Yes he was at least 3/3.5cm … the pansy is 8cm width. Thats why I was so surprised. I have lots of different bees visit the garden but most are much smaller. Even last year when I had the bumble bee nest under the crooked slab (before the guys came to hardscape) they weren’t that big, perhaps 2/2.5cm and I thought they were big lol I just love them. Between me and my neighbours we rescued a small bee today. The weather changed and although forecast 17° the sun went behind the clouds and the temp dropped quite significantly. This little bee got caught out by it and was very tired and drowsy so I gave it some sugary water, it soon perked up and eventually found the strength to fly off. Yay… love a happy ending.!!
Meat Chewin' June - June 2022 Carnivore Chat
Shinita
#32
Okay, that’s big then. Good for you 
We have a 8cm long hawk-moth too! I saw it once!
Our spiders are usually smallish though. The biggest is 10cm with kind of straight legs but I never saw that. The biggest common spider is 1.5cm and quite pretty.
Oh well, it’s not all about size. The hummingbird hawk-moth is totally awesome and while not tiny, not huge either. But lovely and I made good photos of it (I love my summer lilac, it’s a butterfly and hummingbird hawk-moth magnet).
Yay for saving lovely insects! 
I walked a bit in the evening. I almost melted. Woe me.
But I saw a blue heron! And egrets, seagulls, ducks, coots and swans. The full set. I only would have been more lucky if I saw another kingfisher, ours is very beautiful. And there were tiny frogs everywhere near the big pond!
I am satiated now, I hope it stays with me and I won’t get hungry early tomorrow either. But I will start with my broth. poor thing, I finally made it and keep forgetting about its existence…
Karen18
(Karen)
#33
Bit of a strange day weather wise. My phone weather app has predicted rain every day this week and every day has been sunny Nd warm till today, still no rain at least not what you could call rain, a little spitting and it was all over. It has put me on tenterhooks all week, do I water do I leave it???
Brunch about 11.45 finished the other half of the legless chicken reheated in butter.
A snack of 2 small slices of smoked belly pork and 2 small slices of cheddar about 2.45 and
Dinner at 6.40pm 6 Chinese style chicken thighs that weren’t that brill but I am them all, as you do, would be rude not to. Was filling up so took nearly an hour to eat them all. Just would like them cold out of the fridge… Best bit was the skins which I used to hate.
JJFiddle
(Judy Thompson)
#35
So interesting, me too! At first I just didn’t like the smell of deodorant anymore, used magnesium oil. Then a little later I realized I didn’t need it. Hair doesn’t break off and I don’t need as many showers and hair washes. I’m waiting to see if melanin restarts and I don’t have to dye it as often - not ready to go white!
Easy day, lunch was a couple hard boiled eggs chopped with mayo and then a slice of tenderloin. Tonight we played a duo for a Bolivian violin student’s extended family graduation party and they served BBQ - just grilled meat, I got a chicken thigh, some steak and a sausage and a bottle of water. They gave us a HUGE chunk of the cake. I can’t believe dh is going to eat all that and not get sick. I offered to give half of it to a neighbor but he seems protective of it, lol
FrankoBear
#36
Heart, my heart. 3 am tachycardia. Probably atrial fibrillation. Woke needing to wee at 3… am. Usually I sleep from 10pm to 7am. Well and deep. But I have been staying effortlessly on ZC plan. The whole 2MAD, NoFUN, 2 coffees, winter sun regimen. Even taking magnesium supplements morning and night. When I get too good, too well in the groove, no cravings, no distractions, it seems I hit a place, I suspect chronic low insulin, where I will have a ‘heart attack’, a crazy arrhythmia.
Mrs. Bear cracked her molar tooth on an olive pit last night. It’s cracked right up the centre of the tooth. It’s a long holiday weekend here. I was worried about her. But she’s off to teach yoga this morning.and says she will sort it out next week. I broke a molar tooth once. It’s not as gentle as she suggests.
3 am wake up. Like a hyperactive frog disco in my chest. Light-headed when I stood up in the dark. Took two magnesium citrate tablets and Mrs. Bear made me hot super salty beef bone broth. Mrs. Bear finds any saltiness nauseating. The bone broth is salty. We add a salty stock cube. Americans call that a bullion cube. Then I add extra pink salt to the edge of taste tolerance.
