I have learned the value of serious exercise over the past year. Our Catahoula puppy tore up the lawn last year. This we we found a group of off-leash walkers real near our house. Now the dog gets about an hour off leash in the woods every day. On Saturday he gets an hour of extremely intense exercise with about six young dogs and six more older ones. That seems to wipe him out for most of Sunday, too. We are at the end of the second season with him and our back yard has fully recovered.

Hi SnailLover, I just pulled a back muscle back in June and have spent the whole summer at PT trying to get back to normal in the garden. I tried to deal with the injury myself for the first 3 weeks and keep getting out in the garden on a limited basis and I was getting nowhere. What I realized once I started PTherapy, I do have other underlying medical issues and those were keeping me from being in good physical condition. I was more in a state of deconditioning than I realized. As I am working with the PTherapist, I've seen that I was able to improve the condition of my core muscles and I'm working on flexibility because I basically strained my lower back, reaching for something in the wrong position, so I was just not flexible enough to accomplish what I need to. Even after two months of PT, I have a long way to go because of my other health issues. I'm having to incorporate formal exercise and stretching into my routine and it is frustratingly slow going too. It is making a difference though and I feel stronger, and more flexible and I'm starting to get back in the garden gradually and it feels much more comfortable now. So progress and that is encouraging. I also want to say that I realize your condition is not the same as mine. My husband on the other hand, has had disc and back problems for years. We thought he was going to have to have surgery at one point, but we were lucky that we found a back surgeon that was not eager to operate and prescribed the conservative approach with Physical Therapy. My husband improved tremendously with PT and he was pretty much pain free. He had been through the series of PT appts a number of times before but would have another problem later. This time, what he did differently, was that we thought it through and realized that after his PT he would use the techniques and strategies to move correctly for awhile after the PT appts would stop and then he would go back to his old habits. Then the last time he had a problem, he did something different. After the end of his initial PT prescription ended, he signed up to continue to meet with the PTherapist once a week and use the facilities there 2 more times a week for another six months. We paid out of pocket to do that, but it was well worth it. Now we feel he has incorporated the correct movements that keep him out of trouble and he has had far fewer problems with his back. For instance, he would not pick up a heavy pot in the garden now. We always use a hand cart to move anything heavy from large bags of mulch to large ceramic pots. We had a gas mower with one of those strings you had to yank to get the engine going and we switched to an electric model that turns on with a button. The PT person helped him think through what was causing the problem and explore different ways of doing the same thing without hurting himself. He also had a problem with his neck and that hasn't bothered him in a long time either. As for the arthritis, I wonder if you have ever considered seeing a Naturopath about that? If you can find a good one, carefully selected, that might be an alternative that would improve your condition. I'm very sorry you are having so much trouble. A garden is a living thing and it's hard to watch things deteriorate if you are not out there keeping up with it, but it also sleeps every winter and comes back the next season giving you another chance to start over. I hope you will take a break or get help in the garden and focus on getting your back and joints in better condition to relieve your pain. Good luck!

My seed anxiety is more of a "I haven't checked the Exchange pages in hours. Maybe someone offered a SASBE of their entire seed collection right after I last checked!" But I do also have: "How many seeds should I sow? If I sow them all, I'll have way too many seedlings, and no back-up if they all die. But what if germination is low? What if this packet got heated up? What if these are old seeds? How many should I sow!" I don't feel much anxiety about saving and trading regular flower seeds. I do get anxious about my tomato seeds. If they get mislabeled or there's a stray seed, there's no way to tell! I am so careful when I'm fermenting and packaging them, thinking about the shame if I traded with someone and it was the wrong plant. Someone on the Tomato forum is always telling people they should buy commercial seeds, because seeds from traders are always mixed up. But Bakemom's right--commercial seeds can be messed up too, either not germinating, or the wrong plant. Many people post about commercial seed mix-ups with tomatoes-and almost every traded tomato I've grown was correct. So, save those seeds, and who cares about chaff! However, it is good to look up what the seed looks like; sometimes I get a packet in trade where I do know what the seed looks like, and there aren't very many of those amongst the chaff! Do I hate the trader? Nope! It's just good to look it up if you can.

My pain was in my back, below my shoulder blade. The second attack (that preceded the "wait for the first attack to heal so we can remove your gall bladder surgery" and forced the emergent removal of my gall bladder) was in my upper-right abdomen. I was in so much pain I was doubled-over. I was vomiting like it was my job. Apparently, gall bladder/gallstone pain can present in myriad ways. It can also mimic a heart attack. I'd go straight to the ER if you're having this type of pain. Not kidding.