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Care Farms, the therapeutic use of farming practices for marginalized or vulnerable groups of people, originated in the Netherlands and made its way to  the UK and Europe. The concept then traveled “across the pond” to the United States.  Sometimes also known as Green Care, Therapeutic Farming,  Social Farming or Social Care Farming, these programs serve: people with mental health problems; those with a drug or alcohol addiction; individuals on probation; veterans; seniors; youth; individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Fragile X syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder.  

Estimates are 6,000 to 10,000 Care Farms exist in all of Europe.  In the United States the number is about 200.  The Louisville Public Media site, from which this information is drawn, points out that there is a dearth of mental health resources in many rural communities where 60% of residents live in areas with a shortage of providers.  “Studies suggest that looking at farms, which are already prevalent in rural areas, as a resource to provide mental and emotional support could be valuable to these communities,” Elizabeth Gabriel wrote on the Louisville site.

Care farming was first used in the Netherlands as early as the 13^th century, when some family farms attempted to take in guests suffering from mental illness in an attempt to aid in their recovery through farm work.  In 1949, the Netherlands established the first modern care farm.  In England in 2001, when Foot and Mouth disease broke out, many farmers had to diversify.  Some did so by developing care farms.

I discovered there is a care farm here in Montana where three different types of programs are available:  Day Programs for those with Developmental Disabilities; Job Readiness Training and Vocational Rehabilitation; and Lifeside Farms designed for seniors who are seeking companionship and are focusing on staying active.

We owe a debt to those who address such a wide range of problems through creative means, to include Care Farms.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus: Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man. — as quoted on the BrandonGaille site

If you are concerned about memory problems, take heart.  Music activates almost every area of the brain, its broadest and most diverse networks, according to Harvard Medical School.  Music can help to keep a myriad of brain pathways and networks strong, including those networks that are involved in well-being, learning, cognitive function, quality of life, and happiness. In fact, the medical newsletter reports, there is only one other situation in which you can activate so many brain networks all at once, and that is when you participate in social activities.

A group called “Where Are My Keys?” or WAMK Chorale addresses both components, music and social activity.  WAMK Chorale is a partnership between Key Chorale, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the Suncoast and Senior Friendship Center’s Adult Day Program.

The Key Chorale has two 8 week programs each year which they offer for patients with memory loss or dementia .  Each patient is paired with a professional singer from the Chorale, a symphonic choir that often performs with the Sarasota Orchestra and Sarasota Ballet. Caregivers are also welcome to participate. Developed in 2019, it is one of several outreach groups. Another group works with Parkinson’s patients to allow them to sing and strengthen their voices. 

“Music sparks something in all of us. So when I see these folks singing, it brings them to some time in their lives. And sometimes you can even get them talking about that time. So music is a wonderful therapeutic tool,” said Lynn Lash, another Chorale member, who worked as a music therapist in a psychiatric hospital for 25 years.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bonus: Among the many such groups that have sprung up around the country, is one in New York started by Concetta Tomaine, a close colleague of the late Oliver Sachs. His book about the power of music on the brain, titled Musicophilia,  was dedicated to her.

With her permission I have borrowed this from our daughter Jenna’s FaceBook post this week after the loss of their beloved cat LuLu…. (Courtesy of Jenna Spain Hurley)

When we first moved to Bahrain, we were working really long hours, and we would come home to find Jack frantically waiting for us at the door. We decided he needed a friend, so we went to Bahrain’s only no-kill facility to see who we could find.

We went looking for a specific kitten, a beautiful calico nicknamed Edward Scissorhands who wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. As I stood in the cattery, looking around, this little scrawny orange tabby circled through my ankles. I picked her up, and she curled up on my chest. I told Matt that I knew in that moment that she was mine.

I say “mine,” but really, Matt was her North Star. She adored him. Once, he went on a work trip to Kuwait, and Lu wandered the halls, yowling, like it was my fault he wasn’t there.

We named her Lu’Lu’ – Arabic for pearl, in honor of the Pearl Roundabout, the Arab Spring rallying point in Bahrain that had been destroyed not long before we got there, in the regime’s bid to get the protests under control. She ended up living up to the spirit of that name, a feisty little chaos agent who was the manic energy we never knew we needed in our lives.

For years, she rode on Matt’s shoulder like a parrot. She stole every pair of athletic shorts and shoes with strings, always stashing them in her water bowl for us to find. She murdered Christmas trees with vigor. When I tried to outsmart her by getting a vinyl adhesive tree, that little maniac plucked the vinyl ornaments off it with serious serial killer energy. One of our friends pointed out that she was also the poster child for feline RBF.

