Laurel Finch

I'm 64 now, so well past menopause.  The only problems I had were night sweats in my late 40's, and hot flashes in my 50's.  Those lasted a long time.  I also had some arthritic pain in my fingers, called Heberden's nodes, but it seems to have gone away now.  Probably the biggest gyp was the vaginal atrophy: just when you don't have to worry about getting pregnant, sex becomes painful.  These things make me conclude the God truly is a man.  However, this is balanced out by a total disinterest in sex anyway, which is a big relief in a lot of ways.

I actually find menopause quite liberating.  I always had very regular periods, exactly 26 days apart, and heavy, with cramps.  And mood swings right before.  Now, I am free of all of that.   I call it my return to childhood.  It's great to not have lust make me do things I shouldn't have done, and gives me more time and energy to do the things I really want to do.  I like it.  

I remember my doctor asking me all sorts of questions, and giving me a sour look and saying, "You just sailed right through it, didn't you?"

So take heart, not every woman has a terrible time of it.  And for many of us, it's a real blessing.

Michael Cox wrote:UK based.

My hunch is that the small nuts you describe are due in part to shorter growing season than the original range of the species.

I'm just seeing your post now.  Go figure.  Anyway, the situation has not changed, still lots of burrs, shriveled up nuts.  I'm in San Francisco, where the growing season is pretty much all year round.  Frosts are rare, and hard freezes almost unknown.   So I don't think it's that.

Some of these trees are growing right next to a lake, so I'm thinking their roots can tap into the lake water?  OTOH, the lake is in a park and man made, so maybe it's lined and the water can't leach out?

I have no idea what kind of chestnut they are.  I actually sent specimens into the chestnut project, and even they didn't know!  

I've been watching this guy for while now.  I LOVE his videos!  He usually answers in the comments if you have questions.  I wish he'd do a video on his clothes.

Timothy Norton wrote:Fellow fella who is part of the spectrum.

We keep running into each other---we have to stop meeting like this!  People are beginning to talk...

We however tend to teach in one specific way and anyone who doesn't learn in that way are 'different'.

Yes, the whole world has been set up this way since the industrial revolution.  They line us up in rows in school, so we'll be used to cubicles at work.  Be obedient.  I think that, in olden times,  we might have been better off if  our autistic problems were not in the severe range.   Before the industrial revolution, people were farmers or craftsmen, often working at home or out of small shops.  A lot of times, they lived in or above their shops.  I think, in a lot of ways, they had more autonomy.  At least, once you got past your apprenticeship.  

I however have only so much social battery before I start needing to become a recluse and just regenerate my batteries before the next thing occurs. I am pretty good at learning to gauge this and minimizing my own feelings that start turning into grumpiness.

Yes!  Same here!  There are times when I actually like to interact with friends, (usually after being forced into it, ha ha) but only in limited doses.  I need a lot of regen time afterwards. I need quiet and calm surroundings.  I find my happiest moments are usually alone, with my birds, dogs, and garden.   The best job I ever had was when I was working at the aquarium, taking care of the seals, dolphins and penguins.  I was basically on my own, the only schedule being feeding times.  And I love email and message boards like this, because I can think out my answers and take time to think about what others say.  And I can go over and over an answer someone gives me, which is so helpful for someone with such a poor memory.  

Wow, great question!  

I agree with most of the people who have already answered: no, it's pretty much an evolutionary dead end.  And I'm so pleased to see that so many of us are on the spectrum, as people like to say.  I am, too.  And I recognize several names on here who are people who have helped me in the past, people I have taken a liking to.  Interesting, no?  Like calls to like, I guess.

I was self diagnosed with Asperger's, and got an official diagnosis about 15 years ago.  And yeah, it did make me feel better about myself.  That, and finding out that i have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  Oddly enough, the 2 seem to go together quite often.  

I'm super smart, 134 IQ, which is close to genius.   I did well in school, because I liked taking tests and was good at it.  And yet, I never did well in life.  I live at poverty level on disability due to severe panic attacks and depression, which took me out of the game in my mid 30's.  Even before that, I was never able to work a full time, "real" job.  Never been able to support myself.  I'll be 64 in April.

Even tho I'm so "smart", my memory is shit, and always has been.  I'm never gonna be able to tell if I'm senile because I already can't remember anything.  I guess I'll know when I start putting my shoes in the fridge.  It's why I always had trouble spelling.  Memorization was always very difficult for me.  The reason I had straight A's was because I actually understood what I was learning, rather than just using rote memory.   I'm like a computer with super processing and speed, and 50 KB of memory.

I can remember feeling different at a very early age, in first grade.  I could tell the other kids just didn't see or feel things like I did.  I knew I was smarter.  I went to Catholic school in the early 60's, and it was very rigid.  I had problems with that.  I distinctly remember praying every night to god to make me normal and stupid like everyone else.  I suffered from terrible anxiety, to the point where I couldn't eat breakfast until I was in high school.  I just wanted to be normal.

I found out in my 40's that I was also faceblind, which apparently goes along with autism a lot.  It was a real ah-ha! moment.  I finally understood a major cause of why I was so anxious at school.  I couldn't tell people apart!  And Catholic school with the nuns all wearing veils and habits?  It was a nightmare.  I was terrified when my mother would leave me off at school.  I never went on school trips until 4th or 5th grade, because I was terrified of getting lost.  By "lost", I mean not being able to recognize my teacher or chaperone.  Growing up smoothed thing out a bit, but it's still tough.  Of all my handicaps, I would say the faceblindness is probably the worst.  Imagine living in  world of strangers, all the time.  The sad thing is, I never knew this was abnormal, so I blamed myself.  I thought I wasn't trying hard enough to memorize faces.  I didn't know that normal people don't HAVE to memorize faces.  It just come naturally.

Same with the EDS and Asperger's.  I was always down on myself for being a jerk, for being lazy.  I was always getting reprimanded for it, for not working hard enough.   Now I know I was working twice as hard as everyone else just to survive, to just stay upright.  EDS causes laxness in ligaments and tendons.  Connective tissue is weak.   In normal people, exercise is partially passive.  You move a muscle by your will, and it snaps back with the help of tendons.  Mine are like stretched out rubber bands, so my muscles have to work much harder, essentially doing all the work.  No wonder I was always exhausted.  Add to that all the psychological stuff, and, well...

So no, I don't think it's a step in evolution.  It's too exhausting.  And severe autism would have been a death sentence in prior times.  I have a theory that autism is nothing new.  I think that all those legends of babies being taken by the fairies was really autism rearing it's ugly head at a certain age.  And being "taken by the fairies" was a pretty good justification for leaving your substitute, weird fairy child out in the woods to be exposed.

My mother was 40 when I was born, which was quite old back in 1960 to have a baby.  She was also sick at the time with gallbladder, and didn't know it.  She said she threw up through the whole pregnancy, which would tie in with what someone else here said about it being caused by nutritional deficiency in the mother.  

It's not something I would wish on anyone.  At least, anyone I like.  And oh yeah, no kids here.  I'm so glad I had the inner knowledge to know raising kids was not something I was capable of.

Yes, they will use them!  They'll also use a ramp.  Just make sure it has enough cleats.  I glue bamboo skewers in between the cleats on my ramp that came with the rabbit hutch.  They are such fun little birds.  People raise them in horrible conditions, and then say they are stupid and suicidal.  They're not either of those things.

May Lotito wrote:Plants burning and soft growth indicate that the compost is too rich in nitrogen. But before you make other changes, can you tell us some more details? For example, how does the compost look like? Is it still coarse in texture? Do you plant straight in it? Sometimes if the lignocellulose is not broken down enough and the product has too much air space, plant roots can dry up quickly in a hot or windy day. And the wilting may be confused with fertilizer burn.

Hi May,
I think I was wrong about the burning.  I just looked up nitrogen burn, and the pics were different from what I saw.  I think the plant got wind-burn, because my backyard is like a wind tunnel in the spring, and the leaves were just coming out on my grape.   See pic below.

Since the shavings weren't broken down much, I just topdressed.  Put about an inch over the whole back yard.  It looked like good, rich, black earth with shavings in it.

Timothy Norton wrote:We are starting to thaw where I am at, allegedly I should be seeing some 50F in about a week!

Wow, in Feb???  I'm surprised.  Weather sure has changed in 40 years!

I'm surprised, it sounds like you are doing what you need to do. I have been stirring a pile of chicken bedding and I can see the manure dissipating a bit faster than all of the shavings. I also have some fungal action going on but my pile is just a pile on the ground tucked in a out of sight corner. You could always add your household scraps to that pile if you wanted too but it shouldn't be burning your plants.

I had fungal action, too.  Even had mushrooms growing in there!  I'm guessing it was burning---maybe just rank growth?  Is there a picture of what nitrogen burn looks like?