ForbesOnTech

Peach Buds Pop,Apricots Blossoms; My 211 Gardening Alarm Clocks

My ”“it’s time to begin working in the garden” alarm clock are rows of fruit  trees down below my house. When they begin to bud, I haul out my tiller, garden tools and soil testing kits and start thinking about what I”ll plant in the coming six months.
This year the alarm went off two weeks ago.but I decided to wait until the snooze sounded- when my row of mixed Mongolian and Moorpark apricots erupted in flowers one week after my avalon peaches.
i enjoy my time gardening. But sometimes I think there’s a conspiracy tp give me false hope. Like this year when my normally temperamental Mantis two stroke tiller screamed to life on the first pull. and then settled into a fast idle as  I set it in the dirt.
Dirt flying, my little mantis churned through my first 4-foot square plot.  then it fouled on a three-month-old rock that was growing 18 inches under the soil. I cleared the rock from the tines and surprising me no end, my Mantis roared back to life. but just as I finished the next four foot square, a furry vole popped up from the edge of the plot. Too bad. Voles don’ slow the mantis down very much and clean up with a high pressure nozzle is easy. And their little furry remains provide good sources of organic nitrogen and calcium, both of which are important for the 20-plus tomato vies I’m planting over the next two weeks.
I am absolutely convinced there’s a vole the size of the creature in the movie “Alien” bunkered down under my driveway producing hundreds of voles that every year infest my garden and orchard.
In years past I've tried to eliminate marauding voles using dry ice, blood thinning baits, and by getting my chihuahua to pee on their mounds.ultimately, the most effective method is my scoped Beeman pellet rifle. a competition steel pellet zipping along at 800 feet per second will catch your basic tough little vole by surprise and end his days destroying your tasty vegetables.
Like most southern California gardeners I’m plagued by soil that’s slightly alkaloid.  This year I treated my garden with 70 pounds of an organic compound similar to Dolomite and have my soil chemistry back towards neutral Ph 7 readings the on area of my garden that I’ve moved more towards the acid side of the PH scale are: a 10-foot by 40 foot strip that’s dedicated to growing my yearly Sequoia and Ozark strawberries; and, six mounds in the garden where I grow my two yearly crops of Yukon Gold and Russet potatoes.
By the first of June I’ll have my initial crops of strawberries. tomatoes spuds and zucchini. And as those crops come in, I refresh my soil and replant my gardens.
For the last three years I’ve also  grown Havana and Virginia broad leaf tobacco. It makes a fine insect barrier, stopping white fly and aphids. I've been surprised at how easy it is to grow tobacco and I've reached the point where I now use my own seed stock.
I spend about two hours a day in my two gardens and have come to appreciate the activity as part of my stroke rehabilitation, because it forces me to use my impaired left hand and work on  my balance. But most of all, I like the produce from my garden.
I’m surprised at how much I enjoy gardening.The local burrowing rodents, however, probably don’t appreciate that I'm a pretty capable marksman, but then if they stayed out of my garden and orchard. they'd only have to worry about the local weasels, coyotes and raptors.-Jim Forbes on 02/15/2011.

When Stroke Recovery Experiences Can Pay Off for a Best Friend

I’ve been at a complete loss for something to write about for the last week. That lasted until mid-day Sunday when my best friend as well as fellow childhood East Fork San Gabriel Canyon explorer Chuck Woerner called.

Know the saying that a good friend “is someone who’s right there beside you when the authorities come.” Well, there we were playing a game of Clue when the juvenile detectives knocked on the door. So yes, my buddy is that kind of friend.

Chuck is one of the readers of my blog and when I write about my deep feelings about nature he’s always been in my mind as I compose a post.

Our lives have paralleled in many ways.  And now we face some of the same issues, including having come through a stroke.

I take a lot of pride in the fact that when my buddy had his CVA he called me from his hospital bed. From reading my posts on stroke recovery he understood that it’s something I’m passionate about.

So how do you translate your thoughts on stroke recovery into tangible deeds?

There’s no question that sometime in the next week I’m going to drive up to his home at the top of the grapevine on I-5 and spend as much time as I can with him.

