Cold and quiet morning at the lake featuring one grey heron flying quietly over the water, one distant owl singing sleepily in the trees and a cackle of crows grumping noisily in the canopy above

Pic of a small dot of a heron (zoom in near center frame to see their parachuting body, perfectly reflected on the surface of the water below) flying low across a cold, clear stretch of lake, everything as still and as cold as it looks as if anticipating the first wafer thin layer of ice

#birdcallout

A patchwork quilt of spider webs, wet with dew and sunshine all over the back meadow as

I turned towards my favourite silver fir, breathing deep, and

a single grey heron - big parachuting wings, delicate features, serene smile gently & exquisitely etched with sunlight -

flew towards me,
above me,
circling the maples before
circling back towards the bog,
one long stretch of sunshine
with the cutest toes tucked up eir slender body,

my breath held equally in wonder and delight

#birdcallout

4am and I'd rather be sleeping, but the owls are up and chatting to each other and I feel so 🥹🩷 about getting to listen in

#birdcallout

3am and I'd rather be sleeping except a pair of chattering bats just flew over my hammock and 🥹🩷 what a gift to be able to hear them like this

Fall sure is pretty here

Left - pics of my dogs exploring a grove of magnificently old, sky dancing beech trees off leash, bogs and meadows in the distance

Right - my dogs playing tag at the very back of our land, right where the path curves and hugs a groove of silver fir trees (which smell especially delicious this year), also off leash

I did get to go to the rescue owl program at the library today; I lasted 35 minutes which was about 10 minutes longer than the young kids in the audience 🩷

We left before it was meet and greet time with the owls, alas, but already so importantly huge that I could be there at all and for so long and in Danish!

I only missed one fact, which is that local owls (natugle, tawny owls) are monogamous and mate for life. There are 6500 mated pairs in Denmark :)

https://www.ugleriget.dk/

Overtired and nauseous; should be asleep but instead I'm roasting (vibrating!) from PEM and overwhelm

- finally filed FBAR
- finished drafting NL disability docs
+ gave the dogs many good experiences
+ hoping to meet rescue owlies at the library tomorrow, but only if I can get deep and proper sleep tonight

a beautiful little song thrush died today bc bravely curious about the house, then freaking out & crash landing into a closed window 😭

i had the doors wide open & unsupervised while changing the bedding in my sleeping hammock. e must have come in while i was out; i heard a thwunk but did not find eir sweet little dead body until 15 mins after

& then was so upset about it, i asked my spouse for help.

e didn't do anything wrong, neither did i, but little bird is now dead 😭

Next up is Suzuki book 1 and then I can graduate to my favourite intro set, curated by a long retired teacher who was such a gift of playful gentle joy* to learn from

Edited to add a context reminder:

Before this, I had not played since 2021; it took 5 hard years of concussion rehab & meds to get to the point where I could even consider relearning to play, let alone actually do it, from the absolute very beginning

/2

I finished working through my very first baby cello book today (first position, fingers 1-3-4) 🎶🌞

This book took me 4-6 weeks when I was first learning to play. 5 concussions later, it took* more like 6-7 months, which is both annoying and amazing: spatial, proprioceptive everything is so much harder now; my vision & motion tracking skills, importantly worse.

And I could still figure enough of it out ❤️‍🔥 Including the scaffolding I needed to be able to do it safely & alone

1/

nearly dislocated the same thumb twice this week for the crimes of

- taking off my own pants (while tired)
- setting up the drying rack for laundry (also while tired)

NL UWV would not say how much money or what kind of % or anything about the likelihood of getting it.

They would not say anything about their "required dr visit", how my disability likely makes that impossible, but that "sending everything in Danish is fine"

I currently get enough from life insurance and DK that I don't need more but if those amounts change (or are taken away because I don't do this bullshit process) 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

3/

My spouse (thankfully NL, because the form and letter says they are legally required to only give info in Dutch, which I still understand but for brain injury reasons no longer speak) called them yesterday and had a long chat on my behalf.

Tldr. Yes! I have to go through their disability process! No, it is not for early pension access (which is not possible)! Yes, it is to determine if I can get x% disability benefit based on my past residency! Yes (more bs)!

2/

Background: I'm an EU citizen who has never had residency in my country of citizenship

Earlier this year, DK gave me permanent disability and said, as a condition of receiving this 49% benefit (reduced bc limited residency) they would contact other countries of legal residence & pension re early access due to disability. That is one country: NL

Last week, NL sent a huge physical letter with a 20 page form, absurd paperwork asks & a 6 week due date

I said: WTF.

1/

I took my morning tea out to a bench snug into the silver fir at the very back of our land, and

a cloud of dragonflies - gossamer wings, dark red bodies - used me for a rest

while the barn swallows blew across the garden like leaves and

a European buzzard surfed the updrafts on the neighbouring field #birdcallout

Reusing last year's tea advent calendar tins as seed storage

I've wanted to harvest my own seeds for years, but for various health adjacent reasons, was not able to. Now I can: peas (low and high varieties), beans (runner and bush), and hopefully also radishes and chard

Pic of 24 small metal tins arranged in neat rows inside of last year's tea advent box. The tins are upside down except for the first 4, which are flipped up and annotated with the Danish names for what's inside

Attention crash with meltdown today, triggered by my dogs, which is always the worst both in how it affects all of us and in pointing out how absolutely depleted / fucked my spoons are

The triggering sound is still echoing in my body and I very much want to yell and scream about it but also don't have the energy to do that

It's been a very long time since this happened, and I'm trying not to spiral about it: so many ADHD meds failed me, it's likely to happen more and I don't wanna.

The neighbouring farmer started* a very big tractor right next to my sleeping head (hidden in a camping hammock, in a grove of trees about 50m away). Even with my ear defenders in, it was a lot ☹️

*Probably not actually started (I expect that happened at the farmer's home) but it sure felt like it went from 0 to 20 billion decibels

The bats are zipping by so fast in the twilight! I love every single one of their tiny torpedo bodies 🦇💖 #batcallout

Also. Absolutely brutal that the most dangerous med (modafinil) was also the absolute best match for my brain.

I'm very sure I caught an SJS type reaction early enough to manage it at home thanks to my rescue meds for MCAS + my doctors prednisolone.

Fuck everything.

/3