I calm my breathing and then start sipping the hot liquid. The notable thing this time is that the drink is hot. So it can’t be gulped down. It’s a sipper. The act of sipping regulates the breathing. It’s one reason having a hot cup of tea is meditative and soothing for so many people.
You can do the breathing without the tea as a yoga meditation. Try it. But the bolus, the hot stream of sipped liquid, slides down the food pipe. You can feel it from the back of throat, entering the chest, sliding past the heart, between the lungs, and into the stomach. That mindful following of the swallow could be considered a yoga nidra practice. It lines up with the posts on mindful eating. The warm liquid was like a soothing internal heart massage.
About half way through the big mug, the one holding the potion, not the one holding the mug, my heart beat left chaos behind, and returned to a calm 60bpm.
The best I can work out is that I unfortunately lose too many electrolytes in the process of regaining or maintaining my health. Some carnivores will take a small honey dose after their last meal to get an insulin response to retain electrolytes through retaining sodium, and also retain body water. I don’t do that yet.
Eating in a surf and turf (fish and meat) manner may mitigate some electrolyte loss. Marine carnivore foods are mineral rich. So I’ll be eating some surf and turf while surfing this current body weight loss wave.
Some cited notes on “clean carnivore” “beef only” carnivore and magnesium depletion risks: https://nutritionwithjudy.com/microblog-magnesium-amount-in-foods/
Keep calm and carnivore on.
Previous episode:
Carnivore Rocktober - ZC Carnivore 31 day challenge October 2022
Shinita
#37
According to that info, I rarely get enough magnesium - but no one knows my actual needs so maybe I do. I had some baby cramp this week though. I did absolutely nothing, it was so minimal. (Why I have some Mg pills then? I don’t know. I had 150mg Magnesium on vegetarian keto maybe in every month? I am not that supplementing type…)
But it turns out (not surprisingly) that focusing more on meat and less on eggs does good to my nutrient intake. Poor eggs are great but have little Mg, Vitamin C and calcium.
I have an off day today and go low-meat sparing my leftovers until I can buy more (not like I don’t have much in the freezer, mind you)… Low proper meat, I eat sausage and liver now. And the pork chuck in the soup that I can’t track.
Nice soup. I finish my leftover whipped cream too, this is a coffee rich weekend. Tomorrow will be stricter even in that regard…
robintemplin
(Robin)
#38
These hearty adventures of yours are scary to read… even tho I know you’re still ticking, because you are writing. And poetically, at that.
Your description of how a swallow of a good hot beverage can soothe your very soul, makes me happy. I try to live in that space as much as possible.
I don’t have any heart issues, but since going ket0, then carni, I know that I need a large glass of good salty water with magnesium citrate. If I forget to do this, I get leg and foot cramps in the night. So I rarely forget.
I remember you time these affairs of the heart, so you know when you should seek help. But it sounds like you and your heart are old friends who know each other’s temperament. I am always amazed by these stories. Thanks for sharing.
Azi
(Linda )
#39
Scary scary stuff I noticed I been gettingotr cramps lately but er just had s whole lot of rain maybe that’s related…
Thank goodness I don’t have heart issues or I’d prob add the carb needed back
.
carnivoor2
(Vic)
#40
My dauthers were baking cake today.
I can’t stand the smell anymore, its horrible. To say that I used to love it 
JJFiddle
(Judy Thompson)
#41
Smell is one of the biggest changes since starting carnivore. I feel like my sense of smell has sharpened, and lots of things I loved the smells of are now abhorrent. Garlic is the worst! That said, things like cake don’t bother me to look at, they might as well be chunks of plastic. DH put his plate of cake up on a shelf lastnight so as not to tempt me - which couldn’t have been less possible.
@FrankoBear Glad Mrs Bear 
was there to get you through your arrhythmia lastnight! Also glad her cracked tooth didn’t cause her pain (yet). Loved the Judy Cho post, I love that variety in meats contribute to good health.
I made chaffles awhile ago. Didn’t like them much, the pork rind taste was strong, salty and dry and masked the taste of the burger. Then I remembered that even as a kid I didn’t like sandwiches, as the bread would always mask the flavor of the meat inside.
Tomorrow I have some ground pork rind coming to try pizza dough and other “breads.” I hope the results are better.
DH liked the chaffle burgers though. Interesting as he never liked the keto version (almond flour).
