Category: Health

On your bike, Mrs. H.!

My dear wife takes to cycling.

Like most young boys I was on a bicycle at a very young age. Then once sufficiently old to drive a motor car that was the end of bike riding for almost forever. Except that a few months ago the argument for anaerobic exercise as a means of delaying the worst of all the ailments that come with an ageing body (and mind!) convinced me to get back on a bike. That was made a lot easier because a small group of close neighbours ride three times a week and that seemed an opportunity not to be missed.

Those same neighbours supported, and recommended, a local bike shop in Grants Pass and I have ‘borrowed’ this picture of the store from their website.

Views of the interior of Don's Bike Center, Grants Pass, Oregon. — Views of the interior of Don’s Bike Center, Grants Pass, Oregon.

Having now been riding an average of 35 miles a week for the last ten or twelve weeks, I can vouch for the benefits it is providing.

Logically, therefore, it was going to be much better if Jean could come with me, and the rest of the riding group, each week. But there was a small challenge: Jean had never ridden a bike in her life. Horses, yes! Bicycles, no!

Eric over at the bike centre lent Jean a two-wheeler to try but very quickly it was clear that Jean would not easily develop the confidence to ride on our local roads. The next suggestion from Erik was a tricycle! Not one that was designed in the days of Noah and his Arc but a modern model of the ‘recumbent’ design. In particular, one manufactured by Sun Bicycles. Here’s an image of the trike from the Sun’s website.

Thus it came about that last Friday Jean and I went over to Don’s Bike Center to collect her new bike.

Eric at the store checking that the bike was properly set up for Jean.

Then once home it was time for Jean to learn a number of very new skills. At first just by riding around our turning circle in front of the house.

Then trying out our quarter-mile driveway that includes a couple of steep gradients; well steep for a cycle rider!

Another view of Jean getting to know her new bike here at home.

Then, deep breath, time to put on the safety helmet and go for a short ride on Hugo Road, our local road that runs past our property.

Slightly blurred image as I had the camera in my hand as I was riding behind Jean.

So all’s well that ends well!

Jean coming up the road towards the driveway entrance!

I will embarrass Jean by saying to my dear readers that Jean is already getting familiar with riding her trike and it won’t be too long before our riding group will be increased by one Mrs. Handover on her bike!

The things we do to stay healthy in our increasing years!

Praise for Medical Detection Dogs

Just a simple post for today but one that inspires such love for our dogs.

Long-time follower of this place, Per Kuroski, himself a blogger, author of A view from the Radical Middle, recently emailed me a link to the website that is all about Medical Detection Dogs. Please do visit the website for their great work needs to be promoted widely.

Plus enjoy this video:

Standing for our puppies

Protecting the health of our puppies.

Making sure this is as widely known as possible.

With kind thanks to Dog Leader Mysteries for permission to republish in full.

ooOOoo

Puppy Nylabone Bone Recall

Puppies need to chew so give them something safe.

Keep your dog healthy

Please buy your dog food and your dog products from a local pet store or a farm supply. Ask if the business owners or managers subscribe to daily updates on potentially harmful foods, treats and supplements. Ask if they track all lists of recalled pet products everyday they are open.

Use a trustworthy pet food store

A caring and knowledgeable store will pull all recall items each morning then ship them back to the sellers before the pet shop opens their doors to the public. They don’t want your dog getting sick from anything they sell. Naturally, they want to keep your business and have you refer friends and others to shop with them.

The old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is certainly valuable in many ways to dog lovers. Be picky when it comes to buying and giving products to your dog for eating or chewing.

We shop at Western Farm because they assure us that they check all product recalls and pull them off the shelf to be returned to each company that produced any and all pet product recalls.

Salmonella tainted Neptune, NJ Nylabones

“April 22, 2015 — Nylabone Products of Neptune, NJ is recalling one lot of its Puppy Starter Kit dog chews because they have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.” The Dog Food Advisor

“The recalled Puppy Starter Kit consists of one lot of dog chews that were distributed nationwide, to Canada and through one domestic online mail order facility. The recalled product comes in a 1.69 ounce package marked with Lot #21935 and UPC 0-18214-81291-3 and with an expiration date of 3/22/18.”

