Friday, August 21, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Me and the Robot.......A Summer Update
Boy, if we thought last summer was weird we didn't know the true meaning of the word. The spring started out nice enough; the snow left quickly, we got our peas in on April 15, we got some woods work done before the black flies arrived, a bunch new planting done and we got our garden started a week earlier than usual. Big mistake. Sometimes Spring Fever can make you do wacky things.
Then the rains came. Cold rain and wind. Then the disappointment hit as we watched our seedlings beaten down by the wind and rain and lack of sun. Fortunately we kept some plants back in reserve and could replant many things. June produced over 8 inches or rain and anxiety raised over getting in the first hay crop. Up here, if you want 2 crops of hay you need to get the first one off by June 15. By some stroke of shear dumb luck, on the three sunny days in the month, we went out and made hay. There's still a lot of uncut grass left out there (like half the field) but we have our bet hedged and if we get it in we do if not, well shit, there's next year.
I always wondered what transpired in a doctors office when they gave you bad news of a serious illness. Well, I now know that in the case of Dr. Rao, he wheeled his chair over to sit closer and just said "You have cancer. I recommend surgery" In fact, the lab results from the biopsy had detected cancerous cells in my prostate and now it had to go. There were other options but none seemed too good. All of this began back in March and I put the surgery off mainly so we could get hay in if things worked out. But then, on July 1st at high noon Dr. Rao et al, and the DaVinci surgical robot invaded my body for nearly five hours and removed my prostate with a very large tumor in a bag out through my navel. Really. So I spent 2 nights down at Eastern Maine Medical Center before Chris sprung me and brought me home to nurse and nag me. So now things are fairly back to normal with some restrictions still applicable. But, the nice thing about the robot is that you only have 5 punctures in your belly and a lot of the damage done by the old fashion technique is eliminated. There are some side effect issues, but we're working on those. So now we just have to wait until Aug.6 for my first post op PSA to see if they got everything. So fingers are crossed.
Fingers are also crossed in hopes of some drying weather to deal with the still standing hay but I have a couple more weeks of no lifting heavy stuff so there's plenty of time for things to dry out. Just don't read the Farmer's Almanac forecasts! But, it's amazing how somethings just don't matter as much as they used to.
But, the garden is starting to grow as best it can without UV input and out at camp, Center Pond is the highest we've ever seen and there seems to be a patch of blue outside so I'm going out to "recuperate". Everybody take care.
Then the rains came. Cold rain and wind. Then the disappointment hit as we watched our seedlings beaten down by the wind and rain and lack of sun. Fortunately we kept some plants back in reserve and could replant many things. June produced over 8 inches or rain and anxiety raised over getting in the first hay crop. Up here, if you want 2 crops of hay you need to get the first one off by June 15. By some stroke of shear dumb luck, on the three sunny days in the month, we went out and made hay. There's still a lot of uncut grass left out there (like half the field) but we have our bet hedged and if we get it in we do if not, well shit, there's next year.
I always wondered what transpired in a doctors office when they gave you bad news of a serious illness. Well, I now know that in the case of Dr. Rao, he wheeled his chair over to sit closer and just said "You have cancer. I recommend surgery" In fact, the lab results from the biopsy had detected cancerous cells in my prostate and now it had to go. There were other options but none seemed too good. All of this began back in March and I put the surgery off mainly so we could get hay in if things worked out. But then, on July 1st at high noon Dr. Rao et al, and the DaVinci surgical robot invaded my body for nearly five hours and removed my prostate with a very large tumor in a bag out through my navel. Really. So I spent 2 nights down at Eastern Maine Medical Center before Chris sprung me and brought me home to nurse and nag me. So now things are fairly back to normal with some restrictions still applicable. But, the nice thing about the robot is that you only have 5 punctures in your belly and a lot of the damage done by the old fashion technique is eliminated. There are some side effect issues, but we're working on those. So now we just have to wait until Aug.6 for my first post op PSA to see if they got everything. So fingers are crossed.
Fingers are also crossed in hopes of some drying weather to deal with the still standing hay but I have a couple more weeks of no lifting heavy stuff so there's plenty of time for things to dry out. Just don't read the Farmer's Almanac forecasts! But, it's amazing how somethings just don't matter as much as they used to.
But, the garden is starting to grow as best it can without UV input and out at camp, Center Pond is the highest we've ever seen and there seems to be a patch of blue outside so I'm going out to "recuperate". Everybody take care.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Tha mi ag ionnaschahd Gaidhlig
And have been trying for a long time. My fascination with this ancient and beautiful language started when my first piping teacher, Skip brought out a book of music titled Piobaireachd and called it "pee-brock". My first question was: "How do you get pee-brock out of that?" Well, he didn't know but that was just the way it was.
