Ever since I wrote my blog about Comfort Farms I have been pondering what makes gardening such a healing experience. I wanted to share a few thoughts about that.
I also think that it's time to start some seeds. It's time for gestation. I need to get going. Cheaper to start seeds on your own than to buy plants already started.
I always plant three seeds in each cup of dirt; one for the father, one for the son, and one for the holy spirit. Three seems to be about right because usually only one or two seeds will germinate, but sometimes I hit the trifecta and get three seedlings, and I feel as if I had given birth to triplets.
I grew up wondering why my silly parents wasted their time gardening. I grew up resenting Mom's telling me to water the garden, or weed the garden. I wondered why my father -- who normally wore expensive suits to his office in the bank, and who smelled of expensive cologne and multi-million dollar deals -- why he hurried home to buy cow manure and spread it around the garden, and why he liked to wear old clothes and get dirty.
Why did my parents choose to get dirty and sweaty and go to all that trouble when they could just get in the car and go to the White Store and buy vegetables? I was such an ignorant child. I also didn't like vegetables.
I didn't understand it then.
"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." -- Alice Walker
Skip ahead many years, to 2005, when my mother and daughter and I moved into this house. There was a pitiful little garden plot adjacent to the back patio. Mom suggested I plant a garden, showing my daughter how to grow vegetables.
I was game to try it, but also somewhat fearful. After all, I had watched my parents struggle to grow veggies utilizing their considerable intellects, and my dad's muscle, and the collective genetic wisdom of generations who had gone before. My mother spent World War II living on a huge farm my grandfather managed. My dad grew up just a few miles from the family farm owned by my Henderson great-grandparents and still operated as a farm until the 1950's, by my great uncle. Dad had seen the hard work that goes into farming.
Generations before me farmed not for fun or for instruction, but because they wanted to eat what they grew. Farming meant food on the table. Growing food -- including pigs and chickens -- was a necessity.
above, my great-grandfather
I gave it a try. I had nothing to lose, except the cost of seeds and soil.
A few months later I watched my daughter pick a tomato, rinse it off with the hose, and stand there outside and eat it like an apple. I felt a surge of pride, joy, and relief.
I also felt pity. In a Russian orphanage, fresh fruits and vegetables are rare, and she had probably never eaten a fresh tomato like that, warm from the sun.
Growing a child is much harder than growing a garden.
Becoming a first-time mom at the age of 42, to a child nearly as tall as myself, who spoke almost no English, was the most terrifying thing I had ever been through. We struggled mightily for a couple of years there. It was a huge adjustment for her trying to fit into an American family, and a huge adjustment for me, trying to understand her needs.
"Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow."-- Zora Neale Hurston
I remember feeling a surge of incredible joy when I saw those little plants in my garden flourishing that first year. Excited as a child, I delighted in each bloom, each bud that turned into a tomato, a squash, a melon.
There were so few things in my life that I had any control over, but I had control over that little garden, at least somewhat. I couldn't control the sun or the insects, but I could control the water, the fertilizer, the harvesting.
I could pick what I grew and each bite tasted of sunlight and goodness.
Gardens are filled with life and gardens give life.
Gardens even give life when they die, and the old plants decompose and add their nutrients back into the soil.
This year, my children are grown and my mother is in the twilight of her life, but I will still plant my gardens. I will rejoice in the summer showers that nourish my gardens. I hope to have enough produce to share with my neighbors -- which is a big part of the fun of gardening, to me, the sharing.
I will thank God that I am still able to garden, and thank God for the privilege of watching that magic happen, just outside my back door.
"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust." -- Gertrude Jekyll
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.
This is the time of year when I get the biggest kick out of taking care of my gardens. I grew up thinking my parents were a bit crazy for planting gardens -- flowers, veggies, herbs, etc. I would shake my head in puzzlement when I saw my father just staring out at his yard, after work in the evenings. He always had to walk around the yard before we could eat dinner.
Now I totally understand it.
After a long day at the computer, I just want to walk around the yard, noticing new plants coming up in the garden, listening to the sound of birds, watching Lola nose around.
The enormous crab apple tree in my back yard has tiny crab apples on it. We don't eat them. I am debating telling a friend who has horses to come pick some but they are so sour I wouldn't want the horses to get ill?!
