firewatch is a personal favorite.

the individual therapist matters a lot. i know friends who have gone through many before landing on one that actually helped them. i know that’s not ideal, but it is an option. it’s also a slow process for lots of folks.

two friends of mine are actually on ketamine treatments to help with their mental health after trying everything else.

Therapy didn’t help

there are lots of different kinds of therapy, so i hope it doesn’t completely discourage you from ever going again.

saw the substance last week, and i’m still thinking about how great it was.

planted an oak tree.

took loki (aussie) and echo (border collie) to try a couple of new sports on sunday: treibball (pronounced try-ball) and barn hunt. loki liked pushing the big ball around a lot in the former, and echo has a great nose for barn hunt.

oh yeah, no dogs in the front yard thank goodness!

I think posting about your plan would be a good starting point for some conversations and might encourage some other folks to emulate you

once i actually start doing the work, i definitely will!

Did they talk to you about solarizing next spring using tarps?

they did, but this area of the yard is pretty shady, so the guy leading the workshop specifically recommended using cardboard and mulch for maximum annihilation.

the plan itself isn’t that difficult, just takes a lot of time to kill all the invasive plants off so the native plants have a chance to grow. you completely clear the ground first, let the invasive seeds germinate, kill them again, then seed it with native grasses and plants (prairie moon has a lot of US mixes, so i’ll probably use them). you won’t get blooms for at least two years, i think. and you need to cut everything down to about 1.5 feet the first fall to get the invasive plants before they go to seed. unfortunately, that means you’re also cutting down the plants you want to grow, so they take another year of seeding before things really get going, but they should help keep out the invasives at that point.

i have a Meadow Plan for the last ~20 feet of our back yard now. first step is laying down cardboard and mulch and leaving it there until next may.

i’m picking up a white oak tree sapling on saturday to plant in the same spot where we had to cut down a big ol’ maple in our front yard (it was dying a slow death and a danger to our house).

“what remains of edith finch” and “gone home.” waiting for the right rainy day to play them.

wingspan

i love both the physical and digital versions of this game. 🕊️

been offering moral support for a friend who is (was?) renting a house in black mountain (western NC). they still have no power or water, and they can’t get their cars down from the mountain because the road is still blocked by a ton of trees. they were able to get a friend to pick them up at the end of their road at the bottom of the mountain at least.

got to see zach galifianakis and josh stein (NC governor candidate) on saturday which was neat.

ordered an oak tree that is going to replace the maple we had to cut down in the front yard last year. picking that up on saturday.

echo is currently going through an online scent work class which has been fun. loki and jean started agility lessons back up now that the weather is a smidge cooler.

i’m attending a meadow-making workshop tomorrow, and i’m hoping to learn a lot about what to do with the little plot of land we take care of. i would love to do some fall planting!

echo unfortunately has a bum wrist, so she can’t do any sustained running without hurting herself. jean is the speed gremlin (but she rides in a backpack when i take her cycling).

bummer to hear about cohost (but not all that surprising, unfortunately).

i attended hopscotch music festival the weekend before last. three very full days of seeing artist after artist play music (with a tiny bit of stand up comedy and amateur professional wrestling mixed in). it was great, but boy howdy am i feeling like an old. my feet hurt for days afterward.

the day before the festival, my little dog rode around town with me for a whole 13 miles! that’s her longest ride ever in her backpack, and she did great. i’m definitely going to upgrade her pack, though, since she was shifting side-to-side a bit which wasn’t terribly comfortable.

echo earned her CGCU last week, which is the last of the one-shot titles i plan to get for her. next up is prepping for our first rally trial, including a class that starts at the end of october.

this weekend i’m heading to another three-day fast CAT (coursing ability test) with the little dog. hoping to pick up some advice on stretching her before and after so she’s less sore this time around.

omg, i hadn’t even noticed that.

it’s such a fun event, and i’ve seen all kinds of dogs do it! as long as she has good recall at the end, i’d say go for it. :)

had a great weekend doing fast CAT with jean grey. she was getting PR after PR, with her best being 8.68 seconds (23.57mph / 37.93 kph). we have another event september 20-22, and i’m pretty sure she’s going to earn her second title there! she’s been phenomenal around other dogs lately, which is a 180 from how she used to be: barking, lunging, and growling at them.

echo (border collie) started fluoxetine (prozac) last weekend for her anxious tendencies and obsessive behaviors. she also has her urban canine test on wednesday, which i think we’ll pass with flying colors, so long as there isn’t a leaf blower she can hear.

we’ve had a couple of chilly nights, but i know we’re going to have at least one or two hot weeks before it starts to actually cool down for good.

i’ve been spending a lot of work days at the coworking space, and i’m making a lot of progress on my latest project, so that’s nice. forgot how much that helps me get in the right mindset. probably helps that i dumbed down my phone quite a bit recently, too. no more safari, email, social, or needless apps. down to about 1 hour of phone screen time per day, which is pretty good considering my old averages were around 4-5 hours. 😳

i’m sorry you’re in so much pain!

i believe so! there were a couple of them styled like that; really cool stuff.