Life is a Salad

Pardon my absence from this space-it is a busy time of year, and we've had some real life interruptions that have taken us away from normal doings. I couldn't decide what image to display so of course I take that as an excuse to be a grandmother and brag about how wonderful my Jordan is by displaying a pictures. I titled this first picture "I love you this much", the second one is "Bear kisses", the third one is "Luvin' Jade"

Saturday, we spent the morning butchering chickens and cleaning up around the farm, mowing grass, etc., and then Saturday evening we had a NWGAA star party. It was a good meet-up, with two new members and their families visiting the field. The clouds dampened the viewing, but the company was good. I now have about 50 pounds of chicken in the freezer and about 38 birds left, 17 in the main coop and 21 in the old coop. I still have a few roosters to dispatch when they mature a bit, and I'll probably sell some more hens, but I envision a flock of about 25 birds or so when all is said and done. Today, I got 11 eggs, several were pullet eggs, which always amaze me. Soon, I will be awash in eggs. I hope I can sell them. On the way to town last week I saw a sign that read "Fresh Eggs $5 dozen" I hope *that* price holds! I usually sell mine for $2 dozen.



Sunday, we visited our daughter and granddaughter, and from her house, headed south to visit my father in law in the hospital, down to the Atlanta area. He had his cancer surgery and is recovering as expected. I've also had two doctor's appointments since I last blogged, saw my PCP today and my rheumatologist last week. I got some refills for our epi-pens, an appointment with a podiatrist, and of course a general checkup. I'll be waiting on my lab results, but the good news is that I am losing weight. The dietary changes I've made are working! I'm hopeful that as we ride our bikes more, even more pounds will come off. Since life has been a bit stressful, my RA has been flaring more than usual, but at least my allergies are not as distracting as last year. I'm trying to stay positive about things as I am finally believing, I mean truly believing, that attitude affects health. I suppose I've always believed that, but have never actively made a conscious effort to NOT be negative or to not worry about things. With no immune system to speak of, I could worry about all sorts of things, like catching a cold from being at the hospital, a re-emergence of MRSA in my body, or catching swine flu, but I'm making the decision to focus on all the positive things I am doing-eating healthier, losing weight, getting the right mix of vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, and exercising.

Last week, while Skyguy was in a waiting room reading a newspaper, he saw an ad for a local breeder of shelties. After a brief discussion, it appears that we may have a new sheltie baby before 2010 rolls around. I contacted the breeder and we will be headed over the mountain to meet with her and see her dogs tomorrow evening. We will also need to discuss pricing so we can start saving money to buy the pup, etc. She will be breeding two of her bitches in the late summer and fall, so we are hopeful that between the two litters, the right puppy for us will be born. Take a few minutes to Ooh and Aah over the Shelties:

http://hornmtnshelties.com/

The remaining block of time has been spent gardening, planting flowers, watering in the seeds I've already sown, weeding, harvesting, etc. The Michihili cabbage is no more as I either ate it, froze it, or gifted it. I needed the space in the bed for peppers. It never did head up properly, but the quality was good nonetheless. I've eaten about a third of the Pak choy, taking two heads to my daughter. It looks like flea beetles are starting to attack it, so I need to cut the rest of it and bring it in. I love the stuff, so I will definitely plant more for the fall garden. I really wish I could freeze it and have it retain it's texture after being frozen. We are eating salad every day, mixing all the lettuces and spinach and greens. I throw in a few violet leaves, and soon I'll be adding nasturtiums and other flowers. To round off the salad I add asparagus shoots, broccoli florets, radishes, carrots, alfalfa sprouts, black olives, and we split a boiled egg. I'd love cheese and meat in it, too, but I'm staying away from that. I do, however, have some leftover grilled chicken, and since that is a healthy meat, I'm tempted to slice it and add that to tomorrow's dinner salad.

I got distracted there and started talking about food instead of gardening, but it is hard to grow food without talking about how good it is to eat! At any rate, I do have some sweet corn coming up, as well as about half of the pole beans. My tire stack is 4 tires tall and the potatoes are growing like mad. I sure hope they produce well. It is nice to be able to water the garden. With the old well, we barely had enough water for household use, but since we got the new well 16 months ago, the supply is more than I could have dreamed. I still don't waste water. I water by hand and only in the planted areas, not the paths, and I try to reduce the evaporative loss. I watch the weather and I won't water if there is a chance of rain. I have a rainwater catchment tank that I used to water from-it's a 330 gallon tank that catches water from the barn roof-but right now I need a new hose for it. I need to come up with a way to poke holes in a hose that will allow gravity fed water to seep from the hose. I think using some kind of metal straw to puncture the hose would work, but I have no idea of what I would use for that or practically how to accomplish what I envision.

We are going on a short vacation soon, and I have to get the rest of my tomatoes and peppers and squash in the ground and the pole beans strung before we leave. I started running string this evening, and tomorrow my friend is coming over to help with that. Maybe she will take some Pak Choi as payment. In a garden, there is always some task to do, and my vacation clock is ticking away. Last night, we spent time weeding Bermuda grass from the herb bed. While we were out and about this past weekend, Skyguy bought me a very nice lemon verbena plant. I'd been wanting another one since I stupidly killed the first one I had 20 years ago. That happened when I was first getting into herb gardening-a friend gave me a 3 foot tall shrub and I did not realize that it was a *deciduous* plant/tree and tossed it mid-winter thinking it was dead-DOH! This one is small, only about a foot tall, but it definitely has that heavenly lemon scent. We also bought salad burnett, summer savory(to go with all the beans), tricolor sage, purple sage, chocolate peppermint, horehound and anise hyssop. The herb bed is starting to come together. Seeds have sprouted and the seedlings are growing. The seedlings are small, two inch tall chives and basil, for example, but they will mature quickly.

Pain

I saw my rheumatologist yesterday-regular visit. I've been having more flares recently, mostly in my feet, with sore, tender, growing nodules at my metacarpophalangeal joints of my forefingers on both hands. In the last 6 months, I've also noticed an increase in my OA symptoms...left knee, right hip, both shoulders, cervical and lumbar spine, etc. I should own stock in BenGay and Capsaicin creams! It is a good thing that I like the smell of menthol!
I was diagnosed with OA at the same time as RA, but for the most part, I only have OA problems if I over exert, or if the weather stays nasty. Most of my pain is from RA, but when you throw in OA pain to boot, it is tough to function and interact normally. Today, my doc gave me a referral to a foot surgeon and lidocaine patches for localized pain. I take anti-inflammatories and a pain pill as well as mybiologic Enbrel, but it doesn't eliminate all the pain. I cut a patch down to size and placed it on my bunionette (a bunionette is on the outside edge of the foot by the pinkie toe-it has nothing to do with size-just bunionettes deform the pinkie toe and bunions deform the great toe.) I have both and the bunion looks worse than the bunionette, but the bunionette causes me the most pain. It is not RA type pain, more like tendonitis, you know, a burning, tennis elbow/carpal tunnel type of pain. So I put a patch on my foot at about 4:30 in the afternoon. I removed it at midnight before taking a shower. You can leave them on for 12 hours-12 on 12 off. For the almost 8 hours I wore the patch, I did not have even one pain in my foot. However, the pain re-emerged within 10 minutes of taking off the patch. I am hopeful that it continues to work to take the edge off as that will enable me to exercise more. Sometimes I skip the bike ride and the fence/mailbox walk simply because I can't deal with more pain. Today was such a day. With relief from the patch, I took a nap instead. If I can exercise more, especially more regularly,(everyday instead of 2 or 3 days a week) I can drop even more weight and meet my goal of losing 50 pounds, which will of course also take a load off my skeletal system and joints. According to the doc, I've lost 11 pounds in 3 months just by drinking more water, exercising a little, drinking far fewer cokes, and substituting unsaturated fats from plants for the saturated animal fats when I can. I haven't gone overboard or anything, I'm still a major carnivore, but I'm trying to make healthier choices and eat more veggies and such.
I thought I would mention these patches in case others might benefit. I was told that I could use them on any part of my body(back, shoulder, knee, arm, ribs, etc.) I wish I had had something like this back when I suffered from CTS daily. Of course it does nothing to stop the cause of the pain-other meds do that, but it surely will increase functionality, and give me a bigger buffer on pain and my mood. When you deal with chronic pain, you become less tolerant of things and you loose your emotional buffer. Anyway, ask your doctor about these things. I can't see a negative to using them, even on a regular basis.