I am saving coffee grounds and eggshells to put around my plants, to enrich the soil and hopefully stave off insect attacks. I composted all winter to enrich the soil.
Composting has two benefits. One, it enriches the soil and encourages worms, and worms are great. Two, volunteers come up. I have tomatoes and potatoes coming up that are volunteers. I also have shoots popping up that I am pretty sure aren't weeds, but I haven't figured out what they are yet -- it's like a surprise gift, so cool.
Above is one of the fig trees my brother got me a couple of years ago. It didn't fare well over the winter. It dropped all leaves and looked like it was dead. Now it's blossoming all over the place, and has sprigs of mint popping up. I thought I had gotten rid of all the mint last year. What an idiot! Mint is harder to kill than kudzu.
My parents lived on Melton Hill Lake near Knoxville for years, and their next door neighbor had a huge yard. He was also a close friend. Mom and Dad planted some mint near the fence, on our side. It jumped over and started growing in Ed's yard -- everywhere. After a couple of years, it had proliferated to the point where every time Ed mowed the grass, the smell of mint overwhelmed the grass smell. It was like living on top of a huge piece of chewing gum.
I was doing some marketing writing last year and I was assigned to write 500 words on how to grow mint. That was an incredibly tough assignment. I wanted to just write, STICK IT IN THE GROUND AND WALK AWAY!
Below, the garden outside my back door, which I call my patio garden. I have another raised bed in my side yard, which I've just planted with seeds this year. Last year some awful insect infestation killed everything in the side garden so this year I didn't want to invest in seedlings. Michael helped me put new potting soil in there and I just planted seeds for beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and cantaloupe. The beans are already coming up. When things get a little bigger I will post a photo.
There's a piece in the Bitter Southerner that just was posted today and it's worth the time to read. Awesome article! The Queen Bee of Downtown Durham. Read it, y'all!
A couple of months ago I sent Michael out to buy me some cow manure at Home Depot. He came home with only 2 bags. He was really angry about something that day - I don't recall what - and I put one bag of poop in my back veggie garden, one in the flower garden, but there was none available for the side garden.
Now guess what?
My back veggie garden, adjacent to the back patio, is doing fine; a few yellow leaves but nothing too worrisome. My side garden is a sea of yellow leaves - everything is getting eaten up by aphids, much to my sadness. I've tried several things to remedy the situation, including live ladybugs, but to no avail. I hate using chemical pesticides. Nobody wants to eat pesticides.
Conclusion: poop grows food best.
My dad swore by cow manure. He and Mom grew awesome veggies all summer, at every house where they lived except the last one, in Augusta.
You can learn more fascinating facts about cow manure here.
above, my great-grandfather William Dozier Hasty and one of his prize cows
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mom is recuperating well, three weeks to the day after her fall. She's not 100% and needs to walk more, but overall she's doing well.
I had a nasty stomach virus this past weekend and it had me feeling awful for two days and semi-awful for two days. Stubborn thing. Ugh. Talked to the lady at the dog grooming place and she said "Yeah, that stomach thing is going around." [Just once in my life I'd like to hear "Ooooh, nobody else in town has THAT!"]
We are already into the yucko hot weather, highs in the 90's. This is the type weather where I don't leave the house from about noon until 7-8 p.m. if I can help it.
Pray for my uncle Don, who is having hernia surgery today. He's 85.
I went out early this morning and watered and was able to take some fairly decent photos of my gardens (see below). We're getting into some hot afternoons already and I am still on antibiotics so I can't be in the sun much.
Everything is doing well, although there are some aphids in the side garden I need to eradicate. The ladybugs don't seem to be doing their job, but I hate the thought of using chemicals. The marigolds I planted are not doing too well. I do think they discourage aphids and other pests, though.
The closeup shot is of our very first homegrown tomato. Hopefully in a week or so Mom and Michael can split it. We've got tons of blooms so maybe by Memorial Day weekend there will be some more ready to eat.
My brother Bruce got me two fig trees last year and we planted them in barrels on the back patio. Both fig trees are doing well but the one near the birdbath, which also has mint in the barrel, is going nuts. I'm thinking about transferring some mint to the one that isn't as big. I wonder if that will affect the taste of the figs?! You can see the smaller tree in the photo below, upper left.
