Archive | Nature & Health RSS feed for this section

The Real Farmer

2 Sep

I have been playing Farm Heroes for quite a long while but lately getting bored by it. Maybe because I am stuck at Level 903. I thought I was a good farmer but hubby is better, and a real one.

Unlike me who harvests virtual fruits and vegetables, hubby grows the real stuff. From our garden, he has harvested a whole lot of the blue flower (Clitoria Ternatea) for brewing tea and awaiting the next crop of other herbs and plants to mature before harvesting them.

Quite the farmer he has been, more than me.

   
   

Tags: , , ,

Squish the Squash Then the World

30 Aug

One of the exercises that I have to do from now on is to squish a stress ball to strengthen the overall grip. The thumb especially has been weakened. 

Unfortunately I didn’t have a stress ball at home over the weekend so I had to improvise until I get one. With some help from M2, she gave me her Squash from her Plants vs Zombies collectibles.

While it’s not quite the right firmness because it’s a soft toy, the size was just right and I figured it’s something better than nothing. So I was squishing the Squash over the weekend.

Then I managed to buy one yesterday but it’s not just a stress ball, it’s a globe! So no more squishing the Squash, I now squash the World. 

Bwahahaha… I feel so evil.

   
 

Tags: ,

Out of Action

25 Aug

I finally did something about the constant pain in my left wrist because I can’t go on with one day of good golf and the next day, terrible golf. And the discovery was not good. Uh oh. Saw a sports doctor who advised me to take an x-ray just to be sure no broken bones because she felt a bone spur when she probed my hand. Uh oh.

The x-ray result came out good. Phew. No hairline cracks, so essentially this means the soft tissues. I have a slight tear in the muscle at the wrist area that is causing pain here, there and everywhere because everything is connected.

The first thing the doctor said, no sports or any stress inducing exercise that involves the hands. Uh oh. No golf in other words. And my gym sessions would have to change, no weights.

For a good 6 weeks! With some rest in between, I am looking at being out of action for two months. How will I survive?

And I have to undergo a treatment program to regenerate the tissues and enable the stretched muscles to recover. The treatment is a combination of ultra sound for deep penetration repair, manual massage therapy, radio frequency stimulation and bone realignment. 

I decided to have the treatment three times a week for the recommended 20 sessions which works out to be about six weeks, give and take a little.

Somehow this time, I am more accepting of the situation. It’s exactly the same problem I had  seven years ago, only more pronounced that has recurred and doing the same treatment to rectify. Back then I was reluctant to sit out for two months. This time, I will gladly do so to ensure no repeat again.

I started treatment yesterday. 

Tags: , ,

Should We?

1 Aug

We were intrigued by this new venture of a friend and decided to visit his home to view it – his setup of rearing stingless bees and harvesting their honey. After hearing about it from our previous meets, we took a drive to his home yesterday afternoon to see the real deal for ourselves.

There were two tree trunks, shaved on the sides to reduce their overall size without affecting the hives inside. And each has a honey collection box attached and along with what I assume would be several hundred bees. Pretty simple and that’s it; you don’t have to take care of the bees. They know what to do and where to go. 

What is done then is just to collect the honey whenever the pods are filled and this process is repeated. Just be sure not to totally drain the pods empty as this will make the bees think the pods are spoilt and they won’t fill them up again upon this realization. With trial and error, our friend discovered this interesting trait and six pods remain unused. Amazing.

Consuming the raw honey made by stingless bees has a ton of health benefits. One should google up on this.

We drank the harvested honey as is, without adding water. It was watery, not thick like the typical commercial honey. It was also not sweet but rather tangy and almost apple cider vinegar-like. I never knew and thought all this while, honey is generally sweet. But no.

Now the stingless bees or meliponines are quite a species. They do not sting, hence the name stingless and although they do have stingers, the stingers are so tiny they are useless for defense. The bees can bite though, if threatened. Later after the visit, I googled up on them and learnt some new and interesting stuff that I never knew about honey and bees in general.

Question now is should we also invest in a trunk that comes with the little hard-working meliponines churning out honey?

 

Honey home one

  

Honey home two

  

Lifted cover reveals the inside

  

The harvested honey for drinking!

 

Tags: ,

Weakling No More

26 Jul

Last night, it was invigorating to improve my gym performance after a week of activities. I played three rounds of golf last week and yesterday during gym, the body wasn’t sluggish nor felt pushed to the max. In fact, I relished the routine set out by my trainer.

The four-pounder that felt so heavy last week didn’t feel heavy at all. In fact, I was so pumped I interspersed my routine with the four kilo weight that we affectionately call ‘The Birkin Bag’. Yes, a big leap from four pounds to four kilos but no problems whatsoever. I feel so proud I am a weakling no more.

