Good Progress

My friend Vilma rang on Saturday and asked me if I could cut the long grass at the back of her property which was four feet high and thick. My friend Josef has been doing the grass at Vilma's for the last year or so, since he sold his house two doors down and moved in to the separate flat vacated by Vilma's son when he became too ill for Vilma to look after.

She asked if I could also do her lawns as they were long too and she was concerned it was a bit too much for Josef as he has had some health issues of his own lately. Gord came with me and did the lawns while I took to the long rough stuff at the back with the whipper. It was a warm day but Gord and I enjoyed the work and it was nice to see Vilma looking so well and in good spirit. Josef came home while we were finishing and it was good to see him. He and Vilma look after each other and seem to be getting on well. Josef's wife died of leukemia not long before he returned to Gembrook.

While talking to Vilma I looked across to a big green beech tree in the garden of Josef's old house. I had picked foliage from it for a number of years while Josef owned the house, and while he had a tenant renting it while he and his wife managed a motel on Phillip Island. I didn't pick there last season, I didn't want to annoy the new owner by intruding to ask if I could. Vilma told me a young couple with a baby were renting it and she suggested I ask them if I could have some beech foliage.

So on Sunday before going out to Marguerita's to tidy up the broadies I called in and met the young couple who told me yes to come and pick some when I needed it. At Maguerita's I pulled the stakes out that I had put in to tie up the rows and rolled up all the twine onto a reel so I can use it again. That was slow and fiddly but I hated the thought of it going to waste. Marguerita was home and she and I planted spuds in a section of the garden where brocolli had been and finished.

As it happened the phone rang Monday morning and one of my customers wanted 30 bunches of green beech so it was sort of good karma that I could go down the road to Josef's old house and pick the most beautiful lush green beech quickly and easily as the tree was not picked last year so it had plenty on it. They wanted copper beech too and I picked that quickly from another tree I do in Gembrook each year. It was fortunate in that I had a specialist's appointment in Dandenong at 3.30pm so I dropped off my bunches at the farm on the way, after a delay and detour near Emerald with disruption to traffic by what looked like a bad accident. As the road was blocked off at the Monbulk Road corner there was a traffic jam there also and I ended up ten minutes late for the appointment which didn't matter because I still had to wait 20 minutes to see doctor as he was running behind time.

The good news is he was happy with my blood test results, I'm making good progress and was pleased to tell him I have reduced the prednisolone to a quarter of a tablet a day and I'm not relapsing as a result. He said I can drop the pred all together and see how I go, but wants me to stay on the same other medications (methotrexate 2X10mg tabs once a week and weekly Abatacept injection, and he doesn't want to see me till next June but I will have blood test in March and the results will go to him.

Other interest for the weekend was a call from Dave Dickson at Emerald in Qld. He and his wife Jodie are cutting Gumby Gumby foliage as a sideline and drying it and milling it to powder and putting it in capsules and selling it by word of mouth and on the internet. Apparently it's an aboriginal medicine good for many ailments. Sunday morning Lib and I went to Akoona Park market at Berwick as I needed a locksmith to get a key cut for my car as one of mine was worn and wouldn't go in the ignition. We found him and it cost me $90. The market was huge and I was most impressed, I had not been there before although Lib goes now and again. It's on every Sunday I think..