Mother Earth

Happy Earth Day!

I recall the first one, back in 1970. I was the generation that first called attention to the health of our planet. Up until that point, no one thought anything about pollution or it's genetic legacy. 'Give a hoot, don't pollute' was popular, as was Iron Eyes Cody's teardrop. I was in an enrichment group-a forerunner of today's gifted programs, and we designed and created a nature trail on school grounds, with labeled plants and such. We also made a "high tech" audiovisual presentation about pollution using slides choreographed to music. Compared to how it could be done today, it was rather cheesy, but the research that went into the presentation was eye opening, and I believe it shaped who I am today. It certainly directed my focus to science. Later in the year, we made another audiovisual presentation, again with slides and displays and models, about Skylab and space stations in general. There were only about 6 of us in that 'class', and we had a blast. Good memories.

Within the next week or so, we should get our 50 Paulownia trees to plant in the front pasture. It is the beginning of a silvopasture project where the trees provide income, products, and shade or screening. As they grow, animals can graze beneath them. I'm not looking forward to digging 50 holes, but at least the holes don't need to be large. The trees will only be a foot tall or so.

Today was supposed to be a day of gardening and playing in the dirt, the earthy Earth. However, my friend Ava called me this morning and invited me to go with her to the county library's annual book sale. I love going, but I always forget it so I usually miss the event. This year, we were there when the doors opened! It wasn't exactly the way I had my Earth Day planned out, but it was great!

For $11, I got the following items:
2 music CD's-classical music by Handel and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Christmas music (it is beautiful!)
3 videos-The Lion King, Overboard(I love that movie!) and Dead Poets Society
Weight Watchers 15 minute cookbook (for Katie)
Plant Science: Growth Development and Utilization of Cultivated plants
From Outhouse to Whitehouse to Treehouse, by Sam Isaac Edwards, a local author whom I've met. He lives in a treehouse in town and his house has been featured on Extreme Homes and several other shows.
Rodale's Naturally Great Foods Cookbook
Culinary Arts Institute Scandinavian Cookbook
Euell Gibbon's Stalking the Wild Asparagus (!!!)
DeWitt and Rosland's The Pepper Garden
Creekmore's Making Gifts from Oddments and Outdoor Materials
Sorosky's Cookery for Entertaining
Mara Rogers Cooking in Cast Iron: Yesterday's Flavors for Today's Kitchen

Can you believe it? All of that for $11!!! I'm a book bandit! Maybe I should have eaten breakfast as most of the stuff is food related! I was exceptionally happy to find Euell's book. It is from 1962 and still has the paper jacket. The 1977 Rodale's book seems to have simple but nutritious and classic recipes that I can make from garden produce. The Scandinavian cookbook has a recipe for Glögg that sounds like a lost family recipe-not that I personally would be drinking it, but those kind of things should be passed on as family tradition. The Cast Iron cookbook seems to have some unique recipes, too. I'm looking forward to reading the Plant Science book. Sadly, the only botany study I had in school was during Biology 102 or something like that. I've never had any kind of botanical or horticultural training, so I am quite excited to be taking this via homeschool (bet you thought it was just for kids, HA!)

As an Earth Day bonus, we stopped at Ava's on the way back and she gave me some verbena (Purple, homestead type) a cutting of anise hyssop, some creek irises, and a nearly dead Scotch Moss that needs ICU treatment. Woohoo! Books and plants to boot!

Movie Reviews

We don't rent movies much anymore, but recently we've rented a few. We are binge movie-watchers, we'll rent a few, take them back, rent a few more, take them back, maybe rent a few more and take them back, and then we may not rent movies for 6 months to a year. We almost never go to a theater to watch a movie, and I can't even remember the last one I saw. I am always amazed that there are some really good movies out there that have gotten no airplay, no hype, yet stupid time-wasters are promoted out the wazoo.
I'm always the last to see a movie, the last to start watching a popular TV show, or the last one to hear a new artist's recording, but just in case there is someone out there who still hasn't seen these flicks, here are my comments and opinions about the films I saw, which were Religulous, Marley and Me, W., 7 Pounds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Swing Vote. I haven't decided whether to rent more when I take these back. I can't think of anything that I want to see, but then, I won't know until I get there and look at the titles.

Marley and Me was a cutesy movie about the joys of owning a dog. This is a good kid flick, a good date movie, or just an all round easy to watch family film. I don't recall anything objectionable or offensive. It wasn't overly funny, overly exciting, overly well-written, or overly dramatic, but it was above average in the Hollywood crop of films.

The Day the Earth Stood Still was a disappointment. I LOVE Keanu Reeves (and Kathy Bates), and I love science fiction. I liked the original movie better. This version just did not capture my imagination. There were a lot of loose ends that should have been tied up. There was no real drama, very little action, old science(non-imaginative nanobots-woohoo) and the chemistry between the scientist and Klaatu could have been better. I did enjoy watching Jaden Smith, the young son of Will Smith. He'll be a huge star like his dad, just watch.

Religulous was the funniest movie I have seen in several years. I love Bill Maher's comedy and I put him in the category of genius along with George Carlin. I just love the way they think about everyday things. However, it is not a movie that I could recommend to everyone. I think the more religious you are the more likely you will be offended by this movie and think it blasphemous. However, if you think you can laugh at yourself for believing in talking snakes and man-eating fish, this is a really funny movie. I love the way they edited Hollywood movies together with the music when they are talking about certain parts of the Bible. I think he should make a sequel that covers Hindu, Buddhism, and maybe Shinto or something. (This one covers Christianity, Judaism, and Islam)

W. was better than I expected, but it was still boring. I really expected Oliver Stone to take some nasty shots at Bush, but I actually think he did W. a favor with this movie by making him seem human. I don't know how accurate the movie portrays Bush, but one thing stood out to me. We all know that Bush is a born again Christian and friend of the so-called religious right. In the movie, I almost got the impression that perhaps Bush used religion to win votes. I mean I'm sure the guy is religious, but I question his personal dedication. The movie left me thinking there may be more hype than substance to his faith. The star of this movie was not Brolin as Bush, it is Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, followed by James Cromwell as H.W. Bush.

