Episode 34: Something Other than Health Problems: Muskrats! Field Voles in the Cottage!

Never did I intend this blog to be so consumed with health issues--BO-RING! But those have consumed me of late, mostly because of not having a definitive diagnosis to explain all my increasingly debilitating symptoms. At last, we seem to be on the right track vis-a-vis both of those things. I'm still convinced it's mytonoic dystrophy or something very similar, and I'm waiting for a date for my consultation at the Johns Hopkins Muscular Dystrophy Clinic, which wonderful Dr. A is referring me to. Alas, I thought a DNA blood test would be cheaper than a spinal tap, but he told me they run something like 2 grand, and he wanted an expert to evaluate me and test me.

More about that in a future episode.

So, WHAT ABOUT MUSKRATS, the title of this episode? You know me. Digression is my middle name.

Episode 8: Effexor, Mugwort, and Dream Pillows

N.B. Feel free to skip portions surrounded by [brackets], as these represent tangents and, at times, diatribes.

In Episode 6, I discussed my recent identification of a heretofore "noxious" weed (in my estimation) in my yard. The tenacious thing pops up in all my garden beds and, as much of my lawn is uninitentionally turned over to weeds (because I don't have the energy to work it the way I want to), this monster grows to as high as 4 feet in the "prairie field" behind my house. I have precious little sunlight in my yard, which sits on the northeast-facing slope of an Appalachian mountain. The sun sets early on my house, like 4 p.m. So I know my sunny zones, one of which is a stretch along the northern woods where certain patches enjoy daylong sunlight that flows over the house's roof, past its shadow, and into that narrow strip before my yard ends at the wooded (and wonderfully natural) lot next doors.  Other spots, other than a 20 x 20 patch just in front of the house and before 100-foot spruces block it. This is completely extraneous information, but I do try to describe my setting now and then, since most of The Mary Dell Show, in homage to its precursor (see the Pilot Episode for the history of the show) will be devoted to herbs, plants, mushrooms, and such.  At least I hope so.  Medical problems are cropping up--pun intended--at an alarming rate.  These topics occur to my rambling brain during ramblings in my small, mostly wooded 1/2 acre lot, and sometimes the surrounding woods owned by my neighbors, who don't mind.

Mugwort, photo from Horizon Herbs