Making Homemade Butter

Sometime in a land far, far away people were taught by people who knew better that fresh butter was bad for you and margarine was good for you.  Yes, margarine, Country Crock, was going to make us all healthy.  Nothing like some whipped soybean oil that's dyed golden yellow spread on our toast was going to solve all our problems.  Except it didn't.  As it turns out shoveling down seed oils has continued clogging arteries, giving us heart disease and turned our country into the unhealthy state that we're in.  What to do?  Well, there's butter.  The thing that was so bad for us, or so we were told.

Tricia walked out to the barn and milked LuLu.  We've recently weaned her bull calf, Nicky, and so we're getting all the milk now.  He's on grass only and we'll keep him for another 6 months.  Once LuLu was milked, Tricia poured the milk and the cream rose to the top.  She ladled the cream into a half gallon jar.  Rich, yellow, thick, fresh Jersey cream.

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At this point, you let it get to room temperature, and you could simply shake it.  This morning Tricia decided to use a whisk to make it a little more convenient.

In just a little minute the cream "broke" and the butter and buttermilk separated.

The buttermilk is carefully poured off where Tricia cultured it, and we'll use it for baking biscuits, pancakes, waffles, cornbread and anything else we can think of.

The butter was poured into a bowl. 

 And a spatula is used to knead it in order to press the remaining buttermilk out of it.

Some Redmond's salt is added to make it salted butter.

The butter is then scooped into a mold, which in this case is a glass dish.

Delicious homemade butter!

Ingredients: Butter, salt.  The only thing lacking now is a warm, homemade biscuit to slather some of LuLu's butter on.

Colors in the Garden This Time of Year

August has proven to be a very dry month.  We haven't had more than sprinkles in a month.  The parched land cries out for some refreshing.  Hopefully we'll get some soon as I'd like to get the Fall Garden planted.  I'm still real sore and have limited mobility since my surgery, so perhaps this is God's method of teaching me patience.

Therefore there's not a whole lot going on in the garden right now aside from sweet potatoes that we'll be harvesting toward the end of next month.  The eggplant are full of blooms and small fruit.  The peppers are producing and will continue to do so.  From this point through the fall is where we really make some peppers.  Here is a basket of Anaheims, Banana, and Shishito peppers:

At the tail end of the garden, the Heirloom Louisiana sugar cane is very healthy.  I'm considering making some homemade cane syrup again this year.  We haven't done that in a while.  Back by the sugarcane, we have vines galore.  Louffa gourds sprouted up volunteer and their bright yellow flowers dot the landscape.  Honey bees and bumble bees are attracted to those flowers.  It looks like we'll once again make more louffa sponges than we could ever use!

The fuchsia-colored blooms of the Hyacinth bean brighten up the rear gate to the garden that leads to the barn.  Hyacinth beans are strictly for beauty.  I think they are actually toxic, so I won't be eating them.  They sure are pretty, though.

I have a section of reinforcement wire bent over for the hyacinth beans and louffa gourds to climb on.  It would make a really nice trellis or arbor to walk under, but the doggone goats climb up on the garden fence and eat any of the vines that get too close to the outside fence.

I enjoy color in the garden, but I'm more a fan of eating delicious vegetables from the garden.  If the Good Lord's willing, we'll get some much needed rain soon and my post-op soreness will subside so that we can get some seeds in the ground.

Tricia and RFK Jr.

Here's a photograph of my wife with RFK Jr. taken a couple of years ago in Lake Charles, LA.  He was in town to tape a podcast, and Tricia is a big fan of Children's Health Defense Fund that he founded.  RFK Jr. was working on a case for a friend of Tricia's and she invited Tricia with her to go meet him.

When we learned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had dropped out of the presidential race today, we wanted to be sure that we listened to his speech.  It was quite a speech.  In the event that you didn't get a chance to listen, I've linked the video below.  All you have to do is click the arrow below to listen.  I think it's worth your while.

Several things about the speech:  I agree with a whole lot of it.  I liked the way he communicated the fact that he doesn't agree with President Trump on everything, but said they agreed to work together on what they were aligned on and agreed that they had the freedom to debate and disagree on the points that they weren't in agreement on.  RFK Jr. desires an open debate and a free exchange of ideas without censorship.  He also desires to commit to vigorously fight to push forward the things they agree on.

