Sunday Stroke Survival: Balance and Picking Peaches

Yesterday was my #3 daughter's 36th birthday and today is the 32nd anniversary of my mother's death. So it's kind of a bittersweet kind of day.

Since my first stroke I get some rather intense vertigo looking up. It's better than when I first had my stroke. Then, I couldn't look up or down without getting thrown off balance even a six-inch deviation of looking away from midline brought on the intense tilt-a-wheel sensation along with nausea.

I retrained my middle ear and brain connection by doing head rolls (looking at all points of the clock face) while seated. I actually used a clock on the wall initially positioned six inches above my line of sight. Initially, just that slight movement brought on the dizziness, but I kept at it by doing this exercise several times a day. When it didn't feel like I would fall out of my chair, I moved the clock position to correspond to my height standing and worked the exercise again. While seated, I expanded the exercises by moving the clock six inched below my midline. Whenever I could do the exercises without setting off my vertigo, I'd move the clock another 6-12 inches.

It's taken quite a few years to get where I do not get that sensation at all while looking down. I do get some when I have been looking down for a while and suddenly looking to midline. But it's only a matter of closing my eyes for a few seconds to realign my sight. Unfortunately, I've not have the same success with looking up. My maximum of looking straight up is a foot. Any distance greater than that the vertigo returns in full force.

Here's my dilemma and possible solutions. The peaches are ripe on one of three peach trees. They have to be harvested which means I have to look up and pick them. The peaches that hang within eye level or lower are no problem, but that's less than a quarter of them. All the rest are above my one foot line of vision. Now even I won't climb a ladder without support. If it requires a ladder, I'll have Mel pick them, or let the squirrels and birds have  them.

If I had two functioning hands, I could grab a branch and pull it lower to harvest, but I don't.  If I didn't get so dizzy when I looked up to the point of falling, it would not be an issue but I do. The idea of falling under a peach tree, feet from anything to assist me standing up is not ideal. Especially when the mechanism of the fall is disorientating vertigo. The mulch under the tree is damp to several inches of slick chipped leaves and wood, rotten fruit, and ants galore. A combination sure to make up an unstable foot placement for rising.  Will this stop me? Y'all know me better than that.

I sat on the porch swing and pondered the situation.  I've read about this homesteader who thought no fruit is ready until it falls from the tree. He put several thick layers of mulch under his trees to cushion the fruit, somewhat, when it fell. He just picked up whatever fell from the trees. That's all fine and dandy if you wanting only fresh eating or have planted harder fruit like apple, oranges, or rambutans. But fruits like figs, berries, and peaches are delicate fruit. They'll bruise badly if allowed to drop.

It doesn't work if you want to preserve the harvest unless you have a whole orchards of single fruit trees. It will take 2 to 3 peaches skinned, and cut into slices to fill a pint jar, and a canner load (water bath) is 8 jars. Most small homesteads have less than 20 fruit trees total. Plus if you wait until the fruit falls from the tree, it's too soft to can or freeze, it's overripe by those standards. My grandfather had twelve living children. He planted a cherry tree in honor of their births. At maturity, these trees produced more cherries than a family of FOURTEEN could eat in a year.

So back to my problem. I could take a big stick with a hook on the end to pick the fruit. This way I could stand at a distance making it within my one foot height restriction. I still might try this. Have you every tried controlling a long stick with one hand? The farther the stick is away from the body the harder it is to control. Let alone with a single hand. Plus, the fruit would hit the ground causing an unusable bruising spot that would have to be cut out while processing.

From there, my thoughts traveled to a more elaborate method. If I could somehow weight the stick, thereby hooking the branch, the weight could drop the fruit down where I could pick it without having to look up. I just have to figure out what to use for a weight. Maybe I could tuck the stick under my affected arm and slowly push it through as the branch lowers. But then, I'll end up with the peaches in my face.

I know I'll figure out something to get some of the peaches harvested for the pantry. They aren't particularly sweet nor large, but they are definitely peachy this year. But they are ours and the first time more abundant than the squirrels and birds can eat. They'd make some excellent jam. I can still go down the road to E.D. Grier's orchard and buy a half bushel of gorgeous peaches for slicing and canning.

Any of y'all have any ideas of how I can pick my peaches? I still have cherries to pick in a few weeks and apples to follow.

Nothing is impossible.