Below, the back patio garden. I don't see any aphid activity. The potatoes and tomatoes are flourishing. I also have eggplant, zucchini, garlic, and a few green beans. I put a big bag of cow manure in there a few weeks ago and I know that helps. Dad swore by cow manure.
Above, the side garden. Planted lots of green beans and tomatoes.
this is the garden with the first tomato. There's a line in Steel Magnolias that Shirley MacLaine's character says and I can't remember the exact words but it's something like, "I'm an old white lady in the South, so I HAVE to grow tomatoes." I don't even eat tomatoes [too acidic] but I love to see them grow and feed them to Mom and Michael.
I have put a vinegar/water solution on our hydrangeas and they are blooming blue this year, yay. They are right outside Mother's bedroom window, so she can see them, and you can just see the birdhouse in her window. We keep hoping some birds will move in.
I didn't realize it until last night, but yesterday was the 9th anniversary of the day that I actually landed in America with Michael after his adoption. I will always cherish the memory of his face as we snuggled in the taxi, looking wide-eyed at the incredible lush beauty of Atlanta in the spring, with the azaleas and other flowers blooming. After the barren wintry sights of Kazakhstan, Atlanta seemed like a tropical paradise.
I was just thanking God we were home and I could finally relax a bit. The journey was an ordeal.
The shot below was made just a day or so after we got home. He still helps me in the gardens, if I ask, and he enjoys the produce of course..
I walked outside this morning with Lola at 7:15, the way I do every morning, and I noticed something that made me stop and stare.
Usually when I stare at something in my front yard it's a squirrel, and he is about to skedaddle up the tree to get away from Lola, or it's the gravel left in my yard by the water department last year, where I can't grow grass, or it's my mailbox that tilts to the left because I don't want to spend money on a new mailbox right now.
This was a thing of beauty, though, not a cause for irritation.
I stared at the dew glistening off of a beautiful spiderweb, spun between a large yucca plant and a holly tree. The intricacy of it took my breath away.
I wanted to take a photo of it but I knew my crappy phone camera wasn't up to the task. Unlike most people, I don't always feel compelled to take photos. My whole life isn't documented on Facebook or Instagram, and that's OK. I'm old-fashioned enough to think it's fine to rely on memory sometimes.
There was no spider in the large intricate web. I don't know where she went. Likely resting after the exertions of creating something so exquisite.
I hope she catches a lot of insects in her web. Insects like to bite me the moment I walk outside my door -- probably because I am so sweet. [Don't laugh, y'all..]
I see God in every detail of everything in the natural world. I plant flowers everywhere, every spring, because their beauty lightens my heart, their nectar feeds the bees, and their colors give pleasure to my mother. She rarely goes outside, but she loves to see flowers from the window.
The web I saw this morning was a great reminder of many things, but primarily I think I saw it because despite the fact that I slept poorly last night, and there are many issues weighing on my heart, I am surrounded by beauty every time I step outside. God reminds me of his presence every day, in many many ways.
We are all part of a web spun by God -- intricate, delicate, and yet dealing in life and death.
Most of my ancestors were farmers - the ones who didn't own real estate offices or general stores, that is. Heck, most people in the South in the 19th century were farmers, so my family was pretty typical.
my great grandfather W.D. Hasty [a farmer] and his family, about 1910
When I bought my house in 2005 I developed an interest in gardening.
When you live in an apartment or a condo you typically don't get too excited about gardening. In those places "gardening" is planting something in a pot and sticking it on the balcony. When I think back to all the apartments I lived in from 1982-2005, I don't think I spent 15 minutes on any balcony or patio at any place I lived. What was the view? More apartments, or the parking lot. No lush pastoral scenes anywhere. I didn't care.
Now I have a nice backyard. True, the weeds outnumber the actual blades of grass 100:1 but so be it. I can't pay a service to come in and make it look like the Augusta National and even if I won the lottery I don't think that's where I'd spend my money. [Sorry Dad]
As for us normal folks in the South, we prefer the classics.
Pictured above is the very last homegrown tomato I was able to produce in my garden this summer. [And my pathetic attempt to root rosemary in a decorative egg cup, not me trying to grow a Christmas tree for Barbie...]