The biggest surprise, though, was how she took to the boys. She loved them like her own and was remarkably patient in the face of Gabriel’s grabbiest instincts. She was a beautiful, manic ninja of a cat, and we will love her forever.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Cafe Bonus: “I think having an animal in your life makes you a better human.” – Rachael Ray “Our pets are our family.”

Recently I saw some football players skipping on the sideline of a game.  I have read that skipping has to do with agility and balance, good reason for their behavior.  While as children we seem to instinctively skip, as we age we tend to abandon that activity.  However, skipping is much easier on the joints and burns 30% more calories than running that sometimes replaces it as exercise.

  I was stunned at how much information is available on skipping and jump rope from the benefits to ways to skip “properly” and jump ropes with magnetic sensors that record fitness data. But what I recall about skipping is the sense of joy, on a par with splashing in mud puddles. The author of the blog CALMERme suggests that as children we are free to experience life, as adults are generally making all the decisions about us.  But as adults we become more focused on the narrative of our lives, the decisions we are now making ourselves. She wrote that as adults “We go from joy to satisfaction. From play to work. From experiencing self to narrative self.”

While Jeanne on iSkip.com offered that skipping might resolve many of our adult health problems, I think of how it might provide something even broader in scope.  Consider:

I don’t think it’s possible to skip with a frown on your face… I’d like to see the world’s governing and terrorist leaders on a skipping tour through the Middle East and across the subcontinent and China to Korea. ~Sue Irwin, courtesy of iSkip.com

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bous: ” I often think of the time when we were all young… how naturally we lived, how we bounded along — we seldom walked — don’t you remember it? Why did we go tripping over the ground, do you suppose? Because of the lightness of our hearts. I, for one, hope never to outgrow my childhood… But we are apt to let the dry husks of responsibility make us stiff in the joints, and playing… gets to be one of the lost arts.” ~Alwyn M. Thurber, Quaint Crippen, 1896

As we head into a new year which seems guaranteed to bring challenges, “Cultivating Resilience” in the January edition of Costco magazine caught my attention. We don’t “bounce back,” one of the experts was quoted as saying. “….we bounce forward.  Resilience is the ability to effectively face challenge, change and complexity—what I call the three C’s—in a way that ultimately enhances us, not diminishes us,” noted Taryn Marie Stejskal, Ph.D. and founder of the Resilience Leadership Institute (resilience-leadership.com).

The neuroplasticity that we have often heard about in recent years, the brain’s capacity to change its structure,  undergirds resilience.  Dr. Amit Sood, also quoted in the Costco article, describes resilience “as the core strength we use to lift the load of life, leveraging the brain’s ability to change itself with experience.”

Sood developed a program called Leveraging the Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART).  He reports that this approach involves awareness of what challenges you, paying attention and “the five principles of attitude:  gratitude, compassion, acceptance, meaning and forgiveness.”  While those principles all are important, it comes as no surprise that gratitude heads the list, that foundation of wellbeing and understandably contributes to resilience.

Another piece that caught my attention came from John Pavlowitz, author, pastor and speaker,  who wrote  in his Christmas blog:

Friends, you may be struggling to hold onto the light within you right now. I am too. But I also know that right now it is more valuable and powerful and necessary than it’s even been.

Do something to remind yourself why you live.

Embrace the people you love.

Use the gifts you have to bring joy.

Be present to this day.

Laugh fully.

Give what you have to give.

Give thanks.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bonus:  “I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it.” — Maya Angelou

It’s my daughter’s fault.  In my estimation, my daughter is very nearly a gourmet cook. When she and her family visited last January, my daughter was horrified at the state of our knives.  Since Terry does the majority of the cooking in this household, I decided to give him a set of really good knives.  For supper last night he was going to make us chef salads with leftover ham and turkey we had.  Using one of the very new, very sharp knives, he took a chunk of his left index finger along with a slice of ham The kitchen took on the appearance of a grisly murder scene.

It quickly became apparent that a trip to the emergency room was in order.  I’m very thankful for the care we have received at the clinic and the ER.  But last night, despite Terry’s being the only patient, everything moved verrrrrry sloooooooooooowly.  In the haste to get to the hospital, I had not thought to take my computer with me to get my blog written.  When we finally returned home, Terry all stitched up, I was tired and past caring whether I was timely in my post.

