February 15, 2013

that eye

wet with sun and allergy

kissed with a prayer

Awhile ago I wrote and put these three lines in the “Reflections”. These lines are a reference to Louie’s eye which was clouded and blind. It always had a small tear drop in the corner, and because of its stillness, was almost spiritual to me. With all the light and movement in the world around us, Lou’s eye always seemed at peace, even in the center of all the confusion. It is one of those type feelings that I have never been able to fully explain. But that eye had a calmness that could make the world seem quiet…

Unfortunately, Lou’s blind eye began to worsen – it became darker and the tears increased until a constant rivulet formed that ran down his cheek. It wasn’t just a blind eye anymore – something else was going on.

The vet suspected that cancer was growing in his nasal passage which was putting pressure on the eye, and she arranged for us to take Lou to New Bolton to get a more thorough examination and a definite diagnosis.

At New Bolton, the veterinarians, veterinarian interns, and veterinary students under the supervision of  the resident surgical veterinarian did a lot of testing –they gave him a basic physical, checked his vitals and heart, gave him a complete ophthalmological study of both eyes, scoped his nasal passages twice, did x-rays, and other work-ups.

The good news was that the veterinarians didn’t find cancer in his nasal passages where it was originally thought to be. They found what possibly could be cancer in his eye. (See note.) The eye was becoming more and more painful to Lou. The resident surgical veterinarian gave us a few treatment options but recommended that the best approach would be to remove Lou’s eye altogether.

That all happened a week ago. Louie’s recovery has been going well since. We removed the bandages Tuesday and the stitches and skin are healing nicely. Where his eye was is the eyelid sewn over. It looks as if his eye is closed.

Since Lou had been blind in that eye ever since we’ve had him, he is well adjusted to life with sight from only one eye.  And now, without the constant eye pain, he should be a more relaxed and happier Lou. It already seems to be happening. There’s a new found spirit in his step these past few days.

I feel blessed that things are turning out this well. At almost 26 years old, Lou is past the average life span age of most horses, and the chance that fate would not have been so kind to him is considerable. But he’s fine now – and though age has given him a few nicks and dings along the way, the doctors said his health is “remarkable” and his prognosis is “excellent”.

Note: February 20, 2013. Histopathology results indicate that Lou's iris was growing into the "ruptured and detached lens capsule",  and mineralization was taking place which gave it an appearance of cancer.

***

I want to recognize Lou’s doctors –Dr. Beth Hirsch of South Jersey Equine Associates and Dr. Janik Gasiorowski of the New Bolton Center. It takes a very special type of person to be a large animal vet. I really appreciate all they have done for Lou.

January 30, 2013

I was looking forward to having spinach as part of dinner tonight…sauteed and draped over something or other. I wasn’t thinking it that far ahead. I am one who can eat spinach in almost any way that it can be cooked, and in anything that it can be folded into or smothered with. And I can just eat it plain.

I like it best on a cold morning in the late winter, freshly picked from the garden row when its leaves are still framed with the crystals from the night’s frost.  I like it best when I eat it there in the garden. Tart. A hint bitter. I don’t mind the grain or two of sand that hitchhikes on the leaf and grinds a bit between my teeth. It’s my ultimate connection to the earth.

So while I was thinking about spinach, I was coincidently scrolling through articles on Google News and I found one from U.S. News about the viruses and other disease bugs on our foods:

“…a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that leafy greens are also the riskiest foods in terms of causing food-borne illnesses.”  -  Laura McMullen, US News.

In this dead of winter, I have nothing left in the garden and I have finished off everything I had grown in the hoop house. I started to feel anxious about the “industrial spinach” in its brittle plastic bag that was in the fridge – the spinach I asked my wife to pick up at the store last week (still perfectly fresh, a week from the store and who knows how long from the field).

Tasteless. Paper like. I wonder if it has any nutrients. No sand. No hint of the earth. And maybe it’s full of germs from the unknown. I don’t even know where it came from, if its gmo, or if it’s really spinach at all.

It just isn’t the same as mine. It doesn’t compare.

Tonight, I realized again how much I miss my garden. I think about how much I want to get out and plant seed again….and how much I miss knowing my own food.

January 6, 2013

I guess the holidays are over. I will spend the day taking down the outside lights. We hadn’t done lights outside in years; living so far back from the road there’s not much point. But I was in the mood this year and I did it more for myself rather than the cars that speed by 200 yards away on the highway. Those guys are traveling so fast they don’t have any time to look around enough to notice a fainted light display anyway. Even so, the delivery guy from Giuseppe’s appreciated the extra light when he came to the door.

