In this day and age, you can take action and try to get any orthopedic issue fixed if you want to and you have the means. When she got to be 80, my mom finally decided she didn't like being so disabled with her bad knees and she got herself all ready and she had both knees replaced successfully. I think that all of her siblings have at least one new knee. Last fall Lani finally got to the point where she realized she was too hampered by her knees and she managed to get both of them replaced before the covid lockdown happened. Both of them are very glad they did it. Lani turned into a born-again knee surgery salesperson within 24 hours of her first replacement.
So I know, and everyone tells me this all the time, I can fix this. Maybe five years ago I had to give up walking for exercise, after giving up running before that. And when we think back to our winter trips in recent years, I have been walking less and less. Eventually it will be really clear that I am totally disabled and I will have to make the decision. I am hobbling (Rebecca calls it waddling, and she is right). Up until this pandemic, I had a good thing going with the swimming pool and the acupuncture. Without those two supports, I have really aged. My knees hurt more than they used to, for sure. And now I will wait until the medical world is clear of bigger emergencies before I think some more about this impending downtime.
I think about the people I have known who may not have had the options we have now, and how they moved through the world. There was a wholesale customer named Sam Stalcup with one leg much shorter than the other and who walked with a cane. By the time we knew him, he was probably in his 60s. He could drive, he could get out of his truck, he could direct other people, and he seemed like a relatively happy person. He may have had that short leg all his life and his hip probably hurt all the time but he definitely lived a full life. There was Darryl who ran cross country for Penn State and then for the Marines and then just for the love of it. He used up all the cartilage in his ankles and he was hobbling by the time he was in his 60s. Hobbling and swearing and grimacing from the pain with almost every step. But he said he would not have changed anything about his running life. He would do it all again, just the same. He got a lot of happy miles out of those feet and ankles before they broke down. I see my neighbor who has been a runner all his life, grappling now with the consequences of all that happy athleticism. It is a big mental and emotional shift, to learn to live with a less-able body.
I also got a lot of joy out of racquetball and running, dancing and picking corn. In my dreams, I walk like a normal person and sometimes I even notice that. I stop to think, hey, look, I'm walking! The time will come when I decide that these limitations are more than I want to deal with, and luckily I live in a world of health care privilege. I do have a choice. I just can't quite make that choice right now and it doesn't make me sad.
There are a few upsides to this lack of mobility. I am also now in my 60s and up until very recently I did a lot of physical work. Now I do almost nothing that hurts my body. I may pick lettuce or chard or parsley, but not for very long. I only mulch enough to show someone else how to do it. The days of carrying heavy bales across an uneven field are over for me. I miss being that person but I have so much other stuff to do. Since I can't do all that real work, I have devoted myself to making this farm run better without my body doing the work. Now it would take a lot of managerial wizardry to find enough hours in the day for me to be in the field. In truth, there still aren't enough hours in the day. How did I ever have time to do all that work?
I am very conscious that other people have opinions about my limping around. Everyone thinks I should get my knees replaced. Everyone thinks I should lose weight. Everyone thinks I should take a day off. Everyone is right about all of it. I don't have a single argument with any of those correct opinions. But I also am living a full and happy life, if you can believe it. I have a golf cart, I have lots of comfortable places to sit, I am busier than I ever remember, and I sleep well at night. When those supports start to collapse, I will take action. I will not lie on the couch all day eating bonbons. I will do what I need to do. I promise. I just hate the idea of being taken out of commission for so long. Lani says I will know when I have hit that wall. She had the same attitude that I have -- too much to do, too little time, this is fine for now. And then all of a sudden it wasn't fine anymore. I expect that time may come sooner than I realize, but I sure don't want to mess with the hospital right this minute.