Seven pounds. Whoa. If you like drama and movies that make you think, watch this one. If you are looking for action, comedy, or a family flick, skip it. I loved this movie and I do not understand why I had never heard of it before walking into the video store. I am really becoming a fan of Will Smith. I like his choice of scripts. He has a real talent for acting and making a character believable and real. The movie unfolds a bit slowly, but the gist is that Smith has a list of people that he is 'auditing'-trying to determine if they are good people or not, because he intends to kill himself and donate his organs to those people. Believe it or not, this is a love story, a tragic love story. You know what is going to happen and yet you are still transfixed to the screen. This movie has great acting, a great concept, and a great script.

Swing Vote was another rather cute film, but it was also sad. I was bothered by the lack of parenting skills in this film, mostly because I know that the little girl represents thousands of real life children who are just in that very situation. The movie's premise is a bit silly, but it is Hollywood and this movie is typical fare. I was actually surprised to see Kevin Costner in this role-I suppose the recession is hitting everyone. I did not have great expectations for this film and it did not surprise me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I'll call it 'filler'.

The best movie of the bunch was Seven Pounds, followed by Religulous and then Marley and Me. That's my opinion, but then again, I like dramas first and foremost, then action movies, then comedies. My tastes are usually opposite of most people.

Overcoming Food Prejudices

I cut a mess of mustard greens yesterday. For anyone who might be clueless, a mess of greens is about a paper grocery bag full, enough to fill a large pot, but that cook down for one meal. Tonight was the first time I've tried mustard. Skyguy bought them to collect the seeds, but I couldn't resist trying those beautiful purple greens. The variety I have is similar to or is Osaka Purple. I cut the leaves, washed them, and cut out the largest part of the rib/stem. I generally don't like bitter greens, but I know they are very good for you, and I really want to include more leafy greens in our diet. Anyway, I sauted some scallions and garlic and leftover Easter ham with the greens and some chicken broth, roughly following the recipe here:

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007225mustard_greens.php

It was actually pretty good. I did not blanch the greens in salt water to mute their bitterness, but I did add the ham and I think that helped. I could eat this a couple of times a year, for sure.

Last night, we tried Florence Fennel. Just as I don't like bitter things, I am not much for anise or licorice flavors either. We saw the bulbs on sale at Kroger, and since we are growing it, we thought we might ought to try it. So we sliced it thinly and followed the recipe below:

Caramelized Fennel with Parmesan

Lightly brown pieces of fennel bulb sliced vertically, about 3/8th inch thick in oil and butter in a non-stick pan. Add 1/4 cup chicken stock, salt and pepper, cover, and braise for 15-20 minutes over low heat, until tender. Grate 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese over the top, Sprinkle with Italian style bread crumbs (crumbs with Italian herbs) and broil 'til the cheese bubbles and browns.

I could not slice the bulb. It was too strongly scented for me. Skyguy sliced it, and we both wondered if we had made a big mistake. It was 'burn your eyes and throat' strong. The licorice smell filled up the house as it seared in the pan. It looked beautiful on the plate, but it took everything I had to taste it. I reminded myself that the Romans ate this as an appetite suppressant to lose weight. Oh-My-God. I could not believe how good it was! We both loved it. We did notice that the anise flavor and smell came back strongly as the finocchio/fennel cooled off, so it is best to eat this dish hot right out of the oven.

There are a lot of foods that smell one way and taste the other, especially after they are cooked. There is a big difference between raw garlic and roasted garlic, and that is the closest analogy I can make to this Finocchio/Florence Fennel thing. Realizing this has given us motivation to try more things, like these mustard greens. They say that one's taste changes every seven years or so. I'd love to see the research on that. Without a doubt, it is now becoming fun to try new things. Everyone should do this. For us, it is step one in our plan of growing more of our own food, and eating healthier-making healthier choices. You really might be surprised at what you like that you never liked before.

Seedy activities

It rained almost all day yesterday and it was supposed to rain today, but it never materialized. The garden was really too wet to do much digging, like for transplanting tomatoes and such, but I did take a moment today to sow a few more seeds, mostly in raised beds or at least in the drier ground. The picture today is of my little patch of pak choy which I will use in a stir fry later in the week-you can see some lettuce and broccoli planted nearby, too. I planted radishes in about 4 places, even under the irises near my frog pond. I replanted the chard, filling the gaps where there was sparse germination. I had a spot in the top of my strawberry bed that was bare-I apparently planted a crown too deep or something, so that little bare spot got some lettuce(Salad Bowl variety). I also added New Zealand Spinach to my Bloomsdale spinach patch. I have all kinds of stuff growing there. It has a couple of broccoli plants, some lettuce, some radishes and now some peas. The leeks are only a foot or so separate, so you might as well call that grown together, too. Since it is good soil right near the fence, I reseeded some snow peas in the spinach patch on the fence line and in a few other places here and there. I'm gambling that I can get snow peas off the vines before we fix the chicken moat in that area. These peas are on the moat fence, and once the birds can access that area, I won't get any peas...lol. I also found another pack of broomcorn so I planted that near the chicken moat as well. Fun, fun. Oh, and I tossed a few cotton seeds in some corners. I love cotton-beautiful plant(and please, no boll weevil lectures).

Lamb's Ears

It is allergy season and my nose gets a workout. Apparently, at some point in the night, I scratched my nose and created a small nick-like abrasion on my nostril-exterior skin. It is small, but located where a band-aid would not work. At any rate, a few minutes ago I must have scratched it again and it started bleeding. It was bleeding quite a bit for the size of the nick, obviously the vessels were near the skin surface. I went into the bathroom, and tore off a piece of toilet paper. After several pieces of TP and direct pressure, it was still bleeding, so I tried the styptic pencil. It continued to bleed. At that point it had been bleeding for over 5 minutes with no sign of abatement. I then remembered a recent discussion about lambs ears, so I donned boots and went out to pick a leaf. During the 120 foot walk from the backdoor to the plant, I dabbed the blood twice with TP; it was still bleeding at the same rate, creating a pea sized blood spot on the tissue both times. I'd say it takes about 20 seconds, if that, to walk the distance. I grabbed a small leaf, about 2 inches long, and put it on the wound. Before I could get back to the house, I removed the leaf and did not see blood. Sure enough, in less than 100 feet of walking, or about 10 seconds of exposure, the nick quit bleeding. In addition, the leaf acted as a sponge, and when I removed the leaf from my nose, I could see no blood on the leaf. It has been 15 minutes now, and my nose is still not bleeding-not even a little bit. It is amazing. Next time I will try it immediately. Good stuff, and once again, herbs to the rescue.

Planting the Summer Garden

Today and yesterday were all about gardening. I am a week late for Good Friday, but not too late to plant. Gardening by the moon is out the window for summer crops-well, it is not horrible to plant in Capricorn or Aquarius, but it is not ideal either. It is better than average, I suppose. Monday the moon goes into Pisces, which is much more favorable for planting, but the weather is not cooperating with the moon signs this year. I've had good enough results over the years to convince myself that there is something to this lunar agriculture thing, but it is not like I am superstitious about it. I believe a garden can be good and productive regardless of what moon sign it was planted, under the right conditions and care, of course.

