Last year, I sowed in pots in late December/early January, without cold stratification prior. Many seeds didn't germinate, and I suspect because of the lack of cold temps. I left the trays of seeds out where they were rained on and didn't water.

He won't change and as long as you and your mom remain financially dependent upon him, you will have to endure this. Can your mom work more/earn more? Can you?

Financial dependence is unfortunately why a lot of women are stuck in abusive relationships...it's not accidental.

Find a different bar/area. Are you picking up around a college? Maybe find bars where oldsters hangout.

Loved the tech store.

Got Garlic?

East Portland Plant Buying Club has five excellent garlic varieties available, plus a few more packs of Holland Red Shallots. You can preorder any time and pickup by appointment or during my next open garden, Saturday, November 14, 11 am to 3 pm.

Hello hello hello! It's your friendly East Portland Plant Pusher!

Do you have plants to push? Looking for a platform to sell your green goods? I am eager to support your habit!

I host a monthly open garden/order pickup/plant nerd hangout on the Second Saturday of the month (except January, June, July, December) and welcome people with plants / plant-based products / gardening services to table in my yard. I promote vendors in my newsletter, on Facebook, and here.

I also run the East Portland Plant Buying Club website and can post your items for sale on consignment. I'm looking for folks experienced with starting vegetables to grow starts for next year. Please contact me if you are interested.

One thing I'm doing differently this year, starting asap, is cold stratifying in the fridge. Last winter was so mild here in Portland that we only had a couple of hours of freezing temps all season. More experienced propagators say 34F is ideal, so stratify in labeled plastic bags with damp sand or pumice in a very cool fridge.

You want a lean, well-draining soil mix. You can make your own or add pumice and/or sand.

I sow in 3.5" pots, recycled from purchased plant starts. I experimented with takeout containers last year, but the plastic became quite brittle and fell apart after a month or so outside. To protect seedlings, I cover them with tulle. I blogged about my process last year: Winter Sow a Meadow

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hotbox

1. (slang) To smoke a cigarette vigorously and rapidly.

Dude, I was in junior high in the late 1970s, smoking outside between classes with my fellow deviants. We called it hot boxing when someone sucked hard on the cigarette we were sharing, and we meant how it messed up the cigarette, creating a long, hot ember and ruining the tobacco's flavor.

LOL, yep...oldster here.

Yes. That's where ride share drivers wait until it's their turn to head to the airport. Busy on Friday evening.

Rider was standing on the sidewalk, hot boxing a cigarette in front of a Walmart. Signals me to wait while I back into a parking spot. I wait. She continues to smoke. Timer hits zero, but she's so busy chatting with her friend and sucking down that cigarette still she doesn't notice. I pull away, so glad that stink isn't getting in my car as I see her grab her bags and start heading toward me, like I'm gonna stop.

Thirding Willamette Wellness...I appreciate that they do a thorough intake and then match you with a suitable provider. I have had a lot of therapists over decades, and the one I see at WW has been the best.

It's a sweet spot, very low key, and have a nice variety of local apples inside.

One of my cats has post-breakfast and poop zoomies, every morning. She eats, she poops, she runs around like she's after something, jumps up on my bed, and squirms under the blanket. Then repeats. One that goes outside will run like a race horse along a path in the backyard, turn around and launch himself up a tree.

Hello, fellow hip subluxxing diva! I experienced similar subluxxing during sex. So excruciatingly painful. Currently having an issue with my right hip due to a fall a month ago.

You might read The Body Keeps Score and learn about somatic therapy, if you have not already. I doubt we'll get a study about these things, but somatics makes sense of the "storage" of memories/emotions in our bodies.

I have Hashimoto's, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid and read that women who were traumatized by the reactions to using their voice (i.e., those of us who were abused for speaking the truth) develop this condition that makes the voice low and swells the gland that surrounds our vocal cords. Sounds super woo, but in my own case, this started soon after I began voicing about being abused.

What's interesting to me is that so many more women develop these chronic conditions than men. Not that men don't experience trauma, but women endure more, behind closed doors, without sympathetic witnesses or even the understanding that they are being abused. Think about how many women post here about their partners, parents, and unclear, intellectually, that they're being abused. We normalize so much abuse.

You might also consider EMDR therapy to process your traumas. I did ten sessions in 2014, after decades of getting nowhere with talk therapy, and it was profound. I describe it as therapy for the amygdala, the part of our brain that doesn't have language. No amount of talking calmed my reptile brain, but the combo of visualizing traumatic memories + bilateral stimulation + internalizing positive, safe messages about what happened (along the lines of "that wasn't your fault," for me), did.

My chiropractor warned me that working on my subluxxing hips could result in some powerful emotional responses, based on her experience with other patients.

Anywoo...

Those will make a tasty borscht! Try fermenting turnips or rutabaga, too.

Same. Then I started using it to clean the resin that would get stuck on the sink or toilet bowl when pouring out the bong water. Just used it to clean the glass of my toaster oven.

Thank you! I am a former gym rat and miss working out so much, but I have gained so much weight on steroids (due to adrenal gland failure) that my mobility is also very limited and I'm in a lot of pain. I feel like if I could lose 100 pounds, I would get back to working out. This gives me some hope!!

For basic fertility, I use an organic fertilizer mix based on the Complete Organic Fertilizer recipe in Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. It's a mix of fish meal, bone meal, alfalfa meal, dolomite lime, rock phosphate, kelp, and some other minerals.

For specific fertility/soil remediation, there's all the above in various concentratios, gypsum, greensand, lime, blood meal, langbenite, elemental sulfur, and many other minerals and meals from flora and fauna. Worm castings, compost, leaf mould, even arborist chips can feed soil life/improve fertility.

Contact BOLI about not being paid, if you haven't already.

WorkSource Oregon is a state program to help people find jobs. https://worksourceoregon.org/

Can confirm!

It's great at cutting through soap residue.