Wife on the Farm

The Grand Canyon

I just returned home from my annual 'sisters' vacation.  This year, my sister Amy and my brother Gaylon and his wife Nicole accompanied me to the Grand Canyon after a few days of visiting their current state of residence, New Mexico.  I can sum up the entire trip in two words:  fascinating and hot.  The deserts, mountains and history in New Mexico were among the most beautiful and interesting that I've ever seen.  We visited White Sands and walked on the glistening gypsum-flecked dunes.  We climbed a hill near Alamagordo and took pictures of six hundred-year-old petroglyphs.  We strolled and shopped in the historic town of Mesilla.  But I struggled in the heat - New Mexico is very hot in May - it was almost 100 degress every day.

It's difficult for me to describe the Grand Canyon.  It's certainly a one-of-a-kind location.  I visited the Waimea Canyon on the Hawaiian island of Kauai earlier this year, and was quite impressed with its size and colors.  But the Grand Canyon - well, there's just nothing else like it in the world.  The words vast, immense, rugged, majestic and breathtaking only begin to describe the Canyon's gorgeous spires, gorges, plateaus and cliffs.  It's one of those places - like the ocean - where one can sit next to it and just gaze at it and completely lose track of time, caught in some sort of mesmerizing state of awe. Both Amy and I took lots of photos of the Canyon from the various observation points we visited.

I would definitely visit the Canyon again someday.  We were only there for two full days and although Amy and I explored as much of the landscape as we could during that time, we didn't even make it out to the Desert Rim trail to see the Painted Desert.  We also didn't have time for the 200-mile road trip to the more secluded North Rim, which is only 10 or so miles as the crow flies from the South Rim but which requires an entire day for the round trip by road.

My next vacation will be here at home.  My sister Danita and her husband Kerry will be visiting us in Oregon in July.  We'll drive over to the Oregon coast, and we've scheduled a trip to Mount St. Helens to see the changes since the eruption 26 years ago.  I'm looking forward to a week of vacation that doesn't have such a busy itinerary, but to me, the Grand Canyon was definitely worth all the airport hassles and long car trips.

Boomer Dementia

I ran across this post on www.thirdage.com and found it to be a fascinating, humorous, but rather frightening perspective of my generation - the baby boomers - the first wave of whom entered their sixties this year.  Most people my age view Altzheimer's as a disease that could affect our parents' generation.  The author, Jacqueline Marcell, sees this as an issue that the Baby Boomer generation (and our children) will be facing themselves in the not-too-distant future.

"I just want to know how in the world this happened? I just can’t believe that in a couple weeks the first wave of America’s 78 million baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) will begin turning SIXTY!

The year before the boom started (1945) only 2.8 million Americans were born, but apparently, a bit too much celebrating after the war resulted in 3.4 million bouncing babies in 1946. No one thought the trend would continue, but with the prosperity of the times it did-and for 19 years! So just think–every seven seconds for nearly two more decades, a boomer will hit the major milestone yelling "nooooo!" –kicking and screaming all the way into "older middle-age".

Yep, the generation that vowed to stay young naturally forever is having face-lifts, tummy-tucks and retirement anxiety–all while caring for the children they decided to have late in life so they wouldn’t disrupt their careers–while caring for their elderly parents who (because of modern medicine) are living longer than ever.

AND NOW THE BAD NEWS
Since one out of every ten persons by the age of 65 gets some form of dementia (Alzheimer’s being the most prevalent type), and one out of every two by the age of 85 gets it (the fastest growing segment of the population), there are a lot of seniors not thinking clearly and lots of baby boomers trying to figure out how to manage them, and everything else, while worrying about getting dementia themselves.

So, we have five years to figure dementia out, before the boomers start hitting the fan by turning 65 themselves, and we already have 36 million over the age of 65 now! I just had a horrible thought: Instead of one in ten getting dementia, since so many boomers did drugs in the sixties, seventies and eighties, it could be worse–maybe one out of every five will be driving with dementia! And, since so many boomers got divorced, their adult daughter or son could have to care for a mother, father, stepfather, stepmother, and maybe even their spouse’s mother, father, stepfather and stepmother. They could have as many as eight wacky seniors to take care of, along with their own children, homes and careers!

And, you know the boomers aren’t going to listen to anything the doctors say, unlike most of their parents who still put doctors on a pedestal. Oh no, the boomers are going to question everything and be a pain in the… you know what!

THE GOOD NEWS
If you want a challenging career that will never have a shortage of clients–go into any aspect of eldercare! Seriously, there is such a shortage of geriatric professionals for the huge numbers that are coming–you will never be out of work."

Mother's Day

The flowers have been delivered, the card has been sent, but that just didn't seem like enough this year.  I wanted some very special way to wish my mother the best Mother's Day ever.  Being the oldest child of six, I was fortunate to spend many hours of my youth with my mom just getting to know her.  She told me stories about her own childhood, about the things she had always wanted to do in her life, and she always encouraged me (as did my Dad, too) to be my own person, be happy and to set goals and work hard to achieve them.  As with most young people, it took me decades to realize just what "be my own person" meant.   But I wanted my mom to know - on this Mother's Day - that she did a great job as a parent.  Parenting is the most difficult and most rewarding job in the world.  Sometimes you get immediate results from your careful nuturing, and sometimes you never get to see the results of your efforts.  But when your kids are adults themselves, and they're happy, successful on their own terms, living their lives to the fullest - then you've done a great job.  Because I've lived 2,000 miles away from my parents for most of my adult life, I didn't have my mom close by to turn to for parenting help (or babysitting!) - but I suppose I ended up mothering in just about the same way that my mom did - with lots of love, encouragement, sacrifice, hopes and prayers.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I miss you and love you very much.  The song "A Mother's Day" by Jim Brickman reminds me of you.

Spring Flowers

I just love spring on the farm.  It seems like the Earth wakes up quite abruptly from its winter slumber once it stops raining every day here in Oregon and the sun pops out for a few days.  We've recently enjoyed some very warm weather and all the flowers and plants were tricked into believing it was summer already.  I've uploaded some photos I took today of all the lovely colors in the landscaping.