Alan and I finally made it to the surgeon’s follow-up visit after our first appointment was due in the middle of the holidays and then a too snowy day stopped us from making the big drive to Albany early in January. When the surgeon looked at Alan's incision scars and said, "beautiful", Alan and I just looked at each other in astonishment. We should have been ready for him to be only concerned in his handiwork and its outcome. We were hoping for more concern about patient comfort! Luckily Alan's surgery was called a heartport, and not a full opening of his chest so the visible physical scars are small. It's the emotional and internal healing that has taken quite a while in showing visible progress.
He is recovering slowly and in bursts of feeling good and then feeling like not doing anything. I can understand why they don’t want to tell you about the myriad of weird things they inject, IV and do during surgery beforehand, but afterward I wish they would suggest a detoxifying diet to help get rid of all that stuff more quickly. The heart healthy diet routine in the hospital is a total joke compared to the great kinds of foods we all eat from our gardens and the CSA. One day they served sweet sugared beets and wondered why all the patients had high blood sugar levels the next morning!! It was too funny until you realized how serious it is. These people directing the food service are "nutritionists". Anyway, at least you only stay there five days. Now with the holidays and eating extravaganza done, we are back to normal and slowly emptying the root cellar of leeks, beets, potatoes, garlic, squash, cabbage and brussel sprouts.
Alan has been determined to make each of the 4 trips to NYC since Dec 13 with Joe, who helps drive along the Thruway and is the mover of all the boxes and bags to each drop off site. The drive through the city invigorates Alan somehow. He has also made it to most all of the County Supervisors meetings and all of the Town of Jackson meetings where he is the Supervisor. The budget discussion and decisions at this time of year are a big impetus to get him there and be involved. He is the curmudgeon of the board and the fiscal conservative. He is happy this year to be the chairman of the county department of public works, one of the largest spending departments and where he feels he can make a difference. His good friend Don Wilbur, supervisor of the Town of Greenwich, is the chairman of the county board this year and together they are working on lots of ideas to reduce spending within the gigantic budget of our rural county. It is activity like this that stimulates his analytical energies and gets him going.
So all in all we are doing well. The snow has been wonderfully fluffy and soft in the last 2 storms since the big ice mess. I got to go skiing at Bromley Mountain with my nephews for a great day. The snow is deep enough for snowshoes but I haven't gotten them out yet - but I intend to soon. I love walking on the logging roads around the farm in the quiet with the dogs running all over and seeing all the animal tracks and bird wingtip impressions in the snow. The temperatures are rising a bit over 10 degrees these days so maybe in this break between deliveries I'll get out there. So any of you hardy CSA folks who have some time off this winter, come on up and take a walk with us!! Stay warm and be healthy!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
yipeekiokiaa for the Obama's
Today was a momentous day in our lives! I even watched with rapt attention our TV (which I had to drag out of the closet) while Alan listened to the radio during his drive through the city for our Tuesday deliveries. I just feel so great that George is no longer our Pres. The things he did to our environment for his money-hungry campaign contributors makes me reel. You'll all know the song they were singing on the mall - NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, hey hey hey GOODBYE, which they sang every time good old boy George's face showed on the monitors down the mall. I was glad to hear how fast he got out of town!!!!! His plane even had the nerve to streak over the mall.
Are any of us surprised how the market fell after the speech today??????????
Well he did say hard word ahead of us today right? It just makes us a bit mad that we already work very hard!
Well, no matter what.........I am exuberant about the new President and his new administration. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he knew exactly which cabinet members would be helpful to the "cause" and which ones would be knowledgeable as well as watchdogs on their operations since they could have been insiders who have been given a new direction. These are the appointees we don't agree with - such as Agriculture cabinet member.
Can you believe he is a proponent of GMO crops. We have to keep writing him on that topic!!!!
Other wise, we love the idea of his change and hope to be able to agree on his agenda or help direct his ideals!!!!!1
Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and not the corporate one!!!
Nancy
Are any of us surprised how the market fell after the speech today??????????
Well he did say hard word ahead of us today right? It just makes us a bit mad that we already work very hard!