At 5:55 this morning, I was driving around this beautiful Loudoun farm, looking at all the fields. On the far side of the garlic patch, maybe 500 yards from where I am now, I ran out of gas. I was barefoot. I walked back to the Green Barn. I didn't need to call for an Uber, I just walked slowly back. If it ever happens that I run out of gas on the other side of the farm and I cannot get myself back on my own two feet, that will be a clear sign that the time has come.
Friday, June 19, 2020
Friday, June 12, 2020
The Wildlife Report
Last night we were sitting on the deck at Timothy's cabin (a most bucolic spot on the Loudoun farm, one among many, but certainly a premium location far from most humans) and having dinner, just the two of us. I looked up at the scraggly mulberry tree that is growing through and over the deck and I saw an animal perched on a branch, about ten feet above the ground. It looked familiar even though it was facing away from me and I couldn't see anything but its furry back. "Is that a groundhog?" Jon went to look more closely from under the tree. "Sure looks like one." It was small and completely still. It couldn't be dead since it was balancing so nicely on that branch but it was completely unmoving. I kept looking at it while we ate our hamburgers and salad and it just didn't move. I think it was stuck up there, just waiting for us to go away.
Every day we encounter wildlife here on these farms. The workers in Vienna spend an inordinate amount of time trying to coax black snakes out of the hayshed so they can get the bales out for mulching. They tell stories of getting the snake to slide into a bucket, then picking up the bucket only to have the snake pop back out. Of course. What would you expect?
Jon traps raccoons and groundhogs as they are entering under the deer fence. There are clear paths made by these vegetable marauders -- you can see where they slide under the fence and often the paths head straight to their holes. Twice this spring he has caught foxes but we always let them go because we like it that they eat rabbits. The foxes are heartbreaking because they try so hard to escape that cage that they bloody their noses and feet. Raccoons have a different temperament -- they assess the situation quickly and save their energy. They often look bored and relaxed while curled up in the Havahart trap, waiting for release. Jon has a few favorite spots that he takes the groundhogs and raccoons to release (it is illegal to move these animals and legal to kill them, but we would rather just have them start a new life somewhere else). He puts the trap in the back of the pickup truck and drives a few miles away to a stream valley and unloads the trap, carefully stands to the side as he opens the door and watches the (usually chubby) animal hustle into the woods. Once he caught two small raccoons at the same time, presumably siblings. When he let them go, they immediately ran off in opposite directions, never looking back.
The other day I got a text from a past worker who lives nearby. He said, "Hey I have a deer that looks to be injured and is hanging around at my place do you have a good vets number someone that could take care of an issue like that?" I assumed he didn't mean he wanted someone to come and euthanize the deer and I said "I don't think vets treat wild animals." He persisted: "Other than a police officer, is there animal control or localized care taker of animals that you know of? Like if we had horses that were able to walk free and one got injured who could treat it. A company. Something like a vet." I said I doubted anyone would come for a deer. He persisted some more: "Do you have know anyone that knows how to take care of an animal." So I answered more clearly. "My sister is a vet so I do know people who take care of animals but I can guarantee you she would not treat a deer...this is a wild animal and will need to heal or not heal on its own. Not safe to handle it. You will freak it out and it could die of panic. I have seen it happen." I tried to imagine what he was thinking -- someone comes and treats the deer (you would have to tranquilize it first), fixes its ailment, maybe sets a bone. Then the Good Samaritan Wild Animal Vet says to the deer, "Now take this medicine every day and don't walk on that leg. Come back and see me next Tuesday and we will take a look at that wound." I mean, deer don't do appointments and they don't have anyone to make sure they take their meds.
A few years ago a deer got its head stuck through our deer fence and there were so many concerned workers gathered around trying to free it that it just got so frantic and upset that it died. It was a tragic end. Then a few of them felt compelled to not waste that meat and they spent the rest of the day butchering that little deer.