So there you have it: “The Dog Ate My Homework. It’s Not My Fault.”  Despite my tongue-in-cheek approach, blame is a serious problem.  We seem to learn blame early in our families and carry it into our adult lives and relationships.  But some of the most egregious effects of blame are visible in our societies.  Think of the holocaust and the millions of Jews and other “undesirables” exterminated.  Think of the migrants at our borders and the accusations against them as rapists and murderers, drug dealers. Think of the current wars occurring in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine.

Consider this analysis from anthropologist Marvin Harris, who, in a discussion of witchcraft accusations from the 15th through 17th centuries in Northern Europe, argued that “vilification of this sort is an attempt to distract the broader population from the implications of disturbing social changes and, more specifically, from the corruption and incompetence of leaders. During this time in Europe, perhaps 500,000 people were accused and murdered for being witches. Typically, the victims were poor, old, female, and otherwise discreditable. They died so that others would not have to contemplate directly the vast changes of modernization that were happening around them.” — from Psychology Today, May 18,2020 issue, article by Dr. Thomas Hendricks

We as individuals may feel little within ourselves to influence society’s ills.  But we can take responsibility for our own behavior and pay attention when our own tendency is to blame.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Ironically, I write this as Terry is listening to a story that is full of news items that involve one party blaming another. 

A book worth reading on this topic is The Anatomy of Peace from the Arbinger Institute

This year, as Christmas Eve falls on Sunday, I have had two services to plan for Christmas Eve day and evening.  We also were able to have a community chorus sing a cantata, in which I participated so there were practices weekly and two performances.  Consequently, I have put little effort towards the usual baking, decorating, gift purchasing and sending, holiday greeting letter and cards.  We no longer have the huge tree that often graced our multi-story living room on the farm.  We have a tiny little artificial tree that sits on a table, which I have become very fond of. It is well-suited to this smaller space.  But I suddenly realized this week that we had never hung Christmas stockings this year.  Although we no longer have a fire place, we do have a book case that works well from which to hang stockings.

I don’t recall much about Christmas stockings growing up.  I do remember that at some point I decorated a furry stocking with my name in glitter.  But we didn’t have a fireplace or any ideal place for stockings in our home so it wasn’t a practiced tradition in our home.    When Terry and I had children at home, we routinely hung stockings for everyone from the fireplace mantle.  I loved finding little things to put in them.  I miss that tradition.  Thus this weekend I will dig out the stockings and hang one for Terry and for me. 

I read that the tradition apparently stems from a legend about a very poor man who anticipated his daughters would have few suitors because he had no dowry for either of them.  The charitable St. Nicholas was in the village and heard of their plight.  That night he went down the chimney and left gold coins in their stockings that were hanging by the fireplace to dry. (Presumably the result was they married well!)

 May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bonus:  You can skip the fireplace.  Get an old headboard.  Add knobs and you have a family Christmas stocking holder. 😊 Wishing all a lovely holiday season with the people and traditions you love most. 

Rosalynn Carter said there were four kinds of people:  people who had been caregivers, people who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need caregivers.  In other words, we have been, are currently or eventually will be affected.  No one escapes this reality.

The pandemic affected caregiving in ways we had not imagined.  Nursing homes struggled to find staff.  As restaurants and other businesses raised wages trying to attract staff, nursing homes, reliant on Medicaid funds, could not compete.  Nursing homes became more susceptible to covid and people were not able to visit their loved ones due to the need to isolate residents from the possibility of infection.  This seems to have triggered a move away from nursing homes.  The last number I heard quoted was that Montana has closed 12 facilities.

  “This current data, as well as recent trends, suggest low demand and an overbuilt, underutilized nursing facility system in Montana,” said Jon Ebelt, of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, who noted the vast majority of closures included high vacancy rates.

“Rose Hughes, executive director of the Montana Health Care Association, said low reimbursement rates play a large role in whether a facility can accept residents and operate.

“According to the association, Medicaid accounts for 63 percent of the payment source for nursing homes. And preliminary data show nursing homes are being underpaid by more than 30 percent, said Hughes, who responded to questions via email.”  (Information obtained from article in the Daily Montanan November 20,2022.)

I can recognize that this issue is a complex one.  However, I am appalled at how blithely the state government here refers to “research that indicates the elderly want to stay in their homes.”  Well, of course they do.  Why wouldn’t they?  But so many need care not possible in their own homes. 