Well, no matter what.........I am exuberant about the new President and his new administration. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he knew exactly which cabinet members would be helpful to the "cause" and which ones would be knowledgeable as well as watchdogs on their operations since they could have been insiders who have been given a new direction. These are the appointees we don't agree with - such as Agriculture cabinet member.
Can you believe he is a proponent of GMO crops. We have to keep writing him on that topic!!!!
Other wise, we love the idea of his change and hope to be able to agree on his agenda or help direct his ideals!!!!!1
Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and not the corporate one!!!
Nancy
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Snowing Again
It's still snowing lightly and thankfully it is covering all the ice and crust and crud. Alan is off to a county finance meeting, hopefully to begin the long process for this year of putting the brakes on spending at the county. Looking at the federal government, spending money is not a problem - just print more! What I never realized before seeing Zeitgeist is that the federal reserve is a private organization that charges the country interest on the money it prints as soon as it prints it!! No wonder the deficit never goes away!! We are in a credit crisis and the answer is to take on more credit at the national level?? I guess I don't get it (and have also run away topic-wise and rambling about my concerns)! They say - think globally, act locally, so Alan has been in town and county politics now for 17 years and is constantly working to keep a handle on the growth of the local governments. Luckily the Town of Jackson is tiny, with no center, no church, very few businesses besides farms and lots of rural families. The biggest part of the budget is the town highway department with our 50 miles of roads.
Our juggling acts between farm business, gardens and fruits, town and county political business, Alan's real estate business, our rental houses, friends, family, and fun has been a part of our life for many years. Alan has been doing this for 40 years! At one time he also had a bustling home building and restoration business. I have been here at the farm since 1998 and was taken up in the swirl of priorities then, coming from a quiet single life of work, friends and family and travel. One of our CSA members, Helen, suggested that I add to the mix of topics about the farm with how to work all these projects and remain fairly sane and still have fun!
It definitely took me a while to get used to the jumble of projects, activities, and priorities to all the various aspects of things going on here. The beauty of not having to start each day leaving and "going" to work allows you to start each day with some planning. Certainly there are overall daily responsibilities for the week such as feeding the animals or the farmers markets on Saturday and Sunday, but the preparation for them can be done anytime beforehand and mixed in with any absolute priority activities. Each day can be vastly different, from packing for the CSA delivery to a cattle herd roundup! We do have helpers thankfully, so we do have others to rely on for some tasks. The four seasons certainly have an impact on the activity and also dictate certain projects during certain seasons. This topic is a whole chapter - not just a single post! Since a few years have given me some experience now, I am more adaptable to the process - although there are certainly some months when I feel quite overwhelmed! Mid Spring and Fall are the busiest times of year for me as the number of things to do is incredible. I have determined that the more things you are trying to do and think about, the faster time goes because as you get older and have way more "things of interest" that you would like to explore or try to fit in, that the time feels like it is going by faster since you are trying to fit so much in. On the other hand, I am beginning to learn that once in a while you just need to sit down and do nothing for a few minutes to make sure you are on the "right" track of your goals. More about this another day - as i have things to do now besides writing!
Take Care and Enjoy
Our juggling acts between farm business, gardens and fruits, town and county political business, Alan's real estate business, our rental houses, friends, family, and fun has been a part of our life for many years. Alan has been doing this for 40 years! At one time he also had a bustling home building and restoration business. I have been here at the farm since 1998 and was taken up in the swirl of priorities then, coming from a quiet single life of work, friends and family and travel. One of our CSA members, Helen, suggested that I add to the mix of topics about the farm with how to work all these projects and remain fairly sane and still have fun!
It definitely took me a while to get used to the jumble of projects, activities, and priorities to all the various aspects of things going on here. The beauty of not having to start each day leaving and "going" to work allows you to start each day with some planning. Certainly there are overall daily responsibilities for the week such as feeding the animals or the farmers markets on Saturday and Sunday, but the preparation for them can be done anytime beforehand and mixed in with any absolute priority activities. Each day can be vastly different, from packing for the CSA delivery to a cattle herd roundup! We do have helpers thankfully, so we do have others to rely on for some tasks. The four seasons certainly have an impact on the activity and also dictate certain projects during certain seasons. This topic is a whole chapter - not just a single post! Since a few years have given me some experience now, I am more adaptable to the process - although there are certainly some months when I feel quite overwhelmed! Mid Spring and Fall are the busiest times of year for me as the number of things to do is incredible. I have determined that the more things you are trying to do and think about, the faster time goes because as you get older and have way more "things of interest" that you would like to explore or try to fit in, that the time feels like it is going by faster since you are trying to fit so much in. On the other hand, I am beginning to learn that once in a while you just need to sit down and do nothing for a few minutes to make sure you are on the "right" track of your goals. More about this another day - as i have things to do now besides writing!
