Gardening Success!

It took two good days of two person gardening, but our front yard now officially looks like it belongs to real people. It took 60 bales of pine needles to cover the whole area (and we probably could have used 70, coverage is a little thin in some areas). All the privet hedges got planted, weeds (including two saplings) got pulled, over all a great success.

Don't get me wrong, it still needs work. We need to find something to replace the monkey grass down at the bottom of the hill, where it is not doing so well in 'the swamp'. We're testing out two small 'willow' shrubs to see how they fare in that area. The azaleas are questionable. And I am currently on the war path against inchworms in my shrubs. If they want to eat the trees or the weeds, fine. I'd even be ok with them eating the azaleas. But not my new to-be  hedge. A sparing and localized treatment of pesticide seems to have deterred them for the moment. I don't like using pesticide, but I also don't like watching tiny worms eat a fairly substantial investment in time and money. I'm using it as a stopgap until I can get my hands on some Bt pesticide--kills any insect that eats my leaves, none that don't, harmless to non-bugs and becomes inert after a week of sunshine.

In other news, I've learned that gardening and in general being outside in my yard right now requires some clever use of scarves. Bandanas make for great improvised dust masks when spreading pine needles...

And makes me look like classical music loving old-west bandit

And my old tichels make for great inchworm barriers. There is few things more creepy than an inchworm in my hair.

Tichels--really really big bandanas with prettier patterns

I'm fairly certain I look a bit out of place in my neighborhood with it on, but that's nothing new, and its worth it to know there are no inchworms landing in my hair.

Overall, a successful weekend.

Surpise Gardening

Our front yard is, quite frankly, a disgrace. We bought our house in winter, so we pardoned the yard for looking dreary. We decided to wait and see what bloomed come spring and summer last year, because everything in North Carolina bursts into bloom eventually. 

Nothing bloomed except one staunch stand of  gladiolas. A variety of weeds sprung up. Dirty got washed away and we got to experience the power of erosion. Dear Husband was able to keep most of the grass mostly alive, but the large 'natural areas' that are nominally my arena were  and are terrible. 

That ugly, scraggly azalea is the only thing that should be there.

Of the green things, pretty much none of it is supposed to be there. 

I have bad luck when it comes to most plants. I killed a mint plant once. You can't kill mint with fire, but I did with my amazing plant-killing powers. 

But I thought I might be able to keep shrubs alive. They are already fairly sturdy when you buy them, so as long as I got ones that weren't too condition picky, I should be fine. I bought a few test shrubs a couple of weeks ago and they have been doing fine. Japanese privet is  perfectly happy in my strange clay-and-rotten-mulch soil.

Yes, clay, like the stuff you make pots out of in art class. 

A little cleaning and firing from a pinch pot. 

Dear Husband has deplored this state for some time, but knowing nothing about gardening, felt he couldn't really do anything about it. 

So while he was at a conference last night and today, I made a couple runs to the Home Dopey, as my dad calls it, or the Home Despot, as my husband calls it. The first run I got 6 japanese privet plants, and on the second run I got 6 more, plus a long handled digging spade, because short handled edging spades are not the tool to attack clay or roots with. 

Penny helped keep me company, and dig test holes for roots and rodents.

Yes, her entire head is underground in that photo. 

I planted 10 of the 12 plants (roots + rain stalled the last two). So now our front  yard looks like this

The plan is to have them grow into a nice hedge to line the driveway and help keep the erosion at bay. These will start the process, and if I like how it's going I'll continue it all along the driveway, which will take another 18 plants or so. The next step will be  to cover everything in a layer of pine needle hay, which will hide/kill the weeds and help the privets grow (fingers crossed). 

Dear Husband will be home from his conference soon, and I can't wait to see the look on his face. 

Hiking

Today is a federal holiday around here, which means that we both had the day off. The weather was (unseasonably) gorgeous, so we decided to take advantage of it and go hiking.

The original plan was to go to Uwharrie National Forest, which Penny and I had been to before. However, a missed turn meant we ended up closer to Morrow Mountain State Park (mountain is a term used loosely around here. And this comes from a defender of the Appalachians as mountains.) So that is where we went.

The trail we chose was the "Sugarloaf" trail, which my mother informed me after the fact is a famous ski mountain in Vermont. Had I known this, I probably would not have been surprised at what the trail entailed.

It started off fairly normal...

Then it started going downhill.

Literally

Penny in Boots

Winter is coming...

which means it is getting cold, wet and dark around here. It makes me glad that I won't have to trek across campus much more in the near future, or stand out in the near-freezing rain waiting for the campus shuttle.