A few responses on Dog Food Advisor

“Be so careful with chew bones, especially if your dog’s a fast eater. I lost a wonderful friend due to a blocked intestine. It was a large chunk of a “digestible” chew bone.”

“I just bought these for my puppy not too long ago. And he chewed up the dark bone and ate it! Next thing I know… He was throwing up for the next 24 hrs – 7 times! Took him to vet and they diagnosed him with an intestinal infection….. Wonder if it was because of the nylabone!”

“Same with my dog! Vomiting and peeing blood! He has a urinary tract infection they said. Same symptoms of salmonella. Call nylabone!! They should foot your vet bills!”

Read more on the Dog Food Advisor

Action, return & complaint

“Consumers who have purchased the affected product should discontinue use of the chews and may return the unused portion to the place of purchase for a full refund.

Those with questions may contact the company at 877-273-7527, Monday through Friday from 8 am – 5 pm Central time. After hours and weekend calls are covered by a third-party poison control center.

U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area. Or go to http://www.fda.gov/petfoodcomplaints.

Canadians can report any health or safety incidents related to the use of this product by filling out the Consumer Product Incident Report Form.” The Dog Food Advisor

“Consumers who have purchased 1.69 oz. packages of the Puppy Starter Kit from affected Lot 21935, UPC 0-18214-81291-3, Expiration date of 3/22/18, should discontinue use of the product and may return the unused portion to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact the company at 1-877-273-7527, Monday through Friday from 8:00 am – 5:00 pm Central time (after hours/weekends covered by third-party poison control center).” FDA.gov “Safety Recall”

Visit The Dog Food Advisor

Get free dog food recall alerts sent to you by email. Subscribe to The Dog Food Advisor’s recall notification list now. [Jean and I have done this!]

ooOOoo

Great alert to all dog owners and I am certain that Deborah, over at Dog Leader Mysteries, would have no problem in this being shared and circulated as far and wide as possible.

Only one way to close!

With a picture of a puppy!

Picture taken of puppy Cleo on the 13th April, 2012 when she was then aged 11 weeks.

Standing for our trees

Can we stop this madness?

The name Richard Williams is not an uncommon one. But that doesn’t devalue what one Richard Williams has put his name to. I am referring to the Mr. Richard Williams who will be better known to many by his stage name Prince Ea; an American rapper and activist.

Here’s a little from Wikipedia:

Early life

Prince Ea was born as Richard Williams on September 16, 1988 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children, and has resided there his whole life. The alias Prince Ea is derived from Sumerian mythology (“The prince of the Earth”). He has also graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis with an Anthropology degree and Latin honors.

So this particular Richard Williams is no slouch when it comes to what’s between his ears. Plus, he is of an age (27 this coming September) where the effects of what my generation has done, and is still doing, to Mother Earth will be unmissable.

Now watch this video.

Published on Apr 20, 2015
Activist and Artist Prince Ea Releases New Video on Earth Day supporting Stand for Trees campaign

Celebrity activist and spoken word artist Prince Ea launched his newest online video entitled “Dear Future Generations: Sorry” to motivate individuals to take immediate action to stop climate change by Standing for Trees.

Prince Ea was inspired to produce the video by the Stand for Trees campaign, an innovative new way for individuals to take real and effective action to protect threatened forests and help mitigate global climate change, all with the press of a button on their smart phones.

I sense so much angst inside me that it’s difficult to calm myself down and think rationally and calmly about what me and hundreds of thousands of others of my era must do.

But one thing is very clear: doing nothing is not an option!

Those who have watched the video will be aware that it serves as a promotion for an organisation Stand for Trees and for making donations in the form of Trees Certificates. The website’s How it works section explains:

Purchasing Stand For Trees Certificates is one of the most effective actions an individual can take to halt deforestation and combat climate change. Here’s how it works:

You buy a Stand For Trees Certificate — a unique, high-quality, verified carbon credit that protects a specific endangered forest and offsets a tonne of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere. Because of your purchase, forests are left standing to do what they do best — store carbon, produce oxygen, provide habitat, and support local communities.

I strongly recommend you read everything that is available on that website including a helpful FAQs section.

It also needs to be said that neither Jean nor I have any connection with the organisation and, like many others, are considering how effective this is. But we are minded to purchase a number of Trees Certificates in addition to a number of things that we are already doing here at home. I was also comforted by coming across support for Stand For Trees Certificates from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Their web page includes this:

How does this work?

The second largest source of climate-changing CO2 emissions is the destructive clearing of the worlds’ forests. When you purchase a Stand For Trees Certificate, you prevent one tonne of CO2 from entering the atmosphere by supporting local and indigenous communities who are protecting that forest in a developing country. This creates new opportunities for communities that do not wish to choose between alleviating poverty or protecting their forests.

Each of these Certificates is verified to rigorous third-party standards for their climate, community, and biodiversity benefits. Independent auditors verify with satellite and ground data that each Certificate has indeed prevented one tonne of CO2 from reaching our atmosphere and that your money is reaching communities on the ground.

That second paragraph offers key information to my way of thinking.

Because if we don’t halt this destruction of our forests in the foreseeable future then it’s not just humans that will pay the price.

Back to trees

This week is starting to develop into a theme!

On Monday I published a post Hope Has A Place. It was based upon the hauntingly beautiful track of the same name from Enya. Then yesterday, serendipitously, came The watering hole. Both of those posts, although miles apart in terms of content, nonetheless seemed to subscribe to a common theme. That being that the more that everyday people, good common folk from all around the world, share their feelings, the more likely that those self-same people will make a difference. A positive difference!

Now don’t get me wrong! By presenting these recent posts I am not setting myself up to be anything other than just another everyday person and dog lover who just happens to enjoy sharing stuff via this blog.

Regular readers of this place will recall that a week ago I celebrated Earth Day with a post called Our beautiful, life-giving trees. It included this picture:

Then on the following day in a post called Now life-giving geese (by the way, the five baby goslings are doing really well!) I included this photograph:

A baby oak. — And sing for them at all ages!

Yesterday morning I received the latest post from Sue Dreamwalker. It was an impassioned plea to do something and to stop the madness. Sue, in turn, had republished the post that had appeared on Endless Light and Love.

The theme that seems to be developing this week, unplanned I should hasten to add, is that it is all too easy to be overwhelmed by the scale of change that has to take place, must take place, if this generation (I’m a 1944 baby) can die knowing that it will be alright in the end. Because it is my generation that has been responsible, has created the circumstances, for the end of life as we have all known it if nothing is done, and done in the next decade or two.

So to trees.

Our trees are both a symbol for and an indicator of the overall health of our planet.

To close off this part of my two-day post, please watch this short video.

Uploaded on Apr 1, 2015
Trees give us beauty, shade, food, clean water, oxegen, medicine, housing, fresh air, habitat and happiness. For the cost of a craft beer, or a couple of cups of coffee you can protect a specific threatened forest. Each Stand for Trees certificate offsets 1 ton of carbon from the atmosphere while providing income to local forest communities. Income that supports education, healthcare, clean water and sustainable livelihoods. Trees stand for us, isn’t it time we stand for trees?

Tomorrow, I will return to hope. Perhaps better written, return with hope.

Now life-giving geese.

After welcoming Pedy last Saturday, now we welcome five young goslings.

First thing this morning it was another quick check on Mother Goose, as Jean and I tend to do each day these last couple of weeks. She was still sitting on her nest, as she had been since March 17th.

Jean and I then had to go out this morning for a couple of hours. So imagine our sheer delight upon our return to see an empty nest.

But this pair first started egg-sitting far too long ago for what we believed was the normal incubation period for Canada Geese; 24 to 28 days. Plus, neighbours Larry and Janell, had seen broken gosling eggs just inside their fence line. We held our breath as we looked around the pond.

Then a few moments later, we saw this:

That zoomed in showed the new family.

And an even better image ….

Couldn’t stop taking pictures!

oooo

So a very happy ending. Apparently young Canada Geese return to their place of birth when they are adults so we look forward to seeing some of them again in 2016.

Our beautiful, life-giving trees.

Today we sing for our trees.

I’m very grateful to a recent post over on Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary; Sing for the Trees. This is how the post opens.

My Earth Day Painting, in tribute to our Earth Mother and Nature

You can find out more about Singing for our Trees Here and why its important to honour our sacred trees which are fast disappearing from our Earth.

In celebration of connecting with Gaia, our Earth Mother, I spent the weekend Painting. I wanted something Light, bright and showing the love.. Hence all the hearts and flowers.

But can you spot a Fairy two little elves and a new born, mouse and pot of gold in there?

That link in Sue’s second paragraph goes across to Songkeeper.net where one reads:

Earth Day – Sing for the Trees
April 22, 2015

Noon, wherever you are on the planet

Sing for the Trees You Love

A Single Idea Planted With Hope

In January 2010 a single idea was planted on the fertile ground of Facebook. It was a simple call: Create your own Woodstock. On Earth Day, April 22, 2010 sing to your favorite tree.

The Response

Since then over 8,000 people from 45 countries and 48 U.S. States have sung to trees

The Need

Every day a rain forest the size of Central Park is destroyed.

Every year a rain forest area larger than England is cut down.

15% of deforestation is caused by cutting down trees for toilet paper.

Why Sing?

The Civil Rights Movement, Apartheid and more recently Pete Seeger’s Ship of Hope to clean the Hudson River have used song to create awareness and galvanize action.

Singing:

Helps create community
Gives us a way to have a voice in saving what we love
Is an offering of our life force and spirit
Connects us to ancient traditions
Nourishes trees by giving them carbon dioxide
Is part of the joy of being human
Helps us relax and tune into nature and to each other
Reminds us we are part of the chorus of life

What more can I add other than offer some pictures of the trees here at home.

oooo

Yes, we will sing for the trees today, and not just today!

And there is one more thing I can offer; a song.

Writing 101 Day Three

Practice makes perfect.

Again, here is the WordPress theme for the day:

Day Three: Commit to a Writing Practice

Today’s Prompt: Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you?

Nailing Brahms’ Hungarian Dance Number 5 on your alto sax. Making perfect pulled pork tacos. Drawing what you see. Or, writing a novel. Each requires that you make practice a habit.

Today, try free writing. To begin, empty your mind onto the page. Don’t censor yourself; don’t think. Just let go. Let the emotions or memories connected to your three songs carry you.

Today’s twist: You’ll commit to a writing practice. The frequency and the amount of time you choose to spend today — and moving forward — are up to you, but we recommend a minimum of fifteen uninterrupted minutes per day.

The basic unit of writing practice is the timed exercise. – Natalie Goldberg

Author Natalie Goldberg says to “burn through to first thoughts, to that place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor.” Here are some of her rules of free writing practice from Writing Down the Bones, which we recommend you keep in mind:

Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you’ve just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)

Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)

Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)

Lose control.

Don’t think. Don’t get logical.

Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

Jorge Luis Borges said: “Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.” So, what are you waiting for? Get writing. Fifteen minutes. Go. And then, do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.

Now having written a daily post for well over five years, I’m comfortable with the concept of committing to a writing practice.

Thus I’m going to republish something that gets to the heart of more worldly matters – keeping a smile on your face in these ‘interesting’ times. It comes from a blog that I recently started following: One Regular Guy Writing about Food, Exercise and Living Longer.

ooOOoo

How You Can Benefit from a Positive View on Your Life – WSJ

Regular readers know that I have embraced the theory of positive psychology. I have written a number of posts on the benefits of a positive point of view. You can find an index of them at the end of this post.

Meanwhile, I was thrilled to see Elizabeth Bernstein’s piece in the Personal Journal of Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal entitled “It’s Healthy to Put a Good Spin on Your Life.“

In a study of a large number of adults in their mid to late 50’s researchers found that “when people displayed higher levels of agency, communion and redemption and lower levels of contamination, their mental health improved. They consider good mental health to be low levels of depression and high levels of life satisfaction and psychological and social well-being.”

