Queen of Land, Slave to None

The weather here in West Scotland is so ridiculous I am forcing some of my peonies to open indoors. The ones outside are still as hard as tennis balls. In June.

Since it seems the weather is gearing up to do some Very Unseasonal Stuff, I am putting more and more of our leafy greens into our growchamber. I can't even get the lettuce growing outside right now, the temperatures are too variable and there's not enough sunlight, even though the daylight hours are very long. So, Fish Pepper, Tatsoi, Mispoona, various lettuces, and some chicory for fun is growing inside for now, and some of it may stay in there.

Toms and cucumbers are hanging in the window this year, working pretty well but also not loving the lack of daylight. I can still grow plenty of cherry toms this year, even so, and it will do.

I ordered some squash plants but, to be real with you I'm not expecting much out of them; the weather right now is the kind of dreich that sticks around until a couple weeks in July, and then autumn hammers us with what I can only describe as "Scottish Monsoon Season."

It seems Bagagwa has an owner - but the owner refuses to acknowledge his flea allergy and he is still covered in sores. But at least now he has a collar. I stopped feeding him as she said he had disappeared for a while (!!!) but even now with a collar, he shows up every morning and every night, purring and very affectionate and wanting to hang out for a bit. He adores me - and tolerates the hubs. I will continue to enjoy our visits.

When I found this relative growing in my meadow of its own accord, I gave praise and thanks. Paired with @msgraveyarddirt 's yarrow shipments, I've been keeping ahead of my catastrophic perimenopausal bleeds while we figure out what the hell to do hormone-wise.

Got myself a little “greyskin” book to practice writing in. I have been out of the loop of Woo for a while, but I remember when dragon's blood ink actually looked red...lemme guess, it's now a critically endangered substance like myrrh, right?

Essentially, he wants me on the same thing they put all Black women in the UK on, with no HRT, and "see what happens" for six months. I refused the Mirena coil - you've tried that three times, and the last one tried to embed itself into my uterine wall. So he reluctantly allowed me to keep the HRT but thinks he's gonna give me a minimum dose.

Yeah, look I know all the UK's HRT is on a boat somewhere in the Strait, and I know it isn't Black women the NHS is saving the stuff we have for. I was hoping to deal with this before the real rationing started, but...ugh.

So, once again, I'm bleeding and will be so anaemic in three weeks my GP will start worrying about whether I need to do iron infusions (but they won't be able to, because they won't be able to stop the bleeding). Going to get in touch with her and try and keep my patches, see if she can do the basic injection herself, and get another opinion that doesn't suck.

So I guess I don't really care if I'm using a system most people would scoff at. The guy who made it has alphabet soup letters after his name and decades of experience in the field, I'm just gonna trust his expertise on this one and add my own flair - in the end, there are always results.

This kale tree was showing heavy scale and wilt. It had rotted in a couple places in the huge stem over winter and finally gave up after five years. I planted a clone plant or two last year as I knew these last about 3-5 years and the kale was pushing five last year as it was.

I needed the bigger pair of loppers I had, as it was 3inches in diameter in some places.

Sometimes, the skies here burn gold, the clouds come down like a ceiling, and the loch goes molten. It's almost impossible to catch it properly with a phone, but I try my best. This was a few years ago, and it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. It's hard to describe, but the sky burned.

We get some legit weird atmospheric effects here. Once the sky was brilliant pinkish-purple. It felt like we were on an alien planet. My husband was so freaked out he went inside. "Doesn't look like Earth out there."

We stayed in an accessible cottage in this area while our heating was being reinstalled, and I was able to introduce my family to the Milky Way without light pollution here. On a high hill is a stone with a footprint where a king was supposed to stand and place his foot upon the land to claim it. Hubs was obsessed with the place but too ill to make it up the hill.