There are some lovely things about this. Baking or cooking has the welcome side effect of warming up the kitchen, and a little of the dining room. Casseroles and stews are back on the menu.  I get to pull out the quilts and afghans that languish in closets so much of the year. 

 I get to watch my dog wear boots. 

If you have never stumbled across the videos of dogs wearing boots for the first time, welcome to the internet, and allow me to assure you they are hilarious. 

Penny is small enough, and has enough chihuahua in her, that the vet recommended we get her boots for when it is cold and wet. We are not doing it because we are mean, but because we want to prevent frostbite. The fact that she is unbelievably funny while wearing them is just a happy side effect (for us). 

She is not exactly happy, but she is pretty docile while you put them on. As soon as you set her free, she is determined not to wear them anymore. The first time we put them on her, she wobbled over to a carpeted area and immediately worked them off. Ditto the second time out.

The third time out was even funnier, because she actually kept them on for a little while. She managed about 10 minutes, intermittently walking funny, just standing there  and trying to get them off.

I'm hoping eventually she stops fighting them, so she can enjoy whatever snow we get this year, and keep jogging even when it is freezing. 

Jogging, Day 6

Just like I said I would, I went jogging today. After yesterday's life-i-ness, all of us woke up feeling a whole lot brighter this morning. If yesterday was the antithesis of relaxing, today was a pretty decent approximation of the ideal. Slept late (7:30 am), made coffee and oat pancakes while my marvelous husband cleaned the bathrooms. Ate breakfast, and did some overviewing of photonics, during which the love of my life made me more coffee. I ran the last of the errands, which didn't get done yesterday, and got in a solid two hours of studying, which both made me feel more confident, and reminded me why I dislike modern optics. At that point, it seemed like the perfect time for a jog.

Who wants to multiply a bunch of these together and then have to plug in the numbers by hand? No one!

It is warm and cloudy today, which is perfect for me. Jogging was easier today, but also more tiring. I found I was breathing easier, but my legs felt tired almost immediately. Not sure if it was the studying, or because I'm just feeling a little off physically, but I definitely felt that burning sensation almost from the get-go. Penny started off strong, but was looking like she just wanted to lie down in the grass by the end.

I'm still debating if I want to up the level of difficulty next week (run 6, walk 2) or stick with what I'm doing now another week (run 5, walk 3). On the one hand, I want to keep the momentum of improvement going. On the other hand, next week is likely to be stressful already, I don't know that it'll be a good week to try to really change anything. I'll have to think about it. 

On the other hand, if it meant I could have more chocolate next week, it might be completely worth it. Ah, optimization problems, how I hate you.

~PhysicsGal

Why I didn't go jogging today...

Today, while I intended to do some studying, I was mostly going to try to relax. I had a few errands to run as I always do, but I don't find food shopping particularly stressful. And then I was going to go jogging like I should. Yeah, that didn't happen.

The first list of errands today was getting Penny up to date on her vaccines. I thought dogs were like cats--rabies and distemper, done. Nope. Also have to get bordetella and leptospirosis vaccines, at least in this part of the country. Now, I don't mind paying for these things. Vaccines are dirt cheap, especially compared to treatment. But I would love someone to explain to me why they can't make concentrated, single vaccines for these things, instead of individual, large doses. The doses they use would be large injection for an adult human, let alone a small dog.

Long story short, I was expecting one injection, Penny would pout for a few hours, and then be back to her old self. Instead,  four injections and she's been lethargic and sad all day.

This is not her natural state. She didn't even perk up at the word 'walk' or the sound of the refrigerator door opening. Usually you have to walk her up and down a small mountain to get this level of not-moving in her. The only time she perked up was when I took her along for the Petsmart run, because she loves to be in my car. If we leave the car and garage doors open, she'll just go hang out in there. Asking her if she wants to go for a ride elicits the same response as asking if she wants to go for a walk. It didn't hurt that the Petsmart people were handing out some kind of new jerky treat sample packs. 

I took her back to the house before doing the weekly grocery shopping. I go the same time every Friday. Its a bit of a drive to the grocery store where I can buy things like almonds in bulk, so I go between lunch rush and school getting out. The store is usually empty. Not today. Today even the usually deserted underground parking deck was packed. The isles were busy. I had to wait at the bulk bins. It was loud. It was not relaxing. 

On the way back, I stopped at the local liquor store to get some B&B for hot toddies in the evening. Walking back to my car, a beat up old van, blaring hip hop of some kind, driven by two middle aged white guys who had clearly started the weekend early, drove into the parking lot. They wolf whistled (or tried too) and then shouted at me that I looked Amish, they liked my dress. I thanked them (what else can you do?)  and left. For the record, while I do have some clothes that are Amish-esque, I was wearing a sundress from Kohl's that is not remotely Amish. 