With wildlife, you have to assume they don't want you to intervene. They do get hurt and they do end up in the wrong place, but most of these animals are managing (THRIVING) on the edges and in the midst of this area. As we all know, deer are in their element in the suburbs, wandering through any yard or garden, jumping over gates, completely at home on the fringes. In the last few months, the deer population has shifted away from the Vienna farm and I think it has everything to do with the massive road widening project with huge earthmovers ripping down trees and rearranging the landscape. Where there was once a hillside across the road from the stand, with tall White Pines and underbrush and a daily parade of deer, there is now a mound of subsoil getting scraped and carried away. Deer are staying away from that mess.
A few years ago I started a campaign to encourage groundhogs to move off the farm in Vienna. There were a couple of condos established on hillsides on the edges of fields and I made a regular practice of dumping garbage down their holes and stuffing those holes with sticks so it would be a lot of trouble to come back out. Day in day out, I made those holes disgusting and inaccessible. Once I even buried the bones of a boiled soup chicken (knowing that a fox would find it and dig it up and maybe it would get interested in those groundhog holes and make them even less enticing). I am happy to report that both of those condos are still unoccupied. I go and check from time to time. Apparently groundhogs like a very clean hole and maybe it just got to be too much, having to clean up every day. Also I have heard that they move to empty holes when they find them and the biggest, most dominant groundhog gets the best real estate. So far I have managed to make that excellent real estate seem like a terrible dump. No one got hurt, and the nearby lettuce and bean patches are uneaten.
In fact we have no real interest in killing these animals that are living their best lives. We just want them to move to a place that isn't trying to grow food for humans. There is plenty to eat everywhere. They don't have to be so opportunistic and lazy. I do hate raccoons, all raccoons. They have proven over time that their best life includes randomly killing chickens. Not even eating them, just killing them. Even though that is their nature, I can't tolerate that. Minks and weasels are the same, but we don't have those around anymore.
Anyway, I have been telling stories about wildlife forever because those interactions never stop. I see how inexperienced most people are when they encounter a wild animal, and I watch people try to rescue and raise baby rabbits all the time. They just die. It never works.
Dad always said he wanted to breed a big cat, a really big cat, that could patrol the farm and keep the inappropriate wildlife down. He wanted a cross between a puma and a house cat. That would probably do it.
When Jon and I came back to Timothy's from doing our computer homework after dinner, I looked up in the tree and that little groundhog was gone. It had been pretending to be asleep, waiting for those bothersome humans to get out of the way. It lives in a hole right under the cabin. You wouldn't think I would let that happen but the nearest vegetable fields are a long way away. If they are mowing our lawn, I don't mind.
Every day we encounter wildlife here on these farms. The workers in Vienna spend an inordinate amount of time trying to coax black snakes out of the hayshed so they can get the bales out for mulching. They tell stories of getting the snake to slide into a bucket, then picking up the bucket only to have the snake pop back out. Of course. What would you expect?
Jon traps raccoons and groundhogs as they are entering under the deer fence. There are clear paths made by these vegetable marauders -- you can see where they slide under the fence and often the paths head straight to their holes. Twice this spring he has caught foxes but we always let them go because we like it that they eat rabbits. The foxes are heartbreaking because they try so hard to escape that cage that they bloody their noses and feet. Raccoons have a different temperament -- they assess the situation quickly and save their energy. They often look bored and relaxed while curled up in the Havahart trap, waiting for release. Jon has a few favorite spots that he takes the groundhogs and raccoons to release (it is illegal to move these animals and legal to kill them, but we would rather just have them start a new life somewhere else). He puts the trap in the back of the pickup truck and drives a few miles away to a stream valley and unloads the trap, carefully stands to the side as he opens the door and watches the (usually chubby) animal hustle into the woods. Once he caught two small raccoons at the same time, presumably siblings. When he let them go, they immediately ran off in opposite directions, never looking back.
