The Bedlam Farm Warriors played a soccer game tonight in Albany. They lost 3 to 1 in a rainy game, they played hard and skillfully. Tonight, Red began his new chapter as the mascot and lucky dog for the team, all students at the RISSE – the refugee and immigrant center in Albany. Maya, the goalie (yellow shirt) was valiant but the opposing team was large and had a lot of players and a large cheering section.
This week, we will be ordering new Jerseys that say “Bedlam Farm Warriors (their choice of name) with an image of Red stitched onto the shirts. Red took to his new job instantly, the kids loved him and he loved being there. He ran alongside them as they practiced and sat quietly along the sidelines while they played.
Maria and I brought a car load of games and puzzles – donations from various people – for the kids to use and share with the other students at RISSE. There are about four more games this season, I will try to get to as many as possible.
As I have mentioned, I am organizing a Refugee Children’s Scholarship Fund to raise to provide special funds for learning and creative development. This might include scholarships or classes in subjects ranging from art, English, math, computing and information technology, music or other kinds of special education.
The program is open to all of the 100 students – refugees and immigrants all – at RISSE as well as members of the soccer team.
We have already collected about $1,000 and I have opened a special account at my bank so that the money can be separate and accessible and save me from a huge tax bill. This is not a college fund, but a fund for these children as they work to acclimate themselves to America and pursue their passions and needs.
If you wish to contribute, you can sent a check to The Children’s Refugee Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. If you prefer, you can also donate through Paypal’s Friend and Family program, you can send a donation to [email protected] (my ID) and please mark it Children’s Refugee Fund. It will be transferred to the special account.
It is never simple to age, it is sometimes incredibly frustrating and painful to be an elderly person in America if you are not wealthy and live at the mercy of others. We knew Connie was ill because she couldn’t come to the Open House last week, nor could she visit the farm a week earlier, as planned.
This week she has been in great pain. It took several days before she could see a doctor, then she waited in an urgent care facility for 10 hours, then she was prescribed medication she needed but that her insurance company would not pay for, for reasons they would not explain, at least initially.
The story made me angry, she said one patient after another came in and was seen before her, something that happens to her often.
When she finally had her X-rays taken, the doctors found that she had somehow torn every muscle in her lower back. This on top of breathing issues so severe she had to be evacuated for one night during a storm that knocked out the Mansions power and hit their emergency generator.
Connie is in great pain, it is hard for her to find a comfortable position. Her new medications – the insurance company approved a different medication eventually – came tonight. Her cell phone has been out of order all week as the Mansion transfers it’s phone service to another company.
The cell service sent her a bill for service she didn’t get.
She can’t communicate with her family unless she can walk to the office, and she can’t really walk this week. She feels isolated, since she can’t move around. She hasn’t spoken with her sons in some days. And she is still being treated for the painful styes in her eyes.
The staff is devoted to her and is bringing her food and administering her medications. Everyone is trying to cheer her up.
She is frustrated and unhappy, it is not easy to navigate this system of you are elderly and hurting and can’t pay for additional services and specialists. Connie is fiercely independent, she only wants to feel better so she can take care of herself.
She is in too much pain too knit, but grateful at least for her air conditioner which makes her days more bearable. I keep asking her if there is anything she needs, but she says no, but she enjoys the letters she is receiving.
Connie was excited to get an envelope full of stories and photos about one blog reader’s farm animals, she couldn’t wait to show it to me and Maria. She keeps every letter she gets by her bedside, and right now, it is the only diversion and brightness in her day. She was very happy to see Red and touch him and feel him. He clearly sensed her discomfort, he stayed very close to her.
I wlll go back and see her tomorrow (it is also Friday, the story-teaching hour for me there). I should add that the picnic tables and chairs your donations purchased for the Mansion have arrived and as soon as they are taken outside, I’ll take a photo so you can see what you did.
Your letters mean more than ever right now, they brighten Connie’s day and give her something to focus on, she is in great pain. Hopefully her medication will help. She is tough and determined. If you wish to write her, that would be welcome. You can write her care of Connie, The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
Not to sound like a politician, I am especially pleased with myself today.
For nearly 15 years, I’ve been learning how to prepare this farm for the winter, and I think I am finally getting right on top of it. Today, the fifth cord of firewood was delivered by Greg Burch, and Brian and Sandy Adams brought and stacked 100 bales of first cut hay in the barn.
Hay stacking, like firewood stacking is an art, only the farm people really know how to do it, I could do it for years and not get it as neat and even.
I might get one or two more cords – we can always use them the following year – but basically, Bedlam Farm is ready for winter. I always think of June as the time to get serious about October. Planning for the winter is critical up here, you cannot plan much in the middle of an ice storm or a blizzard or in – 30 temperatures.
I remember the times I was caught in October with no hay for the winter, and that will never happen again. On the farm, we have two wood stoves heating the farmhouse, we use wood round the clock in the heart of winter, the heat is even and comfortable, the heating bill is low.