Seems... very reasonable to me.  I'm not in alignment with RFK on several fronts.  I'll bring up climate change for one.  I consider myself an environmentalist.  We are good stewards of the land, producing most of the food we consume at each meal from meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, herbs and milk and honey produced right off this 5 acre piece of land.  You'd be surprised at how little electricity we use and how little trash we produce and how much topsoil we produce.  The thing that grinds my gears about the climate change issue is the asymmetry of it all.  It appears that the climate change elites fly around the globe on private jets, live in multiple, large mansions and have a gargantuan carbon footprint.   They don't practice what they preach and issue edicts in authoritarian fashion, knowing full well that what they prescribe as cures to the problem inordinately affects the poor in adverse fashion.  

I would hope that RFK Jr. would have a change of heart on that.  But I will wholeheartedly support him on things like the First Amendment and restoring Freedom of Speech in line with the true classic liberal quote, "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."  I'll support him on the de-weaponization of Federal Agencies against fellow Americans.  I'll support him on reducing the corporatocracy that has infected both parties.  I'll support him as he fights against the FDA, Big Pharma, and Big Farm who have wreaked havoc on our nation's health.  I'll support him on ending the forever wars that have caused so much death and destruction.  Finally, I'll support him on trying to solve the chronic health issues that plague our country such that health alone (or lack of it) is an existential threat to our once great nation.

Last year my son had a traumatic injury that threatened his life.  We depended on the Good Lord and good doctors to provide critical care and healing.  I'm two weeks and two days out of heart surgery.  Again, the Good Lord and skilled doctors were there to provide healing.  I want to tell you that I have strong faith in God and had it been His Will that I receive an eternal healing in Heaven, I would have been fine with that, too.

But the fact of the matter is, having the most advanced healthcare in the world doesn't do much for you if we are poisoning ourselves with ultra-processed foods, seed oils, refined grains, and chemical-laden foods that addict us, fatten us, and kill us.  Those that survive are on a plethora of pharmaceuticals that ALL have side effects.  Too many Americans are on anti-depressants.  Kids are medicated to enable them to sit in classrooms.  The number of vaccines given to newborns boggle the mind.  The thing is, this is a relatively new phenomenon.  The rate of obesity in our country, autism, diabetes, auto-immune diseases  and other chronic illnesses are epidemic.  Our grandfathers and grandmothers didn't see these problems at these rates.  50% of Americans are obese!  Can you imagine the medical cost for treating this malady alone?

Our country has a lot of problems, but I am hopeful after today.  I pray that men and women of goodwill can come together to work on solving difficult issues so that our children and grandchildren will have a better future if the Lord tarries.  If you have 45 minutes, give a listen to the speech.  I was pretty much impressed with what RFK Jr. had to say and the passion with which he delivered it.  And in the spirit of his message, even if we disagree on things, we can agree to work together on items we do agree on.

Robert F. Kennedy closed with a quote that was powerful and reminds me of one that Golda Meir once said.  RFK said it like this, "Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other." 

That's a Long Time!

My heart surgery was two weeks ago this morning.  I'm praying that things get back to normal soon.  I don't feel like I'm myself, having to take things slow, forcing myself to get up and move and walk around, finding something useful to do to pass the time...  

Two weeks ago this morning, the anesthesiologist strode into the room where the nurse had just shaved me from collarbone to kneecaps.  He looked down at my left hand and said, "Your wedding ring."  I was wondering if that was going to be a problem.  I haven't taken it off since the evening that Tricia put it on my finger on our wedding night, October 20, 1990.  That's been 12,346 days.  Or 33 years, 9 months, 19 days.  That's a long time.

I've tried to take it off from time to time, but my left knuckle forbids it.  It is stuck on there.  When I think about the fact that it won't come off, it makes me a bit claustrophobic.  The anesthesiologist told me that they don't want to have me start swelling and have it be a problem.  I told him I give him permission to cut it off it it comes to that.  He squirted some gel on my knuckle and asked me to work on it.  I seemed to remember a trick with some dental floss, too.

