I never really understood the Bryan Adams song, Summer of ’69 where he talks about playing his guitar until his fingers bled. I mean, first of all, how? And secondly, why? I just never understood what it meant to play a guitar I guess. Fast forward to this week. I have long wanted to tinker with playing bass guitar. I don’t know why but I just like the sound of bass. They say a lead guitar gets the girls but a bass guitar gets the gigs. I don’t really want either but I think I would prefer gigs over girls since I sort of like the girl I have. So, by dumb luck (the best kind of luck), I discovered Rocksmith 2014, a “game” that works on all of the various gaming consoles. I happened to have a little extra money that I had been saving up so I hooked dumb luck together with extra money and bought a new bass guitar and Rocksmith 2014 for the XBox!
Fender Jazz Bass
We hooked it all up the other night and started playing. You see, the game comes with a cable that allows players to hook a real guitars (bass or 6-string) into the system so a real guitar becomes the game controller.
The game screen
It’s pretty cool how game-play merges with guitar-play. Basically the player sees notes coming down the screen and has to adjust fingerings and hit the string at the right time. The system picks it up and measures tone, accuracy, timing, etc and adjusts the notes to the player’s accuracy. There are a number of different songs that span the 80s through today. It doesn’t teach players to read music but it does build experience with playing notes on a real guitar and teaches a form of tab playing for guitar (check out this guy playing).
Get outta my way Dad!
So, Isaac, Abigail and I played for a few hours the other night and had a lot of fun. I kid you not, though…my fingers are still numb! I stopped before my fingers bled (I am sharp that way) but now I definitely get that there is a painful part of playing guitar that I hope will be overcome with callouses and experience. I don’t know if I will ever amount to much as a rock star, but I am sure enjoying the chance to play now and the kids and I get a lot of time to goof around together! With my playing, it is more likely that our ears will bleed than our fingers!
In addition to working on sorghum when my brother was here a couple of weeks ago, we worked some on the deluxe shed. If you ever looked at some of the old pics, you might have noticed the big space above the door where we didn’t put siding. We left a gap where we planned to eventually tie in the porch roof to the house.
That tie-in finally happened! It took a tremendous amount of work, a lack of good sense and a little liquid courage but we raised a beam on which the roof rafters would rest. Once that was done, it was all down hill. I ended up buying 12′ long boards for the horizontal boards that came straight out from the house. The angled boards that form the slope of the roof were 16′ long though I really only needed to span 14′. Unfortunately, our big box home improvement stores don’t sell 14′ boards.
Anyhow, all of that is to say, we got big boards and they were heavy so I am glad my brother was here to help. I ended up getting treated lumber because I could find it (sometimes stuff is hard to find in a big box store…including helpers who know where all the things are located) and because it was only a few dollars more expensive overall. Treated lumber is almost always wet from the treatment process so weighs a lot more than typical boards. Did I mention stuff was heavy and that I was glad my brother was here to help?
So, we got the basic frame up and, one of these days, we will add sheathing and tar paper and metal to finish this thing off. I am mostly excited because I think it makes sense why we left the gap in the siding now. I know people who live up by our place think I am crazy but at least this one weird thing now (hopefully) has an explanation! I just need to connect the decks and I think that will button up a lot of the remaining questions!
I know, I know…you could barely contain yourself, waiting for the conclusion to the sorghum saga. In my last post, I described how we pressed the sorghum cane to extract the sweet juice using our Kentucky No. 0 Cane Mill. We didn’t really pay much attention to how much juice we actually got but it was enough to make me smile. Of course, anything greater than “none” would have made me smile. Anyhow, we got several gallons of weird looking green sorghum juice.
Cooking down but still green
To make the juice into syrup, one has to cook the water off of the juice which thickens the liquid into syrup and converts sugars and starches into wholesome goodness that is otherwise known as sorghum (or sorghums as the old timers call it).
Cooking down nicely
Originally, people cooked the juice on a wood fire in a large cast iron cauldron…sometimes several feet in diameter. The cauldron had a lip which allowed the cauldron to sit on a circular brick or stone wall inside of which a fire was built. Sorghum cookers got more sophisticated and built long, shallow evaporator pans with baffles which allowed the cooker to add juice to one end and move the sorghum through the pan to the other end as it cooked where syrup was eventually pulled off. Either of these options are still viable but involve a good bit of money to purchase or make. I already have a good bit of money invested in the cane mills and couldn’t see spending any more this year.