The other day I got a text from a past worker who lives nearby. He said, "Hey I have a deer that looks to be injured and is hanging around at my place do you have a good vets number someone that could take care of an issue like that?" I assumed he didn't mean he wanted someone to come and euthanize the deer and I said "I don't think vets treat wild animals." He persisted: "Other than a police officer, is there animal control or localized care taker of animals that you know of? Like if we had horses that were able to walk free and one got injured who could treat it. A company. Something like a vet." I said I doubted anyone would come for a deer. He persisted some more: "Do you have know anyone that knows how to take care of an animal." So I answered more clearly. "My sister is a vet so I do know people who take care of animals but I can guarantee you she would not treat a deer...this is a wild animal and will need to heal or not heal on its own. Not safe to handle it. You will freak it out and it could die of panic. I have seen it happen." I tried to imagine what he was thinking -- someone comes and treats the deer (you would have to tranquilize it first), fixes its ailment, maybe sets a bone. Then the Good Samaritan Wild Animal Vet says to the deer, "Now take this medicine every day and don't walk on that leg. Come back and see me next Tuesday and we will take a look at that wound." I mean, deer don't do appointments and they don't have anyone to make sure they take their meds.
A few years ago a deer got its head stuck through our deer fence and there were so many concerned workers gathered around trying to free it that it just got so frantic and upset that it died. It was a tragic end. Then a few of them felt compelled to not waste that meat and they spent the rest of the day butchering that little deer.
With wildlife, you have to assume they don't want you to intervene. They do get hurt and they do end up in the wrong place, but most of these animals are managing (THRIVING) on the edges and in the midst of this area. As we all know, deer are in their element in the suburbs, wandering through any yard or garden, jumping over gates, completely at home on the fringes. In the last few months, the deer population has shifted away from the Vienna farm and I think it has everything to do with the massive road widening project with huge earthmovers ripping down trees and rearranging the landscape. Where there was once a hillside across the road from the stand, with tall White Pines and underbrush and a daily parade of deer, there is now a mound of subsoil getting scraped and carried away. Deer are staying away from that mess.
A few years ago I started a campaign to encourage groundhogs to move off the farm in Vienna. There were a couple of condos established on hillsides on the edges of fields and I made a regular practice of dumping garbage down their holes and stuffing those holes with sticks so it would be a lot of trouble to come back out. Day in day out, I made those holes disgusting and inaccessible. Once I even buried the bones of a boiled soup chicken (knowing that a fox would find it and dig it up and maybe it would get interested in those groundhog holes and make them even less enticing). I am happy to report that both of those condos are still unoccupied. I go and check from time to time. Apparently groundhogs like a very clean hole and maybe it just got to be too much, having to clean up every day. Also I have heard that they move to empty holes when they find them and the biggest, most dominant groundhog gets the best real estate. So far I have managed to make that excellent real estate seem like a terrible dump. No one got hurt, and the nearby lettuce and bean patches are uneaten.
In fact we have no real interest in killing these animals that are living their best lives. We just want them to move to a place that isn't trying to grow food for humans. There is plenty to eat everywhere. They don't have to be so opportunistic and lazy. I do hate raccoons, all raccoons. They have proven over time that their best life includes randomly killing chickens. Not even eating them, just killing them. Even though that is their nature, I can't tolerate that. Minks and weasels are the same, but we don't have those around anymore.
Anyway, I have been telling stories about wildlife forever because those interactions never stop. I see how inexperienced most people are when they encounter a wild animal, and I watch people try to rescue and raise baby rabbits all the time. They just die. It never works.
Dad always said he wanted to breed a big cat, a really big cat, that could patrol the farm and keep the inappropriate wildlife down. He wanted a cross between a puma and a house cat. That would probably do it.
When Jon and I came back to Timothy's from doing our computer homework after dinner, I looked up in the tree and that little groundhog was gone. It had been pretending to be asleep, waiting for those bothersome humans to get out of the way. It lives in a hole right under the cabin. You wouldn't think I would let that happen but the nearest vegetable fields are a long way away. If they are mowing our lawn, I don't mind.
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