It's been a tough summer for my gardens. First I didn't feel much like gardening after my surgery. Then it was wicked hot. Lately we've had days and days of rain. Too much rain. My front yard is covered in mushrooms.
Last night I showed Michael the lovely tomato pictured above and I said:
"You know what this is?"
"A tomato." [He's so smart, that boy!]
"Not just any tomato, son. It's the LAST tomato we're going to get out of our gardens this year. THE LAST ONE."
He just looked at me like, OK, so what?
"Tomorrow, I am going to slice this beautiful tomato and make you a sandwich. Two pieces of white bread, Duke's mayonnaise, sliced tomato, salt and pepper."
He went back to looking at his phone. Typical teenager.
Oh well. I will make Mother the same kind of sandwich, and she will appreciate it.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: only age really gives one an appreciation of simple but beautiful things in life. I now pay attention to a beautiful piece of fruit, the birds in my backyard, the way Lola's ears are so velvety...
I finally understand quite clearly what is really important in life...
We are settling in to the Dog Days of summer, with highs in the mid 90's the rest of the week. So glad I have air conditioning.
I am just plugging along, working and gardening and trying to stay cool. Walking Lola every morning early, before the heat gets bad. (I now know which of my neighbors are awake at 7 a.m.)
My tomato plants are pretty much done producing. Aphids have taken a toll. Mom and I were able to peel and put up a big bag of tomatoes. Sometime this winter I can make a terrific marinara sauce from those beauties.
I remember as a kid putting up most of the garden veggies into the freezer, and even buying more veggies at the farmer's market. Bruce and I hated stripping ears of corn for creamed corn but we loved eating it in the winter...
Michael is down to one job, lifeguarding on weekends at the neighborhood pool. He had tried another job for a few weeks but hated it - it was working in an un-air-conditioned warehouse. He also has left the restaurant job. He needs some time to unwind and catch up with himself.
So yesterday my friend Kate hosted him. She has two sons, one younger by several years and one older by several years. They live near Lake Allatoona in Acworth Georgia which is about 45 minutes away from here. The nice thing is that Michael is old enough to drive himself up there.
I told him to put sunscreen on his face and he ignored me. Lesson learned? I hope so.
I always try to have a clean house but my efforts always fall far short of perfection. Michael and Mother help me when they can, but certain things are hard for them.
I noticed the last time I vacuumed that it wasn't picking up very well. I remember calling my neighbor Vinny a year or so ago and asking him if he could fix our vacuum, which seemed to be non-usable. He is a handyman and a super nice guy. He came down and looked at the vacuum, which is a "bagless" model, and said "Dee, if you don't clean it out, it won't pick up." He proceeded to clean out about 10 lbs. of dog hair, dust, etc. out of it. I felt like an idiot. So this morning I got the bright idea of cleaning it out again.
Let me just say this: it was a teachable 15 minutes or so. I have small hands, which helped me get it clean. A knitting needle also helped. When it was all done, I had enough hair to put together another Lola.
This was after last night's somewhat humiliating call, again, with Vinny. I told him my window unit air conditioner in my room wasn't working and asked him if he could come take a look. He said yes, but asked if I had cleaned the filter recently.
Filter? That thing has a filter?
I said um.... NOPE. Let me call you back.
The filter on the air conditioner was disgusting. Took me ten minutes and some hard scrubbing to get it clean.
I called Vinny back and thanked him, again. Told him not to bother coming over.
The house we live in has one heating system for the entire house, but there were two different air conditioners, one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs. I don't know why it was set up that way. Perhaps, that was done because the house is almost 2700 square feet and it was just cheaper or more efficient. Who knows. The upstairs air conditioner died about 2 1/2 years ago and I just decided to use window units in the bedrooms, until I could save up for a new central air conditioner. It has not been fun, the past two summers, but we tend to stay downstairs during the hottest part of the afternoon.
Of course, Michael spends most summer days at the pool, either lifeguarding or just hanging out.