It thickened nicely and turned a beautiful amber
It occurred to me that a turkey fryer is not much different from an old fashioned cauldron so we decided to cook our juice in a turkey fryer over propane. I know, it is not too authentic but I had to go with what I had. One of the first things that happens when one turns on the heat under sorghum juice is that a tremendous amount of nasty foam rises to the top. This happens every time as a part of the process and the foam has to be skimmed and discarded. I had a ladle I used to dip it off of the top. We stirred the pot nearly continuously to prevent burning the syrup. It took a few hours over low heat but the juice gradually cooked down and thickened. The smell of the mixture changed from wet pumpkin (almost as bad as wet dog) to sweet…sweet something. I can’t really describe it but it was a nice smell. Finally, the color changed from green to a beautiful amber color. We tasted often and watched it thicken. I finally decided it was done and pulled off the end product. We ended up with 2 quarts plus a little of homemade sorghum syrup and it tastes great!
Homemade sorghum syrup
We learned a lot and, more importantly, spent a lot of quality together-time. We didn’t get enough sorghum to make it extrinsically worth it, but satisfaction in seeing a product through from field to jar is worth a lot to me. Seeing my kids helping out and enjoying time spent is worth a lot to me. Feeling some connection to how old farmers in WV might have produced their own sorghum is worth a lot to me. The syrup is really a secondary part to all of this, but what a sweet bonus it is!
When I was a kid growing up in the country, we pretty much stayed dirty all the time. We picked up worms and snakes and drank from the hose and ran barefoot. We ate wild teaberries and jungled around on grape vines…stuff a kid ought to do, you know? We currently live in the city so it’s not quite as easy for the kids to explore the woods but I am so pleased when we get out to the cabin.
A girl and her toad!She’s such an encourager! “You’re a good toad…”
Abigail has a couple of really great girlfriends that live nearby out there who all like to explore and enjoy all that the woods has to offer. She ventures over to their place as soon as we get to the cabin and we don’t see her until we ring the dinner bell. When she finally does come back home, she is filthy and exhausted and absolutely full of joy!
Last weekend, our neighbors were working on some old fence. They moved some slabs of wood and found four toads and a turtle….the toads were the biggest I think I have ever seen! In typical fashion, those three girls saved the toads and turtle and made a regular home for the critters. Each one had a name and, by the time I came around, a label on their personality…
I am so glad that Abigail is not a girly girl, squeamish around such lovely creatures. I am thrilled that she climbs trees and enjoys the mud between her toes while she catches salamanders near the pond. I am delighted that she has some fellow girl-explorers who love to spend time in the beautiful creation all around them!
How can it be that summer is over already?! Well, not really over but for all intents and purposes, once school starts, Summer is basically (I’ll quote Sergeant Schultz here), “Kaput”. Our county sent those poor darlings back on Friday. I get why the send them back on a Friday in some ways but couldn’t they wait just a few more days?
We woke everyone early (compared to Summer wake up time) and I offered to make breakfast. No one took me up on it. I am not sure how to take that but I guess we just had some really really good tasting cereal at the house.
As we scurried around, Abigail was literally singing, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall” as she searched around for her shoes and stuff. Emily was singing “Happy days are here again…”, much to the dismay of the kids. Isn’t it great being a parent? Driving the kids nuts is so much fun!
Anyhow, poor Abigail was sort of tentative about the whole school thing. She wants to like school but she really likes to read and they don’t let her just read at will during the day so it could be better. Isaac was basically non-responsive but what would you expect from an 8th grade boy? He’s an inch-and-a-half taller than I am now and his voice is a man’s voice. I’d say he thinks like a man but that should go without saying…he’s an 8th grade boy…I never got beyond thinking like an 8th grade boy.
So, every year I interview the kids and ask them about their plans and such. Here are this year’s installments…
Click to play the videos. They are sideways and my converter program keeps crashing so use your imagination!
I saw this over at Blind Pig and the Acorn and it really struck something in me. Part of it was from this new old picture of my grandparents and from my longing to go back to simpler times. I began to wonder how my kids would fill this out 30 years from now and whether I am doing right by them. I wonder why my memory stinks so bad and how many important things I have forgotten. I guess I need a little something right now, but looking back over this list, I can’t think what else I could possibly need. Where I’m from, we have all we need!
If anyone else wants to share, I’d be happy to post where you are from too…here’s the format
So, it’s been a rough go around our place lately. As you may know, Isaac has had a significant issue with a blood clot in his leg. It seemed like that was enough to call it a summer, but just last night, Abigail broke at least one wrist and maybe both.
We call her Splint Eastwood
We were at the local high school walking around the track with Isaac working on building a little endurance in his legs as he prepares for school to start in 3 weeks. Abigail took her scooter to ride as Emily and I walked with Isaac. She was scooting along when all of a sudden, she just sort of toppled over. It turns out, somehow, on a flat paved track, that she rode off the surface into the grass which caused her to fall. We always insist on helmets but it’s a scooter on a flat surface…we didn’t think wrist guards would be a big deal…WRONG!
