Going to seed

One of my favorite things about late summer and early fall is when everything starts getting seedy. Not me, I shower more in the late summer. Although, never having had a pedicure, when I wear toe-less shoes, I feel a bit seedy. The older I get the more I'm aware that I may need to stop wearing backless or toe-less shoes if I'm not going to get a pedicure. For whatever reason, a pedicure doesn't seem like a luxury to me. I could afford the occasional pedicure. It seems like a horribly embarrassing awkward thing to do. All those years, mostly in the past, of going outside barefoot in the summer have started to catch up with me. My what uncouth things come out of my fingers when I start typing on this blog (not literally, I do wash my hands rather obsessively). Back to seeds. I love them. I love them as they are tossed by the wind. I love them exposed in pods, flowers, and grass.
The close-up of Queen Anne's lace seed above makes it clear why that flower is considered a weed by some and a dainty flower by others. It's one of my favorites although due to its close kinship with carrots, I sometimes pull it up thinking it's a carrot. No biggie since I have plenty of Queen Anne's lace in full flower by June, no matter how many I accidentally pull up. The photo above is of one small section of one seed head. This year, I had close to a 100 mature Queen Anne's lace I let go to seed. It will be a small wonder if anything else can compete. Generally, it works out pretty well since I pull it up when it encroaches on areas where another desirable plant is growing.Rudbeckia and echanasia are two other flowers which are great at self seeding. It amazes me that the seeds and even plants for those two are sold. Whenever I see them in seed catalogs or nurseries I think, hey come to my house and I'll share. Then again, I want the people with the gardening businesses to make a living. I can't believe how much I've been blogging lately. Pretty much every day for weeks and weeks. I remember last year around this time I was also blogging full force. At that point I was worried that I was having a recurrence. I have to keep reminding myself that the scans I got didn't relieve my mind at all. They opened up a whole new set of fears which weren't entirely laid to rest until I went through a slew of appointments, physical therapy, lymphedema massage, and finally in December had a good PET/CT scan.This year I'm not due any scans until December which will be a year from my last scans. I am scheduled for a slew of appointments in September which seem to pile up between the various specialists I see. I think part of what has me a little on edge is this is almost exactly 2 and a half years since my melanoma diagnosis. I expected by now that I'd be putting it all behind me, assuming I didn't have a recurrence. Instead I'm on edge and find it hard not to think about the what ifs. What if the places that do scans ever 3 months for stage III have it right? What if the places that do scans every 6 months have it right? There's also the what if places that don't do any asymptomatic scans have it right? The latter is less of a worry. The first two are the ones which I guess I'll have trouble not second guessing if I do have a bad scan in December.I have educated myself well enough to know that no large studies thus far have shown that asymptomatic scans for stage III melanoma improve prognosis. That's assuming no new studies have been published that I haven't heard about yet. I also know that on an individual basis they can make a difference which makes it a bit murkier. In my case, I have enough experience with language like "consistent with a tumor recurrence" and "cannot exclude metastatic disease" to know that the scans intended to ease my mind, had the opposite effect. The important part is that I haven't had a recurrence and I've made it to the hump. I think of two and a half years as the hump because at five years the odd tip to be enormously in my favor. In the mean time, I guess I'll keep trying to think more about habitat gardening and less about melanoma. I've been attempting to do precisely that since I started this blog a little over a year ago.