I added more gel, and worked on it hard and whaddaya know?  It popped off!

There it is - like the Lord of the Rings.  My little precious!  I looked to see if my initials and Tricia's initials and our anniversary date were still engraved on the inside.  It was weird having it off after all those years.  (My fingernails were dirty at the time I took this photo.  I had been planting some fall cucumbers in the garden.)

I weigh about 10 pounds more now than the night we got married.  Tricia and I talked about taking the wedding band to a jeweler and having them re-size it for me.  I don't want it so big so that it easily falls off.  I want it tight enough where I have to work at it to make it come off.  I don't want to lose it.

That's a long time to have a wedding band on that's never come off.  You can see the pale line on my finger that's smooth and slender where it's been sitting all those years.

Slowly Coming Back Around

I'm still far from being back to normal.  I guess it'll just take a little while.  That's okay.  I'm trying to listen to my body and take it slow, but still want to try to do a little more each day so that there's progress.  It hasn't rained in several weeks, so it is real dry.  The garden is suffering a bit, but there are still crops coming in.  I picked some purple hull peas and shelled them and then picked a bunch of Ozark Razorback Peas.  Although I do have some seeds saved, this just comes up year after year.  The peas were mostly dried so they shelled real easily.  I like the speckled color of the Ozark Razorbacks.

I'm not the only one that's slow.  Belle has a thick coat.  She rotates between a few places where she lays up and naps all day.  That's a pretty good plan in the dog days of summer.  In the late afternoon, Belle will come out from her cool hiding spots and try to jump up in the chair with us.  Tricia was telling her here, "Belle, it's not relaxing to have your hot breath in my face."

Since we had great success starting new plants from cuttings on our Vitex or Chaste tree, I've had something on my to do list for quite a while that I got done today.  That task was: Start new blueberry bushes from cuttings.  Our blueberry bushes have been very productive.  Even though we've lost a third of them over the years, the ones that remain grow taller and wider.  I think we put up about four gallons of berries this year.

But with unknown weather, I want to make sure that we have more plants to fill the void should some of our blueberry bushes die.  I walked past our existing plants today with some clippers and clipped of some new softwood growth.

I made 12 cuttings, roughly four inches long, from new growth.  On the bottom of the cuttings, I clipped a diagonal cut just beneath the node on the stem.  Then I clipped off all the leaves except for a couple on top.  I dipped each cutting in water and then dipped the wetted cutting into some rooting hormone.  Then I planted each cutting in some potting soil.  This was the same medium I used in starting the chaste tree cuttings.  They are really thriving right now.

It is very important to keep the soil where you are trying to get the cuttings to root always moist.  So I  have a fool proof system I use in which I put the pot of cuttings into a wagon that has the bottom inch or so of rainwater.  The pot acts as a wick and wicks up the rainwater, keeping the soil moist.  It's also important to keep the cuttings out of the direct sunlight, so I've positioned the wagon under the dense canopy of the pecan tree.

I will keep tending to these and hopefully in a couple of months, we'll see fresh new root growth.  It's very interesting to learn to do new things like this.  Not to mention the fact that, if successful, this will save some serious money.  A blueberry bush, the last time I checked, was running $35 per plant.  I know ALL of the 12 cuttings we're trying won't all take, but if we get ANY of them to root, it will be a successful venture in my book.

Grass Farmer

I've been told for a long time that if you're intending to raise cattle, or goats, or chickens, like we are, you'd better consider yourself a grass farmer first.  For grass is the one thing that you must grow in order to have healthy livestock roaming on your pasture.  While it might seem like an easy thing, sometimes it's not.  Our soil pH is low and this means that a lot of the fertility in the soil is locked up, unusable to the grass.  I really need to lime.

Sometimes you don't get the rainfall that you need.  Last year we got very little rainfall and the grass was virtually non-existent.  Sometimes you get too much.  The photo below shows a view of the pasture.  You can see the four boxes of bees and a dead willow tree that I need to fell before it falls over the fence.