Her fall was seemingly gentle so we debated a bit on whether to take her to get x-rays, but when we got home, she couldn’t move her wrists and her hands were trembling. Emily took her to an urgent care place where they x-rayed both wrists. One was clearly broken, the other was not clear. Sometime today or tomorrow, they will go to an orthopedic doc and find out for sure. So, the debate is, “one cast or two?”
She’s in pretty good spirits so the pain isn’t too bad. She’s just trying to figure out the logistics of having both arms splinted right now…pretty funny really. Anyhow, I figure, the dang devil scooter will take a ride over the hill into the weeds as soon as she is able to throw again. Wear your helmets AND your wrist guards kids!
Several months ago we bought tickets for us and several in our family to travel to Cleveland, OH to see the Lion King, the Disney musical that plays on Broadway. Most people have heard about the production and I knew it would be cool, but it was beyond cool! The design and costuming and everything were just amazing! Of course, the production company frowns on pics so you will have to do your own googling (and you should) if you haven’t seen the costuming and sets. We were worried about traveling with Isaac but decided to give it a try and see how we did. By the smiles, I think you will agree that things are going pretty well!
At the Lion King in Cleveland, OH
It was a fun trip in addition to the musical itself. Emily’s folks road in our car and all 6 of us fit very well. We have an SUV which hauled us and our stuff comfortably. Ohio is flat so gas mileage worked out well with all of us taking one car. We stopped several times to let Isaac get out and stretch his legs often. My Mom and cousin met us there so it was a big family affair. Abigail went back to PA with my side of the family for the week. The rest of us stuck around to visit with Emily’s cousin who is a doctor in Cleveland. We had a nice time chatting with him and getting the scoop on Cleveland. It was a pretty fun time just goofing around in the hotel and reading, talking, doing nothing really.
Street performers
I don’t have much nice to say about Cleveland in general, but their theater district is pretty nice and we had great weather. That being said, I am glad that the city is a couple hundred miles away…just to be sure. As I have found several times recently, being among other people reminds me of how thankful to have the life I have…enough said.
Anyhow, if you have not seen the Lion King, it is a great show and worth your time to go and see. It’s family friendly and really pretty amazing! Timone and Pumba do not disappoint!
Thank you so much friends, for sharing with us your thoughts, prayers and well-wishes. Isaac has come a long way since last week and we are all much relieved with where we are headed. We were discharged last Sunday from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH. It was a long ride home as Isaac was still in a lot of pain and we were pretty nervous about what we were in store for.
Getting better
We saw the local hematologist on Tuesday and he upped Isaac’s warafrin and continued his lovenox shots. Lovenox shots hurt like crazy and really suck. Isaac’s mood was in pretty bad shape and his pain continued for several days. One day, I can’t remember which, a lot of his pain just went away and he was able to move about a lot better. Each day we see improvement and he can walk short distances and almost looks normal in his gait.
We have had a few more blood draws and warfarin adjustments and things appear to be leveled out. That means no more lovenox too! That fact alone changed Isaac’s mood dramatically. Over this weekend, his appetite also returned. A co-worker of mine bought Isaac a multi-pack of candy bars and he has been plowing into that pretty hard. I am not sure how many healthy calories he has ingested but we have been pretty flexible in just about everything anyhow.
We have more blood draws, probably two a week for a few weeks and then we just wait and see what happens. Isaac has gotten into a much better place emotionally which means that Emily and I have also. His pain persists but it is so much better than it was so I think he is tolerating it pretty well. We don’t yet know how school will work and whether he will be able to sit/walk all day without support so we may have to deal with crutches. We have a few weeks before we worry about that anyhow.
I don’t know whether I am conveying it well, but we are so much better off than we were last week and Isaac feels a lot closer to normal. So friends, please keep thinking of Isaac and I’ll give updates as we get them!
In the last post, I mentioned that we had a family emergency that has taken us away from normal doings the last week or so. Here’s the story: a few weeks ago, Isaac mentioned a pain in his hip that sounded very much like a muscle pull. He’s an active kid so it seemed reasonable to us and to him. He did the usual heat and ice and rest which seemed to alleviate the pain somewhat. Like most kids, he doesn’t ever really rest so we figured that it was going to take awhile to get over the problem. That seemed okay until last Tuesday night when we noticed that his pain was magnified dramatically and his entire leg began to swell. By morning, his leg had changed color and he couldn’t walk. Isaac is not a kid who ever cries or skips a chance to eat so we knew there was a problem when both happened. Wednesday morning, Emily took him to the emergency room. In Charleston, kids go to CAMC Women’s and Children’s Hospital. They were really great and took us right in.
