What's With All The Wildlife In Our House?

Preying mantises are a sign for good luck, transformation and spiritual self-recognition!!!! This IS a VERY GOOD sign!!!

The splotchy-cracky-yucky lip thing sounds like a cold sore. You can get these randomly or when stressed! It can't hurt to ask Dr. Google about it and see what you come up with.

Beautiful grapes! I am always impressed with what you grow, it amazes me that real people can grow food and it looks delicious! All I've ever grown is some herbs that die quickly :/

Good luck!

I was going to say something inappropriate about your carrots, well then I will...they look very thick and I am sure they are tasty. I miss planting carrots this year but next year we are growing them all over!
Maybe your lip thing is herpes? Not to add to the hysteria. Don't end up like my sister and search the internet to come up with a horrible disease you might have. :) Hope you are feeling or looking better soon.

Hi, I've only commented here once before, but I think I know about this lip thing.

Here's my story.

I had a cracking problem like that, it haunted me for over two years, It would almost heal, then crack again. An area near the crack on my upper lip also, occasionally, felt a little thin and reddened with little bumps like widely spaced goosebumps. It was more often cracked than not, very frustrating.

The dentist pointed it out and prescribed a terrible tasting anti-fungal cream that didn't work. (so much for poisons)(I think the pharmacist substituted it with a foot cream)

We had been changing our diets to reduce our meat intake, and walking
about 3 miles a day to lose weight.
We were being very active, raising our first set of 9 hens. But we were saving most of our eggs for friends and family.

We now have 67 hens, and now we eat many, many eggs. The cracking is gone. Healed and sealed from the inside.

My guess is that your body needs a greater amount of protein, what with all the Kung-fu, biking and grape thievery.

Extra protein could help your body stitch things up from the inside.

Perhaps your hens are resting lately, and the production of eggs might have been low recently?

We would like to give you a bunch of our eggs, It might help your body catch up and beat this thing early.

Do you have our email?
Please contact us.

Thanks for your wonderful writing.

Team Fuji

I love having good luck charms in my yard!

I believe this must be a cold sore. I haven't ever had one on my mouth (nor on my privates, just in case you were worried) but I did once get a fever blister on my hand and so I must have the Herpes Simplex 1 virus in my body. My mom gets them all the time.

Nice. So I hope this isn't going to be a new phase of disease and decrepitude for me. How did I escape cold sores my whole life only to get one now? Ah well. I'm just not going to worry about it much. Stress can make them happen so I imagine it could make them take longer to go away too.

At least this means it's not likely that I have leprosy or cancer. Yay!

Anyway, I won't let this little aberration in my general well being ruin a wonderful morning. I'm off to post my Elderberry syrup making instructions on Stitch and Boots. Then I make grape juice!

Hi Team Fuji- you commented a very long time ago! I would never turn down eggs- but I really doubt I've got a protein deficiency. I am addicted to eating eggs so when our hens aren't laying (you're right, they're not laying right now- moulting instead!) I buy them from Harvest Fresh or Roth's. Not only do I eat 2-3 eggs a day (shut up you egg haters!) I also eat cheese every day. I generally also eat a lot of beans (lentils, black beans, white beans). I don't have your e-mail but if you have lots of extra eggs I would love some- do I have anything you would want in trade? Homemade pickles? Peach preserves? A potholder? Some Mrs. Meyers handsoap refills? (I have those big refills). So send me a note to: angelinawilliamson1atgmaildotcom.

It sounds more like contact dermatitis--also known as irritant dermatitis--than a cold sore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_dermatitis).

And it might very well be connected to your tonic drinking in that: "When limes are squeezed into beverages, excess juice remains on the skin. Sun exposure of this lime juice produces areas of dermatitis or hyperpigmentation."

Just do a google search for "contact dermatitis" "lime juice".

