 |
| This appears to be an angry bull who doesn’t want us looking at him. |
“Fascinating Fact of the Day About Ireland”
“The story of Dracula is said to have been inspired by the Irish legend of Abhartach. Bram Stoker was Irish born and raised and learned the legend of Abhartach when he was young.”
We’re so excited! Our friends, Lisa and Barry, will be here in a few hours. This morning I made a lemon cake, crab salad made with fresh crab brought to us by John, the fish guy, and have everything ready for the Rueben sandwiches we’ll be making for lunch.
We have Irish-made potato chips, dill pickles, carrot slices, and pre-strung (by me) sugar snap peas to go along with the sandwiches. We have plenty of red wine, Pelligrino sparkling water, bottled still water, and soda.
We don’t have placemats or linen napkins this time, and I forgot to purchase paper napkins. We’ll have to use the solid large-sized paper towels I’ll fold nicely and we’ll be good to go.
 |
| As we drive down the shared driveway between us and the owner’s house, we now have cattle on both sides. |
Standing on my feet for any length of time preparing food or other tasks is still a challenge. My legs tire easily, although I can walk each day, now up to 8000 or 9000 steps daily. A dear friend and reader sent me an article she spotted regarding my goal of accomplishing 10,000 steps a day. It reads as follows from this site:
“I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health and the lead author of a new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, began looking into the step rule because she was curious about where it came from. “It turns out the original basis for this 10,000-step guideline was a marketing strategy,” she explains. “In 1965, a Japanese company was selling pedometers, and they gave it a name that, in Japanese, means ‘the 10,000-step meter.'”
Based on conversations she’s had with Japanese researchers, Lee believes that name was chosen for the product because the character for “10,000” looks sort of like a man walking. As far as she knows, the actual health merits of that number have never been validated by research.
 |
| Cows are intelligent and curious. “According to research, cows are generally quite intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time. Animal behaviorists have found that they interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time and sometimes holding grudges against other cows who mistreat them.” |
“The basic finding was that at 4,400 steps per day, these women had significantly lower mortality rates compared to the least active women,” Lee explains. If they did more, their mortality rates continued to drop until they reached about 7,500 steps, at which point the rates leveled out. Ultimately, increasing daily physical activity by as little as 2,000 steps—less than a mile of walking—was associated with positive health outcomes for elderly women.”
Please click on the link for the balance of this article.
 |
| From this site: “If an animal is left on its own in a pasture, it will spend a third of its time gathering food, a third of its time eating, and a third of it sleeping. If they’re lying down, it probably doesn’t signal much beyond the fact that it’s sleeping time.” |
I deliberated over this study carefully, wondering if I should lower the number of steps I’m striving to accomplish each day. The reason I chose to continue with the goal of 10,000 steps daily is in regard to the recovery of my heart and arteries after the recent cardiac bypass surgery. But even there, the science isn’t precisely how much exercise protects the heart and arteries from future problems.
- How much exercise should a cardiac patient do post-surgery? Is it the 10,000 steps? Are they to be done consecutively, or are small spurts better? No one seems to know, nor is there consistent evidence on the 10,000 steps shown in the above article. “They,” say 30-minutes a day but is that enough?
- How much fat in the diet is suggested after bypass surgery? We know the obvious foods to avoid. Transfats, fried foods, and chemical-laden foods. But as a low-carb dieter, how can I make this fit into my way of eating? Eating a low carb, low-fat diet is unhealthy, according to several studies. No one, including my four doctors, a cardiologist, a cardiothoracic surgeon, a plastic surgeon, and a family practitioner, has a definitive answer.
- Is drinking red wine beneficial? Or, is avoiding alcohol altogether better over the long run? There are no definitive answers here either.
 |
| From this site: “Cattle can experience “Eureka” moments. In research published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, researchers observed cattle given a reward after completing a task and gave the same reward to other cattle which had no control over their rewards. By measuring heart rate, they determined that the cattle who could control their fate got more excited than those rewarded passively. This could be interpreted as cattle having an emotional reaction to finishing a puzzle, not just getting food.” |
As for what I can and can’t do at this point…I can walk, but I get extremely tired in the grocery store. I have trouble bending to the ground to pick something up (due to my chest hurting) and have difficulty getting up from the low-slung sofas and chairs.
Why do I have trouble getting up from a low sofa or stuffed chair? Usually, a person uses their legs to provide the traction needed to arise from low furniture. It’s only been two months since I had two separate surgeries on both of my legs. I realized this could take a while to recover.
Also, my arms are still painful when used to support my body upon arising. This is due to the trauma to my chest and surrounding nerves and muscles. The scar on my chest is still painful, and now the skin is stretching and itchy. I am doing some arm exercises, using bottles of Pellegrino as weights, and performing some lunges at the kitchen sink every other day.
As for the healing of the severe wound on my left leg, which many have inquired about, it is slowly improving, although it’s still open. Every other day, Tom removes the compression socks and bandages, cleans the wound with a special antibacterial liquid, covers it with a special cream Dr. Theo provided, and then with “Jelonet,” a sterile moist wound gauze. He then bandages it all once again.
After this process, he helps me put on a clean pair of compression stockings that are tough to put on while I still wear them day and night. Again, there was no definitive answer as to how long compression stocking should be modeled after leg surgery and infection. We decided I’d wear them until the wound completely closes, hopefully in the next 60 days.
So there is our story for today, dear readers. Thank you for your love and ongoing support and concern. Not a day goes by that we don’t think of all of you and smile.
We hope you’ll have an enjoyable day!
 |
| This is a Bovine Tuberculosis infected kudu we spotted only the day after being educated on this dreadful disease impacting mainly kudus in Marloth Park. For more photos and information on Bovine TB, please click here. |