In the emergency room
My family has a fun little disorder called Factor V Leiden. Basically, it is a disorder that occurs in around 5% of people and the end result is that carriers are significantly more likely to develop blood clots. You may have heard of problems related to blood clots including pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and “holy-crap-that-hurts-more-than-eating-glass”. My Dad and I both have tested positive for the issue so more than likely, Isaac has the issue too.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Mobile ICU
So, at the hospital, we related our history and experience with clots and they, of course, suspected a clot as well. Unfortunately, they did not have expertise and/or equipment at CAMC W&C Hospital to do a proper clot-identifying ultrasound. Isaac and I rode in an ambulance from W&C to CAMC Memorial Hospital. The rad tech scanned his leg and then scanned more and more and finally, up into his belly. I knew we were into something big when she did that. The ambulance took us back to Women’s and Children’s where they confirmed that Isaac had a clot that ran, roughly, from under his rib cage to his feet.
IV Meds…this was something to watch!
Clots in general can be life threatening and clots of this size are definitely not common. The doctors at W&C Hospital were honest about the gravity of the situation and that they had limited capability to treat all of the potential issues that we could be facing. After a few calls, we settled on a transfer to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH. The weather was bad so an air lift was not an option. The risk of transport was high and the possibility of a pulmonary embolism was real. Nationwide has a mobile ICU ambulance which is equipped for just about any sort of medical emergency so it was dispatched to Charleston. The crew left OH around 10 pm Wednesday and we were on board the ambulance and back on the road for Columbus at 1:30 am Thursday morning. Emily rode with Isaac and I drove separately. We arrived around 4:30 am where we were immediately admitted.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
I didn’t realize, but in pediatrics, hematology and oncology go together so we were given a room on the “hem-onc” ward. Nationwide is set up brilliantly to make family and patients comfortable and together. Anyhow, we were taken to the interventional radiology department where surgeons placed a catheter into Isaac’s vein in his leg, directly into the clot. Through the “pipe”, they delivered tPA, the clot busting drug given to stroke patients. The idea was to break up the clot, give Isaac blood thinners and get him back to being well. In normal cases, that’s pretty much how it would go. Of course, we didn’t fall into that category.
The vein in his left leg…it should be straight so even the bumps suggest clotting/damage
The surgeons discovered that Isaac doesn’t have an inferior vena cava, the large vein that returns blood from the legs to the heart. Typically, each leg has a large vein that joins somewhere around the belly button creating the inferior vena cava. It is likely that he once had one, but sometime, probably during the trauma that was his birth, it was blocked and/or died. Fortunately, he survived that episode and his body was able to form collateral veins which returned blood back to the heart in spite of the missing IVC. Those collateral veins, of course, are not the way one is supposed to be plumbed so, while effective, they are not as good as a healthy IVC at returning blood to the heart. Couple the Factor V and the missing IVC and we have a serious issue waiting to happen. No one could believe that Isaac has not had any issues prior to this one.
The vein in his right leg. This should be a straight shot. Instead he has many collateral veins…and a many clots
So, the clot buster usually works similar to a small rupture in a dam. Once a hole is poked in a dam, the rushing water opens the hole wider and wider. In a normal anatomy, the tPA works the same way. However, without an IVC, there is no rushing water to open the pipes. As soon as the surgeons removed the catheter, the clot simply reformed. Surgically there is no real solution, at least not anything worth the risk. The only course, then, is to manage the clotting and allow the body to heal itself by creating more collateral veins and isolating the clotted area. We are now on that path. Isaac is on blood thinners and pain meds but still cannot walk by himself. In time, the doctors believe that his body will heal to some level of normal but this is a life changing event for him. Not only has more damage been done to his veins that were already weakened by the missing IVC, but now he is also on blood thinners. He should be able to walk normally again but running will depend on how the healing goes. He is currently nauseous from pain and unable to manage much of anything independently. We have expectations that the pain will subside in a few weeks so we just need to let time pass and his body heal.
Another view of the clots/veins as the inject the dye
I have only the greatest respect and appreciation for the doctors and staff, both in Charleston and at Nationwide Children’s. They were fantastic and so kind and helpful. It’s a weird thing though, as a parent, when you take your child to a hospital and you get news that not much can be done to just fix the problem. We are so used to going to the doctor with a sore throat or even a broken arm. A few meds and a stitch or two and things are back to normal and everything is ok. When that doesn’t happen, it is the weirdest sense of helplessness, and a feeling that I haven’t experienced since Isaac’s birth. It’s a hard place to be in where your tough son is crying in pain and there isn’t a lot to be done. We feel good about where we are headed but the road there is a tough and dangerous one. As I consider the last week though, I saw all around me children with pediatric cancers on the hem-onc ward. Though this is still a scary time for us all, I still feel very fortunate when I consider what other families are going though. Hug your children tight…