This summer will be pretty different because I will be working from home. I have two part-time work-from-home jobs, which is a blessing right now. I can check on Mother many times a day, this way. Financially, they don't pay as well, but we are getting by and that's all that matters. My expenses are lower. I eat lunch at home. Instead of getting a full tank of gas every week I am getting one every 6 weeks or so, which is great. We are also eating dinner out far less because I feel like cooking more. In fact, we rarely eat dinner out now, except for the Friday sandwiches.
I am trying to greatly up my consumption of magnesium. I've read a number of articles that point out that most of us don't get enough magnesium in our diets, like this one. So I have been keeping a journal and trying to keep track of all the magnesium-rich foods I eat and how much of the RDA they are giving me. A typical list [which is not everything I eat all day, but a lot of what I eat] looks like this:
Vitamin 25%
Black beans 30%
Avocado 15%
Banana 15%
Yogurt 10%
This is a partial list of all the great things magnesium does for our bodies:
Gives rigidity AND flexibility to your bones (more important than Calcium in many cases)
Increases bioavailability of calcium
Regulates and normalizes blood pressure
Prevents and reverses kidney stone formation
Promotes restful sleep
Helps prevent congestive heart failure
Eases muscle cramps and spasms
Lowers serum cholesterol levels and triglycerides
Decreases insulin resistance
Can prevent atherosclerosis and stroke
End cluster and migraine headaches
Enhances circulation
Relieves fibromyalgia and chronic pain
Treats asthma and emphysema
Helps make proteins
Encourages proper elimination
Prevents osteoporosis
Proper Vitamin D absorption
protection from radiation
To aid weight loss
Lessen or remove ADD or ADHD in children
in proper digestion of carbohydrates
emerging evidence is showing a preventative role in many cancer
Unlike in the past when I have tried to eat more healthfully, keeping my magnesium levels up has to be a lifestyle change, a permanent change. I am learning to embrace the spinach, black beans, etc. Fresh spinach sauteed in a little olive oil, fresh garlic, and balsamic vinegar is SO yummy. I have some almost every night now.
I even added Epsom salts [a great source] to all the plants in my gardens. One of my cousins said it would do great things for my plants. Hopefully so -- they are already seeming more hardy and lush, after just a few days..
The magnesium in our soils is often depleted, and even fresh produce can be deficient in it, unfortunately..
I am trying to up the magnesium through food instead of supplements because the supplements tend to bring on hot flashes, which I don't need. Interestingly, since I've been eating a more magnesium-rich diet, the hot flashes have decreased a lot, which is great.
Of course, the highs for the next few days are going to be close to 90, so I will be doing a LOT of sweating anyway..
Below, the cute birdbath my brother gave Mom for Mother's Day. I put it together yesterday and set it up with no help. Hopefully all the birds in the yard will be cleaner now.
I feel bad about not blogging for several days, but a lot has been going on. We are having our typically hot spring here in Atlanta, but I sorta love it anyway because the azaleas are blooming everywhere and everything looks just beautiful.
In Augusta [my hometown] the Masters Tournament is being played. Now, you can actually watch it live, which is way cool. I've never been terribly enthusiastic about golf, but my dad, grandfather, and uncles all loved the game. Here in the south, you can play most of the year except perhaps January and February. If you move to Florida [like one of my cousins who is a golf fanatic] you can play year round.
I have had a busy few days, gardening and working.
My gardens are not too impressive, yet. I planted 8 tomatoes, 4 cucumbers, and 4 peppers. I will probably add more in the next couple of weeks. I love yellow squash and zucchini but for some reason they don't grow well for me. Ditto for cantaloupe.
Last year I planted about 10 green bean plants but I could never harvest more than a handfull of green beans at one time and it just didn't seem worth it, since I can get fresh beans at a farmstand that are just as tasty.
One of my neighbors had some trees cut down recently and I got a pile of great mulch out of that deal, and I need to get it into my gardens. It holds in the moisture.
I haven't bought any flowering plants yet. Usually I just go to Pike's and buy a couple of flats of geraniums or zinnias or impatiens and stick a couple in each pot. I've got a huge collection of pots.
The high today is going to be somewhere between 82 and 84.
Michael can't help me much in the gardening because he has terrible allergies.
I was hunting for one of my favorite photos, of Alesia and Michael gardening right after we got home in 2007, and I couldn't find it. I did find this cute shot, made a couple of months ago.
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