You can also see the grass in various stages of growth.  The pasture is made up of a bermuda and bahai mix.  Much of the grass has matured and has seed heads on it.  The cows aren't fired up about eating that and it doesn't have the nutritional load that lush spring grass packs.  But they'll eventually eat it.

The grass, looking back the other direction, is thick.  It has grown up also because it's gotten real hot.  Instead of eating grass all day, the cows lay up in the shade all day and only go out to graze in the late afternoon/night.  As you walk through the tall grass, mosquitoes, horse flies and deer flies hover around giving us and the livestock fits.

There's more than bermuda and bahia grass out there and I've always got my head on a swivel.  I don't want invasive weed species to invade.  This afternoon I looked around and saw some of this coming up.  We always called it bitterweed.  Supposedly, if your cows get into this and eat it, it makes their milk taste bitter.  For that reason, I don't want tot let it get a foothold.

I promptly pull this up by the roots, making several passes to ensure I don't see any more.

I'm okay with different grasses and even weeds growing out in the pasture.  It lets the animals free-range and eat what they like, but I'll always be on the lookout for those species of weeds that I don't want on the homestead.

I'm Back

Wednesday morning I had to report to Baylor St. Luke's Hospital in Houston as surgery began sharply at 8AM.  We spent the night at a hotel in the medical center the night before.  That morning, they had me do a thorough cleaning and then they shaved me shoulder blades to knees.  I had to put a cap on and a gown.  

The last thing I remembered was being rolled into a large operating room with a gallery with viewing windows up top.  There were lots of lights and lots of equipment and a full team of people getting ready to work.  It was very cold in there.  Then I don't remember anything.  The surgery lasted for 6 hours and then I was pulled into ICU.  Tricia and my Dad and Mom came and visited me, but I don't remember any of this.  I was still knocked out from the anesthesia and still intubated.

The surgery went well, they said.  They were able to repair, versus replace, the mitral valve.  They didn't need to give me any blood.  That was important to me.  I didn't want a transfusion.  The surgery was called Minimally Invasive Robotic Mitral Valve Repair.  They went into my femoral artery and I went on the bypass machine.  I assume they oxygenate the blood and pump it through my body by the machine, while the heart is arrested for about 90 minutes while they fixed it.  

In the surgery, they break no bones.  No sternotomy as is normally the case in open heart surgery. There are several incisions for the instruments, but they are relatively small (the biggest being about 4 inches between my ribs on the right side) and no human fingers went inside my body.

The photo on the top left below shows what they did inside my heart, robotically.  I think you can click on it and enlarge it.  The brightly lit area shows my mitral valve inside the heart chamber looking down.  The mitral valve was prolapsed, with a severe regurgitation.  What that means is that approximately 25% of my blood was flowing in the opposite direction.  It had caused the upper chamber of my heart to expand and had to be dealt with to avoid further damage.  The heart was very inefficient, but I felt no symptom.  Of course, when they told me what was going on, my mind told me that this is why I was getting tired.

They cut a triangle-shaped piece from the mitral valve, pulled it together and stitched it up. You can see the black stiches in the center of the photo.  Then, to re-shape the foundation of the valve, they used mesh to fashion what they call "the smile" to form up the foundation.  This was riveted into the muscle.  You can see the tubes in the photo that the robotic arms worked in.

Then they pressured up the heart valve with saline, and it was pressured up at 2 times the normal pressure of the chamber.  When it showed that the leaflets/valve held the blood securely without allowing the backflow, they knew that the repair was successful.  At this point, if it was not successful, they would have cut all of that out and put in a pig or cow valve.  I could have also chosen a mechanical valve, but would have been on blood thinners for the rest of my life, so I opted for the biological valve, if needed.  Fortunately, they were able to repair it, so a happy pig rests somewhere tonight with his valve still intact?

I was moved after one day out of ICU and into a regular room.  In this photo, you can see the extent of the scarring.  Really not too bad.

The doctor, on rounds, came to remove my chest tube which was draining.  That thing was very uncomfortable.

