Life is pretty quiet and calm right now, knock wood. Car runs. We have money in the bank. Mom and Michael are fine. I am fine. Lola is a hot mess but basically fine.
My old house always has something going on.
A couple of days ago the heat upstairs quit working, which was scary. (Thanks goodness it was not cold on Sunday.) Air would come out, but not heated air, and the Auto thingy on the thermostat wasn't working at all. Called the HVAC company we use and they came out yesterday morning. One tiny wire had come loose in the thermostat. That was fixed easily. YAY.
I am slowly but surely gathering all the stuff so the taxes can get done, asap. I help Mother get hers done and I do Michael's taxes with him, using a program called Tax Act, which is easy. Mine have to go to the accountant, like Mom's.
I spent the weekend contemplating and then making a red velvet cake, for a friend's birthday. I had never made one before. It's basically a chocolate cake with red food dye in it. The cream cheese icing was easy to make and the recipe made a TON of it. I will definitely make this cake again because it's not that hard and it's festive.
I am not great at layer cakes. They are always lopsided. I also didn't refrigerate the layers, which is a great trick. Nonetheless, when my friend came to pick it up we all had a piece. He loved it.
Saturday was a rainy and gloomy day so after Michael and I made the obligatory grocery store run -- which can be kind of fun because he has a list and I have a list and it's sort of like a contest to see who finishes first - we went and bought donuts. Not Dunkin or Krispy Kreme, no... a new, no-name donut place in Tucker -- Donut City. Everyone in the Tucker Facebook group had been raving about how wonderful the donuts were so I thought why not try them. We had never been there before and the guy threw in two extra donuts -- of course, he was fixing to close for the day and might have been going to throw them out but it was nice, anyway.. They were more cake-like but they were much more light textured than Dunkin and they didn't have the weird oily industrial taste that Dunkin Donuts have that I hate. These were more pastry-like. They were out of apple fritters, which they are famous for, but oh well..
A friend of mine went out to Comfort Farms yesterday and took photos for me, for an article I am writing for a cooking website. Wish I could have gone, but it's a 2 hour drive and I was waiting on the HVAC guy. Plus, I can't leave Mom all day. Jon posted great photos of his prized pigs on the Facebook page, noting how well-mannered they are. I love this photo -- it looks like they're gossiping. Plus, look at the cool rainbow behind them!
Reminder: please Donate to Comfort Farms and support their wonderful mission of helping veterans
About 6 months ago, I was watching Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel. I love his programs Bizarre Foods and Delicious Destinations. The show that day was about Andrew going around Georgia eating regional and local foods, I think, but I can’t recall the name of it. I was riveted to the TV, though, when Andrew visited a place in Milledgeville Georgia called Comfort Farms. I was fascinated by the idea of a working farm where veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), having trouble readjusting to civilian life, can heal.
I found a Facebook page for Comfort Farms, and my journey to understanding really began. I also found an awesome 5 minute video of Jon on YouTube.
As I slowly began to learn about Comfort Farms and to learn more about its founder, Jon Jackson, I thought about what I knew about the many veterans in my own family, particularly two of my uncles.
I grew up with four uncles. Three of the four were in World War II. One of them came back from the war and literally stayed drunk for months afterwards. He had been in the Pacific, in the jungle. Another of my uncles, whose job had involved pulling hurt or dead pilots out of airplanes, came back and was so “nervous” he had to drop out of college. There was no name back then for what they were suffering but it is clear to me, now, that they had PTSD. [Both my uncles went on to have successful lives and careers but neither one would talk much about what they’d experienced in the war.]
My brother, an Army major, was deployed to Iraq in 2008 and was there for a year. He had a desk job inside the Green Zone, but he nonetheless went through some awful experiences and he came home changed. We didn’t hear the whole story for months after he got back. One of his friends had been killed. There were rockets attacks many nights, and he found wounded soldiers and tended their wounds until the medics arrived. The first year back was really hard for him. He couldn't work. He didn’t visit us too often. He said much later that it took him a long time to feel normal again.