The overwhelming emotions that ruled my life post stroke was a combination of fear and uncertainty. Sensing that  in my friend, I’ve recommended that he look into an at-home rehab program, such as the one I used and recommend, Gentiva health Services’  Rehab Without Walls \www.gentiva.com.

Looking back at my life immediate post stroke, my fears were: being unable to care for myself, losing my drivers’ license and losing my career. The word “uncertainty” encompasses all that I felt in the first 11 months after my stroke.

Then there was the small matter of my useless left hand. Rehab helped me restore basic mobility but fine motor skills are still absent in my left hand.

One of the things that helped me regain some control was an unusual series of exercises I did in an adaptive PE class in San Mateo and more recently here in Escondido.

I smile at the simplicity of the exercise: drop pennies or dimes on the bottom steps of a pool and pick them up. My success at performing this simple feat was a major personal accomplishment.

The whole adaptive PE program at the College of San Mateo was a big help in restoring my confidence. And, I’m not ashamed to admit I rode “the short bus” to that class. Another of my best friends, Dr. Andy Sobieski, suggested I take the class, which for me was equal parts basic physical conditioning and self-confidence building.

One of the points I want to make with my friend who had a recent stroke is not to isolate or become overly self-conscious about a stroke related disability.

So, I am about to practice what I’ve been advocating here: and In the process I’ll spend time with a  lifelong buddy that’s going through a shared experience.

Dive into life post stroke, Chuck, I know you can do it and you’ll smile (perhaps lopsided) at your accomplishments—Jim Forbes on 06/06/2010.

Being Handicapped Means Learning to Adapt-- Even When It's a Technological Step Back in Time

One of the things I’ve learned since having a stroke is simple: some tasks require a step back, before you can go forward

And nothing illustrates this better than the simple act of my writing a personal check. When I try to fill out a check by hand, the result is often so illegible t the bank returns it uncashed, and that becomes so frustrating I sometimes get flustered.

I use m bank’s online bill payment capabilities for virtual all of my checking but the need to physically write a check comes up at least once a month. The simple solution appears to be to buy check stock I can run through my printer.

But that particular solution is costly and not particularly easy for someone whose handicap is an inability to write.

That’s why several months ago, I found myself on CraigsList, entering the words “portable typewriter.”

A typewriter in the age of computers? “How quaint!” you may think.

But it’s a practical solution to a problem that I and other Americans left handicapped by a stroke that robbed us of the ability to write legibly face.

So if life hands you a lemon, adapt, step back to a proven technology and if you can’t make lemonade, at least make some ugly tie dyes—even if you don’t have full use of your good hand and are partly color blind.

I may have lost the use of my left hand in a stroke, but I didn’t lose my sense of humor.—Jim Forbes on 04/20/2010.

Spent four Days Tie Dying-- here are some results

Six of the 16 shirts and dresses I tie dyed last week battling writers' block. First Roses of 2009  coming up in background

here's a sun dress I dyed. blank sun dresses suck up a lot of dye.  This one took about 3 quarts in three colors. I buy my dyes and sundress blanks from www.Dharmatrading.com. i recommend them highly.

Holiday Stroke Patient Gifts-- Surviving a Stroke and Laughing

It being the Holiday season, my blog is getting a lot of traffic from Internet searches by people looking for “gift ideas for stroke patients?”

            In pasts posts on this topic I’ve emphasized that one of the most appreciated gifts you can give a stroke patient is a simple visit or perhaps  a shared shopping trip, lunch, or  a going with them to see a first run or recently released movie.

            But there are many other things that stroke patients with limited or restricted mobility really appreciate including clothing such as:

            Athletic shoes with Velcro fasteners

            Sweat suits

            Pants or shorts with elastic waste bands

            A handcrafted tie-dyed T-Shirt. (I have 12 now)

            Fleece lined moccasins for wearing around the house

            Sandals that are easily put on and taken off

            Many stroke patients experience feelings of diminished self-esteem and feel they people may not accept them because of the physical effects of  strokes. Gifts that can counter such feelings and help a person to begin socializing again include:

            Spa gift certificates.

            Gift certificates for a hair stylist manicure or pedicure.

            Public transit passes (including instructions on how the patient can summon and use point-to-point public transportation designed for the handicapped)

            Gym membership

            Registration in an adaptive PE class at a local community college.

            Gift certificate for  “healthy cooking” classes

Adult education classes.