They had me up and walking very quickly.  I felt good.  Honestly, the pain meds make you feel like you're okay, but if you get behind on your meds, you quickly realize that you're not okay.  The care from the surgeons, to nurses and all medical staff at the hospital was simply amazing.  As the doctor was pulling out my chest tube, he told me that the surgical team had a heart transplant scheduled for that evening.  They do about 40 heart transplants each year and about 100 lung transplants.  What an amazing thing!  To be able to make an impact on people's lives like that!  I told him when I went home, my goal was to plant some cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.  His plans were to take a diseased heart out of someone and replace it with a donor heart that would extend his or her time with family and friends.  The intricacies of the human body and the wisdom God blesses people with to be able to work on them astounds me.

The doctor also clipped the wires on the pacemaker and let it fall back into my chest.  I also had an 'epidural-like' injection into my spine area which was deadening my whole right side where they had cut through the muscles to get to my chest cavity to gain access to the heart.  That was removed as well.  I don't have any sensation on my right side.  I assume that I have some nerve damage from where the incision was made to get to my heart.  Nerve damage heals slowly, but I'll bring that up with them.

By Sunday afternoon at 5PM, I was released from the hospital and Tricia drove me the 3 hour trip home.  Unbelievable!  Wednesday at 8AM open heart surgery commenced and in less than 5 whole days I'm back at home.

I have several checkups I have to go to and I can't drive for two weeks.  I just have to take it slow and allow my body to recover.  I'll say this:  God is good!  He saw fit to give me extra time on my clock and gave me excellent service from some very skilled medical doctors that are on the cutting edge of technology.  He also gave me a wonderful family who cares for me and close friends who have concern for me.  Many prayers went up and God answered them.

Montgomery Gentry sang a country song called "Lucky Man" that I always liked.  I don't believe in luck.  I believe in blessing, so I've changed the words of the chorus, but I think they are appropriate:

I know I'm a blessed man, God's given me a pretty fair hand,
I've got a house and a piece of land, a few dollars in a coffee can,
My old truck's still runnin' good, my ticker's tickin' like they say it should,
I got supper in the oven, a good woman's lovin' and one more day to be my little kids' dad,
Lord knows I'm a blessed man.

Listening

Rainbows in unexpected places

I have a hard time sitting still.  I like to be active, to make the most of the time.  Sometimes, my wife tells me, "You don't listen."  She's right.  It's a fatal flaw of mine.  There are other times when I love to get together with family and listen and enjoy each other's company.  We did that Sunday afternoon.  You know, one of those times that you sit down around the table and just visit.  You stretch a meal out over a couple of hours, just laughing and telling stories.  I love telling and listening to stories.  We did that on Sunday at my sister's house.  We had such a good time, my face hurt from smiling.

Speaking of that, I've got a story for you.  I work for Farm Bureau Insurance as an auto appraiser.  I have a four parish area in which I visit people who have boogered up their vehicles one way or another.  We were recently instructed by the big boss to take the time to listen to people and talk to them.  A lot of our policyholders are older and live in rural areas and are or were involved in agriculture.  I love talking to them.  So many times I get offered coffee or to come inside and have a homemade biscuit just out of the oven.  Some are funny and all are interesting.  Some have dogs that you have to keep your head on a swivel, though.

Last week I arrived to my second stop of the morning at 8 AM.  I had called the afternoon before and had an appointment at 8 sharp.  A woman had run over a stump and messed up the undercarriage of her Lincoln.  I drove down her long driveway bordered by pine trees with black angus cattle grazing on the hills.  Two boxes of bees were on the left just before the cattleguard.  I called from her driveway, "Mrs. So and So, I'm here."  "Well, I'm just putting breakfast on the table.  Won't you come in and join, me?" she said.  "Oh, no ma'am.  I'll just sit out here and do some work in my vehicle until you're done," I said.  "Nonsense," she said, "I'm pouring you a cup of coffee now.  How do you like it, black?"  "Yes, ma'am" and I walked in.  A little lady about 90 years old greeted me.

She was fixing some waffles and was cutting up pecans to put on top before she poured syrup on them.  She poured a cup of strong black coffee in a china cup and saucer and told me to sit down.  She came and joined me and said, "Let's pray."  She said the most beautiful blessing.  I thanked her for that and asked her where she went to church.  She told me at a little Presbyterian church, but there's not many people left.  For Sunday School, they are now doing it online due to the small number of congregants, so some people don't even get together anymore.  She told me she tells the people at her nail shop about Jesus and gives them devotions to read.  We lamented that a lot of young families are missing from churches.

