My right leg is working.
I have not needed a brace on it to keep it facing forward, or a cane to steady myself since Monday last week. There is a lot of general weakness on the right side and after walking a bit it feels as though that leg is slogging through tar, but after months and months of waiting for something to change for the better, perhaps now it finally is.
New doctors, new course of action, and their thoughts are that the issue was not what the previous doctors thought the issue was. From what I understood (and I am not a doctor, so I may have misinterpreted things) this injection, which I received 11 days ago, if it helped, would then become part of a series of 3 injections, followed by a fairly minor procedure which, they hope, will get my body back close to normal for about a year.
Well, a year is not permanent, but after the car accident, needing to have a regular annual course of treatment to keep my body able to function at the levels I want it to be at, well, that is not a worst case scenario.
I am still not doing a lot. Short walks, time with kids, etc. My worry (and my wife’s) is that since I feel good, I will try to do the things I have not been doing and find myself a complete invalid. However, I have allowed myself to peruse perennial fruit offerings at various places on the hope that come next spring, I am up to digging holes and planting trees and vines. Due to animals and neglect, all of the grape vines out at the Red Wing gardens perished, and I would like to modify my own backyard to be more perennial fruits, so more grapes are hopefully on the gardening menu. I am going to talk to Lance about getting a number of apple and other fruit trees to put out at his home too. We were going to do a large bare-root apple tree order in the past but it fell through. Down in Faribault MN though is a nursery which offers a large selection of bare root fruit trees and vines which I hope to take advantage of again next spring. I like plums. Maybe some of those will make the gardening menu next year.
Anyway, I am dreaming and hoping. There is no wish on my part to pare my life down. I want to expand and explore what I am able to do. Too young, and too much to do to really be able to think otherwise.
sorry to here about your condition, i hope you remember me(Roy) taking to you Tom, about growing TPS for seed for farmers and selling potatoes to market. Rugged Roots farm is also growing garlic from bulbil and selling grafted fruit trees. i hope some day i can offer apple seeds of diversity such as your TPS and tomatoes. If you would like fruit trees, i can help maybe with a trade. This year i am trying a new grafting technique, inter-stem uses three different varieties, i will be using seedling rootstock for the anchor, drought tolerant, disease resistant, and doesn’t require staking. on top of that i will graft a M27 or Bud9, which will give me some dwarfing, and then the chosen variety on top. dwarfing rootstock requires a lot more work for the home gardeners and i think these inter-stems will create a new market. if you have any idea of varieties you would like i can graft some this year and trade with you next spring
Grafted apple trees, especially semi dwarfs that will not be entirely out of reach are of great interest to me. I am curious also if you have any experience with growing stone fruits this far north? Last year I got a couple of different cherries in, as well as a Corland and a Fireside apple tree into our back yard. Farmers Seed & Nursery down in Faribault is also offering Manchurian Apricot trees at a stupid cheap price. The downside I have found from reading about stone fruit trees is that they tend to flower before our last regional frosts meaning that fruits are rare. I am thinking that here on the island where I am generally protected from late spring frosts has me curious as to just how much I can get away with, as well as the prospect of doing some gorilla plantings of perennials where they will not be rouged out by homeowners, or molested by the general public, while still providing food. We will see. Being flat on my back as much as I am gives me a lot of time to think and plan.
My overall top favorite apple is the Fireside. A bit tart, crisp, large, and they keep in our basement in an edible and pleasant state for up to 5 months. Variety is good though. I would love finding a home for anything you want me to try around here. Edible landscaping I find a happier general thought than the sterile lawns which seem to be the socially accepted norm. I know the Ness family would give a good home to any fruit trees as well.
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