Take Care and Enjoy
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
the end of the holiday time off
We hope that all of you are ringing in the New Year with hopeful anticipation. Can’t wait to have a new government in a few weeks – but it likely really won’t be all that different! We can only hope for a new beginning!
We were really happy to have taken some time off during the holiday season and hope we did not inconvenience you too much with our lack of response to your emails when Chris was not here to reply as fast as she usually does. I went skiing at Bromley VT. We saw my brother Jim and Kim, and his twins Jared and David. Brian and Allie and Sadie were here for 5 days visiting from Maine. We tried to keep in touch with everyone else and likely hit the majority! We were nursing Alan after his heart valve replacement and he feels pretty good so far. He has lost some weight, is less mobile with the cold temperatures and luckily between the farm and the real estate business, can relax this time of year and work on getting well and resting.
We usually get to watch more movies in the winter when the sun sets so much earlier and the chores are fewer, so we’ve started running through our one movie at a time Netflix list much faster. Joe gave us our latest movie to watch – Zeitgeist. This is and seems to me to be a very well researched documentary covering a long range of history building up to present times in America and the world. Far reaching range of facts, amazing “coincidences”, and to me a sneak peek into the “people pulling the strings” behind the governments of the world. I always had this image of an invisible force of decision making in the background. Very Interesting. I have since sent for the ‘addendum’ at www.zeitgeistmovie.com So our next movie was a warm and funny story about an orangutan who needed to be freed from the lab and from the zoo environment called ‘Born to be Wild’– so we are pretty easy going in our choices of themes!
Allie helped me to set up a new blog that I have just started to write in often. My resolution would be to start journaling in this venue and keep everyone who is interested a bit more often with tidbits from the farm.
Hope you all are enjoying the winter with all of its sound advice for - bundle up for the cold and wear sensible shoes! Take care and Happy New Year, Nancy & Alan
We were really happy to have taken some time off during the holiday season and hope we did not inconvenience you too much with our lack of response to your emails when Chris was not here to reply as fast as she usually does. I went skiing at Bromley VT. We saw my brother Jim and Kim, and his twins Jared and David. Brian and Allie and Sadie were here for 5 days visiting from Maine. We tried to keep in touch with everyone else and likely hit the majority! We were nursing Alan after his heart valve replacement and he feels pretty good so far. He has lost some weight, is less mobile with the cold temperatures and luckily between the farm and the real estate business, can relax this time of year and work on getting well and resting.
We usually get to watch more movies in the winter when the sun sets so much earlier and the chores are fewer, so we’ve started running through our one movie at a time Netflix list much faster. Joe gave us our latest movie to watch – Zeitgeist. This is and seems to me to be a very well researched documentary covering a long range of history building up to present times in America and the world. Far reaching range of facts, amazing “coincidences”, and to me a sneak peek into the “people pulling the strings” behind the governments of the world. I always had this image of an invisible force of decision making in the background. Very Interesting. I have since sent for the ‘addendum’ at www.zeitgeistmovie.com So our next movie was a warm and funny story about an orangutan who needed to be freed from the lab and from the zoo environment called ‘Born to be Wild’– so we are pretty easy going in our choices of themes!
Allie helped me to set up a new blog that I have just started to write in often. My resolution would be to start journaling in this venue and keep everyone who is interested a bit more often with tidbits from the farm.
Hope you all are enjoying the winter with all of its sound advice for - bundle up for the cold and wear sensible shoes! Take care and Happy New Year, Nancy & Alan
Monday, January 5, 2009
Freezing Rain
We woke this morning to a coating of ice over everything. Early this morning the horse, Jack and the donkey, Pedro were walking ever so gingerly down the slope from their shed to find any leftover hay from yesterday's feeding. On days like these, you bring the feed to the animals so they don't have to slip around to get anywhere unless they want to do that. One of the pigs is limping today which was likely to have been a slip down the slope in their pasture. They have been venturing out in the snow to dig even in the frozen ground looking for who knows what? Sleeping grubs? Springs below the surface? Minerals in the soil? Their poor little cold noses let them know when to stop I guess.
Yesterday we gave the pigs the last of the tomatoes that were ripening in the greenhouse and they ate up most of the red ones. In late September or early October when the first chances of frost seem near, we harvest all the green tomatoes from the garden and put them in trays in the greenhouse windows. We have fairly tasty tomato sandwiches until Thanksgiving and then they begin to lose their flavor. Some were still green and would likely never ripen, but many were nice and red or yellow.
Alan's news has been good concerning his recovery from the heart valve replacement. He was very chipper the first week of his release from the hospital and even went on the two December deliveries. But the medications to slow him down and rest and heal have caught up with him. The lowering of his blood pressure has made him feel very apathetic. I guess it is a building in his bloodstream of the medications and thus keeps you from doing too much soon. Hopefully this week when he visits the doctors involved, changes may be made to rid us of the daily medicine ritual. Luckily, we are a very healthy bunch up here and rarely are sick, so we are really hoping that we do not have to think about medicine daily! We would much rather eat well, eat our own foods and take our nourishment from normal meals. I know we are very fortunate in this regard. So Alan and his brother Bill will be making the next delivery to NYC - and hopefully be on the road to a full and energetic recovery.
Yesterday we gave the pigs the last of the tomatoes that were ripening in the greenhouse and they ate up most of the red ones. In late September or early October when the first chances of frost seem near, we harvest all the green tomatoes from the garden and put them in trays in the greenhouse windows. We have fairly tasty tomato sandwiches until Thanksgiving and then they begin to lose their flavor. Some were still green and would likely never ripen, but many were nice and red or yellow.
Alan's news has been good concerning his recovery from the heart valve replacement. He was very chipper the first week of his release from the hospital and even went on the two December deliveries. But the medications to slow him down and rest and heal have caught up with him. The lowering of his blood pressure has made him feel very apathetic. I guess it is a building in his bloodstream of the medications and thus keeps you from doing too much soon. Hopefully this week when he visits the doctors involved, changes may be made to rid us of the daily medicine ritual. Luckily, we are a very healthy bunch up here and rarely are sick, so we are really hoping that we do not have to think about medicine daily! We would much rather eat well, eat our own foods and take our nourishment from normal meals. I know we are very fortunate in this regard. So Alan and his brother Bill will be making the next delivery to NYC - and hopefully be on the road to a full and energetic recovery.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year
Today at the farm we have special guests all the way from Maine ...our dear nephew Brian and his lovely wife Allie and cute as cute can be toddler Sadie and their husky Sasha! They are spending a week with us to celebrate the new year. Brian and Allie run a small winery in Warren Maine called Oyster River Winegrowers that they started over a year ago. Their farm is near the coast and warmer than it's normal northern location so they thought it may great for grapes. They planted Seyval and Cayuga vines last spring and are now making wine from Long Island and Finger Lakes grapes since their vines are not yet producing. Their next project is growing vegetables and fruits for themselves and a farm stand by the road. Brian consults with another winery nearby called Cellar Door Winery. We even talked about finding a way to have a wine share! The rules for alcohol are sticky so we are working through the laws and our logistics to see how it can be done.
The farm is covered with snow. The animals are doing their best to stay warm so the pigs are building a big nest - a literal pig pile! The thermometer says "0" today. With guests here we are taking some time off this week so we are not paying as close attention to our email as we do from Monday to Friday!
We hope you all have a wonderful new year - healthy, happy, properous and full of love, Nancy and Alan
The farm is covered with snow. The animals are doing their best to stay warm so the pigs are building a big nest - a literal pig pile! The thermometer says "0" today. With guests here we are taking some time off this week so we are not paying as close attention to our email as we do from Monday to Friday!
We hope you all have a wonderful new year - healthy, happy, properous and full of love, Nancy and Alan
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