Rebuild from Depression Blog

It's high in iron and B vitamins, but that is a small consideration if you find yourself in the ICU after eating an E. coli burger. I have deprived myself this summer of burgers from my favorite cowboy restaurant in the High Sierra's Ponderosa. Granted, the restaurant is stronger on the cowboys than on the burgers, but the burgers are a key part of the package. Lamenting my deprivation the other night, the topic of the Nebraska Beef recall came up.

My son Frederick was incensed that not only would pathogens find its way into beef and deprive me of burgers, but that the company providing the beef would actually blame others for resulting illnesses. Back in June, Nebraska Beef sued members of the Salem Lutheran Church for not preparing their meatballs properly for a church dinner. Had those ladies used better food safety measures, the pathogen that was illegally present in the food in the first place would have made no one sick.

The dinnertime discussion was made more interesting by Frederick's recent fascination with Old Testament stories. Could God be punishing Nebraska Beef for its behavior earlier this summer with even more recalls? Would locusts swarm Omaha? Would the Missouri River turn to blood? Probably not, but perhaps some figurative lightning was striking the Omaha area nonetheless. Our dinnertime discussion inspired a painting (below) in the spirit of Frederick's series of "Pollan Paintings." At the same time, apparently a friend of food injury attorney Bill Marler has been counting the pounds of beef recalled and pointed out that 6.66 million pounds have been recalled so far. The Mark of the Beast embedded in a hamburger recall along with all of the other signs of the looming Apocalypse may send me to the Ponderosa for one final comfort burger.

In case I don't return, I leave you with a final message from Frederick (6 years) called "Nebraska Beef's Final Days," poster paint on construction paper.

It strikes me that I should not neglect to post here for three weeks only to post about the looming beef Apocalypse and that I am running off to eat a burger at a cowboy restaurant without even the smallest of updates.

Since Easter weekend when we got the news, life has been centered around "the wedding" (and you thought I was going to say "the baby"). A good friend was married here this past Saturday and 185 guests and staff showed up to witness the event. We don't do events here so we were absolutely unprepared with the four-month notice. My mom and I have spent many hours on the landscape, she has painted herself silly, and two young men worked their tails off all summer long to make the property presentable. Now is the time to visit us, by the way.

The wedding was fantastic. As the bride was leaving, she said, "This really was my dream wedding." I expect actual dream weddings are fairly uncommon these days, so this was high praise. I was too busy to take pictures, but I will post some when they become available.

The days leading up to the wedding were so busy that we never did attend to all of the details we normally would. My swollen feet and ankles are some proof. On the day of the wedding in fact, I laid out a purple shirt and tan shorts for Frederick to wear. Purple was one of the wedding colors. It was a good outfit for a child who would spend his day playing with children in the designated children's area. Apparently he wasn't into tan, so he appeared in his two favorite colors -- a purple shirt and red shorts.

"Honey, let's find something that matches a little bit better."

"But Mama, these are my favorite shorts."

Far too many things needed our attention, so the shorts stayed and Frederick spent the better part of the day on his new obsession -- Pac-Man. (Pac-Man is a great babysitter in a pinch, by the way.)

The wedding dinner was outside under a structure of white lights on Saturday night. The ceremony itself was in our great room, a massive 36x36' room that opens up two stories. There is a balcony on three sides of the room with two sets of stairs descending on the fourth wall and meeting at the bottom. The bridal party entered the wedding down these stairs, men on one side, women on the other. Each pair met at the foot of the stairs and processed to a massive rock fireplace. (I should add now that the only reason normal people like us can afford this house is because it is in the middle of nowhere and needs a lot of work.)

Just before the procession began, my mom and I were outside ushering in last-minute guests when we realized we had not unplugged the phones. She and I each made a mad dash to different phones and then I joined my husband at the video camera that was streaming video to the folks outside who preferred shade and beer.

The procession began and I asked, "Where's Frederick?" I left to look for him but assumed he must be in the great room.

I returned in time to see the bride and groom meet at the bottom of the stair and process to the mantel.

