Juliet Chase's Blog

This being my first broken ankle and only my second broken bone, much of this may be old hat to those with more experience but I’ll say it anyway. Pie heals.

If homemade pie isn’t possible and it probably isn’t, I highly recommend the Willamette Valley Pie Company (they ship and have really fabulous crust.)

Once I knew I’d have to use a walker for more than a week, I tricked it out on Amazon. The items have helped with mobility and the color with cheer. When I’m 80 I can use them again!

Look for Crutcheze grip covers, RMS butterfly tote bag, and Yunga Tart walker tray

 

A grey or black boot is perfectly functional but definitely improved with sparkles:

 

Slow TV – thank you, NRK!

I had heard of Slow TV as described in this TED talk but previous attempts to find it online hadn’t gotten very far, probably I was in too much of a rush. But thanks to Norwegian Public TV making it available under Creative Commons license and some very patient people uploading it to YouTube I have taken the 8 hour train journey from Bergen to Bodo twice (Spring, Winter) and am halfway through the 135 hours of the Hurtigruten boat ride from Bergen to Kirkenes. I only wish I’d had this in the hospital as it would have been an infinite improvement over the available entertainment.  It’s perfect for having a lot of time on your hands while needing to nap occassionally. It’s TV at real-life speed!



Not speaking Norwegian somehow adds to the entertainment and Google has been able to answer some of the most pressing questions such as identifying the large rock with a giant hole in it (surprisingly easy to find!)

All of the above have really added to the quality of my recovery and I truly believe that aids the healing process.

 

 

It may sound like a platitude, in fact I know it does. It’s still true though. Patience is the number one requirement for getting through a broken ankle with grace. And the surest way to patience (or at least a sufficient amount of the stuff) is true and genuine gratitude for the things that went right in spite of what went wrong. Here’s my top 5 list, yours may vary which is more than okay – it’s not about being politically correct, just genuine.

Emergency Services – from the dispatcher taking my 911 call, the EMTs getting me into the ambulance to the surgeon and OR staff fitting me in at the very end of their day I have a lot to be grateful for in the speed and care they gave me. There are a lot of places in this world where a broken ankle could easily become a life-changing injury due to lack of quick access to care.
Painkillers – despite their current bad reputation, they have their time and place.  Dealing with severe trauma pain is one of them and I’m lucky to live in a first-world country with affordable access.
Family – family/friends willing to drop everything to fetch a car left at the park ‘n ride, stay with you, fix meals, bring groceries, and feed animals are beyond price.
Good Nurses – they simply don’t get enough credit for their patience and grace dealing with and cleaning up bodily fluids.
The Internet – entertainment for sure, but also the ability to order things without having to leave the house, learn some knew skills and generally feel slightly productive without having to get out of bed. Even ten years ago much of this would be a pale imitation of what’s possible today.

That’s not really the end of the list, but enough for here. Articulating it helps to manage the frustration at not being able to get out in the garden or do all the things you used to take for granted. There are a few other things to make life a little better – look for them in Part 2!

Despite having declared I would never get up any earlier than 5 am, I find myself setting the alarm clock for 4. I will do what it takes to realize my dreams and try just about anything to make myself more productive. I’m also resolving to really practice each thing before taking on six more, in the end it will be faster than switching gears so often.

2018 feels on the verge, of greatness, of disaster or something else but certainly not more of the same. I hope it’s a great year for everyone, for the planet, for the galaxy – I see no reason why it can’t be!

That feeling of sinking into the most comfortable chair in the house – the one roomy enough to put your legs in any direction – with a book that you’ve been anticipating for months. The book that you know will keep your attention riveted and is guaranteed not to disappoint.

I don’t pretend that I’ve written that book, but I know it’s the feeling I want readers to have when they’re reading my stuff. When I sit down to the computer this is the feeling I’m aiming for – that someday I’ll create something as captivating as my sister’s forbidden copy of North American Birds.

 

This is my new mantra for my life. Gardens, interiors… myself – all could benefit from striving for this without going beyond. I discovered the phrase will looking about for inspiration for my entry way and browsing French interiors online as a possibility. While I thought I had borrowed the phrase directly it turns out that my brain did some mental adjusting to the original “relaxed, luxurious, and often ramshackle” found in a Telegraph article (the video section). So I guess this is my very own interpretation but it fits well. It’s good to have a touchstone for reference to keep things on track. I look forward to spaces and experiences that are just that: relaxed, elegant, and slightly dilapidated.

I’ll be making the last ice cream of the year this weekend – a repeat of the amazing blackberry from a few weeks ago. Fresh Himalayan blackberries from the field, eggs from the hens and lots of love stirred in. Ice cream tastes different when you know the name of the chicken that laid the egg.