The simple truth is, war changes people.
Learning More
I wanted to help Comfort Farms in some way, so a few weeks ago I reached out to Jon Jackson, founder of Comfort Farms, and volunteered my services as a writer and marketer. His passion for what he does was evident from our first phone conversation.
Jon did 6 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army Ranger. When his service ended, his body was whole but adjusting to civilian life again was an ordeal. Instead of ending his life with a bullet or becoming homeless, Jon founded an organization called Stag Vets, to help himself and other vets. Through Comfort Farms, Jon found peace and healing in growing food on acreage just outside of Milledgeville, Georgia.
Jon: “I am not academically trained. I’m a vet that actually needs the services that I propose. If it already existed I wouldn’t have had to start Comfort Farms. I’ve given my time and energy to focus on doing something that’s going to have a big impact.”
Jon explains how hard it was to adjust to civilian life with his wife and 5 children. “It took about 2 years for me to become a ranger. On day one of leaving the military they say, you’re a civilian again – after you’ve built a warrior character to help you weather the most traumatic experiences on the planet. When you come back home to normal life you still have those same skills of being able to disassociate your feelings from what’s going on and that doesn’t necessarily work in the real world, especially with your family. You have a wife and kids that want to love on you, and you’ve just come from a place that doesn’t express love."
"So what the farm does and what I’m doing here is trying to build those feelings back again, and vets can later build bridges back into more substantive human relationships, like with friends, family, and loved ones.”
Jon is from New York. He didn’t become a soldier until after 911, when he was in his late 20’s. He was a pharmaceutical researcher before he was a soldier.
“I’ve created this so I can be present and have some sort of roadblock that will not allow me to wander and go and leave my own family. I’ve created this place because of a sense of duty and of taking care of my other veterans even though I have my own issues that I deal with on a daily basis. By creating a farm and putting love and hard work into it, it has kept me present with my family and I’ve been able to build a relationship with my family now in a way that would have not been possible over two years ago. If you ask my wife now if she would ever want me to stop this she would tell you absolutely hell no.”
The Mission
Comfort Farms’ started in 2016 and Jon hit the ground running. As he explains on the Stag Vets website, “Through a rapid deployment system, Comfort Farms provided crisis services for 20 veterans within the first 11-months of operations. As a Training Campus, Comfort Farms also educated and assisted well over 500* veterans within the first 9-months of operations.”
Jon knew the need was great because of his own experiences after leaving the military. “My wife didn’t know anything about the military, let alone being with a ranger, and she – the first day I kind of blew up, it scared the hell out of her. She grabbed everything she could and she was gone. I realized that that way was how I was able to survive in combat, and how I was able to make sure my guys were able to come home, but it saddened me. I know the monster lives inside of me, and I know that that’s something that the rest of the public isn’t used to seeing. They want us to be that way to win wars, but nobody wants to deal with that on a regular basis.”
Homelessness and substance abuse are huge issues for veterans.
“That’s one of the reasons why a lot of guys withdraw from society, and when we start looking at homelessness, everyone gets this thing wrong. They say hey man, this guy needs a job, or he needs a home, or a car. It’s the material things that a lot of these vets don’t actually want or care about. What they want is a better quality of life, and to be in an environment where they can express themselves without being judged. When they don’t get that, they internalize it and they slink outside of society, and they’d much rather be alone. A lot of veterans who are homeless are there by choice” Jon explains.
Food offers healing.
Jon: “We’re losing the battle with older farmers not being replaced by a younger generation. They’re losing land. There are a lot of things going on, and when we start talking about food security, food security IS American security. I’m combining this food mission with my mission to help veterans because vets need a new service, something to fight for again. Why not fight for your communities?”
Fighting and Dying
When I think of farms and farming I picture something bucolic, peaceful, laid-back. It’s not, actually.