Only later did I hear that just after the flower girls descended and just before the bride would begin her procession, the door behind the stairs opened and a little boy wearing red and purple made a big entry. It would appear that most people thought it was funny. Surely I will laugh about it someday. That laughter would probably come sooner if his clothing actually matched.

In any case, I have survived. This whole pregnancy thing doesn't seem like a big deal at all after having nearly 200 people come to visit.

Back in September of 2006, California agencies began a recall of Organic Pastures raw dairy products. I was a big supporter of the dairy at the time, kept drinking the milk we had in the house, and *still* have a gallon of it in my freezer. After a recall of a couple of weeks, the dairy held a press conference at the farm where the most interesting assortment of people showed up to offer support. Not to disappoint, my hippy mom and I showed up with some of the recalled milk and about two gallons of mountain blackberry water kefir in our cooler. We had a great time visiting with other lovers-of-homemade-brew and swapping recipes over plastic cups filled with blackberry kefir.

At the time we didn’t actually think that product from the dairy made anyone sick. We were told the children had eaten spinach and that the pathogens in the childrens’ stools didn’t match each other. If you read this blog regularly, you probably know that I’ve come around to a different view of the recall. None of the children ate spinach involved in outbreaks that same summer. Five of the six children did have matching pathogens. The pathogen was never isolated in the sixth so while it didn’t “match,” it didn’t “not match” either. While we could quibble about the extent of the evidence, it appears far-fetched (and verging on “nutty”) to suggest that the outbreak was caused by spinach.

My perspective has changed but I certainly remember that day nearly two years ago that we hung out at the dairy and had a really great time, celebrating that the milk would be flowing again.

I’ve been thinking about that day today because of a video just posted on YouTube of a boy, Chris Martin, who was in the hospital while we drank blackberry kefir and celebrated the re-opening of the dairy.

It bothers me a great deal now that we did nothing for the families involved in the outbreak. I’d like to think I’m the kind of person who helps other people, but it was not even a topic of discussion at that press conference or in our own house in the weeks before or after. It really shouldn’t have mattered what caused the illnesses. Families in stress need help and we offered nothing.

An article in the North County Times described the help that the Martin family received while their son was in the hospital:

Mary said many neighbors and friends helped the family out by getting their car fixed, taking care of their dog, picking up their mail, patching up their fence when heavy winds blew through, doing the couple's laundry and keeping their pool clean while the two were in the hospital with Chris.

Thank goodness the Martins had people to help them get through those eight weeks. Giving our own blood, after all, might have suggested that we thought the milk caused the illness. It surely would be a shame to appear generous.

The irony is that people in the raw milk community have shown their generosity on other occasions. Organic Pastures managed to raise money just after the outbreak for what it called People Powered by Raw Milk (PPRM). If memory serves, they raised upwards of $30,000 to change the political climate for raw milk in California. They raised much more a year later after AB 1735 made it through the Governor’s office despite the stated goal of PPRM. They spent the money on lawyers and a lobbyist to un-do the effects of AB 1735.

With all of the money our movement is good for, we should probably do a bit better on the fundraisers for sick people, the casseroles, and the blood drives. How raw milk drinkers got sick shouldn't matter.

With busy schedules it is easy to forget some of the easy and most pleasurable things we can do to improve our health. In my announcement post some months ago now, Jennifer mentioned that she gets twenty minutes of sun every day. In those twenty minutes, she can grab a bit of relaxation but also her skin takes in the sun and makes vitamin D in her body. She make even get a wee bit of a tan. It is not enough sun to cause harm but is a good amount of sun to improve vitamin D stores. I need to make a habit of it myself rather than taking the "catch as catch can" approach, my approach pretty much all summer.

On a related matter, whenever I am outside and do not need sunglasses, I go without. If our eyes take in light (even in the shade), our bodies produce the hormone melatonin that help us sleep better at night. It works for me -- no glasses to steam up when I'm working on a hot day.

Technorati Tags: depression, puppy, Rebuild from Depression, sunshine, vitamin D