I slept soundly too and don’t foresee the muscles and limbs crying the next day or two.

   

The 4kg ‘Birkin’

 

Tags: , , ,

Weakling

21 Jul

It is not a good idea to resume gym training after a month’s break and to follow that up the next day with a morning golf game. My goodness… The muscles were sore, the bones creaking and bending down was just unbearable. All movements had to slow down. Cringe…

It is usually the next day that the whole body aches and it worsens beyond belief the following day. I was a top notch sloth yesterday. The four-pounder dumb bell never felt heavier when on Monday, I felt I was pushed to the max. My limbs were so sore that night, I had to down an Ibuprofen to sleep!

Have I become a weakling? Horrors.

Tags: , , ,

Choke and Sputter

8 Jul

Ever had one of those moments when you swallowed a capsule and it got stuck in the throat? Equally up there on the cringe list is when swallowing a non-coated tablet and the bitterness explodes before going down to send your tastebuds into haywire mode. On both occasions, you desperately drink gallons of water to wash away the predicament and suffer the consequences later with frequent toilet trips!

Last night, I was routinely taking my supplements and the glucosamine capsule went down ‘sideways’ instead of lengthwise and I felt as though the large capsule was lodged in my throat! Choke and sputter…

I have this habit of throwing my head back quickly whenever I take my meds to ensure the pills go down (with momentum and gravity) easily but I didn’t do this last night and paid the price for it.

I had a coughing fit and almost keeled over because I was also having nasal congestion, making it hard to breathe. It was the most uncomfortable moment. Thank goodness I survived…

Tags: ,

Another Garden Visitor

24 May

Our home seems to be a sanctuary not just for us but other creatures as well. Last week, there was the squirrel. A while back, we had a bird making a nest between the branches of the potted plant placed at the car porch. 

We even have bees building a bee hive, more birds, a visiting owl, uninvited snakes, cats and of course, rats. Last night we made another discovery but it was too late to verify. 

This morning, we looked again. It’s another bird! This time, it’s high up on the tree on the front lawn of the house. A rather unusual engineering feat, the nest seems to be hanging precariously off the branch.

We used the binoculars to have a better view and to our delight, saw a black bird with orange feet fidgeting in there.

Let’s hope all’s well with Mama Bird and her babies.

Look closely to spot the hanging nest!

Tags: , ,

Wonky Weather

19 May

It was a dark and stormy night literally. On Tuesday night, the rain came down when I did the evening tuition run and it got heavier towards midnight.

By two in the morning, the skies were rumbling angrily and woke me up. Mother Nature was giving a pretty impressive lightning show and at times, it was scary yet breathtaking. Been awhile since I witnessed Mother Nature doing this.

Wet days are ahead, I sighed. We had initially thought we would go walk nine-holes of golf the next morning just to rid ourselves of the work kinks but we didn’t. The fairways would be soggy and play would not be a stress reliever. I foresee less golf days ahead.

And last night, the weather was good. Wonky weather I say.

Tags: ,

Playing in Wonky Weather

12 May

When I was in school dinosaur years ago, the choices we had for games were rather limited in an all-girls’ school. Besides track and field, which I was hopeless at, there was netball, table tennis, basketball and softball. 

And somehow in those days, rain or shine, we enjoyed our games. I don’t recall ever complaining about playing in unfavorable conditions nor do I remember falling sick. Weather back then was more mild compared to the weather now. My friends and I had even walked home on several occasions after school in the rain, something we don’t allow our children to do today. Ahh… those were the days.

A couple of years back, during a sports activity at school, M1 lamented that the sports teacher made them play netball in the rain after school, just like my good old days. But these girls besides fearing all sorts of disaster, groaned and worried about getting soaked and being tired out from playing three continuous matches. It didn’t help the team spirit that M1 told them that they would all die from the rain. Rain? Really… you mean lightning, falling structures or trees?

While I rolled my eyes when I heard my brilliant child commented on dying from rain, inwardly, I was glad no major mishap occurred from that outing save for a few bruises and scratches.

Nonetheless, we must be mindful of the lightning charge in the air before being too gung-ho about it. Maybe on that netball game day, it was just rain, no charge in the air so it was deemed safe to continue.

While playing in the rain is not something we would do or encourage due to the lightning charge factor especially, the weather these days compared to the good old days have changed for the worse. And I find that one falls sick easily if exposed to too much sun or soaked by a little rain. Global warming?

It has been reported our hot oven days will soon be over but not for the better unfortunately. The conditions are predicted to be replaced by rain and flash floods followed by haze soon after. One woe to another and then another! My goodness. For now, almost every afternoon without fail, it has been raining and this will worsen. 

Sigh… looks like no afternoon netball or golf until this spell clears. But when it does, the haze will swoop in. Yay. Great.

Tags: , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →