Me and the Robot.......A Summer Update

Boy, if we thought last summer was weird we didn't know the true meaning of the word. The spring started out nice enough; the snow left quickly, we got our peas in on April 15, we got some woods work done before the black flies arrived, a bunch new planting done and we got our garden started a week earlier than usual. Big mistake. Sometimes Spring Fever can make you do wacky things.

Then the rains came. Cold rain and wind. Then the disappointment hit as we watched our seedlings beaten down by the wind and rain and lack of sun. Fortunately we kept some plants back in reserve and could replant many things. June produced over 8 inches or rain and anxiety raised over getting in the first hay crop. Up here, if you want 2 crops of hay you need to get the first one off by June 15. By some stroke of shear dumb luck, on the three sunny days in the month, we went out and made hay. There's still a lot of uncut grass left out there (like half the field) but we have our bet hedged and if we get it in we do if not, well shit, there's next year.

I always wondered what transpired in a doctors office when they gave you bad news of a serious illness. Well, I now know that in the case of Dr. Rao, he wheeled his chair over to sit closer and just said "You have cancer. I recommend surgery" In fact, the lab results from the biopsy had detected cancerous cells in my prostate and now it had to go. There were other options but none seemed too good. All of this began back in March and I put the surgery off mainly so we could get hay in if things worked out. But then, on July 1st at high noon Dr. Rao et al, and the DaVinci surgical robot invaded my body for nearly five hours and removed my prostate with a very large tumor in a bag out through my navel. Really. So I spent 2 nights down at Eastern Maine Medical Center before Chris sprung me and brought me home to nurse and nag me. So now things are fairly back to normal with some restrictions still applicable. But, the nice thing about the robot is that you only have 5 punctures in your belly and a lot of the damage done by the old fashion technique is eliminated. There are some side effect issues, but we're working on those. So now we just have to wait until Aug.6 for my first post op PSA to see if they got everything. So fingers are crossed.

Fingers are also crossed in hopes of some drying weather to deal with the still standing hay but I have a couple more weeks of no lifting heavy stuff so there's plenty of time for things to dry out. Just don't read the Farmer's Almanac forecasts! But, it's amazing how somethings just don't matter as much as they used to.

But, the garden is starting to grow as best it can without UV input and out at camp, Center Pond is the highest we've ever seen and there seems to be a patch of blue outside so I'm going out to "recuperate". Everybody take care.