So today I will be taking the lights down.

We already have the Christmas tree down. We have a little tradition with our Christmas tree….While all the neighbors drag their tree out to the curb for pick up, we drag ours out to the backyard. We tie it up to a tree near the bird feeder so that the song birds can take cover from the weather and from the Coopers hawk that hunts them there. We also tie it up in reach of Snoopie, who will snack on it until spring, stripping it of the needles and bark. When she’s done, there’s usually very little left – a few twigs on the trunk.

I have considered salvaging trees from the curb for the birds and Snoopie and the other goats, but I have always stopped short of this because I can’t be sure if they haven’t been treated with sprays to keep them fresh and green, or to make them fire retardant. I just don’t want to take a chance of possibly poisoning the goats. That’s just the thing – one never knows what’s on any things theses days. So if I don’t have to gamble, I don’t.

Today is not a bad day to be outside as its pretty warm for a day in January. It’s warm enough that the bee hives are active today. On warm winter days like today, the bees do housekeeping – they clean the hive of dead bees and whatever, get some fresh air, and stretch their wings so to speak. When it gets cold again they will ball up in the hive to conserve energy and heat. For now though, I know that all the colonies have made it this far through the winter.

The horses are doing a bit different today too- taking time to lay down and stretch out to capture as much sun on their bodies as they can. It’s no different than what we call sun bathing.

Later today I will be taking Patrick for a ride. I have been working with him almost every day, now that I have time since the growing season is over. I have been doing my best to work on his spooking – things that scare him. Being prey animals, it is an instinct for a horse to spook – it is a defensive mechanism that keeps a horse alive. Problem is, a horse that spooks can get out of control and either the horse or rider or both can get hurt. The trick is to teach the horse to trust the rider so that the horse stays under the riders control….even when he spooks. Trust takes a lot of time.

I guess I am keeping busy even if it is winter. Soon I will be ordering seeds and onions and leeks and potatoes and then before I realize it, I will be back in the field again digging and tilling and hoeing and weeding and planting and worrying if anything will come up! And hopefully, I will be ready when that time comes!

December 10, 2012

There are no bookstores in my area. They are all gone.

The last bookstore I was in was during a visit to State College last November. My sister took me to one in a cellar somewhere near the Penn State campus. My bearings are not what they used to be. It may have been on Beaver Street.

Stepping down the concrete stairway, the smell of dust and musty paper brought me home. It was a used book store; a maze of unfinished pine board book cases that faced all directions and could make anyone claustrophobic. On them were squeezed together a few zillion paperbacks about anything you can think of. Worn, faded, stained and dog-eared.  Novels, classics, kids stories, history, sports, religion, lgbt, literature, politics, poetry, documentary, and on and on.  Someone’s trash, someone’s treasure.  This place was a gold mine.

My sister and I were looking for “Slaughterhouse -5”. My sister had never read it, or any of Kurt Vonnegut’s books for that matter. We thumbed and searched through the first few book shelves of paperbacks that we saw, and not seeing it, we asked a woman there stacking books if she knew if there might be a copy somewhere. “No, we did, we have…anything we get in by Kurt Vonnegut goes out fast. People must really like him.” So it goes. People still like Billy Pilgrim.

In the hidden spaces between shelves were uneven legged tables that rocked when leaned on. Like the books, they were the kinds that are salvaged from the curb on garbage day. At one of the tables four people sat talking and knitting. I could just tell that this was where they often met, maybe to rest from the forced pace of life that went on up the stairs we had just come down.  Three women and one man. Simply knitting. They had no cell phones or ipods or laptops out on the table. They reminded me of some Quakers I know. I couldn’t stop thinking that this was a place that Quakers would go.

Near the table I was standing on a short step ladder looking at books about world war one that were on a top shelf. I read a lot about the Great War. It’s not the military aspect of the world war years that I am interested in, but the social aspects of the time, and how cultures were changed. Anyhow, I saw a familiar title…“Over the Top” by Arthur Guy Empery. Actually I had never read the “book”. I have read the digital copy on my Kindle, maybe three times now. I had never thought of it as a book, with pages and binding….Even though I have missed being in book stores and being around books, I realized that I hadn’t been a book person for some time. I had changed. I read on a Kindle, not paper. This really sunk in, especially that now I was standing in a book store that was as much as that as it was an antique store.