To top off my weird, not relaxing errand run, driving home a new commercial popped up, touting Bojangle's 'master biscuit makers' by asking if you've ever heard of a master bagel maker, and declaring that you haven't because it takes no skill to make bread with a hole in it. I couldn't take it. I started yelling at the radio, even though it had moved onto a car commercial. Bagels are not the same as bread. Bagels are boiled, then baked and there is a great deal of skill to making a good one. You can't even get one down here. They don't exist outside of the NY tri-state area. Do not mock bagels if you have never had one. And it takes zero skill to make biscuits from a mix. 

Getting back from all this, I decided to put off jogging for a day. Penny is still just lying there. I don't feel all that chipper, and it is threatening rain. I know it's a bad to break routine, but it just wasn't going to work today. 

If I can understand photonic bandgaps before I go to bed tonight though, I'll still count this day as a win. 

~PhysicsGal

Jogging: Day 5

Day 5 of jogging is complete. Although I am glad I did it, I can't say it was as enjoyable as previous days, mostly because I went into it already feeling not tip-top. I learned my lesson--never go to Starbucks anywhere near peak hours if you need something non-standard, and just don't if they are training newbies. Normally I like newbies. But this one ignored the 'sugar free' part of my order, which I only realized after I had had a few sips and was noticing the lack of aftertaste. Then saw that the markings did not specify sugar free like it usually does. I felt really good for about 15 minutes. Then really fuzzy.

So today was not as nice, but I did it, and that makes it worth it. I may stick at this level for an extra week until I feel really comfortable with it. It will also let me devote my energies to my qualifying exam, which is now 9 days away! Gulp. And you know what? I can do that, because I'm not training for a race, I'm just trying get more exercise. Even taking another week at run 5, walk 3, I"ll still be running 2 miles start to finish by Thanksgiving.

Jogging, Day 4

So week two of my jogging experiment began, despite threatening rain. The plan I had worked out over the weekend was to run 5 houses, walk 3, repeat for the 2 miles. My idea is to keep shifting a house from the walking portion to the running portion until I'm just running, and then increase the length of the run. Weirdly, my legs seemed to ache from not-running on Sunday, so I wasn't sure what was going to happen today.

It was fine. My legs were feeling it by the end, and after 5 houses I was a little winded, but I was ready to go again after walking for 3. And again, it felt good. I don't get it. I've never enjoyed exercise that wasn't long distance walking in my life. Maybe because I'm doing it at my own pace, instead of a pace someone else set? Setting? Penny? Instant reward? No idea, but I'm going to run with it (pun completely intended)

Another plus--Penny was tuckered out  by the end, but not before. After doing our usual post-jog routine of water and frozen blueberries, I went to my study to write this (and then study), and she came up stairs and fell asleep.

She likes to sleep on blanket piles when I have some to spare.

She has a sixth sense for when her human is taking pictures of her. She'll wake up enough to give me a look, and then goes straight back to sleep.

One ear just a little more alert for camera noises.

Jogging, Day 3

Today completes my first week of jogging. Yay!

I confess, I almost didn't try to day. It was hot. I was tired. My legs were still a little sore from Wednesday and walking 6 miles in the heat yesterday. "I'll do it Saturday" I tried to tell myself. "No you wont." myself countered. "You're painting the last bathroom, and there is no way you'll want to do it after that. Plus, it'll feel good. And maybe," here's the kicker "you could have a little bit of bread"

The first advantage to having PCOS-insulin resistance that I have found. I get to see *immediate* results from aerobic exercise. Exercise temporarily increasing your insulin sensitivity, and the effect, at least in early studies in non-obese subjects, is roughly quadrupled if you are on what researchers call a 'carbohydrate deprived diet' (aka, low carb). Not only does the sensitivity increase, but the length of time the effect lasts increases. Not too shabby. Early data for me would seem to suggest that even the relatively puny amount of aerobic exercise I'm doing now increasing my sensitivity enough that I can add one small, low glycemic load carb back on the day I run. I'm talking a toddler sized portion of something like beans or barley. But you know what? I'll take it. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but wouldn't it be nice if it meant I could indulge every now and then?

Anyway, I put on my running skirt and my running shoes, grabbed Penny's leash and we were off. I waited until the sun was dipping below most of the tree tops, so we could at least run in the shade. I was expecting my legs to burn. For every inch to be a struggle.

But it shockingly wasn't. I wasn't quite as smooth as I was Monday, and it was hard on the last push, but it was actually enjoyable. I didn't have to think so hard about breathing or how to do it. Penny has started to figure out that 'jog' means 'walk twice as fast, don't bolt', and to go in a straight line, not try to circle back to me. So I didn't have to worry about tripping over her, and she didn't get stepped on. And now I am writing this blog post and she is enjoying lying in the grass outside. I think jogging will work out well for the both of us.