They explained the four keys to good mental health as follows:

• Agency—Did the subjects feel able to influence and respond to events in life, or did they feel battered around by the whims of external forces?
• Communion—Are the people connected to others or disconnected?
• Redemption—Did the subjects take a negative experience and find some positive outcome?
• Contamination—Did they tell narratives of good things turning bad?

I would like to point you to a post I wrote in May of 2011 called Super Tools for Handling Stress.

In it I quoted Maggie Crowley, Psy.D., a Health Psychologist at the center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness at Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group.

Dr. Crowley listed the following as maladaptive coping strategies:

*Demand our circumstances be different
*Devalue ourselves and others
*Demean/blame ourselves and others
*When the above fail to work, do we choose another strategy?
*Or, do we double our ill-conceived efforts and feed our downward spiral.

She said that we needed something to shift our mental gears out of the stressful/fearful response that triggers that damaging cascade of negative emotion. She suggested the following activities that set off the parasympathetic approach:

*Practicing appreciation
*Making choices that are positive
*Using constructive language
*Employing our strengths and personal power.

I think that there is a great similarity between the four keys to good mental health mentioned in the Journal and the points made by Dr. Crowley in dealing with stressors.

Regarding positive psychology, I have found it answered a lot of questions for me. If you are interested you can explore it in the following posts:

What is Positive Psychology?
How to Harness Positive Psychology for You – Harvard
Breaking down 8 Barriers to Positive Thinking – Infographic
11 Ways to Become a Better, More Positive You
How to Become a Positive Thinker
7 Exercises That Train Your Brain to Stay Positive
Positive, Happy People Suffer Less Pain

Tony.

ooOOoo

This is such incredibly powerful and useful advice with lots of further reading to boot!

For we are bombarded with negative news from all quarters and having a healthy relationship with oneself and, thence, with the world around us is, in the end, what life is all about.

Seeing the bigger picture.

Look beyond appearance and prejudice.

I had in mind to republish a recent George Monbiot essay but then saw this post from Alex Jones’ blog The Liberated Way. It seemed a perfect follow-on to yesterday’s Picture parade ninety. It is republished with Alex’s kind permission.

ooOOoo

Look beyond appearance and prejudice

Everything in nature is good says the philosopher Heraclitus. Humans love to divide everything into good and bad, thus missing the beauty of what nature offers in the blindness of their prejudices.

A few years ago, I intervened to save a baby crow from traffic and school children, taking it to a veterinarian surgery, who had the contacts of people who could look after it. The receptionist annoyed me on seeing the bird describing it as “evil.”

In fact, if people can look beyond the superstitious nonsense surrounding these black feathered birds, there is an intelligent empathy lurking inside these beautiful corvids. If humans, dolphins and octopuses are in the top division of “intelligent” animals, the corvids, including magpies, jackdaws, ravens, crows, choughs and rooks, are in the same division. The corvids use tools, play, can problem-solve, express empathy and have a rudimentary sense of self based on experiments showing they recognise themselves in a mirror. The BBC recently reported how a child had developed a close relationship with crows she was feeding in the garden, birds that were leaving her gifts. A flood of feedback by readers revealed that gift-giving by corvids to those showing kindness to them was common around the world.

The symbol of my town port is the raven. My business carries the logo of the raven, a symbol for me of its intelligence. The stories of various archetypes such as Apollo, the Celtic Mercury and Odin had ravens as their messenger birds, who symbolised memory, thought, wisdom, intelligence, and the gathering or delivery of knowledge.

The sad situation is that most people blind themselves to the beauty of a living thing like a crow or raven, based on appearance and prejudice, so that they will do it harm, even though it might manifest the very qualities of intelligence and empathy that humans admire but often appear to lack.

ooOOoo

There was a recent TED Talk that fits very nicely with today’s theme. It’s just fifteen minutes long. Enjoy.

What do you call a veterinarian that can only take care of one species? A physician. In this short and fascinating talk, Barbara Natterson-Horowitz shares how a species-spanning approach to health can improve medical care of the human animal — particularly when it comes to mental health.

Tomorrow things on Learning from Dogs are going to change for a spell. More details in twenty-four hours!