Yesterday I tilled the entire garden, laid out the plan, marked the ground, and planted sweet corn in blocks. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the blocks on the right side of the image. The footpaths between the 5x5 blocks are marked with flags. I worked all day. Today, Skyguy and I got up early, took a few extra anti-inflammatories for sciatica and again worked in the garden all day. I went back over some areas with the tiller while he lashed together some bamboo frames for pole beans. He wanted to try various designs, so we have A-frames and we are experimenting with a new design. Poles are secured to the ground with rebar 'staples' and the sting will be tied around the ground pole and the ridge pole. While he erected the bean trellises, I erected the tomato fences and laid out the tomato cages. I also made one bean tee pee, mostly for argument's sake as that is my preferred way of growing pole beans. We planted asparagus beans, Roma II bush beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and Dragon's Tongue pole beans. Later, in a month or so, I will plant some Blue Lake bush beans. I also have 3 other varieties of corn to plant over the next 6 weeks. Today, I also planted my sweet potato slips, although I might be rushing things a bit. Sweet potatoes like warmer soil, and I just found out that the forecast low for Tuesday night is 37. Woops. I'll have to protect those slips now. I spent most of the morning planting peanuts-another warm soil crop. I laid out the feed bags on either side of the wide row, and shoveled soil onto the feed bags. Then I covered the bags with partially composted waste hay and covered the seed bed with wheat straw. It is not much to look at now, but it was a lot of work moving the soil away, laying the bags out as a weed block, then putting the soil back on the bags, etc. Oh, and I should add in the trip over the the neighbor's pasture to fork the rotting pile of hay into the truck,then unloading it and forking it onto the bags, onto the potato vines in the tires, and around a squash plant. It was just one of those days where you stayed busy but at the end it becomes almost impossible to remember exactly what you did. Getting all those feed bags out of the greenhouse freed up some space, and that sparked a mini cleaning session in the greenhouse. I'll finish it up tomorrow when it is raining. It will be nice to have all that junk out of there(junk that is not really junk-stuff like hummingbird feeders that need to be in use, a lawnmower that was stored over the winter, tools that really need to be elsewhere, etc.)

Other gardening type activities we did today include plant rice (Wells) in large plastic tub of stagnant water, create a few hills for the cucumbers that I will transplant after the rains, cut a grocery bag full of Chinese mustard and prep the leaves for dinner tomorrow, harvested several heads of Michihili cabbage and a few florets of broccoli for dinner, mow the front acre of the pasture in preparation for the arrival of the Paulownia trees that are due any day now, weedeat the high grassy areas of the yard and garden and barn areas, cultivated around plants in areas too small for the tiller/cultivator, and probably more stuff that I have forgotten about. Oh yeah, and I took a few pictures this evening, just to show the 'guts', the skeleton, of the garden if you will. In a few months, it will be like a jungle, a maze, but now, everything is barren looking. I'm glad the day is over. I feel like we have passed a major milestone now.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain so I won't be doing any planting. I still need to transplant my tomatoes, peppers, squashes and cukes to the garden. I suppose I will spend some time tomorrow figuring out how I will fit all the tomatoes inside the fence. I may need to till/cultivate near the moat fence-remove the grass and weeds, to make room for all the tomatoes and peppers. If worst comes to worst, I can use the area of the chicken moat.

I'm really thankful for Skyguy's help in the garden this year. I haven't had a garden this nice since 2000 before I contracted RA and when the kids were home to help. It is actually rather exciting to think of the possibilities. It is great to have a partner in crime.

A Beautiful Heart

Today I saw my adoptive-family step-sister for the first time since the early 90's. We grew up together and there is two months difference in our age. As you can see, we were often dressed as twins(that's me on the left-we were about 4 years old) Living in the same household may be a given for most siblings, but I have a total of three siblings that I did not really know as a child. Of all my siblings, growing up, I was closest to Cindy. I was always jealous of her-she was sweeter, prettier, more popular, better behaved, etc. I was told that I was too ADHD to play a musical instrument (despite a keen interest in music), but Cindy was calm and she was allowed to learn piano. Even though I wasn't supposed to 'bang on it', Cindy taught me to read music on the side when no one was in the house. She shared her lessons with me and taught me how to play simple things like Heart and Soul. We had a pool, and in the summer, the neighborhood guys would sit on the hill next door just to watch her swim(they loved that bikini!). If that wasn't enough, she also had a way with animals. I once saw her call up a wild rabbit to pet. It was amazing and I swear she communicated with them telepathically. She was a pretty good student, too, and we always felt she would become a veterinarian or somehow work with animals. She was so perfect in so many ways, and I always fell short of that. I was the troublemaker, the one who never behaved, the black sheep of the family. I was the aesthetically challenged adoptee, unhealthily white skinned, lanky, and goofy looking with glasses AND braces. Cindy was tanned and had curves in all the right places. She was very sweet and loving; girls wanted to be her, guys wanted to marry her. Family members asked me, and I asked myself, why I couldn't be more like Cindy.

You are probably wondering why I am using the past tense so much. It is complicated. Cindy is obviously still alive, but today she is not the person I grew up with. Cindy suffers from a mental illness known as schizophrenia. If you have ever seen the movie A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe as the mathematician John Nash, then you will better understand how the disease crushes personality and affects family relationships. Cindy is still sweet and kind, but much of her promise and allure is gone. She never went to college and she can't hold a job. The medications she must take have put weight on her, and her hard life has taken it's toll on her appearance. She looks much older than me by all accounts. They took a picture of us together today, and as soon as I get a copy, I'll add it to the blog. Check back later if you are curious.

Cindy lives in a group home, a half-way house of sorts, in Arkansas. It is good because they make sure she gets the care and counseling she needs. They monitor her health and medication. She seems stable now, actually better than I expected or have seen her in the past few decades. It is just hard for me to come to grips with the loss of her potential and for the way things have turned out. Mental illness took her from us at the age of 19, almost 30 years ago, and before she became a ward of the state, she was hospitalized at least once a year it seemed. Schizophrenia is a disease that cruelly makes one think they are normal enough to not need anti-psychotic medication. On medication, they may seen normal, even stable enough to work or live a normal family life, but once medication is stopped, psychotic episodes begin, and very often they get into trouble with the law because of hallucinations or paranoia or something as simple as the loss of inhibition-failure to wear clothes, for example. Some schizophrenics are violent or at least capable of violence when they are unmedicated. (I was with Cindy the night she had her first psychotic break. She was obsessed with arranging the 'pretty' knives on the table and then talked about God, who was on the roof of the house telling her to kill the Devil, who was supposedly in the closet.) The disease, like Alzheimer's or other diseases of the mind, slowly robs the patient of their personality, their identity, their uniqueness, with each psychotic break or episode washing away more and more personality. Many patients have medication side effects or other issues with stabilization and simply cannot live normally without heavy sedation. Almost all patients withdraw into themselves and no longer interact with others in a normal way, and some compound their problems by drinking or have addiction issues. It is a devastating mental illness that strikes people in their prime. This page lists some famous people with the disease, including Mary Todd Lincoln and Jack Kerouac:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/famous.htm
More infamously, there is John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman. Wikipedia has a great article on schizophrenia that lists symptoms, causes, and treatment options:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

We all do things in life that we are not proud of-things that we will one day answer for. Whether you believe that we will stand in judgment before God or stand in judgment with a soul group or simply pay a kharmic debt or something else altogether, I think most of us know when we have done wrong and know that there will be a price to pay for that wrong. For me, I have abandoned my sister for the last 30 years. Granted, we haven't lived in the same state for much of that time, but still, I should have had more contact with her over the years. I have called her at various times, usually on her birthday and on holidays, but she deserves better from me. I don't know how to explain the heartbreak of this. To her credit, she still loves me and treats me just the same as she always did, when she would have every right to hate me for not being a part of her life. Ironically, it is that core part of her being that I love the most, her kindness, her generosity even when I don't deserve it.

She may not be able to change, but perhaps I can. She will be in town through next week. I think I will go by and pick her up for lunch or something. We used to do that...before...

Plus three Red Shouldered Hawks

On February 27, I blogged about the pair of red shouldered hawks that were mating and building a nest in a tree in front of my house. Since that time, I've watched the hawks come and go, apparently feeding each other as they incubated the eggs. According to what I've read, this breed of hawks incubates eggs for 28 days. Today, for the first time, I heard baby hawks crying, at least 3 of them, maybe 4 or more. They seemed to know when the parent approached with food because they would start vocalizing when the parent was flying in from about 50-75 feet away. I read that they are generally helpless for the first two weeks, but have flight feathers and are learning to fly within 5-6 weeks. By eight weeks, they are hunting on their own.
It is interesting to note that of all the trees in the area, the one with the hawks leafed out first. In addition, I can hardly see the nest now due to the leaves. The leaf cover is very thick. I suppose this protects the young from overhead predation. I wonder how the hawks knew that that tree would leaf first and have very thick foliage?

Today is the first day that I have heard the chicks, but then, it has been raining for a few days and I haven't spent much time outside. I think I would have heard them before today if they were more than 48 hours old. They were as loud as the parent's keeyah call which I can hear in the house.

It is hard to measure the enjoyment I've gotten from watching these hawks over the last 6 weeks. In yet another 6 weeks, the ritual will be over and hopefully the young hawks will make a dent in our snake and rodent population.

Salads, Flowers, and a Mystery

I was reading the Garden Path website, looking for information on nasturtiums and got sidetracked by the article on violets, sweet violets. I learned or relearned (that's what happens when you get old-you aren't sure whether or not you are learning something for the first time or the second...lol) that the smaller leaves were edible raw. I knew that the flowers were edible, and I recalled that the plant could be cooked as a green, but I did not remember that the leaves could be eaten raw. I have an area near the garden that is literally all violets, about 20x50 in size. The area is just covered with gill 'o'er the ground and violets. At any rate, this evening, I was a bit short on lettuce, so I went out and picked some fresh lettuce and mesclun from the garden. I also grabbed some spinach, and on the way back to the house, also tried a violet leaf. To my surprise, it had a good flavor, not bitter at all, so I picked a handful of heart shaped violet leaves for the salad, along with some flowers. Needless to say, we had a great salad this evening. I even added some chopped ham, asparagus tips, and boiled egg.
It amazes me that eople put herbicides out to kill the violets in their yard not realizing how great they are to eat! BTW, you can also eat mouse ear chickweed, portulaca(purslane) and of course dandelion, but y'all probably already knew that. I've also planted a bunch of peppery nasturtiums for salads, and tonight I learned that nasturtium seeds can be put in a pepper shaker and ground as fresh pepper. Apparently they did this in war when they could not get pepper. The nasturtium seeds are also used as a substitute for capers. When it comes to edible flowers, don't forget borage. Don't forget too that you can candy flowers. Pick a borage or violet flower or even collect rose petals and with a small, fine paintbrush, paint on someegg white. Then, lightly sprinkle on superfine sugar and place the flower on wax paper to dry. It may take a day or two to dry, but once they are dry you can eat them out of hand or use them as garnishes on a plate or even as cake decorations.

I had seeded several herbs last month and yesterday we planted some of them into the new herb bed. One of the new herbs was rue. This is the first time I have ever had rue or tried to grow it. The plant was about 3-4 inches tall with several true leaves. We planted it on the edge of the bed, near the corner, oriented so that as it grew it would make a nice background plant. To make sure we did not accidentally pull it as a weed, I set it out with a plant marker about 2" from the plant. Now mind you, there was also a 32" tall metal garden fence at the edge of the bed to keep the dog from cutting through.

This morning, as Skyguy left for work, he noticed that there was a plant marker laying on top of a landscape timber. He walked over to discover that it was the marker for the rue. He also noted that the plant was missing, and there was a hole where the plant had been-just a 4" deep hole.
Now what would eat or take the whole plant, roots and all?? Deer? Raccoon?
What would pull the marker out and lay it on the landscape timber??

Now, here is the really weird part....upon researching rue to try and determine what animal might have eaten it, I came across this passage in my Herbs book by Norma Jean Lathrop:
"Greeks also believed that the secret of getting rue to grow well in your garden was to steal it from a neighbor."
What the...??? Can you believe that?
Fact #1 No one knew I had rue
Fact #2 I am the only person around here that likes growing herbs, and I can not imagine someone stealing a plant as obscure as rue. If I have to mark it, it is not exactly a commonplace herb.

I'm having a hard time believing that someone stole it, but what animal would neatly dig up only the rue, leave no tracks, and lay a marker on a landscape timber?
I am considering two other possibilities...
1. That I sleepwalked out there and dug up the plant-God only knows what I would have done with it....it is nowhere to be found
2. A ghost dug it up

Now, if you don't believe in ghosts, then you mostly likely will believe that I sleepwalked. I'm almost 1000% sure that I did not. The original owner of this property loved gardening. Two of my neighbors are his daughters. They believe that his spirit is still here, and in the past they say there have been unexplained happenings in and around the house. I happen to believe in ghosts, and while I have not seen John, I have felt his presence. I know he likes what I've done with the place. As a fellow gardener, I seriously doubt John would have pulled up the rue. What would he have done with it?? LOL I just don't think that is the answer to the mystery either. I keep coming back to an animal...

This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy wondering what happened. Oh well, life needs a bit of mystery now and again, I suppose.

Stand By Me

I'm not much on celebrating Easter in a traditional sense, i.e. no sunrise services, no big ham dinners, no chocolate rabbits in a basket, but I do appreciate the concept of salvation, and having a friend that you can always count on. So in honor of the day, check this out:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

If you have dialup, I'm sorry. I saw the clip at my folks house this afternoon. It may be an old video, but it was new to me and I loved the concept of it. Then again, I always cried watching Coca-Cola and Pepsi commercials and We are the World and stuff like that.

Version 2.0

This past weekend I kept my wonderful granddaughter, Jordan. I've been calling her JRose for anonymity, but really now, how much anonymity does a one year old need? Her name is Jordan Rose, and we call her Jordan, or Princess Jordan. She is one special kid-a gift. This post, however, is about her mother, my daughter Kate-my original 'Gift', because I sometimes worry that Kate questions her place in my heart. I now shower so much attention on Jordan-I just want Kate to know that I love her, too, more than ever in fact. My daughter is so special to me and so close to my heart that I often have trouble expressing how I feel about her, even though I talk to her almost every day and see her at least once a month.

I was adopted, and until Kate was born, I had no blood relatives. When the doctor laid her on my stomach, I broke down in tears, because there before me, was a part of me, my own blood relative. As I looked at her, checking her hands, feet, eyes, skin, nose, etc., I saw myself and I knew it was not a dream. Even though I now have quite a few blood relatives, my Katie was the first known to me, and the emotion that evokes, even today, almost 24 years later, is magical.

As a baby, she was difficult, not because she was bad or unhealthy, but because she was independent and intelligent. I'm pretty smart, but this kid sent me to the library for advice on what I needed to do-how I needed to parent. I had no clue as to how to react to a child that seemingly did not want my help or nurturing-a 7 month old that walked, a one year old that spoke in complete sentences, usually, "I want that" or "I can do it". I learned that I was misinterpreting her, and it wasn't a rejection of me at all. It took me years to develop independence and self confidence, yet my daughter was born with it. I finally understood that her 'difficult' nature was really a gift, and that it would serve her well as an adult, and that I should take a supporting role and not a controlling role. That was easier said than done, but somehow she made out of diapers without suffering from Shaken Baby Syndrome.

As she grew into a little girl, she simply became smarter and even more independent. It took me less than a week to completely potty train her. She learned to read on her own. She wanted to fix her own lunches. She was a little spitfire and as her personality emerged, I could see that she was just like me. She was stubborn, she was determined, she was energetic, and she was curious. She was a sponge that absorbed life and every ounce of knowledge it provided. In school, she was a teacher's dream; they loved her. She behaved well, she participated in class, she tested well. She learned to play the game. Of course I supplemented her curiosity at home, teaching her everything I could think of, but really, things just came naturally to Kate. She excelled at everything she tried, whether it was playing the saxophone, softball, or painting and sculpting. She was a straight A student who only got in any kind of trouble once, and then even her teachers stood up for her turning the incident into a warning and a learning experience. She learned how to turn something negative into something positive.

Since she left home for college and then marriage, she has continued to grow and mature into a wonderful human being. She has worked since she was 15, first as a restaurant server while in school, and now she is veterinary technician at a upscale animal hospital in a nearby town. She's always loved animals and the biological sciences, so veterinary medicine is a natural fit. She's followed her passion, and she has a promising career ahead. She's always reading about some bizarre zoonotic disease or parasite, always going to conferences and seminars to further her education, and most importantly, she has a great work ethic and truly cares about both the animals she treats as well as the clients.

There are so many great things about Kate. She is beautiful, as you can see, but she is beautiful on the inside, too. She can do minor household repairs. She's not afraid of getting dirty. She is a loyal friend. She gives to her community. She's funny and has a great sense of humor. She's a good mother. She has integrity, is honest, and she's a lot more mature at 23 than I was. She has stood up to me, her husband, and her family on more than one occasion when we were out of line or when she knew she was right. She is her own person. The best part is that my daughter, Kate the Great, is also my friend. We used to butt heads a lot because we've always been very much alike in the way we think, and that often caused problems. Neither of us would give an inch. But now, things are different because she is no longer my responsibility, I don't have to win an argument or be right all the time, so I can finally enjoy her and watch the seeds of all those 'difficult' traits bloom and fruit. For better or for worse, the apple did not fall far from the tree. She is just a later, more improved, version of me. I love you Katie.

Happy Birthday, Good Friday

Today is my son's birthday. My 'baby' is now 22 years old. It is so hard to believe that he hasn't lived here in almost 5 years. It is harder to believe that it will be 5 more before he gets out of the Navy. Due to the educational time involved, submariners enlist for 6 years at a time, not 2 or 4 like other Navy rates or other military personnel. Re-enlistments are for four additional years. I talked to him on the phone a couple of weeks ago, and he told me that he has worked 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day in 2009, so I doubt he will have the day off. What good is it to be stationed in Hawaii if you spent that much time on a submarine? Anyway, Happy Birthday SubmarineSon, I hope you can at least grab an extra hour of sleep.

This week's been rather busy in spite of the intermittent rain. I had an ad go into the state market bulletin for selling chickens, so today and yesterday I've been fielding calls from that. A guy was supposed to come out this morning, but due to the thunderstorms, we postponed it until tomorrow. I'm hoping he will buy the whole lot of them. Purebred pullets are going for $15-$20 each around here, and the mutts get at least $10, $15 if they are laying already. When I first bought chickens over ten years ago, I thought $5 a bird was outrageous. Now, with the state laws tightening on transporting birds, and with people worried about the future, the price has increased.

Today, Good Friday, is the day I've long awaited for to garden. It is THE day to plant the summer garden crops like corn, beans, tomatoes, etc. I need to cultivate one more time before I can plant, and it is simply too wet to even walk in the garden, let alone till or plant. For anyone who is wondering why people don't plant when the soil is wet, well, the first reason, and the most important reason, is soil compaction. Water displaces the air and instead of the soil being fluffy, it is clumpy or muddy. After you plant in those kinds of conditions, the soil surface will harden and cake over, and future moisture will run off instead of soak in. Also, if you walk across wet ground, you compact it and it becomes like cement, harder to work and till. If you transplant when it is wet, you risk exposing the plant to harmful fungi and diseases.

Yesterday, I was able to cultivate a flower bed in the front yard and scratch up the soil surface in a few other places around the yard, so today, I'm planting flowers. I planted a few bulbs like glads and freesias earlier in the week. There are a few places in the yard where I can plant things like basils, so I'll transplant those today.

I can only do so much due to the wet soils, so I am going to be behind on my planting schedule for the summer garden. I should have already had corn in tubes ready to transplant today, but I never planted them because I was watching the weather and I knew it was going to freeze again. Our last freeze was Tuesday.

Animal Fat and Fat Animals

Since Skyguy's cancer diagnosis in late 2007, I've been trying to
improve our diet by adding more vegetables and fiber, and I've tried to cut back on high fat meat dishes by substituting more lean meats like venison and oily fish. We eat fish at least once a week, usually tuna or salmon, and I eat a can of sardines or mussels once every few days or so, but more is better. With Skyguy's father's recent colon cancer diagnosis, it is more important than ever that we continue making healthy dietary and lifestyle changes. I want this post to be about diet, not smoking, but I can't write this without saying that Skyguy smoked from the age of 12 to the age of 48 (36 years), and I smoked from the age of 19 to the age of 47(26 years). We were both heavy smokers and we both were able to quit smoking using Chantix in January of 2008. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to quit but who has been unable to do so using herbs or gum or patches or willpower alone. The Chantix did have some side effects, but it was worth it to not be driven insane by cravings. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Americans eat a diet high in fat, mostly fatty meat and dairy products. Of course, some fat in the diet is good, but we generally overdo it. When a high fat meal is consumed, hormones are released which slow down the digestive process and increase the output of bile and enzymes to help breakdown the complex molecules. Very often the bloated feeling we get after eating is due to this slowdown. When early hominids began to increase the fat in their diet, this digestive slow down allowed them to feel fuller, and because they spent less time looking for food, they were able to sleep more. When they slept more, the brain evolved and grew larger, and humans became smarter. Today, we have gone overboard with the fat, and with a sedentary lifestyle where most work is done behind a desk-no more foraging-no more hunting-no more farming, our brain size isn't increasing, but our clothing size is! If we ate more fiber to flush out the fat and harmful substances in food, it might not be so unhealthy, but most Americans don't eat a diet high in fiber, only a diet high in fat.

I've been increasingly interested in the human diet as it correlates to human evolution. Mankind has always pulled a harvest from the sea, so it is not surprising that fish and seafood are generally easy to digest. Early man would have easily been able to gather food in the tidal pools along a shoreline. I'd say poultry, reptiles, and small mammals like rabbits would be next on a list of relatively easily digestible animals. I can envision early man capturing these 'white meat' animals with few or no tools, meaning that our bodies have processed these types of protein and fat for eons and should quickly digest them today. Something like venison or antelope or similar cervid types would be next on the digestibility scale, if my theory about exposure and adaption would hold true. Today's version of beef would be probably the newest 'meat' addition to the human diet, and while I am sure that ancient man ate yak or buffalo or some type of bovine, I'd wager that it was not a regular part of diet and that these animals were eaten only under special circumstances. For one, they were too large to be practical unless one was killed for a tribal feast or something. Secondly, today's slaughterhouse steer is a far different animal than it's bovine cousins that have been eaten in the past. I would actually guess that pork has been a part of our diet longer than beef. Swine have such poor eyesight that they would seemingly be easier to trap or kill in a pit even, and they are more the right size for a family group or tribe.