Karen18
(Karen)
#42
Doms have set in big time from Fridays Hero Murph WOD. The creases in my elbows, my shoulders,bi’s, tri’s and quads arghh so sore! All good stuff though:wink:
Up early this morning , bath and picked up by my Sian and son in law and off to pick up Ben to have a trip out. Wet miserable rainy day and the car boot sale was cancelled which of course we had to take him just to show him it wasn’t happening and then off to a Garden Centre to get a brew and a slice of something Ben loves very much lol fortunately Sian had emptied her boot just in case we bought anything cos I couldn’t resist a plant from the G/C 
a tree fern
From the G/C we went to a pub for lunch and we all had the Carvery and I was given a great plate of meat, turkey, beef and pork and I got the server to chuck on all the fatty bits he’d cut off the other bits of meat he’d served to other diners. Best was the turkey and the big lump of skin yum. Pork was too dry. Sorry i thought of photo after I had eaten! Oops!
Got home and stood filming and taking photos of these beauts 
Ate some cheese and then finished the last 2 beef burgers with some butter then abit more cheese then some buffalo wings. Just got the munchies I think 
FrankoBear
#44
OMAD yesterday. Planted an avocado tree. Hass. Built a fence around it to keep the kangaroos out. A food forest is food security, peace of mind. Quiet day after middle night marathon (tachycardia). Only a few hours digging and pushing a wheel barrow.
Ate a leftover beef rib by the fire last night. Ate it with my bear paws. No cutlery. Salt added. Sparkling rainwater to drink. Added a playing card size slice of pan-fried halloumi cheese.
NoFUN bacon and eggs this morning. It’s a public holiday Monday. Took Billie for a walk at the sunny winter beach. It’s 18’C today.
Here is a late sunflower.
FrankoBear
#45
Scotch fillet steak tonight with two fried eggs cooked in butter on the woodfire. Large cup of beef bone broth to drink.
There is a small winter Myrtle shrub starting to bloom out in the woods on the property.
Karen18
(Karen)
#46
Brautiful sunflower. I have been blown away by some of the different coloured sunflowers I’ve seen online recently. One person posted their white ones and they were beautiful.
Fangs
#47
our farm grew sunflowers for sales. the colors and size differences in their species is amazing. sold literally tons of these at the markets. I am well versed in sunflowers LOL
I love them too cause they do duel purpose with seeds for birds but colors can vary so much and sizes that they have a massive market appeal. They are very crop resilient and are a very easy crop for mass market field growing which put us to them and yea, they did fab on what we grew and sold.
Shinita
#48
I live next to a huge sunflower field right now…
Hungry day and I started early. I am very low energy too. Sigh. And the weather is way too hot.
I had pork chuck and eggs. Ate all my leftover soup and made egg pudding. I have liver too but it’s rarely tempting and I had lots of pork so didn’t have any yet.
I think I put away the rest of my pork chuck roast and grab the leaner cut from the freezer. This particular chuck piece was WAY fattier than chuck usually is, I had sausage too… Both were way too fatty for me, I desire leaner stuff now. (Like, 65% fat in calories, my normal. Or a tad less to balance out today.)
SecondBreakfast
#49
Happy Monday, all! So wonderful to read your posts, and see all the gorgeous pics of food and flowers!!! Such a blessing, you all are! Seems like its been forever. So much has happened-- some good, some not.
The weather here has been gorgeous- mid 70’s (f) Sunny, blue skies. The mosquitos are dreadful though. Lived here over 20 years and never seen them so bad this early in the season. The whole upper peninsula is notorious for its mosquito population. Years ago, 2 inmates escaped the max-security prison a couple hours from here… the mosquitos were so bad, they begged to come back to prison! LOL!
Despite the bugs, hubby tilled the garden a few weeks ago, and put the fencing back up. We had some very high winds soon after that, and it blew the fence apart. We lost power, the roof blew off the sauna down at the farm and many trees fell or broke. After repairs, I’ve gone out and roto-tilled the garden multiple times. Only way to keep the weeds at bay without chemicals. In between work and visiting my MIL in the care home, managed to make rows, and plant a few things. The butternut squash, pie pumpkins and green beans are up about an inch. Got a long ways to go, though, before I’'m done planting. This is early for planting here, but I’m going for it!
