Spring at Last

For all that winter almost didn't come this year, spring was just as forgetful. It was well into June before the spring flowers fully came into their own. The following examples all belonged to Mom. I daresay she's the only one in Westby with a hibiscus and a plumeria.

Starting with Skjermo

Where to start? Where to start? The longest-ago blog that I remember needing to write, was when we joined Tina for a few hours as she camped out at Lake Skjermo. There may be more, but I fear that it’s gone forever, unless I turn up additional photographic evidence to jar my memory. Don’t worry, some things, like taking the kids to smokejumper training, would be impossible to forget, even if I wanted to.

Thus I shall do the best I can to recreate the last several months, starting with the Skjermo Picnic, back on May 12.

It was an enjoyable day at the lake, quiet except around us. Tina had a fire going to cook our veggie weenies, and what camping trip would be complete without S’mores?

For any of you who haven’t already become acquainted with this traditional camping treat, you take a graham cracker, chocolate bar, and marshmallow, and heat them up till the chocolate and marshmallow are all melted into a graham cracker sandwich. The tidiest way is to wrap the concoction in foil and set it near the fire to warm, but the more adventurous balance it carefully on weenie roaster sticks.

With no foil along, we went with the adventurous method.

Since I despise marshmallows, my S’more consisted only of chocolate and graham cracker. I called it a S’less. Then the weenie stick tilted ever so slightly, the S’less S’lid into the fire, and suddenly I had a S’none.

We stayed till dark before leaving Tina there in her tan metal tent, abruptly surrounded with silence.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil,
Smell No Evil

Venus Transit

It's not exactly NASA. My special technique consists of one hand holding a rectangular welding helmet insert, removed from the helmet, over a round zoom lens, and trying not to blind myself having it slip off the edge. In the meantime, the other hand zooms out the lens again after I bumped it, refocuses the picture after I bumped that, too, and reaches across to push the button. 

All the suffering and trial was worthwhile, since I got a slightly blurred but recognizable image of the only time Venus will cross the sun in my lifetime on earth. 

The last pair of transits was back in 1874 and 1882. The next pair of transits begins in December of 2117. I expect to watch it from my own seat near the throne of God. 

See you there!

 

Venus Sunset

God Bless America!

It was our privilege today to be a part of the school Memorial Day program, honoring the veterans who have fought for our country for more than 200 years. I want to say a big thank you to all who have served.

THANK YOU!


Mom, Tina, Tiggy, and I sang a trio arrangement of God bless America. That's not a typo; four of us sang a trio. We had to nearly disassemble the gymnasium after Mom's wireless mike wouldn't work. It made me wish I had some sort of poetry reading or something to pass the time  Now that I mention it, I could have, thanks to Mr. Unterseher, my high school English teacher.


With apologies to the poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, for any smudging of my memory brought about by the preceding 26 years.


By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.


The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike, the conqueror silent sleeps,
And time the ruined bridge has swept,
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.


Oh, spirit that made those heroes dare,
To die and leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare,
This shaft we raise to them, and thee.

It's a Long Way

Tipperary....Taco Bell.....not much difference. They're both a long, long way away. They both have food. But only one has had a WWI song written about it. That's not the one I mean.

This last weekend was State Music Festival. Sadly, Damon was disqualified by his grades. He wasn't the only one, but that was cold comfort to him as he stayed home and the rest of the group drove off into the sunset. (If we're going to be real technical, it wasn't actually sunset or sunrise, but kind of mid-morningish. But that just doesn't have the same poetic ring to it.)

Mrs. G drove one school vehicle, and I drove the other. No giant buses this time - a zippy little van for me, and a sleek SUV for her. She stopped very often for fuel, no doubt wanting to avoid a repeat of two years ago, when she accidentally ran out of gas on the way down. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, nearly everyone in Westby knew what had happened before the van had coasted to a full stop beside the road.

