Today I ate the first ever apple from our apple tree! In truth it probably wasn't quite ripe - tasted OK, but the texture was a little woody. But there are another 15 or so one there. It's only a small apple tree. We planted it about 2 years ago, and didn't really expect fruit for another year or two yet. So that was very exciting. Also, we haven't used any pesticides or artificial fertilisers - we're trying to keep our garden to organic principles as much as possible - but the apples show absolutely no sign of having pest problems. Of course, I suppose it's early days yet.
Now I am keen to plant more fruit trees out the back of our house. We have a tiny block, but we just put trellis up above the fence to hide the ugly 2 story units going up behind us (not that that does a very good job), so we thought we might espalier plum trees and maybe apricots and another apple or two along the back fence. That may sound like a lot for a tiny garden, but we figure if we plant them fairly close together they'll fit. True they probably won't grow to be as big or have as much fruit, but really, how much fruit are we likely to eat anyway? I'd rather have a few apricots and a few apples and a few plums than heaps and heaps of plums. That's a permaculture principle, more or less, which is something we are fairly into in a casual sort of way.
The other day I bought a book on natural fertility called, believe it or not, Natural Fertility. I went on the pill a few months ago, after about 3 years of using condoms since I last decided to go off it. I went back on it because I knew my period was due just after the date of my wedding, and with the extra stress of trying to get everything finished at work for us to take all of December off, I figured it would probably come early. Well, that was one extra thing to worry about that I really didn't need, so despite the fact that I think putting artificial hormones into your body is essentially a horrible thing to do (generally), I decided to do it. And I must say, not having to use condoms for our honeymoon was pretty great. But actually it was so great, I really don't want to go back to using them. Neither does Chris, so we decided to buy a book to teach us how to avoid getting pregnant simply by figuring out which days I could get pregnant. The added bonus is that next year we are planning to get pregnant on purpose so this helps with that too.
So far all I've read are the first two chapters which are more or less to convince you that this is a good idea. I already knew that I was opposed to the blasé way the pill is prescribed willy nilly, while we still don't know what the long term affects might be. Much like Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), which certainly (like the pill) may have it's advantages, but is not without some serious risks, and again we don't know what the long term effects will be. But now I'm even more opposed. Most of the potential side effects she listed were already known to me, although the 10 year programme by the California Walnut Creek drug study was new to me. It found a significant increase in inflammatory diseases in women under 40 who have taken, or currently take, the Pill, including respiratory, digestive, urogenital and musculoskeletal disorders. That may not seem very serious (what is significant and how serious are the conditions? you may ask), but it just goes to show the effects artificial hormone therapy can have in areas we haven't even thought of.
But here's the really scary thing. A number of the contraindications/cautions for taking the Pill, I didn't know about. Things like recurrent headaches (which I get a *lot* of). That's scary, because over the years I have been prescribed the pill by at least 4 different doctors, both here and in the States. Now, you'd think they would check, wouldn't you, whether any of those contraindications applied to me. Some of them I'd never been to before, so they didn't have any kind of history for me. I think one of the biggest problem with western medical practices today is the lack of time taken. The first time I went to see a herbalist she spent 1� hours with me and took a very thorough history. Of course, consequently she doesn't get paid as much as a doctor would!
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I am soooo glad to have a day off tomorrow. I am getting really sick of working 6 days a week. Me, the person who never wanted to work more than 4 days in a week, and less if I could help it. Now I work 6 days a week, plus many an evening. On Saturdays (ie today) I'm only massaging, which I would hardly consider work most of the time, but it's just the fact that it another day that I have to get up and get to work by 9am or before that gets to me. Well, maybe that, and the lack of time to be at home/hang out with Chris/read & write web journals/oh yeah, read and write/DO NOTHING.
Of course, what makes it worse is this sort of foolishness: After writing at about 9am last night that I was going to have an early night, I went to read Bad Hair Days. Beth was complaining that she didn't get a workout last night, which most likely was all Pamie's fault. She considerately included a link, so that we could all stay up late (not working out) reading Pamie & Stee's emails (after finishing Beth's words for the day of course). Now I have had two nights in a row without enough sleep, and although I do not have to get up tomorrow morning I am going to have to go to bed NOW.
(that is of course, after I go back online to check out what the links are to get to the correct entries at Bad Hair Days and Squishy, check my email again, ftp this across to crosswinds, realise I haven't updated the links in yesterday's entry and the index, update those, ftp those across...)
[This is one of a selection of posts republished here, but originally published on Ocean View Verandah]
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