Jon explains. “We know vets feel great farming but there’s a reason why. There’s a reason why vets are navigating toward putting their hands in the dirt. A lot of vets come back from war and the number one reason we get depressed is because we feel like we’ve lost our edge. Our edge is the ability to stay sharp and make split-second, critical decisions on the fly, to really manage stress. For a lot of veterans, coming back to a desk job is not challenging enough, nor does it feel like you’re contributing to anything.”
Farming is actually fighting.
“When you’re farming, you’re dealing with Mother Nature. She’s coming in with frost and she’s going to kill all your plants. At the end of the day, you’re always going to lose to Mother Nature but it’s the small victories that give us hope for the future,” Jon points out.
“The suicide rate among veterans is high, as the Veterans Administration reported just last fall: “After adjusting for differences in age and sex, risk for suicide was 22 percent higher among Veterans when compared to U.S. non-Veteran adults.”
In 2016 a study was released showing 20 veterans a day commit suicide, according to Military Times.
We talked yesterday, and Jon had just heard about the suicide of another Army Ranger, a very sad reminder of the importance of a Comfort Farms. “I lost another ranger brother last week to suicide. We’re losing so many of our guys.”
At one point Jon was suicidal, as he explained in the Tedx talk at Emory in April 2017.
In addition to hearing about suicides, Jon notes, “I also hear “Hey man, I saw your Ted-X talk and you don’t know me but for the past two weeks I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to kill myself and you’ve given me hope.”
Growing Hope and Awareness
Comfort Farms mission is multi-faceted. It’s about helping vets, but also about growing food responsibly and educating the public about high-quality organic produce and heritage meats.
Comfort Farms sells produce and meats to local restaurants and restaurants as far away [2 hours] as Atlanta.
Jon is actively seeking more such partnerships. His produce is organically grown, and his animals are raised humanely and with great care. Forward-thinking restaurateurs realize they are getting incredible quality when they partner with Comfort Farms.
In his military career, Jon saw firsthand how food can build bridges. “Food brings people together. If I can enjoy your food and your music, I can respect you as a person even if we don’t agree,” he says.
Community Mission
“We want to help small farmers become more prosperous and to give our communities access to local, sustainable, and organic foods,” Jon says. “The only way we’re going to get it is if we have more local, organic, sustainable farmers.”
The future of Comfort Farms is bright. Even though it’s a non-profit, Comfort Farms is also a business.
They host farmers markets.
Comfort Farms also sells heritage meats to the public.
They host community days where folks come in and help, as in the recent day building raised beds. You can follow what they do most easily by checking out and following their Facebook page.
Hosting special events is also part of the Comfort Farms mission.
Coming up the weekend of April 14th or 15th is a Boucherie – a unique event at the farm, involving Chefs, Farmers, and Butchers.
The community can buy tickets to the event. Saturday will be educational, with discussion of the rabbits and goats and other animals raised on the farm, and in the evening a lowcountry boil. On Sunday a hog will be slaughtered, with meat given to Chef-led teams for cooking. There will also be tastings and a variety of wines offered. [More details will be posted on the Facebook page and elsewhere in the coming weeks.]
Looking Ahead
The most urgent need, currently, is to buy the land the farm uses, and to [hopefully soon] build housing for the vets and other buildings. Jon hopes to raise close to a million dollars to make those dreams a reality.
Jon has gotten some grant money and is applying for more grants, but donations are always welcome. You can donate by going to this page on the Stag Vets website.
He hopes to soon launch a national line of sausages made from pigs he raises. “We’re building our story through our products. When those products hit the shelves they tell a meaningful story and give people a conscious decision to purchase.”
Although selling to the public, selling to restaurants, and hosting community groups are all part of his mission at Comfort Farms, Jon never loses sight of the reason for it all: the veterans. As he explains, “We’re about to turn Comfort Farms into a vocational school for healing and training that going to really focus on the veteran as a whole person, building them up from the inside and being able to give them skills to be utilized for our communities.”
Good luck and God Bless you Jon, and thank you for your service.