Jogging, Day 2

After taking yesterday off jogging (but walking my usual 5 miles), I found myself looking forward to it today. What is this? I don't look forward to exercise. Its the thing I do because I have to, or because I want to be in good shape for something. I got in shape before my wedding so I could enjoy hiking with my newly minted husband. I started walking 5 miles a day so I could eat a few carbs a day. The only exercise I do to enjoy it is yoga. Initially I blamed it on the caffeine from a Starbuck's coffee I indulged in (sugar-free hazelnut syrup...mmm), but I don't think that was it. Weird. 

Anyway, jogging today was a little harder than on Monday. For one, it was about 10 degrees hotter. A cat crossed our path and completely distracted Penny. By which I mean she thought that since we were already running, we could chase the cat. So we had to go through the stop, sit, wait, ok, pull, stop, sit, wait routine for about 5 minutes until the cat was well gone, and Penny had forgotten about it. Oh well, lesson in leash manners. I shortened my intervals to run four houses, walk four houses, mostly because of the heat. I wanted both of us to last the two miles. 

And we did. And I felt pretty good afterward, though feeling it in my thighs. I realized however that I have terrible running form. I'm going to need to work on that. Maybe ask some friends who run for advice.  Penny is not nearly as tired as she was Monday, but she adapts quickly. She is going to be a big motivator in keeping going, both because it is fun to run with her and because it is nice to have her sleep or play quietly, and not try to jump on my desk.

Now let's see what happens on Friday. Learning to jog, one day at a time.

Jogging, take upteen point 1

Jogging has never been my thing. For one thing, I never learned how. That nice critical period between full-out kid running all afternoon and learning to adult jog in high school never happened for me. I wasn't able to walk unaided for about 50% of high school, so you can understand how jogging was out of the picture. I tried to pick it up a couple of times in college, but ice and subfreezing temperatures did little to encourage me. I tried again last year, knowing that I should get more aerobic exercise, and it would tire out my dog quicker, but a couple of weeks in my knee when 'pop' and wouldn't really bend for a week or two, so that was that.

On top of all this (which in my mind was plenty sufficient reason to never tie on jogging shoes again) is the fact that I hate athletic clothes. Or more specifically, pants. I do not look good in athletic pants, though I can pull off a rocking pair of jeans. I also just hate wearing pants. They are the only things (pace an over-laced corset top bridal gown) that are capable of making me feel claustrophobic. I have never liked them, and I suspect never will. I wear ankle to tea mid-calf length skirts and dresses all day, everyday unless I am gardening, which is just necessity.

I've been toying with the idea of trying, again. One, because I know I should do more aerobic exercise than just walking. Two, I need to wear my dog out. I was putting it off knowing I would need to get warm weather appropriate exercise clothes (no, I do not just have shorts lying around. Especially not ones that fit). When I discovered that Target sold running skirts, which there is essentially a miniskirt with running shorts underneath and a nice flowy top, I was willing to take it as a sign. I have also found that the internet* sells knee length running skirts, should I be able to keep this up. That will be my reward if I can learn to run 3 miles without slowing to a walk or stopping.

So this afternoon, a gloriously sunny warm but not hot afternoon, I started again. I put on my running clothes, tied on my shoes, and got Penny on the leash. I grabbed a house key on a carabiner, and tied a doggie bag to the leash, and we were off to the races.

There is a large block in our neighborhood that is just under a mile around. I walk it several times a day already with Penny, so I thought she wouldn't get too distracted by smells (a dead garden snake was the only real pit fall in that category). I admit, I started out slow. One, to let me build up to running a full loop, and to train Penny how to jog. So my plan was to jog  6 houses (about 150 yards), walk 6 houses, and repeat for two loops.

First realization: running for me is a rapid walk for Penny. The only time she really ran was when we chased a squirrel together (which required me sprinting all out). So she need to learn that "Penny, ready, jog" was not the same as "Penny, let's run!" She mostly had the hang of it by the end of the second jogging section.

Second realization: I should probably brace the knee that went 'pop'. It didn't pop this time, but it was definitely a weak point.

Third realization: Jogging can almost be enjoyable. Maybe. And its quite effective at tiring Penny out (she sleeps by my side as I type this).

My plan is to repeat this every other day, making the jogging sections a little longer every time, until I can consistently run a solid two loops. Then increase from there. The other days I will do my usual walking.

Here's hoping I can keep this up. I kinda want that knee length running skirt.

~PhysicsGal


*Please note, I am not endorsing this company in any way, they are just an example of the fact that I am not alone.