Archive for the ‘Images’ Category

Looking up an old friend

Saturday, April 20th, 2013

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Yesterday’s colonoscopy went well. While I will have to wait for the pathology results from the biopsy, the doctor found heaps of diverticula (not for the squeamish) in my colon. The preliminary diagnosis is diverticulosis and my recent problems put down to diverticulitis flare ups.

From what I understand so far, the general treatment/prevention approach is maintaing my usual high fibre diet unless I have a ‘flare up’. If a flare up occurs then I’ll need to go onto a clear liquid diet until the symptoms subside before moving onto a low fibre diet and then slowly increasing the fibre.  If things don’t improve then there are more extreme dietary and surgical options to consider.

I am blessed to have a good friend who has similar issues and he has been great in sharing how he is balancing his intake as well as praying for a positive outcome.

Most pleasingly of all, given the 48hrs of fasting and cleanser-glugging, the post-procedure report ends with a resounding ‘The quality of the bowel preparation was good‘.  I feel that, at the very least, there should be a certificate or a badge to recognise my bowel-preparing skills, one that I can display next to the one I got in 1974 for cycling proficiency.

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Going into all this, I wasn’t 100% sure on what the procedure or the bowel preparation stuff was going to be like. Despite some intensive Googling, I hadn’t found a decent first person account.  This was fortuitously remedied by our lovely friend Anne who emailed me the following account, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning humour columnist Dave Barry for the Miami Herald, just as I was consuming the first two litres of Glycoprep. 

After reading it, I can unequivocally state three things:

  1. A truer account of bowel preparation you will not find
  2. You’re unlikely to read a funnier account of bowel preparation (I wish I had written this)
  3. Unlike, you should not read about bowel preparation whilst actually doing bowel preparation; I did and it was almost my undoing in more ways than one.

Enjoy.

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.
A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a colour diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.

I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, “He’s going to stick a tube 17,000 feet up my clacker!”

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ‘Glycoprep’, which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss Glycoprep later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America’s enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.

Then, on the day before the colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavour.

Then, in the evening, I took the Glycoprep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one litre plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a litre is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because Glycoprep tastes – and here I am being kind – like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for Glycoprop, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humour, state that after you drink it, ‘a loose watery bowel movement may result’.

This is like saying that after you jump off the roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

Glycoprop is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic here, but, have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the Glycoprep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the toilet had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another litre of Glycoprep, at which point, as far as you can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, But I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of Glycoprep spurtage, I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on Andy?’ How do you apologise to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle, called a cannula, in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down.. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their Glycoprep.

At first I was ticked off that that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house down.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anaesthetist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew that Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.

Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anaesthetist began hooking something up to the cannula in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realised that the song was “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, “Dancing Queen” had to be the least appropriate.

‘You want me to turn it up?’ said Andy, from somewhere behind me.

‘Ha ha’, I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling ‘Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine’, and the next moment I was back in the recovery room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that IT was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colours. I had never been prouder of an internal organ.

Pills and potion

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

One way or another, I have been sick for the last seven months. Various theories include post-infection problems after nursing our dying calf Willow last year, some form of inflammatory bowel disease or, God forbid, something more serious.

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Things have slowly worsened over the last six months, requiring me to adjust my diet, take all sorts of medications and, in recent weeks, take sick leave from work to try and get things under control. 

Today sees me a third of the way through a 36 hour liquids-only fast and preparing, dear Lord, to drink 3 litres of gastrointestinal tract flushing agent ahead of a colonoscopy tomorrow.

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Strangely enough, I am keen to get this done, know what’s going on and find out what needs to be done going forward.  It will not surprise those who know me that my idea of how the procedure will go is something like the Billy Connolly’s ‘connoll-oscopy’ (not for the faint-hearted or easily-offended).

Last word goes to our friend and local vet Dave who has been through the same procedure and offered me these words of wisdom.

“It’s not the camera up the bum you need to worry about – it’s getting the tripod back out after!”