I was discussing some of this with my friend Sage who is a vegetarian, and she brought up a very good point as well, that animals like cattle were historically grass fed, free ranged, and field corn isn't part of their natural diet. Pork is like beef in that today, we feed these animals a corn based diet and that changes the health of animal as well as the health of the consumer who eats them. A pig that is not allowed to forage for mushrooms, seeds, and roots in the woods will never be as healthy or nutritious as one that has roamed free. Much of today's animal feed is made from genetically modified corn(again thanks to Monsanto et.al.). Since the cow's digestive system was not designed for corn from an evolutionary standpoint, corn simply creates a fatter cow. When industrial beef is sold by the pound, it is faster and more desirable to add fat pounds than muscle pounds, and of course, corn does that(for humans, too!). However, one must ask if fatter is healthier, for either the cow or the consumer. Most people would say no, that being lean is healthier. It has only been in the last century that corn has become King of feeds. Yields increased with farming methods and the excess was turned into animal feed. Later, in the 1970's, the excess was used to make High Fructose Corn Syrup. Our bodies, rather, our digestive systems, simply haven't had enough time to adapt and process HFCS, and cattle and swine certainly must have the same problem with the addition of corn in their diet. Whether or not you think GE corn and HFCS is healthy or harmful, it is a fact that adaption takes time, and not enough time has elapsed for our bodies to adapt and evolve so that we can process these seemingly foreign substances(fattier meat from corn fed animals and HFCS) without harm. I think the same could be said for foods like margarine and shortening and other foods that contain highly processed oils. But I digress...

Anyway, as strange as it sounds, probably the first red meat was from other humans-which might lend credence to the mythos that eating another human being gives one that person's strength, etc. Compared to other foods that early man might have eaten, snakes, frogs, turtles, etc., I would think human flesh would be very energy rich and nutritious. I'm kind of freaked out just writing about it, so I'm sure that it did not take long for early humans to develop taboos about such.

I think my digestive system operates like a pack rat....if it gets something that it can't digest well, or something foreign that it doesn't know how to process, it stores it in a fat cell somewhere, just
in case it is needed later. If what is stored in the fat is a carcinogen or other harmful substance, then we risk disease until we can eliminate the substance from our system. This can be a real problem for all animals, including humans. As animals are exposed to toxins in the environment, like dioxins-PCBs, these substances are stored in the animal's fat cells, which other animals or humans later consume. Dioxins have been found in the fat of many food animals; it is a real problem in fish, but it is also in beef, pork, and chicken fat. Humans are exposed to these toxins directly in the environment and indirectly via the food chain, and being at the top of pyramid, we store the pollution-the pesticides, the dioxins, the PCBs of our parent's and grandparent's world-in the fat cells of our own bodies. Is it any wonder that cancer seems like an epidemic? Is it any wonder that more and more people are reducing or eliminating meat from their diet? In actuality, I believe that most digestion is aided by bacteria and enzymes in the gut. A vegetarian might not have the same bacteria or enzymes as a someone who regularly eats meat and that can cause digestive problems if they happen to consume animal protein, at least temporarily until the gut flora is able to compensate or diversify. The system will then adapt to the 'new' food...but that type of adaption is quick and possible because humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years. When the body is given something as artificial and as new as HFCS, there may be no bacteria or enzymes to aid digestion at all. It is genetically modified-a three way Frankenfood-what processes that??? The additional fructose causes all kinds of problems, but that is a topic for another day.

Make sure that you know what you are eating, and eat what you know will be good for you. Look for healthy alternatives and make small, sustainable changes to your diet.

The Mother of All Disasters

One hundred and fifty years ago on August 27, 1859, the world witnessed beautiful auroras that were seen as far south as the equator. This amazing light show continued for eight nights until September 7. In England, Richard Carrington, an amateur astronomer, was one of the first scientists to notice the intensely bright white light originating from a group of sunspots. Carrington also noted that the local magnetometers were erratic and off the scale. (A magnetometer measures the strength and direction of magnetic fields. They are useful in finding buried or submerged objects like shipwrecks or even submarines, and are standard equipment on spacecraft. In 1859, there were magnetometers at telegraph stations because the telegraph operated via electromagnetism.) Carrington correctly correlated this sunspot activity with the geomagnetic anomalies that were being recorded on magnometers as long distance communiques died and telegraph networks failed worldwide. Today, we refer to those eight days in 1859 as the Carrington Event. More recently, in 1989 in Quebec, there was another 'warning' solar event. Then, a brief plasma burst from the sun overwhelmed the power grid and high voltage current created a meltdown of the copper in the grid; Eastern Canada went dark. Luckily the storm was short-lived and US power companies helped restart the Canadian system.

You are probably wondering why the Carrington Event and the Quebec blackout is a big deal. Undoubtedly, the Earth has been bombarded with similar solar storms and we as a people and a planet have come through them just fine. However, if the Carrington Event happened again tomorrow, and it could, it is not an exaggeration to say that millions would die. It would be the planet's worst natural disaster in history.

How could that be in this interconnected global technological age? It is simple; our reliance on technology weakens us for this type of disaster. Here is what actually happens: During periods of increased solar/sunspot activity, the sun's coronal gases spit forth a plasma ball called a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME. CME's hurl through space like a gust of wind, and if they are directed at the Earth, the plasma interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere to create beautiful auroras and if it is powerful enough, some really nasty magnetic effects. To understand CME's, think of a small creek. During normal times, the creek slowly trickles on, like the solar wind does. Sometimes, during dry spells, the creek dries up and there is no flow whatsoever. Sometimes, there are flash floods that appear suddenly and do not last very long. That would be analogous to what happened during the Quebec incident. It was brief in duration and regional in effect. Sometimes, the flooding raises the water level and the flood continues for days. That would be analogous to the Carrington Event. As the Earth spun around, it was bombarded continuously by the CME from the sun, and telegraphs around the world were disabled as the storm lasted eight days.

The first casualties of an Earth directed CME will be satellites that are in Earth orbit. The plasma blasts disrupt gyroscopes on satellites making them unable to maintain orbital position. Once they lose Earth-lock, they lose the ability to transmit data, and there is no way scientists on the ground can communicate with the satellite, so they have to be abandoned. Secondly, high energy atomic particles bombard and fry electrical systems. Finally, as the upper atmosphere heats up from the plasma bombardment, the density of the lower atmosphere changes and that creates drag on satellites. Any or all of these things can happen to varying degrees in solar storms. Satellites would begin tumbling and would quickly lose orbital height. Communications would be lost. If GPS satellites are lost, oil platforms, aircraft navigation, cell phones, and other equipment that use GPS would become useless. The loss of communications and global positioning satellites alone would be an economic disaster. Solar disturbances wreak havoc on satellites quite frequently, much like earthquakes cause damage on Earth. However, one day, we will experience another Carrington Event-the equivalent of The Big One.

Within a minute and a half of the plasma burst hitting the atmosphere, power grids would fail from high energy particles like electrons overloading the lines which will heat up and melt essential grid hubs. In North America, there are about 300 key transformer hubs and if they are lost, the continental grid fails. These large currents will travel through the system like a massive lightning bolt, frying the electronics of anything not hardened in a Faraday cage. The world now relies so heavily on technology that the loss of power and equipment would have devastating consequences. Without power for control, drinking water treatment plants, sewage pumping stations, gasoline stations, supermarket refrigeration, medical equipment and other vital equipment will become non-functional.

