East Texas Gardener

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a great Rheumatologist.  Dr. Nancy Scheinost is the fourth  Rheumatologist I have gone to, and she has done the most to curtail  my level of pain and improve the quality of my life.  I wish I had found Dr. Scheinost sooner, as I might have been able to avoid the crippling deformities to my hands and feet.   Dr. Nancy takes a whole body approach to treatment, such as a blood test that showed I was very low for vitamin D.  ( No other doctor has ever checked my vitamin D level.)   Since I started taking the vitamin D supplement, my health in general has improved,  I have more energy, and even had improvement on my osteoporosis bone density test.

Dr. Scheinosts’ office is located in Bryan TX about 150 miles away. It’s a long drive, but the regular schedule is once every three months.   It is more than worth the drive, (6 hours round trip),  to have a caring, progressive person taking care of me.  Rheumatologists are scarce to begin with but that doesn’t mean you should settle for someone who you don’t have complete confidence in.  RA is a lifelong disease with many ups and downs, so you really need someone who you feel completely comfortable with.

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When Walt and I decided to make Bread and Butter pickles, we knew it may be hard on our hands. My hands are both so deformed that I can barely manage cutting up the food on my own plate let alone the 15 cucumbers, 6 onions and 6 bell peppers, so it was up to Walt to do the slicing.   Walt experiences quite a bit of discomfort in his hands and wrists with kitchen cutting chores if they are as extensive as the pickles were,  he none the less did all the slicing.  We have been together for 23 years and until my hands became crippled I did all the cooking.  No longer am I the lone cook as Walt does a equal share. 

I use to think all the kitchen gadgets were silly.  I didn’t even have a vegetable peeler, instead I used a paring knife for peeling and I was quite good at it.  I could peel a potato  faster than another person using a peeler.  Now I’m always on the lookout for any tools that will allow me to continue cooking.  Our latest  tool is a new Oneida  mandolin, (very nice).  We used the new mandolin for the first time to slice potatoes that we fried, covered with green chili and cheese that we had  for breakfast.  It was really delicious.  I wish we had it when we were doing the pickles.

Most folks in East Texas are not familiar with green chile, (chile verde),  but having lived in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area for 11 years, green chile is a way of  life.  When fall comes in NM almost every street corner has a guy with a big chile roaster.  The roaster is larger than a 55 gallon barrel, made of a heavy duty mesh and a big open flame running off a butane tank.  This chile roaster chars the chilies skin black.  The chilies are then placed in a black trash bag to take home. The ride home is usually long enough to steam the chilies and make them easy to peel.  You can either peel all of them, or leave them unpeeled, and peel them as you use them.  If you choose to peel them all, make sure that you wear rubber gloves.  The first time that I peeled them all in one setting, my fingers and hands burned for days.  The chilies are then placed in small sandwich bags and frozen for future use.   Here in East Texas you can find pablano chilies but in NM you get a larger, straight, light green chili that can range from smoking hot, (Sandia’s, Big Jim’s),  to mild, (Anaheim).

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After soaking seeds overnight,  I prepared the soil mix, one part perlite and one part seed starter mix. I then microwaved this mix for one minute on high. I filled my chosen germination containers with consideration for my rheumatoid arthritis that has really deformed my hands.  Opening sealed containers like margarine or food storage  can be difficult and anything that could be loose and fly out of the container I usually ask my husband to open for me. You could use any seal-able clear or translucent container that you have. I filled my container with soil in layers using a sprayer filled with distilled water to evenly moisten each layer until about  3/4  full.

 

Most seed have a visible small round spot on the outside that is the area that the root and first leaf appear at germination.  This spot is usually directly opposite of the darkened area of the seed.  Try to position the seed with the “sweet spot” to the side and press the seed about half way into the soil.

Sometimes the growth of the root will push the seed up and out on top of the soil.  I used the handle of a small hobby paint brush to poke a hole in the soil and place the root into the hole.