Anniversary

Sunday, April 7th, 2013

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Twenty three years ago, I married a beautiful young woman. Twenty three years later and on the other side of the world, I still can’t quite believe how lucky I am.

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Blessed beyond measure.

Bottling light

Sunday, February 17th, 2013

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The February show of WNYC’s Radiolab, called ‘Speed‘, contains three great stories. I am encouraging everyone to listen to the show or at least to the segment called Master of the Universe (about 44:48 minutes into the show).
 
It is about the work of Danish scientist Lene Vestergaard Hau (above) who has not only slowed light from the speed of light to just 17 metres a second and later managed to stop a beam of light altogether but went on to transfer light to matter, then from matter back into light – in a different place. Stop and think about it – that’s catching light, storing it, moving it and then releasing it somewhere else at a later time!
 
To a kid who grew up watching Star Trek and grew up to see communicators, tricoders and tablet computers become reality, turning light to matter then back into light sounds not too far away from what the transporter did!

Pre-Christmas catch-up

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

The stomach virus that has been doing the rounds recently has finally struck Wendy and I but thankfully not the kids.  With us both confined to bed and couch respectively, I thought I’d do a brief catch-up on what’s been going on in the last month or so.

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The local wild turkeys tempted fate by obligingly coming within range to assist with our seasonal cost reduction exercise.

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While I am rarely on top form at 0500hrs, I was blessed one morning to witness the most wonderful sunrise – a rare moment of beauty, peace and tranquility in a crazy couple of weeks.

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Through the keen ears of friends, we learned of an old but remarkably well-kept Honda CRX for sale at a price we could afford.  While not quite what we had originally planned to get, it has proven to be popular with the girls’ young male friends and pretty reliable once we’d worked out the quirks.

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Two weeks ago, we spent three evenings in a row at Robyn and Maisie’s prize-givings and Ariella graduation from her polytechnic.  Immensely moved to see our girls embrace their education and grasp opportunities in a way I never did.

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After a good few months of discussion, research, planning and preparations, we have launched a farm stay bed & breakfast business.  As well as building a website and Facebook page, we have erected signage at the gate…

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…and on the main road…

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…received our first batch of rack card brochures from the printers…

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and had a good friend and accomplished snapper help us with the publicity photography…

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…just in time to take a wedding booking for January and welcome our first guest yesterday evening. In between all that, we have found time to enjoy the almost daily spectacle and glory of stunning sunsets…

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…knock up some portable yards to help muster our sheep and heifer… 

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…search all possible hiding places for Christmas presents…

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…spent time making some wonderful rainbow decorations…

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…and put up the Christmas tree and arrange the nativity.

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First born

Saturday, November 10th, 2012

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning here in Aotearoa. Birds sing and flutter under powder blue skies and scattered puffs of cloud, our animals graze contentedly and the cats and dog lounge in the sun.  This week has been a landmark week for us, with the very first birth of an animal on the smallholding since we moved in.

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I arrived home on Tuesday to much excitement in the household and the news that our Dorper ewe was having contractions.  Wendy and the girls mounted watch from our bedroom and the deck overlooking the home paddock.  As the light faded and night fell, I ventured into the paddock with a lamp to check the ewe. After managing to get in the right position, I could see the lamb’s head appearing but with no front legs showing, I was concerned that things might get complicated. After phoning for advice we continued to watch & wait and, twenty minutes later, the ewe dropped her small lamb just as my farmer mate Johnny turned up to provide guidance.

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Having been born a little premature and with a swollen tongue from the birth, the lamb was struggling to breath and made no effort to stand up.  The ewe began kicking it quite violently (to encourage it to move and stand), so we decided to remove it from the paddock briefly and help it catch its breath and find its feet.

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Surrounded by the family and Alex the WWOOFer, the lamb slowly picked up. After much oohing and aahing and drinking of red wine (well, one needs to celebrate such things, right), we took the lamb back to the paddock and, after a cautious attempts, successfully reintroduced it to the ewe. 

