View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

From an email:

INFORMATION EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW………………………
Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue

I will continue to forward this every time it comes around!

STROKE:Remember the 1st Three Letters…..S.T.R.

My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree.

If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously.

Please read:

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) .she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening

Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.. Some don’t die they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the ’3′ steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today.)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue… If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

I have done my part. Will you?

I see him moving, in his legendary fleece,
Between the superhighway and an Algonquin stone axe;
Between the wild tribes, in their lost heat,
And the dark blizzard of my Grandfather’s coat;
Cold with the outdoor cold caught in the curls,
Smelling of the world before the poll tax.

And between the new macadam and the Scalp Act
They got him by the short hair; had him clipped
Who once was wild—and all five senses wild—
Printing the wild with his hoof’s inflated script
Before the times was money in the bank,
Before it was a crime to be so mild.

But history is a fact, and moves on feet
Sharper than his, toward wallows deeper than.
And the myth that covered all his moving parts,
Grandfather’s time had turned into a coat;
And what kept warm then, in the true world’s cold
Is old and cold in a world his death began.

By David Derbyshire

A factory farm housing more than 8,000 ‘battery cows’ will be built in the English countryside.

Under the controversial plans, Britain’s largest ever dairy herd will be kept in industrial-scale sheds with little access to pasture or sunshine.

The cows will be milked around the clock to produce 430,000 pints each day  -  while their slurry will be recycled to generate power for the national grid.

The complex is the first ‘supersize’ cattle factory planned for Britain and follows growing concerns about the spread of ‘zero-grazing’ farming.

Justin Kerswell, of animal rights group Viva, said: ‘This is factory farming  -  and it blows out of the water the pastoral image the dairy industry likes to portray.’

The £40million farm will be built near Nocton, Lincolnshire, later this year. It will have eight hangars for 8,100 cattle and two 24-hour milking parlours.

The animals, fed on fodder, will spend most of their days inside where they will stand and sleep on sand rather than pasture.

And they will be milked three times a day, while a typical dairy cow is milked just twice.

Waste will be removed each day and fed into an anaerobic generator to produce enough electricity for more than 2,000 homes.

Robert Howard, a farmer behind the Nocton Dairies project, said the farm will be the largest in Western Europe and help the dairy industry compete against imports.

‘Campaigners think cows should be like in the Anchor butter advert, with 50 to 100 cows dancing in a field,’ he said. ‘It is a lovely idea, but not the reality.’

His colleague Peter Wiles said the cows would have access to open pasture when they were not producing milk. The sheds would have open sides, he added.

‘We will have a visitor centre to show the public around,’ he said. ‘We are aiming to have exceptional standards.’

The company’s website played down the industrial scale of the farm, saying: ‘The layout is designed so the cows get plenty of exercise and fresh air.

‘A vet will be on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week to support the trained dairy staff in their daily inspections of every single cow to check they are healthy and happy.’

But animal campaigners are fighting the plans. Linda Wardale, of the group Vegan Lincs, said the conditions would be akin to ‘ battery farming for cows’.

‘Cows should be in the fields, nibbling on grass, but here they’re going to keep them in sheds,’ she added.

And Patrick Holden, an organic dairy farmer and director of the Soil Association, said the farm was a wake-up call.

‘Will consumers be happy to know that they are drinking the milk from one of 8,100 cows that will never get out to grass?’ he asked.

‘There is also a greater risk of disease  -  and the spread of new diseases, as we saw with BSE.’

In addition, the move away from family farming would make Britain more vulnerable to rises in energy prices and trade crises, he added.

The Nocton Dairies’ farmers hope to have planning permission by the end of next month and milk the first cow by September.



Once upon a time there was a little red hen who lived in a big farm-yard.
She had three fluffy yellow chicks.
One morning as they were busily scratching about the yard, looking for something to eat, the little red hen found a grain of wheat.

“Look!” she said.
“See what I have found. Who will help me to plant this grain of wheat?”

“Not I,” said the duck. “I must go down to the pond for a swim.”
“Not I,” said the cat. “I have some visitors coming in a few minutes.”

“Very well, I will then”, said the little red hen, and she did.

After a while some weeds appeared among the stalks of wheat.
One day the little red hen asked:
“Who will help me to weed this wheat?”

“Not I,” said the duck. “That sort of work doesn’t agree with me.”
“Not I”, said the cat. “I would not be able to tell the weeds from the wheat”.

“Very well, I will then”, said the little red hen, and she did.

After a while the wheat began to ripen:
“What fine wheat we have,” said the cat and the duck.
“Yes, indeed, it is time to reap the wheat,” said the little red hen. “Who will help me to reap this wheat?”

“Not I”, said the cat.
“Not I”, said the duck.

“Very well, then I will”, said the little red hen.

She cut the heads off the grain very carefully and put them in a bag.