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I now have approximately 62 clivia seeds in various stages of germination. Most  of my seeds came from Australia, but the most expensive ($10.00 for one seed), came from a dealer in VA.  You may think I was foolish to pay so much for a single plant seed, and believe me I do too.  Sometimes my reasoning power fails me.  Now that I have reached that magical age of 65, I can claim I had a senior moment.

I wanted to give all these seeds the best chance to survive so I took all the information from the clivia forum and ended up with the following process.  First I chose some small disposable food containers and thoroughly cleaned them. I then cleaned the containers with a solution of one tablespoon bleach to a quart of water.  I then made a very light solution of 1/4 teaspoon bleach to a quart of water and soaked the seeds for approximately 24 hours.

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I don’t know how or exactly when my obsession with clivia plants started, but it is taking up most of my spare time between surfing for information and trying to get the best deal on the “eBay” auction site.  I started with a set of five small plants of very common type and having realized that this could get to be very expensive if I wanted any of the very unique and beautiful newer varieties I had to switch to seeds.  Even the seeds can be expensive at an average low of  > $1.oo each, up to any amount you might have in your 401K.

I have been growing perennials from seed for many years and switching to Clivias was an easy transition. I found a forum ( www.americancliviasociety.org) and learned all I could before ordering my first batch of 11 seeds from a eBay dealer “olly66″  from Australia.  I was a little worried because I had read about maybe or not needing a FDA photo sanitary permit….. NOT!  At the 13th day of them being shipped to me I emailed Rob (olly66) if the time line for receiving the seed was right, and of course I got them in the mail the very next day. Rob had offered to resend them if I had not received them within another week. There are some really good vendors on eBay.

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We were at the grocery store a couple of day ago and noticed that cucumbers were 35 cents each.  We were just waiting for the right price to can bread and butter pickles.  We then proceeded to the spice isle and they were wiped out of the spices we needed, mustard seed, turmeric and celery seed.  I guess everyone else in the area had the same idea.  We live out in the country on lake Sam Rayburn and Zavalla is about 8 miles away, but we had gone to Jasper about 32 miles away to shop.  Zavalla is a very small town, about 600 people, with a small grocery store.  So now we had to go to the Jasper Walmart and they where also out of the same spices.  The next day we went to a  Huntington  grocery store, (15 miles away)  no luck, so we went north to Lufkin (another 11 miles ) and finally found the spices at a newly opened store.  I think these turned out to be the most expensive pickles I have ever made when you consider the price of gas. So much for conservative  living.

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I was diagnosed in June of 1996 with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  I don’t pretend to know how everyone with RA feels, and will only tell you about my own experiences with this disease.  My RA started out with a stiff and swollen finger. This came and went without concern for more than two years.  An episode with the swollen finger progressed to several fingers being involved and lasted for several weeks and spread to my wrist and other joints becoming stiff or sore.  I went to the Doctor and was diagnosed with a blood test.

In the summer of 2004 my husband was replacing some shingles on the roof of our detached garage and when he finished he complained about his feet really hurting. I thought the pain was coming from his toes being bent, standing on the pitched roof,  but after a day or two his feet were OK.  A couple of months later he start complaining about his wrists hurting.  At the time, Walt was building a lot of custom computers for our business, (ICE Computer) and used his hands in a twisting manner.

After repeated flareups with his wrists he went to the doctor several times and asked if it was arthritis, thinking it was osteoarthritis from wear and tear.  In his younger days he was an ASE certified mechanic and had also done construction work for a long time, but the doctor was convinced he had carpel tunnel syndrome.  After six weeks of self paid hand and wrist therapy he had no improvement.  Finally it dawned on us that maybe he should be tested for RA, so he insisted on the RA factor blood test and lo and behold it was positive.  Not all people with RA will show positive on the blood test, but all people with a positive test do have RA.

I now tell everyone I meet that has similar complaints to have the RA factor blood test as a precaution.  The moral of the story is sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands and become more pro active in your own medical care.

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