If you want to donate to help them expand please look here.
Snow is very rare here. Although we got less than in inch of snow last night, all the schools in the metro area are closed, and everyone is staying home. The road in front of my house is clearing off in the sunshine but the HIGH today is going to be 30 and there are a lot of icy patches. Slush will freeze overnight, making it likely nobody will go anywhere tomorrow morning either. However, the high tomorrow is going to be in the 40's so this will all be gone by tomorrow evening I feel sure.
All my life I have had a love/hate relationship with beef. There are some ways to fix it that I love (a juicy hamburger) and some ways I hate (most pot roast).
My mother loves beef. It goes back to when she was in college and was severely anemic. Beef made her feel a lot better.
I am not wild about cooking beef, unless I can make it taste like French Onion soup, which I love, and which is traditionally ( I think) made with beef broth.
This is last night's London Broil.
The only reason I got that kind of roast was because my mother had warned me not to buy a chuck roast, which she said are flavorful but not a bargain because they have a lot of fat and bone. Plus, the chucks and shoulders were $20-$30. This London Broil was actually cheaper, and smaller.
Problem was, I have my new Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker) and this roast wouldn't fit in there. I fixed other things for days, pondering the problem. Finally I thought, this is stupid. I will just fix it the way I know.
Searing it in the cast iron skillet was a challenge because it was too big to fit in the skillet. I cut it in half. The halves were almost too big!
In my family we have a longstanding tradition of cooking all beef with soy sauce, sherry, and lots of onion and/or onion powder.
I was at a friend's house once, years ago, and we ate beef roast. It looked pretty. It tasted utterly bland. I remember taking a bite and immediately wanting to spit it out. Tasted like hospital food. UGH. "Do you cook with Sherry and soy sauce?" I asked. He looked at me in utter puzzlement. "No, I don't like to cover up the beef flavor."
I didn't want to sound ugly so I just let it go. I wanted to scream "THIS IS HORRIBLE! YOU ARE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE COOKING LIKE THIS!" but of course I didn't. I was raised right.
The first and easiest way to fix better meat is to put lots of salt and pepper on it and let it sit out on the counter for an hour or two before cooking.
Above are the main ingredients in excellent beef roast. I didn't try to photograph everything I put in the beef broth last night. Pretend there's a stick of butter, a red onion, balsamic vinegar and garlic, in the photo. When it comes to measuring, I don't. Put in LOTS of soy sauce and sherry and onion. LOTS.
After searing it and putting the meat in the dish, I made my broth. See above ingredients.
I cooked it at 300 for 3 hours, tightly covered with foil so the onions turned soft as butter, but they infused the broth with oniony goodness.
When it came out of the oven I was very tempted to just pick up the dish and drink the broth.
Mom said it was the best roast I've ever made.
I served it with rice and a spinach souffle. No, I don't do souffles, but Stouffers does.
After last week's rain it has turned bitter cold again. So beef is a welcome addition to a nasty winter day. Give it a try. Buy good beef and cook it for hours, so the magic happens. Fix it the way my mama taught me, as explained above, and yours will be wonderful too.
One role I never thought I'd find myself in at any point in my life is the role of caretaker, and yet that is my role now, in relation to my mother Elva Hasty Thompson, who turned 84 last Sunday.
I won't lie about it. There are good days and bad days.
My patience is often strained but not because Mom is difficult. I just get frustrated with her lack of ability to do the things she used to do.
I reckon God just thought I needed to learn more about caring and patience, and since I adopted older kids I didn't get those lessons earlier in my life.
Most women at some time in their lives find themselves caretaking for either a child or a parent. The two roles are very different, however.
With a baby, you are watching a personal evolution that is breathtaking, in most cases.
I remember years ago an attorney I worked for -- but who was the most unemotional, reserved man -- say "The best part of my life was when my daughter was born, watching her grow and learn, and explore the world. Fascinating." It made me like him a lot more than I had before that.