Some of the turkey eggs hatched, and we have a new crew of 7 baby turkeys. The 20 chickens are about a month away from egg laying. So, we are feasting on the rest of the turkey eggs now. Not as thick/rubbery as duck eggs, but huge and delicious. This is also a different breed of turkeys than what we’ve had before. The true bronze turkeys laid eggs that were bigger, but the yolks were much thicker than these. I’d have preferred the true bronze, but they didn’t have any. I was kinda hopting that our domestic turkeys would mate with the wild ones- cause those guys are BRONZE and beautiful! We had a whole flock in our yard for a week or two. Our two Toms are getting quite nasty now, so, turkey meat is going to be back on the menu in a couple weeks!
So far, no calves from the herd. But, we still have a couple younger ones - so, might get some beef in the freezer too. Ended up with 4 roosters from the straight run, so, There will be three of those boys getting cooked up as well. Only need one rooster.
My boss sold us some 20 foot chain-link panels, gates and footings that she has no need for anymore. (This is the same boss that lost her husband last year.) She said if we dig them out and haul them out - all ours for $100. There’s like 20 panels! We’ve got 3-4 more to move but wow. What a gracious and wonderful lady, she is! So far, we’ve constructed a chicken pen, and dog run. Next, the cattle are going to get a new outfit down at the farm. =)
Speaking of my wonderful boss…she gave me a whole month off work. So before my MIL had the stroke, we’d been planning to take our youngest kid out west for a vacation - to Yosemite, Tetons, etc… That was the plan. MIL has been moved to a care center, but, has had some ups and downs. Mainly due to a couple infections. SOMEONE decided she needed an anti-depres. which has pretty much just knocked her out and she sleeps all the time. We are trying to get that corrected, as she really didn’t need it. She can talk, and her swallowing is improving. Walking is improving, but, when they knock her out with meds, she has no energy to walk - so the muscle memory is suffering. Conference this week with the home to change things up.
The time off work begins in a few days, and boy am I glad! Somewhere amidst all the activities, and walking on concrete floors at work, I developed a case of extensor tendinitis. So, there is a lump on the extensor tendon - it just blew up about the size of a chicken oyster. (trying to use carnivore teminology here…) Can’t walk properly anymore as the foot/ankle/leg won’t flex as it should. After a day at work, I come home and take off my shoes and socks, and the whole foot is reddish-purple. The tummy is torn up inside from Ibuprofen and aspirin. Because of all the altered kind of walking I do now, the calf muscle feels like its going to snap. So, having some time off will help - as long as I can just rest it.
Other stuff - grandchild #6 should arrive 1st week of July…very exciting. Son #3 and his GF moved, and are doing fantastic. His boss gave him a raise after 1 month. That child LOVES working outdoors, and he is just loving life! I miss him, but, he calls and texts way more than he ever did before, so this is really nice.
Eats…the primary reason for being here … are improving. A lot. Done a couple 24 hour and 36 hour fasts. The pounds are slowly peeling off. Need to do more. Been making rump roasts, chuck roasts and burgers. Turkey eggs and bacon, laying off the cheese for the most part. Although - I"ve recently taken up making cheese as a hobby, so, I do eat some. Back to drinking the coffee black most of the time. If I feel like I need a dessert-y type thing, I mix in cream, MCT oil and a little liquid stevia.
Going to hobble around and hang another load of laundry outside, and maybe play in the garden a bit. My family enjoys a good bit of veg, and I usually give some away too. Maybe, if there is an overabundance, we can set up a roadside stand. =)
That’s about it for now. have a good one.
Karen18
(Karen)
#50
WOW great newsy post @SecondBreakfast. You have so much going on too, I feel for you.
I attend yearly reviews for my son in his care home and so have attended many as he’s now 37 (this month) for the mot part i have had to tackle issues within the care homes but since he moved to his current home things have been okay. It was always a stressful time so I hope all goes well for your meeting.
Sounds like you are making progress with all the outdoor repairs around you. So good to have kind people in your lives.
I do admire all you guys that can farm, I just can’t even do away with a fly, I have to shoo it out a window or catch it in my spider catcher, cos of course I don’t use that for spiders as I am more than happy to live with them. For a Carnivore, ‘everything has a right to life’ seems to have me in a confused state.
No ptobs eating if it is already dead and perhaps packaged but oooh to kill to live … thats a different thing all together… of course if there was no other way I guess I would get on with it and may eventually stop blubbing once I had got used to that way of life. I am far too much of a softie carebear 
Lovely post xx