New Year, New Vision

Holy Horse Manure where does the time go? I say it every time but I mean it.

Anyway, I thought I had written about all that I seeded before I had heart surgery on December 12^th. Man, I worked my ass off in the garden to get ready for the surgery knowing that my ability to get physical in the garden was not going to happen for some time. So I, with my wonderful family’s help, managed to get a ton of seed in the ground. I really didn’t expect much because the winter had started so cold and wet that I thought maybe winter wasn’t going to happen at all for the garden growing through permafrost. Since November First we had already experienced 20 nights or more of frost and six early inches of rain by the second weekend in December. We seeded like crazy anyway. (Sidenote: I just realized I am getting pissed off at Word for not autocorrecting quite like texting on my iPhone but at least it doesn’t have me sending out texts that replace “shot” with “shit”, I digress, or is this simply wandering off into the ethernet?…)

Where am I? In the garage typing on the computer. No, I mean the garden story. We planted carrots, onions of many types, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, peas, romaine, iceberg, arugula, all your boutique greens…..on and on.  The herbs keep kicking butt.

The week after my surgery it was cold and depressing. No growing and not even sure if there was any healing happening. But it was dry and has been dry ever since. Where did the rain go? Only La Nina knows as she has now shown her true colors. My earlier hopes and uncommitted suggestions of a really winter have been dashed for now. I am now having to water the yard and the garden. Even the deep rooted fruit trees. What the hell? I see every day how climate and weather are two different things. The planet is warming without a doubt and the weather is doing really freaky unpredictable stuff because of it. I laugh and curse when I hear rednecks deny global warming because their ranch was just buried under 20 feet of snow after a summer of drought. Fox News enlightens not. Oh shit, did I just edge into political punditry? I will stop. The climate is changing just as it has always changed however this is currently outpacing even the believer’s predictions. NOAA knows stuff that is freaking them out and they are talking about it in their communities in a big way. It is not making sense to them.

Ahhh, the surgery. Second heart surgery this year. I am trying to have heart shaped strawberry seeds implanted inside my atria walls so I can cough out valentines by February. My last surgery was in early February but it didn’t work so I started earlier in December so they can take root by the big day. Allison will be so impressed if it works. She will truly love me then.

Okay I need to seriously talk about the surgery. I have been dealing with an irregular heart beat for 15 years now. I had kept it in relative control with heavy and toxic medications that I can no longer take. A couple years ago I had a couple cardioversions done where they put you under and hit you with the paddles of the defibrillator basically stopping and resetting your heart to start back in normal rhythm but they didn’t work. So 2011 was the year of the atrial fibrillation ablation for me. It is super high tech surgery done by the MAN. Dr. Wee made this stuff up that is now done worldwide. He is originally from Thailand and the brilliant personal physician of the Emperor and Empress of Thailand. Quoting from his website, “ At Pacific Rim Electrophysiology we have refined the standard approach to atrial fibrillation ablation. Pioneered by Dr. Koonlawee Nademanee, our approach targets specific sites in the heart using a 3-dimensional mapping of complex fractionated atrial electrograms (CFAEs).” He and his team are amazing people. The procedure can take a few tries and my second effort this year appears to be working but the recovery has been rough. Too much business stress after. If you know anyone suffering from arrhythmias that affecting their lives please let me know and I’ll get them to this magic man. He basically maps out the electrical signals inside your heart walls and then lasers out the hot spots. Great stuff.

All this gets me to thinking I want to farm and paint more. It is time to downsize the biz and get back to a balanced life with my family and the land. Real life. City life, real housewives, rat races in fast cars with plastic everything is not where life is at. Let’s get back to the land, slow food, get dirty and get real.

The weather has been unusually warm and damned if the seeds aren’t sprouting like crazy. We have a healthy start to great winter crops. We bought a new Ford F350 for hauling horses and compost. Check out the photo of the truck with a great load of compost from Sir Dave McAllistar Soils in San Juan. Look forward to some healthy, fresh and tasty food this winter. Chef John is on fire with great nightly features. The restaurants have been jamming and the teams are on fire. See you there.

The truck ready to do some fertilizing!