Everyone performed wonderfully, and our town was justifiably proud of each of the students who played or sang. The highlight for me was Chad's performance (see Bittersweet if you haven't already met him), attended by his dad and long-term girlfriend. He was SO EXCITED to be able to go to the State Music Festival. Witnessing his joy during the whole trip was the kind of beautiful thing I usually only get to watch on strangers' inspiring Youtube videos. 

Chad in Billings

All too soon it was time to head home. Damon and Tiggy, time to start practicing for next year if you want to see the inside of a Taco Bell!

Until the next adventure,

Noni Beth 

Creeping Creature from the Crusted Yellow Lagoon

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL THAT WILL BE SHOCKING TO INDELICATE VIEWERS! I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE DELICATE ONES!!!

It's also very important information, so I recommend that you hold onto your stomachs and keep going till the very end. 

Many months ago, long about October of last year, I got an insignificant rash on my chin. It was just a few tiny spots here and there, and I didn't worry too much about it. At first I even thought it was acne, but it didn't go away like acne would have. I would get a couple little spots, then they would recede, then a couple more spots nearby, and those would recede. There were times that it was better than others, but it never quite got well.

Fast forward to the end of February, and it began to gain a little ground. I began to worry that I would need to seek medical treatment, and debated at what point to break down and go in to the doctor. When I woke up March 1, there was no longer any doubt. Overnight, the small rash had blown up into a giant, painful, weeping nightmare. I got in to the doctor's office before lunchtime, where I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection, likely staph, and put on a sturdy dose of cephalexin (Keflex). 

Although I documented the whole progress in photos, I had NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of putting any of them in any public place where they might be seen, and most especially on my blog! I would much prefer that everyone maintain the fantasy that I always look beautiful, with hardly a hair out of place even on a hurricane day, or when I have first crawled out of bed. The idea that I would post photos where I looked like a refugee from the Disgusting Tropical Diseases Textbook was completely unthinkable.

Until a surprise remedy suddenly made this information too important to keep to myself, even if it meant showing you the worst I have ever looked in my whole, entire life. This is vital health information that you need to be aware of. Are you ready? Good - it's time for the unveiling of the Creeping Creature from the Crusted Yellow Lagoon.

February 25

February 28

March 1
GAAAAAAH IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE???

March 2
So painful I want to scrape it with potsherds and sprinkle ashes on my head.

March 3

The weekend was a real low point. I was too scary to go to church, and hurt too badly to think of anything else. I sat there and scrunched my lower lip to pop the blisters and let out a little pressure...

March 4

...and contemplated all the possible ways to get rid of my face. Dynamite, TNT, nuclear weaponry, I considered it all.

March 5

The antibiotics are helping slightly, but it's still so bad half-way through the treatment that I return for another visit to the doctor. She diagnoses it as staph, and we agreed to watch and see how it did. There were still no restrictions to driving the bus; I just couldn't touch my face and touch anything else (as if I would have voluntarily touched that seething cesspool anyway!), and I couldn't kiss any babies.

March 6

Most of the photos I took were right after washing gently with soap and warm water, and applying the antibacterial cream. This one is au naturel, and pretty typical of how I looked most of the day. It still hurt so badly I could think of little else but different ways to whittle and chop it off. 

Keep in mind that this is after a full SIX days of 2,000 mg of antibiotics each and every day, as well as 4x a day applying Bactroban, a prescription-strength antibiotic ointment. For a mild staph infection, Bactroban alone would usually be enough to treat it. 

Although no formal culture was made, the apathetic response this infection had to the standard treatment is an indicator that it could have been the dread MRSA, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. Clearly, I was not going to be well within the allotted 10 days of treatment. 