As a society faced with an aging population we must do better.  It is commendable to make more in-home services available, if in fact there is a plan in place to do so and funds are made available for said services. But this simply must not preclude adequate nursing home and assisted living facilities for people when living at home is no longer a viable option.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate 

Hope’s Café Bonus:  This blog was inspired by an article on “Johnny Rotten,” otherwise known as John Lydon, who was the singer in The Sex Pistols.  Lydon, 67, was a caregiver for the last six years of the life of his wife Nora, who died in April at age 80.  He talked about using humor with her and said they “laughed at the world together.” 

“Of course,” he relayed, “it reached its inevitable conclusion, but the last several years were probably the most fantastic experience that both of us could have had.”

I’m not sure how much difference there is in caring for a dying spouse than in caring for a dying parent.  But his description of “the most fantastic experience that both of us could have had” echoes my own thoughts in the months I cared for my father before his death.

“Caregivers are the heart of the healthcare system. They are the glue and the heart of care.” Dr. Ronald Adelman

Some random thoughts have rattled around in my brain this week, based partly on the 77-year marriage of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, so recently brought to an end by Rosalynn’s death, and partly on an interview with Tom Hanks that I read.  I suspect when the Carters pledged their vows “till death do us part” that they had little expectation of a marriage lasting 77 years.  Life expectancy in 1946 when they married was 66.4.  She was 19 at the time.  He was 21.  At the outside, they might have hoped to make it to celebrate their golden anniversary.

              Tom Hanks, himself in a stable marriage of 35 years, remarkable for Hollywood, spoke in the interview about a different kind of union.  “I was in a movie called Cloud Atlas that went right over everybody’s head,” he said. ‘What is the point of trying to do the right thing when it is just a drop in the ocean?’  But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?  Things get better when a multitude of drops form an ocean and sweep things away.

              “World War II,” he elaborated: “the Nazis were defeated, as was the Japanese empire, because enough good people said no. Civil rights came about because of, I think, an American belief that our responsibility as citizens is to work toward making a more perfect union.”

              Whether the issue is our responsibility in a marriage to work together with our spouses or our responsibility as citizens to cooperate for the good of all, the dynamics are much the same.  We do not get our way all the time.  We recognize and respect that give and take is necessary; that people totally different from one another can find ways to seek common ground; that power and control inevitably lead to unnecessary struggles. As one would cultivate the soil to enhance one’s garden, cultivating cooperation is good for society’s soil…and its soul.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate “

At the time of Rosalynn’s death, Jimmy Carter said:

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

This past week one of the news stations aired a piece on John Bienvenue, who is still living 6 years past a glioblastoma surgery in which a lemon-sized tumor was removed from his brain.  At the time his little son was just eight months old.

“Glioblastoma is a fast-growing brain or spinal cord tumor. These tumors grow from glial cells which form the (supportive) tissue of the brain and spinal cord,” writes Dr. Howard LeWine. “Indeed, this cancer has a very poor prognosis because most often not all the cancer cells can be removed in surgery. While additional therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy can slow tumor growth, they usually don’t stop the cancer completely.”

Bienvenue was initially given three to six months to live. Post surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the cancer recurred.  His response to his expected death was to live fully. Committed to living simply, they live what they call their “bucket list life.”  Unlike a more typical “bucket list,” theirs is not focused on extravagant or exotic but on things like planting a garden, having some chickens.  Bienvenue gave up his desk job as a vice president of a development company and became a landscaper. They spend time with their son, now six, and with extended family and friends.  And, despite uncertainty about the impact of his treatment on fertility, they have learned his wife is pregnant with their second child. 

When I searched information about glioblastoma, I discovered that there were numerous success stories.  Despite median life span beyond diagnosis being 13 months, one such story was documented of a young man 20 years past diagnosis. His response to his unusual years of survival?  “I seek refuge in happiness, humor, and love. My world has never revolved around the fear of cancer, but rather how grateful I am to be able to live the life I have lived, even if it’s on ‘borrowed time’ in the eyes of some of my past doctors.”

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate “

Hope’s Café Bonus: What Makes a Good Bucket List?

“Simply packing your life with cool experiences can ultimately feel kind of hollow. There is more to a life well-lived than pleasure-seeking.

To answer the question ‘What makes a good bucket list?’ we must also ask ‘What makes a good life?’.

Good bucket list goals will contribute to your flourishing as a human being and not just be empty trips to overhyped tourist attractions or a box-ticking exercise.” — Traveling Light