            Enrollment in hobby related classes

            There are all kinds of mobility aids. If your stroke patient needs a cane or a “scooter” consider the following:

            A genuine Shillelagh with a sturdy wooden knob on its top

            Custom pin striping or adhesive flame decals for a scooter  (the flames make them go faster and add much appreciated personalization

Stocking stuffers for stroke patients:

            Gift cards for Itunes, transit systems, coffee shops, down front concert tickets (you can’t imagine how happy I was to find out the band “Tower of Power” was not only still alive but that someone knew and understood that I was “Still a Young Man”. Fabulous gift. I’ve also managed to gimp my way to Allman Brothers and Doobie Brothers concerts since I had my stroke.

{n.b. retirement can be a lot of fun.  One of the little tawdry games I like to play is to go to the movies and hit “the Old Guy’s Discount Trifecta:

“Senior, Handicapped and Student” discounts on a first run movie. The trick here is to ask for all three discounts with a strsight face (kinda hard to do, since I have a smile that droops on the  left side)

Hey, I may have been disabled by my stroke, but I didn’t lose my sense of humor—Jim Forbes on 12/14/2007}

            

Serious Ideas for Gifts to Stroke Patients-- While They are in the Hospital

Gift Giving—A Stroke Patients’ BedSide’s Remembrances

If You Friend or Loved One is in the Hospital

Sveral times a day posts in my blog get served up when someone types the words “gifts for stroke patients” or “stroke blogs” into a search engine.

Having been so described, I thought I would take a few moments to talk specifically about gifts for stroke patients when they ‘re in the hospital and fter they’ve come home.

Recovering from a stroke is a lonely thing. I feel the most important gift anyone can give a stroke patient is “time and patience.” It’s the latter that can be taxing for friends of stroke patients. Learning to sit patiently with a stroke victim can be taxing. First, strokes often have a side effect of shortening someone’s attention span. I freely admit to having ADD and my stroke made it much worse.

Add to that the fact that I knew I wasn’t speaking clearly and you have someone who is confined to a ward and very frustrated.

I spent about four months in a good hospital with a first-class rehab ward and a great physiatrist (a doctor that specializes in rehabbing stroke patients). About the only socialization I had was communal dining with other patients, my rehab appointments, and interactions with the nursing staff.

Visitors were a gift from heaven. What I wanted most was news from the world beyond the fifth floor of the hospital. And most patients would prefer that personal news of their world be delivered in–person, by a friend.  Flowers may look nice, but seeing a friend does more to perk someone up, and the memory lasts a long time.

If you’re going to go calling here’s an idea for a gift that will be ravenously appreciated—a wholesome burger or other favorite comfort food. Good Lord, after three months on the rehab ward, I would have killed for chow from Taco Bell or InNOut. Of course, it’s wise to check with the nursing staff before bringing such food to your friend on a ward as the ability to swallow food is sometimes compromised by a stroke.

Assuming you feel comfortable taking food to a patient, why not make it a picnic out on a green hospital lawn?

My portable computer became my lifeline to the world while I was in the hospital. If you’re going to take a notebook computer to a stroke patient, make sure it has a dial-up ISP account on it. Very few hospitals have 802.11 WiFi so dialup is a must.

Using a computer while I was in rehab helped restore some of the fine motor skills in my  stroke-damaged left hand. Today, I still can’t write legibly, but I can and do type accurately.

            My notebook also opened up the world of Amazon.com to me while I was still in the hospital. Two of the most appreciated gifts I received in the hospital were Amazon gift certificates.

            I also received a nice set of Logitech stereo gamer headphones while I was in rehab. They really helped me to enjoy the music stored on my notebook.

            DVDs are another great gift. One of my friends on the rward received PBS’  Civil War Series on DVD.  Watching it became a nightly ward social event and fueled a lot of subsequent conversations over meals.

            To cut this post short, giving a stroke patient your time and learning to sit patiently may be one of the most important gifts you can give someone while they’re in the hospital.

            And remember, your friend only had a stroke, they weren’t diagnosed with leprosy or Q fever. Don’t be afraid of them, they’re still your friend or loved one.  Jim Forbes, five years after a stroke, happily retired, but still writing, on 09/08/2007 from rural San Diego County.