Then she called to the cat and the duck and she asked, “Now, who will take this wheat to the mill to be ground into flour?”
“Not I”, said the duck.
“Not I”, said the cat.

“Very well, then”, said the little red hen, “I will take it myself”.

So the little red hen trudged off to the mill, and in a few hours she was back with a sack of fine flour.

“Now, who is going to make this flour into bread?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I”, said the duck.
“Not I”, said the cat.

“I will, then,” said the little red hen, and she did.

Soon the loaf was ready for the oven.

“Now, who is going to bake this bread?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I”, said the cat.
“Not I”, said the duck.

“Very well, then”, said the little red hen. “I will do it”.

So the loaf of bread was baked and it was baked, and it was beautiful, golden and crusty. The little red hen put it on the kitchen table, and the cat and the duck came into the house and looked at it longingly.

“Well now, who is going to eat this loaf of bread?” asked the little red hen.

“I will”, said the duck quickly.
“I will”, said the cat stepping close.

“Oh, no, you won’t”, said the little red hen. “I am going to eat it myself”.

Then she called her little chicks together, and they ate the whole loaf of bread. Not a crumb was left for the duck and the cat.

“Simply by chanting the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, one can become free from all misery, but because they are enchanted by the illusory energy, people do not take this movement seriously. Therefore those who are actually servants of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu must seriously distribute this movement all over the world to render the greatest benefit to human society.

“Of course, animals and other lower species are not capable of understanding this movement, but if even a small number of human beings take it seriously, then by their chanting loudly, all living entities, including even trees, animals and other lower species, will be benefited. When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu inquired from Haridasa Thakura how he was to benefit living entities other than humans, Srila Haridasa Thakura replied that the Hare Krsna maha-mantra is so potent that if it is chanted loudly, everyone will benefit, including the lower species of life.”

Adi 9.40

Merton’s Voice: “The trees indeed love You without knowing You. The tiger lilies and corn flowers are there proclaiming that they love You, without being aware of Your presence. The beautiful dark clouds ride slowly across the sky musing on You like children who do not know what they are dreaming of, as they play.

“But in the midst of them all, I know You, and I know of Your presence.”

Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, p. 99.

Before I tell the story, do the following, and if you can’t  now,  as soon as possible. Take all the cards out of your wallet/purse/cell phone carrier/whatever and photocopy them, both sides.  Your driver’s license, credit card(s), bank card and any other cards you would need to get replaced if were to lose your wallet etc.

For me that includes an AARP card (good for discounts at motels), two medical cards, a AAA card and a card from UPMC Transplant Center with contact info including my post transplant coordinator’s name, and a list of all the medications I take for any EMT that would have to deal with an unconscious me in case of an accident.

In Vidya’s case, it includes sales tax exemption cards from Crafts 2000 and Michaels where she buys supplies for her craft business. You may have any number of discount cards or other forms of ID.

The point is what happens if you lose your wallet etc or it’s stolen? If you have a photocopy of what was in it,  the process of replacement is  simpler having all the numbers of the cards, plus phone numbers in one  location.

You may not even remember what is in your wallet etc until you need it at some point.

This is also an opportunity to evaluate if you really need to have all that stuff in there, a spring cleaning of sorts. Back to the story.

Our driveway has  walls of snow on each side from shoveling out the succession of snow storms.  On Gaura Paurnima Vidya was backing out and too close to one side and got stuck so she got a shovel and was digging it out which only took  a few minutes it wasn’t that bad.

She had a small purse around her neck and it was in the way shoveling so she took it off and made a mistake. Instead of walking around the car and putting it inside, she set it on the trunk.

After shoveling, she drove away, forgetting about the bag until she got to the swimming pool and then had an instant realization of what she had done. She immediately called me and all our close neighbors thinking it would have fallen off early in the trip and asked everyone to look at the road outside their homes.

I started walking out the ridge until she came back and picked me up. She had looked all the way coming back from town no luck. We drove out again to Rte 88 thinking it would have fallen off by then, real slow and both of us looking no luck.

We came back home and there was a message on voice mail from someone who had found it. We immediately went to fetch it, Vidya taking one of her hand painted gourd birdhouses as a reward for the finder.

Turns out it was someone who had had Marken as a student in Sherrard Middle School and remembered him.  It was such a blessing that a nice person had found the bag and returned it. In a lot of parts of the country, that may not have happened.  So there are still some good people out there.

“If a hundred-dollar bill is lying on the street, someone may pick it up and put it in his pocket. Such a man is not honest.

“Another man may see the money and decide to let it remain there, thinking that he should not touch another’s property. Although this second man does not steal the money for his own purposes, he is unaware of its proper use.

“The third man who sees the hundred-dollar bill may pick it up, find the man who lost it and deliver it to him. This man does not steal the money to spend for himself, nor does he neglect it and let it lie in the street. By taking it and delivering it to the man who has lost it, this man is both honest and wise.”

Nectar of Instruction: verse 2