Gloves On The Garden Fence

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I guess it's about time for a new pair of garden gloves!

The fingertips are gone out of these which translated to splinters in the fingers while stacking cordwood today.

One more cord of mixed hardwood to stack and about a cord of local pine to cut & split before cold weather sets in.

We don't want to be heating with natural gas this winter as prices keep going up every day.

Yesterday brought thunderstorms to our mountain valley where it rained all day long, with occasional heavy downpours, for a total of about an inch of precipitaion at our place.

There's plenty of work to do here as usual and Jimmy's doing well with his recovery, walking up to three miles a day and eating like there's no tomorrow, not much improvement with the eyes yet but that's supposed to take time.

Dawn's Early Light...

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6:26 A.M. found Peggy, Dallas and I walking the Stanfield Cutoff across Big Bear Lake. Our view of the marsh is to the east and toward home just before today's sunrise.

Twenty-Six Years Ago Today

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Peggy and I were married on the side of a Hawaiian volcano 26 years ago today. I was 33 and she was 27.

Our friends Bruce & Nancy Sutherland hosted our small ceremony on the deck of their home on the southwest slope of the Mauna Loa Volcano near the town of Captain Cook on the island of Hawaii.

Boy a lot happens in 26 years!

We are going out to breakfast this morning at our favorite little neighborhood cafe, and then I hope to spend a nice relaxing day at home with Peggy, the love of my life and my best friend.

Green Fried Tomatoes

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Sub-freezing temperatures have descended upon Big Bear about a month early this year and last night we lost our cold tender tomatoes & yellow squash.
The onions, beets, kale, collard greens, red lettuce, chard and snow peas are still producing but we will need to hustle now to get our winter greens seeded and sprouted before the first really hard freeze.
Once established the hardiest of greens will survive the winter if they're covered and protected from wind & snow.
It's commonly understood in these parts that only a fool would try and predict weather here but I have a feeling that it may be a long cold winter.

Jimmy At Home Today

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We brought Jimmy home from the hospital yesterday after 17 days there.

He's making good progress every hour now and looking very much like his old self in this picture taken just a few minutes ago.

The trachea tube has been removed from his throat and the swelling of his jaw is much less pronounced, especially on the left side as you can see, but the right side is still quite swollen and the surgeons think they may need to go back in and drain it some.

His right arm has a fracture and is in a splint for the time being, it may be put in a regular cast next week.

His appetite is great, but for the moment he can only have liquids or finely pureed foods, so Peggy made a delicious organic chicken soup today and Lindsay pureed a big batch of it for Jim.

He ate a large portion of it for dinner just now with two glasses of whole milk and organic blueberry applesauce for dessert.

We can't get the bandage over his tracheal wound wet so Lindsay gave him a bath in water up to his chest this afternoon and then I laid him on a table on the deck to shampoo his hair.

After that we sat out in the sunny garden while I wrapped his face in a steamy towel and shaved him, a relaxing experience for both of us.

Jimmy still can't see anything except blurred shapes & colors, but during his shave he said he thought he could make out some leaf detail in a nearby quaking aspen, and when I held up two fingers he couldn't make them out, but he could see the two fingers of my hand shadowed on the ground.

It seems to me that his vision has improved ever so slightly over the past week or so, but we'll just have to wait & see what happens over time.

Lindsay & Jimmy walked around the block together this morning and he's already asking to go on longer walks.

He's getting stronger by the moment and is very glad to be home where hopefully we can give him all the love and care he'll need for a full recovery.

We almost lost him...

Jimmy's Wrecked Truck...

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Photo by Lindsay Deneke

Sitting in a remote ravine after tumbling 450' down a steep mountainside are the remains of Jimmy's Toyota truck.

The destruction is complete and it's hard to believe that Lindsay walked away from this or that either one of them even survived it.

In the enlarged photo you can see the crumpled roof (behind and right of the steering wheel) which was cut away to extricate Jimmy.

Nourishment!!!