And I got to thinking too, that even though I had Slaughterhouse- 5, I couldn’t lend it to my sister…it was on my Kindle and couldn’t be passed around, handed down, or put on a shelf where it could have a new life 10 or 20 or 50 years from now. My version would always be data, but never a book. Never would it be dog-eared, worn, stained, or faded….

So much has changed and is changing.

I don’t know whether change is good or bad or if it even needs judging. But I know that I am old enough to miss some things, like bookstores when it was just as much about gathering with friends as it was about the books on the shelves and those we could share and pass around. I do miss going though shelves and stacks looking at and for books, discovering something new, or old. The closest I get to that now is scrolling on Amazon. Amazon’s got more subjects and books than I could find almost anywhere else, but it’s not the same. I don’t expect it to be. I accept that everything changes, but I hope some things, like books, don’t change so much that they are only downloads. That would be too much change. And at least for me, I don’t think it’d be a very good one.

November 3, 2012

I have been thinking about how lucky we were at the farm during Hurricane Sandy. Overall we had no real damage to speak of. We had spent a lot of time in preparation bringing things in, boarding up the stables, tying down bee hives, and cleaning field drains, which I think was a big help. We had extra feed for the animals, and stored about 200 gallons of water for them in case the electricity went out, but luckily that didn’t come to being.

About the only thing I had to attend to was ‘ol Lou who became lame with a hoof abscess (cleared up now). The goats didn’t mind the wind but as all goats go, they didn’t like getting wet so stayed in their shelter for the duration with a bale of hay to eat. After the storm they were so full of hay they turned up their noses at the grain! The chickens were protected from the wind by their shed, and most of them stayed out in the tempest sucking down worms, etc – the chickens just didn’t care at all, and even laid a few eggs which did surprise me...I thought the storm would stress ‘em out and shut them down but it didn’t. And then the ducks - to them all the rain and wind amounted to a great surprise party! They were almost too happy.

Water did come up a bit toward the back of the property were it slopes off to the lowland forest, but not enough to concern me. And we lost a few branches from a tree or two, but again, nothing unordinary.

It was a bad storm. I watched the wind bend our trees over and it rained sideways for hours and hours. At times it was down right scary. I know a lot of people who lost their cars and homes to flooding, roads are still closed from damage and debris, many are still waiting for the electric to come back on...and that’s why I say I we were lucky at the farm, and to be honest, I am not taking this blessing for granted. I am grateful, and I am having a hard time putting it into words.

October 7, 2012

Allen caught this four foot black snake that was raiding the chicken nests for eggs. I think the snake has been here awhile as we have been finding very few eggs for the last month or so. Last week, I saw it in a nest with an egg in its throat, but before Allen got out to the barn, it had gone. I don’t like picking up snakes – one of those things, along with a good fear of heights. So if I see one I either get Kath or Allen to grab it. I will hold the bag as either of them lowers it in but that’s as best as I can do.

This time, Allen came out in enough time, and I pointed to the nest which was a hollow between some hay bales in the hay barn. The snake had an egg in its mouth but hadn’t yet started the swallowing process. Allen reached in and grabbed the snake midway, then grabbed it behind its head with his free hand. The guy dropped the egg, so we got that one back.

After a few pics we put him in a bag and Allen took him to a new home a few miles away, where we hope he will be ok and grow longer.

Snakes are a bit ying and yang here. I see them in the garden in the summer and leave them alone as they are mouse and insect hunters and keep these garden pests in check so that they don’t cause too much loss. In that way they are very helpful and I can appreciate them. On the other hand they have a penchant for eggs – not just chicken eggs, but any bird egg. Over the years I have observed them raiding bird nests, and once 20 foot high raiding the purple martin houses. I have since added snake guards to deter them from the bird nests.

There is not too much I can do to keep them from the chickens as there is no method to block them from the nests. All we can do is catch one in a nest and relocate it, knowing that sooner or later another snake will come along and takes its place. In a normal year, we relocate at least two or three. This time we were lucky that we caught this one. A four foot snake can down three or four eggs at a time.

Its hard enough this time of year to have eggs – most of our gals are older so they don’t lay often as it is, some are molting and that shuts down their production even further, and with shorter day length they lay even fewer eggs naturally. (Egg farmers harvest their chickens after a year, and keep them under artificial light to keep up egg production.) Add a snake to all this and it almost forces us to the grocery store to buy eggs. I think it’s been close to ten years since I have bought a store egg, and I hope to never buy one again. Hopefully, now that our egg thief has been caught, any thought of Acme eggs can be dropped .

September 23, 2012

falling off on my writing, i picked up my camera and walked outside....