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Since then, Arthur (so named for Wendy’s Dad as the lamb was born on his 92nd birthday) has progressed nicely, feeds well and is great fun to watch.

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From my limited experience, the ewe and ram seem to be attentive, protective and nurturing parents and together they make a handsome threesome.  I pulled the lamb away this morning to check a weeping eye and Robyn grabbed a few quick shots before we treated it and put it back.

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Once again, I am thankful that we’re blessed by the experiences we have and the wonders we witness around us in this beautiful place.

Clipping our shavers

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

The day-old chicks that we bought seven weeks ago have grown nicely into decently sized Brown Shaver pullets.  Having finished the grass cutting and shelter belt trimming, Wendy press-ganged our WWOOFer Alex and I into helping clip the hens’ wings.

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Wing clipping is not as complicated or nasty as it sounds and simply involves snipping the ends of the primary feathers on one wing with a pair of scissors. This is enough to temporarily inhibit anything other than the shortest of flights which, in turn, helps to keep our free range birds fairly close to home. Once clipped, we moved them into the smaller of the two chicken coops in the home paddock, where they can acclimatise to their new surroundings and the other chooks.

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Dorpers, wwoofers and trimmers

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

Dorpers

This week, care of my good mate Johnny, we added a Dorper ram and ewe to our stock. Dorpers are South African breed of domestic sheep which were developed by cross breeding Dorset Horn and Blackhead Persian sheep. These are great sheep for meat and, unusually, shed their own fleece.  A unexpected bonus we discovered is that the ewe is in lamb so, God willing, we’ll have a third smaller Dorper at some point.  Elsewhere, Wendy’s chicken empire is due to grow again.  With our older birds going off lay, she’s planning to pick up some younger birds rescued from a closing farm in the next few days.

The day job has kept me pretty busy so I have got a bit behind on the jobs around the smallholding.  Luckily, we have a surprise house guest staying with us for a week or so who is helping with the backlog. Alex, a young guy from Cambridge in the UK, is a WWOOFER (a Willing Worker On Organic Farms) who is travelling NZ and earning his bed and board by doing work on farms. After spending a week at our neighbour’s equestrian centre, Alex has wandered up the lane to help out around our place.

With spring here and Alex ready to crack on, I have been servicing our power tools for all the work in the summer ahead. Hopefully, this will help me get jobs done reliably on time and without stuff breaking down.

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After a couple of years using the hopeless standard bump feed line cassette on our gas-driven line trimmer, I have tired of the endless jamming of the line and repeated disassembling of the head (above right) . After seeing one in a local farm store, I bought a Littl’ Juey replacement head for our trimmer. Fitting the new head, I found that the extra-long spindle of our trimmer left a gap of a few millimetres and this meant a far-from-ideal a loose fit. After a quick think I came up with my own No.8 wire solution and butchered an old gumboot (above) to make two rubber washers that closed the gap perfectly and solved the problem (below). 

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I also gave the chainsaw a bit of service today, cleaning away six months’ worth of sawdust and oil, tensioning the chain and generally cleaning it up.

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Once the chainsaw was ready to go, I got stuck into trimming back the shelter belt that protects the house from the Westerlies that blow through. This is quite some task as the thick boughs have grown out and close to the ground, making it extraordinarily hard to wield the saw effectively. With about three-quarters of the job done, I ran out of gas and chain & bar lube so I’m now waiting for the family to get back so I can drive to town to get some more.

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Dad, daughter and DIY

Saturday, October 6th, 2012

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What better way to start the day than a full farmhouse breakfast with eggs fresh from the chook house made by your daughter?  With an early season strawberry for a nose and a perky porky bacon smile, how could this fail to set me up for the day?

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Breakfast over, my penultimate day of annual leave with the family began with a run to the nearest mall for the girls and a trip to the farm store timber yard and hardware store for me.

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Back at the farm, the first job was to predator-proof the main window of the chook house. With all manner of local foraging fauna around and recent evidence of rats eating eggs, keeping them out of the almost-finished chook house is a must.  To be on the safe side and though we’ve seen few other signs, I have also laid some poisoned bait stations to try and reduce the pest around here.

