About me...

Because this journey is intensely personal, there will be times when my posts will be about more than just rebuilding the physical aspects of my life. They may be random and sometimes I think they may not even make sense to some. But whatever I post here will be as honest as I can make it, no punches pulled, telling it like it it. I hope that I can share some insight with others who might be going through a similar transitory period in their own lives. With luck and perseverence I know I will eventually successful in my new life. I have very high hopes for all of this but then I had those when Dave was alive, too. I am naturally a pretty optomistic person, I think.

Affirmation and validation is always a sweet reward for hard work and dedication, especially when what you are doing is something slightly controversial. Take what I do for a living....I grow organic, heirloom vegetables, which I sell at farmer's markets. It always made perfect sense to me that anything that hadn't been too hybridized had to be better than something that had been tinkered with until it barely resembled the original, even if much of the differences were at a molecular level. It seemed that if something had been bred for long storage, firmness, and the ability to be picked earlier and greener and later being "tricked" into ripening by the application of hexane gas (tomatoes, for example), well, there was something not quite copasetic about that. And then there is the whole GMO argument....



I grew up eating homegrown organic veggies and I know what they are supposed to taste like. I am old enough that everything my gran grew when I was a kid is now considered an heirloom, so I know from whence I speak..... So, let me leave this alone before I go off on a rant about this subject and say that you should please check out the article titled at the link listed below. Hate to say “I told you so” but I told you so.....


Eating Your Veggies: Not As Good For You?

Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence?
By Donald R. Davis Journal of HortScience; February 2009, 5 pp.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090219/hl_time/08599188014500

Most recent news from New Moon Farm Organic

In my previous post, I mentioned that we were having some issues with the Farmer's back and now it has become an even bigger issue. Four years ago, he was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. If that sounds like a big scary disease, it is. No question. It strikes like a cobra that has to be killed in one blow. With RCC, that blow is the removal of the kidney, where the tumor originates. If it hasn't moved on to other parts of the body, you are pronounced cured and sent home, told to get a CT scan once a year and have a nice life.


Sometimes it doesn't come back, only that rarely happens. This is a hard disease to fight. The problem is that it doesn't respond to normal chemo and radiation has very little if any affect on it. Thank goodness there has been some real progress and some profound breakthroughs made in the treatment of this cancer over the last four years, provided you are able to obtain these treatments. There are a lot of stumbling blocks, particularly cost, location and availability.

This is one insidious cancer, because it is always lurking in the background of your life, waiting to rise again from the ashes. But, unlike the mythical Phoenix, it has a much more sinister purpose and it usually comes back with a vengeance. So, you have to decide how you are going to live your life...sitting in the house waiting for the ax to fall or live your life like there is no tomorrow...always in the moment and looking forward to the next. Luckily for us, we chose the latter.

The last four years have been up and down for us but we have never waivered from our mission of growing the healthiest food we possibly could and to get it to the people in our community. Our committment to our brothers and sisters under Mother Earth has always been at the forefront of everything we do. We live our own lives with that committment to excellent stewardship always at the forefront (by example is always the best way to teach) and try to never waiver from our goals of sustainability, self-sufficiency and simplicity. In some ways, that has made us outsiders, not quite fitting into the flow of what is happening around us.

Sometimes it almost seems like people are hinting to us that we should apologize for how we live and I can't imagine why. Our life here is one of relative peace and harmony and if that sounds hippyish, that is because it is. There was nothing wrong with those lofty ideals that so many had in the 1960's and early 70's, just with the means to the end and so it didn't stick. Humans are pack animals and we are hardwired on some levels to always try to fit in, which usually means taking the path of least resistance. Ergo, the old hippies became wealthy opening health food stores and record companies. Personally, I became a financial advisor and spent 25 years on that rat wheel before I could get off and save myself.

Finding ourselves in this present position, that of knowing basically nothing about what the future holds, has left us bruised and battered but underneath all that, we know how strong our bond is and know that we will deal with it as best we can. Hopefully, our best will result in only positive things and we will continue along the path we have chosen. Love really is the answer and we have that in spades.

I don't imagine I will be posting very frequently here at this blog for a while. During the next several weeks and months there is a lot of work to be done both at the Farm and to fight this illness. I may be wrong about the postings, though, because I find this is a good place to vent, let out feelings, etc. especially since this blog is about my life on an organic farm and this is all part of that life.

Namaste

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT MY BLOG
The Farmer is presently hospitalized and having back surgery, so I am suspending the blog temporarily. We have been preoccupied with this for a while not (hence the lack of postings) so bear with me and I should be back on line when he gets home from the hospital next week, since we will be sticking close to the house until he is ambulatory again. Thanks.