The chickens are positively blossoming – Maisy is over her bout of adolescent broodiness and Cleopatra deigned finally, to add a blue egg to the mix, nicely contrasting with all the shades of brown.  Daisy and Cleopatra keep trying to escape the enclosure to go exploring. I think I finally understand why people buy halters for their chickens.

The garden has not done well  – too much heat without water, too much wind, and too many deer/rabbits. But I have a plan for next year that’s going to involve a lot of construction and plastic sheeting.  Hopefully next year can free me from the grocery store for produce. The fruit trees though, have given abundantly. I picked the last of the peaches today, having dehydrated enough to get over a pound for the winter.  The chest freezer is full of goodness and it’s going to be exciting to sit down to cherry fruit soup at Christmas.

I’m looking forward to autumn and cooler temperatures. Hopefully it will be a time to get back to house renovations and writing now that the first year of Short Meadow is complete. I’m excited to use the new wood stove and think hygge thoughts!

Ten years after the pandemic, island survivors search the wreckage of civilization and help each other find food, lost loved ones, or even heirloom tomatoes… except someone may have helped a disliked member of the community to an early death. Garden enthusiast Jane suspects the dead woman’s secrets may be the cause—and may be still threatening the tiny community from beyond the grave.

Potentially the world’s first post-apocalyptic cozy mystery is about to hit the virtual shelves!  At just over 8,000 words you’ll soon be in a position to say whether this was a genre that should never have happened or the next big thing.

The chickens were really talking and clustering near the run door so I knew something was up. Sure enough when I went into the chicken house in a nest under the nesting boxes was a single perfectly-formed egg. The very first for this flock and me!  And on Bastille Day even though I don’t think Maisy is a particular Francophile…

The first year of Short Meadow as a house, a project, and a way of life is officially complete. A lot got done and a lot didn’t!  Some projects, like the raised garden beds have informed on new projects – it’s simply too windy here and a hoop greenhouse is going to be required for any real vegetable production.  There is an unbounded lack of constraint that is perhaps even more challenging than trying to garden a city lot. How do you plant a windbreak without blocking the mountain view? How far am I willing to walk to pick a salad for dinner? I’m so glad I made the move, I would encourage anyone dreaming of someday escaping to the country to break down some of the paradigms and see if it isn’t really possible now.

It is also cherry season. A little later than last year due to the cold spring but perfectly aligned with the 4th of July holiday. This morning, picking what I believe are Queen Anne, (anyone who knows better can correct me in the comments) was like picking drops of pink lemonade on a beautifully sunny day. A previous batch has gone into the Excalibur 2000 (dehydrator) and some truly amazing cherry chocolate chip ice cream.  Most of these are destined for the freezer so that sunshine can be eaten in midwinter in front of the roaring fire.

Ella turned seven a few weeks ago (but still acts like she’s two) and finally had surgery this past weekend to remove her anal glands. Two days in the cone of shame was all she could endure – it was supposed to stay on for two weeks. Since removing it herself behind my back she’s been making a full recover and bouncing even more than she was before. No more bimonthly trips to the vet! Something we both will be celebrating.

I have vague memories of a particular Christmas that involved endless silk screening of a cedar twig onto heavy red paper for Christmas cards – back when volume was socially necessary AND crafting was big. I was too young at the time to do more than beg to have a turn and the equipment got buried in a move not long after.  If you remember this era at all you’ll probably recall similar leaves and things screen printed onto bags and tea towels and endless other products that could be made flat enough to get the dang thing to work.

Fast forward a few years (ahem) and I was sitting in front of the computer playing around with some peony leaves I’d picked to make some art brushes with. For no good reason other to try it I decided to scan them using the cheapest I could find all-in-one I could find at a big box store a few years ago. It gave up printing correctly almost immediately so it had been sitting around gathering dust except for endless scanning of documents during the house purchase last year. There it sat promising poor quality but speed. Worth a try.

Maybe this was what it was meant for – because for all the blurry text it had produced it’s ability to capture nature was truly surprising.  None of this is technically new, you may already know all the pieces so it won’t be too time consuming to try!

Find something lovely, flat and fairly open for the best effect, it will have to fit in the available scanner pane – here I went with a fern segment.

Scan it and open in Photoshop. Crop to just the desired element (I used the middle one for obvious reasons), select all and copy

Paste into Illustrator. Set the LiveTrace to Black and White and trace it.

Expand the image and hit Ungroup as many times as it takes to make that command grey out.

Select an outside (white) edge and delete, continue around the design until the background is gone. For a safety check, select the design and change the fill color to something wild like pink. If you still have solid areas where they shouldn’t be continue selecting and deleting. Change the color back or leave it, it doesn’t really matter.

Now you can make it into Art and Pattern brushes and go crazy!