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Next on the list was replacing the rusted-through hinges with new galvanised ones and rehanging the door.  As is often the case, the spring weather has brought intermittent showers, so I have been alternating between outside jobs and indoor tasks as the rain comes and goes.

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One result of working like this is the mess that comes from chucking stuff undercover and hauling it out again once the shower has passed. The basement store rapidly became untidy, especially in the feed store area close to the door so, while the rain came down outside, I knocked up a platform to keep the feed off the floor and dry.

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During the afternoon, a big white power company ute rolled up and out jumped a very jolly and pleasant Filipino linesman who came to check the transformer on our property and survey the power lines all the way up to the top of the hill. 

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We compared his English to my Tagalog and decided his language skills were far superior and had a nice chat before he carefully scaled the electric fence and marched up the hill onto the neighbouring farm.

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Having previously done all the major chook house stuff, the last couple of days have been spent finishing off the detailed stuff outside and in – like the access shutter to one bank of nesting boxes…

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…and the sliding storm shutter for the rear window.

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Part of the joy of doing this stuff is spending time with Maisie, who is almost always willing to lend a hand and learn new skills. Today, using the one I had already made as a template, Maisie had me to cut the treated timber to size with our new circular saw and set about assembling a second bank of nesting boxes.

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Maisie did a fantastic job, checking measurements, making suggestions and showing good control of the cordless drill while screwing the pieces together. Her great grandmother had great carpentry skills and I’m sure she’d be chuffed to see Maisie developing those same skills.  After installing the nesting box, we hung the water dispenser, tidied up and headed up to the house for a cup of tea.

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As a treat for putting up with me all week and being such a great helper around the farm, we ducked into the local Farmland cooperative store to get her some coveralls  to keep her clean while working with the stock in the paddocks.  Much to her delight, they stock a great line in Kiwi-made fabulous fuscia coveralls and she’s now dressed to tackle any job around the farm.

Home to roost

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

There is nothing like having a good mate…other than having a good mate with a bloody big tractor!  Johnny turned up at our place around lunchtime and, for the price of a couple of filled rolls and a cup of tea, he helped us get the Palais de Poulet from the driveway into its intended position in the home paddock.

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Having stropped and chained the shed onto the forks for stability and safety, Johnny negotiated the gateway with barely a millimetre between the tractor tyres and the posts either side.

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Johnny then drove around the tree and shelter in the centre of the paddock to get in line with where our original chicken coop had sat in the lee of the shelter belt planting.

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One of the joys of doing a job with Johnny is the banter and the laughs we have as we’re working. Our first attempt to site the shed square and level on the sloping paddock didn’t work out. As we stood back to reassess our approach, Johnny smirked and said ‘That the thing about working with me…you need patience as it takes at least two goes for me to get something done!’  

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As it turned out, third time’s a charm and, after employing some Kiwi ingenuity and a bit of trial and error, we had the shed sitting level and stable, just where it needed to be.

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After another well-earned cup of tea and a few chocolate biscuits, Johnny trundled off to swap his tractor for his digger to help out an old joker he knows down the road.

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I enlisted Maisie in helping me repair and generally tidying up the shed. After that, we relocated the base I made for the original chicken coop she and I built a few months back and added a new floor to keep out the rats that we suspect are responsible for eating some eggs recently.  With that done, all that remained was for us to relocate the waratah and chicken wire fence to enclose the smaller of the coops.  

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In the next few days, I will hopefully be able to fit out the new coop with the nesting boxes and perches required to turn it into a Palais de Poulet fit for our free-ranging mature hens and rooster.  This will leave the smaller fenced coop free for our ‘teenager’ hens to start spreading the wings and preparing fro free-range life, in turn making room in our nursery coop/run for our three week old chicks.

All in all, it was a great day, working and spending time together with family and friends on jobs that enrich the farm and our lives at the same time.