Financial markets will plummet and the world's economy will flip-flop with the most technologically dependent countries taking the worst fall. For safety reasons, power plants are programmed to shut down with grid disruptions, so until the physical grid itself is restored, there would be no power generation. Nothing would change for months, probably years as melted transformers and hubs can only be replaced, not repaired. The few spare transformers kept in reserve would quickly be used, It takes a year to make one, and with high demand worldwide, obtaining more transformers would be nearly impossible in the short term. Government studies have suggested that if a large CME disabled the power grid in the United States, that power might not be restored for 4 to 10 years. YEARS.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any electricity to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep coal reserves to last 30 days, but they rely on trains for coal delivery, and of course the trains are dependent on GPS and electrical switching and fuel pumping. Nuclear plants would be taken off line for safety reasons during the first minutes of the storm when the grid was lost and would be locked out until a consistent power source could be restored. After a period of say five years and millions of deaths, would there even be enough trained and knowledgeable people to operate the equipment?

Within minutes of the initial power loss, people would realize that without electricity, there is no clean drinking water or sewer service. That would soon lead to bacterial diseases like cholera and dysentery. Within a few days, there would be no food in the stores, because due to the inability to pump gasoline, no deliveries are made. Backup generators for medical care would last a few days, but after that, medical care loses 150 years of progress without lighting, lasers, sanitizers, diagnostic and monitoring equipment, etc. etc. With only rudimentary medical treatment, untold numbers would die. Of course, there would be no power for heating, cooling, or industry. After a few weeks, the supplies of medicine would run out, and without industry, there would be no way of making more or delivering the supplies where they are needed. In the course of several years, millions would die-from accidents and disease, from starvation and exposure, from criminal acts, and probably from war.

Other developed countries would be equally reduced to third world status. China's power grid system is even at a higher risk of failure due to the way the voltage is regulated, and European countries are so interdependent that a domino effect would incapacitate the continent almost immediately. The internet would survive in a diminished capacity, but only the military and governments would have hardened assets and battery capability to exchange information on a global scale. During solar storms, even shortwave radio is not reliable.

In the best of all possible worlds, our only hope is the ACE solar orbiting satellite(Advanced Composition Explorer) which could possibly give us 15 to 45 minutes of warning, depending on the speed of the ejection and the position of the satellite. If power companies have 15 minutes of warning, they can sometimes prevent damage or at least attempt to isolate grids to prevent a cascading loss. The problem is that ACE is already operating beyond it's expected lifespan-it was launched to study the solar wind back in 1997-and as it ages, it's detectors become less sensitive. It was not designed to measure a massive plasma ejection. The second and more serious problem is that previous large CME's, like the ones that precipitated the Carrington Event and the Quebec grid failure, traveled much faster than anticipated and arrived at Earth in less than 10 minutes. Even if ACE had been out there during those CME's, it would detect the particles, but not provide enough warning time to power companies or satellite controllers to take emergency measures.

In the worst of all possible worlds, the CME comes during a period of heightened solar activity, like what is projected to occur in 2012, near the Spring or Fall equinox. At the time of the equinoxes, Earth is oriented in such a way that the protective magnetic field is weakened and vulnerable to plasma strikes. Also, during this time of year, there is little demand for heating and cooling- it is 'off peak' if you will, and computers monitor the equipment on the grid. It is a time of year when manpower is minimal and should a spike occur, there may not be staff on hand to take immediate action before the plasma overwhelms the circuits.

What can you do to prepare? It is easy. Stay healthy and become more self sufficient. Reduce your dependency on technology and especially electricity. If a large CME does take out the power grid, power restoration will be sporadic at best, perhaps even managed as a rolling grid, where a certain area might have power one day a week or perhaps for one hour a day. Learn to grow your own food. Learn to hunt or fish. Learn which plants can be used as medicine. Go low tech whenever possible, for example, bike instead of drive. Learn to build a fire so that you can boil water. Most importantly, believe that it can happen, but don't panic if it does. Millions of humans before you survived just fine. Millions will die, but it doesn't have to be you.

CRC

My father-in-law was diagnosed with Stage IV Colorectal Cancer with metastasis to the lungs(and possibly more places-tests are being done). I don't know what to say. I don't know what he is thinking. We really don't know the extent of the disease or all the possible options. Everything is still up in the air at this point.

Cancer Sucks

I wish I could say this is some kind of bad April Fool’s joke, but it is not. Last night, my father in law was diagnosed with cancer based on a biopsy of some lung nodules. As it turns out, the lung cancer is a secondary type of cancer, meaning that somewhere there is a Stage IV cancer lurking. Today, he will undergo more testing to try to determine the primary cancer location.

There seems to be some sort of cancer epidemic in our country. Perhaps it is a regional thing, but it seems like a lot of people are being diagnosed with cancer. Age, sex, economic status, and overall health don’t seem to matter. It makes me wonder if perhaps there is some environmental toxin that mutates DNA that people have been exposed to. There would almost have to be some kind of environmental trigger for so many people with so little in common to be adversely affected. My first guess would be organophosphate pesticides and herbicide exposure. There are pesticides everywhere in our world, even in places that are not obvious. Of course, we first think of the produce we buy at the grocery store, but what about the pesticides that we use to treat our homes for termites, or the chemicals we use for fire ants, or the insulation in our attics? What about the OFF that we so liberally use to keep ticks and mosquitos away? Plastic trash bags contain pesticides and rodenticides, too. We pour herbicides on our lawns in order to try to have the prettiest yard on the block. There are also many different carcinogens in our environment-things like PCB’s and other industrial contaminants. Carpets, paint, and building materials like pressure treated wood are known to outgas hazardous substances.

Many people have also probably been guinea pigs for the government without their consent. The most famous example of this is the 40 year long Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. At Hanford, WA, the government intentionally and systematically released radioactive materials into the environment for 27 years via air and water, poisoning downwinders, Native American groups, recreational boaters, and the salmon and river fish populations. Although not proven, some believe that the so called Gulf War Syndrome is a result of the experimental anthrax vaccine known as squalene. Squalene antibodies have been found in up to 95% of veterans with Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines for military personnel are mandatory. Of course, many people participate in self destructive behaviors like excessive tobacco or alcohol consumption, they eat unhealthy foods with very little anti-oxidant value, and they don’t get enough sleep or exercise so their bodies are always stressed. I think physical stress is a larger cancer culprit than most people believe. Recent studies have shown that women who work at night have higher rates of breast cancer, probably due to the way our bodies create and use melatonin and other sleep and stress regulating hormones. Everything is interrelated.

When I was in college, I was a chemistry major, pre-med. I had plans to become a research scientist. My dream was to work at the CDC to try to find a cure for cancer and other diseases. Thirty years ago, I had great hope that all cancer would be cured in my lifetime. Now, I’m not so sure, but I still have hope. We’ve made great progress in treating cancer, and there are even vaccines against some types of cancer now, but there are many types of cancer, and they aren’t all created equal. The only thing that we can do is to use common sense and do what we know we should be doing, that is, don’t drink or smoke or do illegal drugs, exercise and get plenty of sleep, and eat a healthy diet full of anti-oxidant containing foods like fish and vegetables. Even that may not be enough, but it is the best we can do right now.