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There is an update on our son Jimmy's condition below but, for the moment here, I'd like to give thanks for the abundance of Nature, and the nourishment provided for body, mind and spirit through even the worst of times, if we'll simply respond to these gifts with thoughtfulness, care and a small measure of rewarding effort.

Above is a photo of this morning's harvest from our garden and I was really in need of the calmness that descended upon me as I harvested this healthful home-grown food today.

All of us at Earth Home Garden (Jimmy & Lindsay will be staying with Peggy & I during his recovery) will need much nourishment in the days, weeks and months to come, and the importance of a garden in our lives is today freshly illuminated.

UPDATE ON JIMMY:

Dear friends & family-

Jimmy had surgery to repair his broken jaw last Tuesday afternoon and the surgeons said the jaw is now in perfect alignment again.

Yesterday they replaced his trachea tube with a smaller one that has a valve on it so Jimmy was able to speak for the first time since the accident, and he had quite a bit to say.

Two physical therapists also came in yesterday and got him up on his feet for a few minutes, but it was all he could do to get to the door of his room and back to bed again.

Jimmy also has been able to start drinking some liquids through a straw which he says is a great improvement over being fed solely through the tube in his nose.

His vision hasn't improved so he still can't see anything but vague shapes.

The doctors say that his CAT Scans and MRIs show no evidence of brain injury that would cause blindness and they are still hopeful that his vision will improve, but they don't know how much, or how long it might take.

His trachea tube may be completely removed in a few days and it's possible he will be released from the hospital some time next week.

He is making good progress now and we are just so thankful that he's alive.

Peggy and I want to thank all of you for your support & concern, and kind offers of help, during this very difficult time and we apologize for not being able to respond to each of your messages personally.

Love,

Jim & Peggy

For The 'Love' Of Our Cars!!!

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Photo taken on Thursday 8:18 P.M. September 1st at Loma Linda Hospital

Our 23 year old son Jimmy after driving his 4X4 truck off a 450 foot cliff last Sunday morning at 1 AM.

Since 1903 something approaching 4 million people have been killed in automobiles in America alone.

This doesn't take into account all the crippled & maimed victims, the ruined families, the incredible number of animals wiped out, the destruction of habitat for highways & roads, the immeasurable amount of poison we've dumped into our air & water, or the countless lives being lost everyday to our criminally-waged oil wars!

There is nothing on this earth I despise more than the automobile with it's all-consuming murderous infrastructure, and the pain I'm feeling right now, as I suffer with my family over our sons injuries, will only strengthen my resolve to live without a GOD-DAMNED car!!

Yes, our son is young & reckless, and very much at fault for this accident, but a great number of people who's lives are destroyed by this beast of an invention are completely innocent!

Jimmy is lucky this time, he's still alive, but his jaw is severely broken, he's breathing through a trachea tube so he can't speak, and for the moment he can't see anything either, and we still don't know if his vision will improve or not.

But his spine is OK, he can move his hands & feet, and he's communicating by writing.

Miraculously, Jimmy's girlfriend Lindsay suffered only minor injuries and was able to climb out of the canyon in the dark, walking 5 miles on a dirt road (with only one shoe) to summon the help which saved Jim's life, and we are so grateful for her clear thinking under such stress.

Lindsay even thought to tie her sweatshirt to a tree at the accident site, because the car was so far down the ravine that it couldn't be seen from the road (even with the emergency lights flashing), and she wasn't sure she could find her way back there.

By the time she got help and they were able to rescue him, after repelling all their equipment into the canyon, Jimmy had been trapped in that truck for 7 hours and his tongue had swollen to the point where it was cutting off his air supply.

They got there just in time!

Today Lindsay is our heroine, but they both could've easily died right there, and nobody would've even found them yet.

So please, go back up and enlarge the photo of Jimmy, take a long look, and before you put your babies or other loved ones in the car again, ask yourselves if that trip is really necessary.

Hospitals are overflowing with victims of the automobile, and those are the lucky ones.

I will soon have much more to say about the insanity of our auto-addicted culture, but right now I must go to the hospital...