"

Doesn't get a lot more basic than that.


In other words,
as my husband says upon occasion,
imitating a cave man,

urh!

This is actually above the level of discourse possible
with an m.o. Well above.

So, perhaps you could think of your time
in the involuntary throws of chemical rejection
as bonding with your ancestors
from tens of thousands of years ago.

Probably a lot longer than that.

And be grateful that today we better understand what can make us sick (say, for example, a mass produced fast food burger made from 1400 different cows?) than our caveman ancestors could (tho' they had precious little access to mass-produced food), so are better equipped to avoid such things.

Whether we do it, or not. =)

In celebration, I think I'm gonna to eat some yogurt
with fresh fruit and toasted walnuts.
And another 10,000 cherries.

Photo by Peggy Greb for the United States Department of Agriculture

Agricultural Research Service

mmm...

Summer fruit good.

urh!


xoxo

biobabbler

P.S. DING DING DING DING!!! Congratulations to Laura K and Emma for smarty pants answers to this vocabulary quiz, and to Cindy for cracking me up (I bet she knew, too, just was overcome by her desire to amuse, thank heaven =) ). I highly recommend visiting the vocab quiz comments to see their answers. =)

thank heaven my doctor has good taste...

May have to temporarily change my name to biohobbler.

Went to doctor’s office today to have him check out my ankle. Happily they shoved me into his packed schedule. Kind of them.

I must say he has the BEST magazines. Read Smithsonian (African lions, as studied by researcher based deep in Midwest) in the waiting room, and was devouring an article on the potential secession of Greenland (aided by global warming, interestingly enough) in Outside mag. when my doctor arrived.

The conclusion is a sprain of some sort of an ankle tendon, no x-ray needed, and that if I keep up the RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) action and up my ibu a bit, I can at least TRY snowshoeing this weekend, as long as I “have an exit strategy.” I said we’d be bringing sleds…he smiled, and escaped to his other 99 patients.

Nothing like a quick trip to the doctor to make you grateful for your health. Invariably there are people there with MUCH bigger health issues to make me feel grateful.

Plus, they took my blood pressure and it was 110 over 60. SWEET! I actually said that out loud when the nurse told me. I wonder why they tell you your blood pressure but never say your weight or pulse? Is there a reason for that?

Anyhow, hoping for the best, and have surfed web for extra pair of snowshoes to buy to complete our set. LOVE the MSR snowshoes—a-MA-zingly easy to use. I’ve never needed the fins ‘cause the snow out here is so heavy and wet, but we’ll buy them just in case.

Oh, and I’ll bring my camera for SURE so I can show you the Sierran snow and skies.

xoxo biobabbler

P.S. 2 days ago chased either a sharp-shinned or a Cooper's hawk out of the garden. I believe it was going for the little birds there, not my chicken, but nevertheless, continued my "cursed varmint!" vigilance. Cool bird to see, though...