I asked her if she was originally from this area.  No, she said, she was from Morgan City.  Her dad was a boat captain.  When she was a little girl, he took her out of school for six weeks and she road on the paddlewheel boat up the river with him.  They went up the Mississippi River, into the Ohio River and on into West Virginia about as far as the river was navigable.  She was told not to go into the engine room, but did one day.  That's when she got the only whipping that her daddy ever gave her.  Her dad made elaborate kites with streamers and wrote her name "Carol" on the kite.  She flew it off the back of the boat, smiling as the wind blew her kite in the air.  The string broke and Carol the kite flew off out of sight.

She told me her husband to be owned a bunch of land with cattle.  She was sent out by his brother to the land to count cows.  She didn't know anything about cows, but quickly figured out that she was being courted.  They fell in love and got married.  They built fences to keep all their cows in, but the people in the area didn't like fences.  They would drive their sheep from DeRidder to Sulphur and would cut their fences.  At one point a shotgun was brought out to 'entice' the sheep people from cutting any more fences.

The timber companies were clearing the lush pine forests in the area.  They would come through and use dynamite to blow the stumps out of the ground.  The stumps would then be processed to get the resin to make turpentine.  She recalled the excitement of joining them as they threw the dynamite in the hole and ran as fast as they could away as the dynamite blew up, throwing dirt and chunks of wood in the sky.  She laughed as she recalled the thrill and adventure and danger.

I told her that I could go look at the damage to her car whenever she was ready.  Well, it's down the road at the shop, she told me.  I asked her if she'd like to ride with me so she could show me where.  I moved my backpack and clipboard off the seat and she climbed in, telling Sarge, her German Shepherd that she'd be back in a little bit.  We drove along as she pointed out landmarks, where her son raises cattle, where the old home place used to be by the broken down windmill.  We were looking at sights so intently, we missed the turn off and had to turn around.  We drove up to the shop and the proprietor was sitting in front of a fan, drinking coffee.  I knew him.  "Kyle," he exclaimed, "You're driving 'Miss Daisy' today?"  We looked at her Lincoln.  The stump had done a number on it, but I think we can get it put back together.

We drove back to her house and I opened the door and she got out.  "It was a real pleasure to meet you and listen to your stories," I told her.  "She wished me well and told me she enjoyed the company."  I think I noticed that she had a sparkle in her eye from remembering things in her youth and the exciting life she had led.  I drove back down the long winding road back to LA 27, now extremely late for my next two appointments, but happy that I have a job that enables me to visit with interesting people and experience the goodness that is still out there, if you look for it and have the time to listen.

    

Jarring Up the Honey

 I'll start off this blog post with a quote about honey from a well-known expert on honey:

"A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside." - Winnie The Pooh

How true that is, Pooh Bear.  We are thankful to God for our friends and we're thankful that we have several "pots" full of honey.  Our aim today is to empty the pots into jars.  We installed a honey gate on a food grade 5 gallon bucket, sterilized a bunch of jars that we purchased and got ready to pour the sticky, sweet, stuff into pint-sized jars.  We were doing it in the kitchen, so a secondary goal was to not make a sticky mess.

We uncapped the first bucket and got ready to pour it into the bucket with the honey gate on it.  That way you can control the flow.

And the process began!  I had to do a little fine tuning by tightening the screw on one side, but pretty soon, we had an assembly line going that would have made Henry Ford jealous.  I held the jar and controlled the honey gate.  Russ called out when to close the gate.  The jar was then given to Tricia who wiped the outside of the jar, tightened the lid and packed the full jars in cases.

We weighed the pint jar full of honey after zeroing out the kitchen scale to see where we were on the weight.  A pint jar of honey weighs a little more than a pound and a quarter.

We really like glass jars better, but we did purchase a few plastic jars with a squeeze top.  We made more than a case of those.