Well that just sucks! It very well might be contact dermatitis. I guess it's a good thing that this coming week I am going to start weaning myself down from all the tonic and lime and try to mix in some mineral water with unsweetened cranberry juice next. This is a beverage that once I am not drinking as much beer is easier for me to get into. I really like it because a splash of unsweetened cranberry juice is enough to make me pucker up something serious (I like very tart and slightly bitter drinks, can you tell? Yet I don't like bitter greens. Go figure.) This is because there are a lot fewer calories in the mineral water with splash of cranberry and I would like now to not be as fat. We'll see how it goes.

Sorry. It's just that the timing suggests the lime juice as the culprit, doesn't it?

Hate to say it, but quinine can also cause contact dermatitis, as well as being interactive with some psych meds.

Unfortunately, cranberries also contain quinine. Anyway, I think the best thing would be to eliminate the lime juice first, since that's really more likely what's causing your sore mouth. If it goes away, then you're okay with the quinine in the tonic water, and can switch to cranberry and mineral water with no worries about the quinine in cranberries.

Worse and Worse! Oh well. Yes, I actually think you're onto something here. I was out in the fierce sun at a rose garden right before this started up and I have been consuming large quantities of limes and tonic water.

Here I thought I was doing myself such a great favor by not being such a lush. I just can't win.

Is there nothing tasty that I can drink in vice-like quantities without harming myself?

Oh, and I have a question: do you call it a preying mantis (as opposed to a praying mantis, which is the common name) on purpose to emphasize the predatory nature of the creature?

Because moderation is not a word I comprehend.

Uh, no, I spelled it incorrectly because I failed to look it up and my spell check didn't alert me. I spell "gray" "grey. I like the "e" better and in the case of the color it can be spelled either way. However, this time was just sheer laziness. I have never had to spell "Praying Mantis" before in my life.

Yes, it sucks, because you are trying to do yourself a favor by not drinking beer, and look what happens!

Since you like bitter, could you try Campari or Angostura and soda water? I know they have alcohol, but you can use them in such a small quantity (i.e. a dash of bitters) as to not have them effect you. Also, soda water doesn't have calories, and while Campari does have quinine, it doesn't have much, and you would use so little.

I do love angostura bitters (boy would I like to get a recipe for making something like that!!!) but am used to putting it in champagne. Not sure if I would like it in soda water- but there's no reason for me not to try it! Oh, yeah, that amount of alcohol isn't a problem. I just need something tasty to drink all evening while I wind down that I can have as much of as I want without adverse affects. Hot herbal tea doesn't really do it for me these days. Though I have loved tea all my life (both black and herbal...but the black stuff I can't drink much of because of caffeine). How do you know about quinine being in all these different beverages? Have you done quinine research? I love your noggin full of information.

Oh.... and I just cut and pasted off of your post to spell preying...praying mantis... see what you started??? Hahaha.... I was being lazy as well....

Your carrots are beautiful! Oh how I love carrot-ginger soup. I didn't plant carrots this spring/summer and really missed having them. Honestly, I took on far too much with the garden extension that now all I want to do is close the door and not see it for months...but I may still plant some lettuce, spinach and chard.

Your mouth sores sound very much like what I had when I was a teenager. Cracked mouth corners that were very sore and wouldn't heal. My mother told me it was from the herpes simplex virus, as you said. Zinc deficiency is a common cause as is stress and a low immune system. The stress you've been under the past several months could have contributed to your immune system being under attack. I would suggest kombucha tea...have you made that before?

If you lived here it would be grey not gray, so you are right.
If the sore didn't tingle it might not be a cold sore, my daughter gets them when she is run down. Last time she had them she also developed impetigo as a secondary infection, which lives on the skin but can flare up when your immune system is under pressure. Impetigo is a blistery, crusty kind of sore. She says you should post a picture so we can all help with your hypochondria.
The preying mantis is really cool, my 6 year old son thinks it's amazing.

No, I did all the quinine research after I started looking for an alternative to tonic water (which I did know contains quinine). Only then did I learn about quinine in Campari and cranberry juice. I have a black belt in GoogleFu.

Thank you for a great post