Pacemaker

Pacemaker! No, it's not the name of a race horse. It's what I received today just below my left collarbone. After a year of struggling with a very low heart rate and the accompanying fatigue and incapacity, I got one. It is an awesome thing to have a resting heart rate of 60 and know that it will go no lower, and that it will respond to demands for a higher rate without making my chest pound and causing shortness of breath and dizziness. I face a 12 week "take care with the left arm" thing, but after that, I'm good to go! Meanwhile I will be able to walk up the hill from our new house site and not wonder if I will end up in an ambulance! It has been quite a wonderful day! And it snowed today. First one of the season. "Squaw Winter" some call it. Followed, we both hope this year as we try to get the new house under roof, by a very very long and lovely "Indian Summer."

Meandering Toward a New House and Retirement Life Together

I have been absent from Blogging for quite a while, and a lot has happened in that time, the biggest event being the Borland Farm Auction on August 5, 2009. We have some wonderful buyers (who sought us out) and soon we will close on the sale of some of our farm property. We kept about 20 acres at the foot of our hill, where we are trying to get our new house under roof before winter sets in here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Anyway, I would like to use this blog to try to keep track of our progress in the building of our retirement home, and to be able to send to friends so they can also keep track of us keeping track of us.

To all of you who have been so supportive of our decision to "sell the family farm" - a heart-felt THANKS! Some have not seemed to understand that we could not continue to sell milk at a price way below what it costs to produce it, and why, at our ages, it was necessary to not use up all our equity trying to wait for a glimmer of light at the end of a long dark tunnel of increasing debt load and work load. Perhaps someday, if they watch enough news and read enough articles on the topic, they will figure it out. Meanwhile, we journey on, glad to have family and friends who do understand and offer their words and actions of support. Again, THANKS!

When our new house is done, I will post some pictures.

Next Tuesday, October 13th, I will spend two days as a patient at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital getting a pacemaker installed. Hopefully I will have some time and feel up to working on this project wile I am there. Optimistic! They do have high-speed, which I don't have at home - so I spend time typing away at the drug store in Barton or Wendy's in Newport or the library in Glover.