If takes time and experience to choose the right firewood source and to get the best first cut hay (I’ve ordered 15 bales of second cut hay to give the animals when it is especially cold. Our first cut hay costs $4.50, a good price, especially with all of the troubles farmers are having with the climate.
And it’s very good hay, green and moist.
First cut is not as rich as second cut, it is fine for donkeys and cows and sheep. We do add second cut, which is more nutritious in storms and bitter cold.
I get the most wonderful feeling – anyone with a farm knows it – when the barn is full of hay and the woodshed is full of good dry wood. And I’ve never been as well organized and prepared as this year – we’re all set, paid for and stacked, and it isn’t even July.
Puffing up my chest today. This afternoon, off to Albany to see the RISSE kids play soccer. More later.
I love walking the streets of Brattleboro, Vt. (Maria and I just returned from a one night anniversary celebration). I see things I don’t see much anymore in cities – bookstores, record stories, street people, kids, ordinary people, cafes with tables and chairs, coffee shops and cafes.
I love to wander through the old bookstores, crammed with books, and be reminded that books are still very much alive. At least there. Brattleboro is refreshing and inspiring to me.
The Town That Decided Not To Change: The Owner Of The Shin-La Restaurant, Brattleboro.
The owner of the Shin-La Korean restaurant was shy about having her name used, but was happy to be photographed. She opened the restaurant 36 years ago, and is in the kitchen all day every day since. It is my favorite restaurant (and Maria’s) in Brattleboro, Vt., where we stayed last night to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary.
She wanted to know all about us. We wanted to know all about her.
Brattleboro, Vt. is an almost shockingly friendly and conversant place. If you stop in a restaurant to eat or into a shop to buy something, add five or ten minutes to chat. People want to know where you are from, what you are like. Talking to strangers is not considered an interruption to work in Brattleboro, it is the work.
The Shin-La owner loved my camera and told me about her husband’s photography habit. The desk clerk at the wondrously cozy and funky Latchis Hotel spent 15 minutes talking about the Weimaraner in the lobby, and it wasn’t even hers. As we checked into the Latchis, Diane, the housekeeper on our floor, waved hello and said she remembered my camera well from the last trip. She stopped to ask how our year had been.
People hang out in coffee shops all over town, they can sit as long as they wish. Dogs go everywhere.
The owner of the Mystery Book store downtown – one of the last in the country – rattled off the pub date of every famous mystery writer in the country and urged me to mind my step as I left the store. In all of our visits there, we have never seen anyone else in that shop.
In the vast used bookstore off a side street, the women behind the counter – she has worked there for nearly 40 years – tried to find a book I wanted rummaging through acres of used and new books piled to the ceiling, muttering a stream of consciousness rant about politics, social justice, her children, the sloppy nighttime employees and her love of social causes.
It took her awhile, but she found the book.
The owner of a used dress and bead store took his camera out from behind the counter and asked me how he could change the depth of field. He told me the long and compelling story of his life as a business owner in downtown Brattleboro, the many customers who look at things only to take out their Iphones and search for a better price online. As I left the shop, he shook my hand and thanked me for talking to him about portrait-taking.
You don’t just walk into a shop in Brattleboro and buy something, that is considered rude. Commerce matters, but it is beside the point. I always get the feeling in Brattleboro that the individual is still more important than the corporation. I am greeted more politely and frequently on the streets of Brattleboro than for the rest of the year anywhere else, even in my very friendly small town.
In a sense, Brattleboro is the town that chose not to change too much, perhaps one of the reasons Maria and I love it so much. There are no chain stores downtown, the corporate nation is held at bay, confined to nearby New Hampshire or malls far out of town.
Brattleboro has protected its small businesses and the individual of its citizens. Everyone on the streets is not rich and buff, like Manhattan or Brooklyn. Everyone is eager to tell you their story and hear yours.
You get the sense that people matter there, not just growth and money. There is a middle and working class in Brattleboro, and they can afford to live in town.
We had dinner there on our wedding night, and our one-night jaunts to Brattleboro have become a central part of our life. Brattleboro is full of sights that are becoming increasingly rare in America, especially in big cities, where the wealth build their lavish monuments and the residents are driven away by the rising costs of rents and homes.
Not only are there no chain stores in downtown Brattleboro, there are no million dollar condos either. People matter, the idea of individuality is precious. Maria and I feel completely at home there.
I shop for clothes once a year there, in Sam’s massive outdoor store. I bought two pairs of jeans two blue workshirts, a belt and some underwear. When I couldn’t find the second pair of jeans, I didn’t go online, I asked a salesman – they give every shopper a free bag of popcorn there – and he dug out the pants that I wanted.
That’s it for me this year, I have all the clothes I need. I bought Maria a $15 dress off of a rack on the street, and she got me some prayer beads. Exhausted from the Open House, two took long naps, long walks, found a lovely Turkish restaurant downtown and had lamb salads.
Brattleboro is the town that choose not to change, and I hope it never does. We had the nicest time there.