March 7

As soon as I woke up March 1, I had decided to order colloidal silver. (God had wanted me to have it already on hand, and I didn't listen, but that's a whole nuther story.) Now, I had tried CS before and been rather underwhelmed. Being heavily influenced by my Scottish roots, I had gotten the very cheapest, which I have recently learned was also the very wateriest. All but useless. This time around, I got some really strong stuff, which was 500 ppm instead of about 20. It finally arrived on Wednesday, March 7.

About the only thing I've been able to figure out about colloidal silver is that there are about as many different opinions as there are people in the world. I have no desire to bog down in any arguments, and am simply sharing what I did for myownself. I recommend doing your own experimentation on all sorts of different problems, and see what happens. Use common sense, pray for guidance, and God will show you what you should do.

The following should also be considered. Long-term internal use of high doses of colloidal silver can, in some cases, lead to a bizarre condition called argyria, a permanent change to the pigment of the skin, ranging from gray to bluish.  I haven't been able to find any harmful side effects for topical use. So, in a nutshell, my own personal philosophy at this point is to apply it liberally to the outside, and to be very cautious when applying it to the inside. 

But on March 7, the first day it arrived, the word "liberal" was not yet in my vocabulary. I put a couple drops on my chin, and spread it down to a microscopic thinness, and that's the only time I used it the whole day. The above photo was taken about 5 hours after that mini-dose, had already made enough of a difference around the edges that the doctor decided not to give me any further antibiotics, unless the rash began to deteriorate again. 

March 8

Upon reading some inspirational stories about colloidal silver and staph infections, I applied generous doses every few hours, all day long. The first thing I noticed, was that as soon as I soaked it enough to make it down through the awful crusts, the pain stopped. There was still a mild discomfort while the open sores were healing, but the temptation to chop away the lower half of my face disappeared within a couple of minutes. 

March 9

By Friday morning, 24 hours after the first serious application,  the oozing had stopped entirely, and all but the deepest sores had healed over. For the first time, I began to suspect that I might actually look normal again. Someday.

March 10

Twenty-four hours after that, even the larger sores were nearly healed.  A deep redness remained, and new little zit-looking blisters kept popping up. The good part was that as soon as they came up, the colloidal silver would knock them back out again. 

March 11

Do you still remember how I looked after 6 days of Keflex?  This is after only FIVE days of topical colloidal silver.

March 16

I decided to try a little experiment. Since I was still applying the ointment and the colloidal silver at the same time, I decided to stop applying the silver for a few days and see what happened. 

March 19

Within a couple of days, the rash began to fill back in again, and it was clear the the silver was making a marked difference. After a couple of days of topical application, and continuing to struggle with the stray little blisters, I took a two-week course internally as recommended on the bottle. 

One of the children came down with a small patch of  the staph infection next to their nose. The silver stopped it in its tracks. Immediately, all sorts of uses began to suggest themselves. Our one sneezy cat had infected all the other cats, so I started putting one dropperful in their water each day. Within a few weeks, all the kittens were well, and the big kitties were much better. (Who cares if THEIR skin turns blue?) Jack had a couple patches of some kind of dermatitis, and they had been around for months. We had tried numerous OTC creams, but none helped. A few drops of silver a couple times a day was all he needed. Mom will have to tell you about her own adventures. 

I become aware that I'm starting to sound like one of Them - the colloidal crazy people who think silver is good for everything. Well, so far, it has been!

March 27

It's been a very slow process, but the underlying redness continues to fade. Sometimes it's still brighter than in this picture, depending on the temperature and other factors such as level of physical exertion. The new eruptions are getting fewer, but are still happening, even today, April 14, though my two-week-long internal dosing made a big difference. Even though progress is still slow, it continues steadily, and I'm looking forward to eventually having my chin back entirely to normal.

At the suggestion of a long-time friend who is very knowledgeable in matters of natural remedies and healthful living, and even runs a lifestyle healing center, I have just today begun taking the fight to the next level. Added to my regimen of oral garlic and topical silver is..............

Well, don't worry. You'll get to read all about it.

Then again, maybe you should be worried.