With an older person, however, you are watching them become more and more feeble, and it's painful to observe, particularly if you love them.
This photo shows my mother the way I think of her, the way I have known her for most of my life.
Mom always liked to get out and work in her garden, and she would always wear tops like this so she could "get a little sun." Ironic, since her mother always told me sternly to stay OUT of the sun because it ruins the skin.
Memaw [my grandmother] had soft white skin her entire life, and never a bit of a suntan. I used to pat her face sometimes or kiss her cheek and marvel at its exquisite softness, like a pillow scented with Coty's L'Origan or Estee Lauder's Youth Dew.
My mother, however, has always had great faith in the restorative powers of sunshine, fresh air, flowers, and just being outside.
My father would always come home from work, change out of his business suit and into "play clothes" and he would fix Mom a drink and they would walk around out in the yard for a while before supper. That was only curtailed if the weather was really cold or foul.
She said the hardest thing about widowhood was expecting him to walk in the door every night by 6 p.m.
My mom seldom leaves her room now, and hasn't gardened in years.
One of my cousins sent her a gorgeous poinsettia plant before Christmas, and my son got her some beautiful flowers for her birthday. She likes to have living things in her room.
I do the same things for her every day: helping her dress, fixing her meals and taking them to her in her room, loading new books on her Kindle, getting her settled in for a nap or for sleeping at night. Occasionally I have to help her in the bathroom.
I try to remember this: she won't be here forever. I won't be doing this ten years from now.
When Mom was in the rehab place for 6 weeks last summer I didn't rejoice in my freedom. I didn't hang out with friends and go places more. In fact, I was miserable. Michael wasn't living at home. I was living alone. I hated it. I also worried about Mom and how she was being treated at the rehab place. Some of the nurses were not very nice, although I think most were.
Mom didn't have access to her computer, which was very depressing to her. She loves to get on the computer and scroll her Facebook feed, check her email messages, Google topics of interest.
Elva also plays with Lola, calls her friends on the phone, watches TV. She watches very little TV. She reads several books a week.
My constant prayer is that she will not be in pain and she will have a good quality of life. My job is to make sure of both.
When my father was dying, Bruce and I promised him that we would take care of Mom. She had never lived alone until that time. For 9 years she lived alone in Augusta and managed fine. Since 2005 she has lived with me, and I think we have done a pretty decent job of having a nice life together, despite some of the drama caused by parenting.
About the time my parenting role was scaled back 90%, my caretaking role increased. At first, I didn't handle it well. I have gotten better, I think.
There are rewards to being a caretaker, that probably seldom get mentioned.
I can always talk to Mom. She's always here. Elva is a rich source of information and advice. She is a fascinating source of information about the family, politics, friends from long ago, religion, etc. I am very blessed to have been born to a mama who was/is not only beautiful but brilliant and funny.
She is an example of grace. They do not make ladies like her any more -- the home health nurses and therapists who come to the house always come in businesslike and efficient, and leave smiling and relaxed, having chatted with Mom. She asks them about their families. She tells me to copy recipes for them. She is unfailingly cheerful and chatty with them.
Elva rarely ever fusses at Michael, even though he gets on her nerves occasionally. They have a beautiful relationship. One day when she is gone he will regret not talking to her more, but so be it. He just wants to "hang out" with friends right now, when he isn't working.
To me, she is a cheerleader -- always encouraging about my writing efforts and supportive of my struggles as a parent. I always tell people I am a single mom but not really. When you have your mama in the house you are not parenting alone.
One day I will be done with my caretaking duties, but I will not be smiling and happy and thrilled to be out from under the caretaking burdens. I will miss Mom very, very much. I will try not to dwell on the sadness, though. I will try to be thankful for the gift of time with her, because that time has enriched my life beyond measure.
Nobody else will ever love me the same way, either.
Before then, there will be more good days and some bad days.
All of them though, the good and the bad days, all of them are gifts.
Mom listening to my cousin Bry sing to her the other day
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