Piping has many Gaelic terms in it but they are mainly just words. Just names of things, hardly conversational. Then on our latest trip to Scotland, Chris and I washed ashore am t-Eilean Sgitheanach (actually, we took the ferry) and there on Skye, most of the signs are bilingual and it was a good thing one of the languages was English! But it was fascinating.
One dark and stormy night we headed out from Sarah Shurmer's B&B and went to supper. The drive into town took us down the one lane road weaving around the sheep lying in the road (really) and into a restaurant. The place was deserted. The tourists being at a swanker spot and the locals warming themselves with a dram in front of the peat fire. The waitress seemed to take a liking to us and sat down and told us her life story of coming from Leodhas to get away from her ex and the bad scene of a seemingly hopeless existence on windswept island where the economy had all but vanished along with most of the people. The conversation then turned to Gaelic, a language she spoke. I had picked up a rather elementary book on it and started asking her questions. She then went to get the cook who came from na Hearahd where, she said, they spoke a purer form of the language. The cook came out and reccomended a local single malt that should help flatten the learning curve and we all sat around saying words.
When we parted, I told them that I was going to go learn the language at home and be back. She told me "You can do it" and I told her back that I thought it was one of those things that you had to learn on your mother's knee. And, I can tell you the drive back to Sarah's after several glasses of learning curve flattening took on a whole new sense of adventure!
I still feel that way but this winter I have acquired some new, improved learning materials and have found some helpful sites online and have started to learn some grammer and useful vocabulary. And, I can tell you "pee-brock" is a rather crude pronunciation. So, I will press on regardless. Come on up and chat.
Beannachd Leibh!
Piping has many Gaelic terms in it but they are mainly just words. Just names of things, hardly conversational. Then on our latest trip to Scotland, Chris and I washed ashore am t-Eilean Sgitheanach (actually, we took the ferry) and there on Skye, most of the signs are bilingual and it was a good thing one of the languages was English! But it was fascinating.
One dark and stormy night we headed out from Sarah Shurmer's B&B and went to supper. The drive into town took us down the one lane road weaving around the sheep lying in the road (really) and into a restaurant. The place was deserted. The tourists being at a swanker spot and the locals warming themselves with a dram in front of the peat fire. The waitress seemed to take a liking to us and sat down and told us her life story of coming from Leodhas to get away from her ex and the bad scene of a seemingly hopeless existence on windswept island where the economy had all but vanished along with most of the people. The conversation then turned to Gaelic, a language she spoke. I had picked up a rather elementary book on it and started asking her questions. She then went to get the cook who came from na Hearahd where, she said, they spoke a purer form of the language. The cook came out and reccomended a local single malt that should help flatten the learning curve and we all sat around saying words.
When we parted, I told them that I was going to go learn the language at home and be back. She told me "You can do it" and I told her back that I thought it was one of those things that you had to learn on your mother's knee. And, I can tell you the drive back to Sarah's after several glasses of learning curve flattening took on a whole new sense of adventure!
I still feel that way but this winter I have acquired some new, improved learning materials and have found some helpful sites online and have started to learn some grammer and useful vocabulary. And, I can tell you "pee-brock" is a rather crude pronunciation. So, I will press on regardless. Come on up and chat.
Beannachd Leibh!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Chris and the Crab
My beautiful wife Chris impresses me everyday. She possesses what, in Maine, is known as "Moxie" and she shows it in a lovely feminine manner that just floors me. I was first made aware of this on a very memorable day:One of my favorite things about a trip to Delaware to visit Donald and Chris (besides staring at Chris on the beach) was the crab feed. Hot crabs and cold beer on the picnic table covered in newspaper, doesn't get much better than that! But first you needed to get the crabs. This was done by dropping your crab trap with an old chicken neck tied inside for bait into known crab waters.
For this hunting trip, we took their canoe down to the channels around Lewes. We set out with Donald at the helm sitting (high up) on the stern thwart and Chris and I sitting on the bottom of the canoe pulling in the traps and dumping the catch into a bushel basket between us.
It was a great day to be out and the crabbing was excellent. Then Chris pulled up her trap and when emptying the catch into the basket, one fell on the floor of the boat. This was perhaps the largest, most ferocious crab either of them had ever seen. I looked down and saw this creature coming straight towards me at full crab speed, it's arms wide apart it's claws snapping and it's beady eyes looking straight at me with one thing in mind: Revenge!
Now, all of you that have been in a canoe can understand the rather cramped quarters. There is no place to run and I am sitting there about to be chewed to the bone by this savage animal. In my brain I am running down my list of options: I could scream and flail about wildly and reveal to Chris the wimp that I am. I could scream and flail about wildly and capsize the canoe dumping all of us into that murky, crab infested water and be hated by them forever or, I could just "take one for the team" and hope it didn't hurt too bad.
In the split second I had left to make a decision, Chris reached over, grabbed the crab and tossed it back into the basket with a "you get back in there". I was impressed then and even more impressed today.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
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