The honey is primarily Chinese Tallow Tree honey.  It is darker and has a richer taste profile (that sounds fancy, doesn't it?) than wildflower honey.  I decided to take a photo of the two different styles of jars of honey we made with a frame and the four bee boxes in the background.

I like the amber-like color of the Our Maker's Acres Family Farm honey when the sun shines through it.  

All in all we made 119 pint-sized jars of honey.  Not too shabby for the first time!  We'll eat all we can and sell the rest.  We're also planning to pull honey again in the fall.  That will primarily be Goldenrod honey.  It has a stronger taste and a pungent smell that, honestly, smells like sweaty gym socks, but it is good for you.

Fun Fact: It takes a bee 10,000,000 trips to collect enough nectar to make 1 pound of honey. -Sue Monk Kidd

The Heart of the Matter

Benjamin, Yours truly, Patricia and Russ (Laura Lee was not here for the family photo)

In 1991 a gentleman named Jack Brown wrote, "Life's Little Instruction Book."  It was originally intended to be a book of instructions for his son who was going to college, but ended up being a best-seller, selling over 10 million copies.  It contains such advice as "Give compliments to 3 people each day."  One of the bits of advice, I recall, said "Get a doctor the same age as you so you can grow old together."  That seemed like good advice, so I did it. 

I'm 57 years old.  I'm not on any medicines, and I only go once a year for my wellness exam.  He is Tricia's doctor as well and he called us both back at the same time and did our exam together.  Doc finished with Tricia's exam and turned to me, checking me over.  He listened to my heart for an unusually long time.  He leaned back on his stool and said, "Kyle, I've been listening to your heart for decades now, and I'm hearing something abnormal.  You have a murmur.  It doesn't sound right"

I told him my Dad had a murmur and eventually had to get a heart valve repair at age 62.  Hmmm, he said.  This kind of thing is inherited or caused by rheumatic fever as a child.  I did have scarlet fever as a young child, but he told me that this was presenting more like a heredity issue.  He sent me to have an echo cardiogram.  The cardiologist read it and called my doctor the very same night.  "Is Kyle having any symptoms?"  Nope.  No shortness of breath or anything.  Maybe a little tired at the end of the day, but who's not tired?  He sent me for additional testing.  A trans-esophageal echo cardiogram, angiogram and other stuff to get all the information the doctors need to made a decision.

The verdict was in.  I have a mitral valve prolapse with severe regurgitation.  He's saying that 25% of my blood is going back through the valve.  It will require open heart surgery to repair.  There is a chance that it is not repairable, and in that case, I have to make a decision: Mechanical valve which lasts a long, long time, but requires blood thinners for the rest of your life OR Biological valve (pig or cow) which lasts only 10-15 years, but requires no blood thinners.  If it comes to that, I've made up my mind.  Being a farming "animal" person, I'm opting for the pig or cow valve.  Hopefully it won't come to that.  

If successful, imagine having 25% more oxygenated blood going out to my body?  Why, I'll be 25% more energetic, productive!  The fall garden will be stupendous!  Imagine having 25% more oxygenated blood going to my brain?  I won't have any more excuses for doing dumb stuff, I guess.  Everything has an upside and a downside, I presume.

They called me today from the hospital. The surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, August 7th in Houston at Baylor College of Medicine - St. Luke's.  It will be a robotically-assisted minimally invasive open heart surgery.  They won't crack the sternum, but instead go through the side of my ribcage.  This usually involves a 5 day stay in the hospital and 4-8 week recovery.  I'll likely be 'radio-silent' for a little while from Our Maker's Acres Family Farm blog posts, but I'll be back as soon as I can to continue rambling incoherently as I normally do.  This life is quite an adventure!

I'm not nervous at all.  I don't worry about stuff like this.  Now, if it was my wife or my kids or other family members, that'd be different.  I saw a bumper sticker the other morning that had three words on it.  PRAY.  TRUST.  WAIT.  That's what I'm doing.  I trust Him totally.  I've placed my faith in Jesus Christ and truth be told, I'm a winner either way.  The Apostle Paul said, "For to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain."  Phil 1:21  It's in God's Hands and His Will be done.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.