Sunday 26 July 2009

Lymes disease

Lymes disease - not two words we were really looking forward to but the erythma migrans rash on Rowan was pretty unmistakable and centers on a tick bite so we were pretty sure what had happened, we got the tick out before it had started to swell up visibly and it came out clean; one week later a circular rash started slowly expanding around the bite site. Our van is off the road awaiting a new alternator so we had to ask Graham to run us to Ferrol this morning to the centro de saude urgencias who sent us straight on to the hospital urgencias. We were really impressed with the attitude and the systematic investigation, 'reassuring, relaxed but competent staff' was how I felt afterwards anyway after spending a few hours in hospital having some blood tests taken and a thorough examination today a very brave Rowan has now has started antibiotic so hopefully all will be well. Two weeks of amoxycillin then a revision and the results of the blood tests will decide what further treatment is needed.

I spent a lot of last night trawling the web and never have I met such a range of potential symptom and prognoses; as the possible infections enter the nervous system there are many many potential effects. One thing I did not find after two hours of searching was how urgent it was to get to hospital only many references to late diagnosis being difficult and early diagnosis being critical to the outcome of treatment. At 3 am worried about my son I wasn't sure what timescale early and late were operating...I wanted to find a sentence like "If you suspect Lyme's disease go to hospital immediately" or "....go to hospital as soon as is convenient but within a few days/12 hours" or whatever the recommendation is.

For every site that says carefully remove the tick with sharp tweezers there is one saying use clinical alcohol or petrol to anesthetize the tick for a few minute before puling it out so that if relaxes its grip and comes out clean. Others say don't use alcohol etc as it stresses the tick that then regurgitates some of the stuff it has sucked out back in again along with infective parasites so vastly increasing the risk as does disturbing or squeezing the body.

I found general alignment on:
80% of infected bites cause the radiating rash.
infection can occur with no rash symptoms - other symptoms may manifest after weeks or months and be difficult to relate back to the bite episode.
Within 18 hours of an infective bite the spirochetes are in the spinal fluid.
Early treatment is a definite advantage, late diagnosis / treatment can lead to a long drawn out affair and a fight against some potentially life changing / life threatening situations.
A significant proportion of infections go undiagnosed and it is possible that a worrying proportion of these are treated as attention deficiency disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome or a fair few other neurological disorders.
You can spray grass/woodland to control them but what with... I could not find out last night although I was concentrating on finding the diagnosis / prognosis info.
Primary hosts for the larval stages are small rodents ( our hectare of garden has hundreds of those maybe more than hundreds)
Deer and sheep are common primary hosts for the adult stage; reputedly 2500 ticks have been found on one deer. (We have deer wandering the woods all around our garden, although they can't get in the ticks and the rodents that carry the larval stages around will be able too. )
wellies sturdy trousers etc are recommended but it is so hot here that is unlikely to be manageable and they do manage to get through clothing so the only really effective approach to prevention, when in tick rich areas, is to do an all over body check every 2 -4 hours.
Guinea fowl are reputed to love ticks and be a fairly effective means of controlling then - looks like our hens will have some new friends I have always wanted to keep guinea fowl since trying to catch the tails of wild ones from the back of a landrover in Kenya in the 70s. They are great watchdogs er watchfowl shouting at intruders, they eat all sorts of bugs but unlike hens do virtually no damage to gardens, they produce eggs with large yolks that otherwise are very similar to hens eggs and a small flock of them will face up to and often scare off a fox, and they don't mind moving in with hens - done deal if I can find any.

So after a tough year at work and very recently surviving a redundancy situation here I am on the first proper day of my holidays tomorrow and instead of relaxing and de-stressing we have week of being fairly housebound while we wait for the new alternator to arrive and a month of trying to eliminate ticks and wondering what is going to happen with the boys. We have to keep a close eye on Callum too; although he has no symptoms at all I removed a tick from his ear on the same day - it seemed to only just have arrived and was easily removed so hopefully he will be fine and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

My Grandad Davy Pirnie used to regularly say "Ai ai ai life ey; it happens every day non stop." ...he wasn't wrong.

Pete and The Martlet arrive in Cedeira

Sam and Bindle's Dad Cap'n Pete has sailed the Martlet down from the UK to Viveiro over the last month or two, Sam Mark Ruan and I went to help him bring it round from Viveiro to Cedeira today.

I woke to a windless clearsky morning with wisps of mist floating through the village, that always seems to indicate a hot day ahead. This is the view out of our bathroom at 7 am.
Mel dropped us all off at the FEV train station - that is a tiny narrow gauge train that gets up to a whole 3o kmph or perhaps a little more downhill with a following wind anyway a lovely journey was had by all. Ruan nearly fell asleep we toyed with the idea of just leaving him where he was or quietly moving seats so when he woke up he would think we had all got off already but we just didn't have the heart.
We stepped on to the station at Viveiro and a few mins later we were looking at the Martlet a lovely 1959 Morgan Giles built proper boat, she is one of 5 admiralty sail training boats they built and was in service until the late 80s. The sun was already high so literally two minutes later the engine was started and we were tuk tuking out of the harbour surrounded by mullet.
Just not quite enough wind so a few hours of motoring got us on our way, half an hour out a stubby black fin broke the surface and was gone in seconds. Sam was looking the wrong way and I had the camera in the wrong place too oh dear never mind better luck next time.
I managed to get a little bit of work done in a very mobile office but it was just too wonderful to be properly nerdy.
Time did that timeless thing it does at sea, I had brought some freshly dug potatoes and freshly lifted onions, Sam added Eggs, Pete added tomatoes and lettuce and a great tortillia lunch emerged.

We passed Cabo Ortegal (43º 46' 20' Norte, 7º 52' 05' Oeste) after a couple of hours; the cliffs here are 620 meters high that's a tad over 2000 feet in old money. Does it look spectacular in real life - yes yes yes; does it look spectacular in a photo - no no no :( If you visit here by boat or car you should go to the faro at the cabo The Cantabrian sea turns into the Atlantic Ocean off here and the views from on land are wonderful.
Pete has a wonderful boat, she looks and feels right, soon after rounding the cabo we felt just that little extra wind and the motor was off a few mins later, silence engulfed us and we watched San Andres de Teixido perched on the cliffs slip past us. They say everyone visits San Andres - if you don't go there in life you go there in death. I am not quite sure about the logic of that but it is a lovely place to visit in any state; great walks on the cliffs, a lovely church and some ancient lanes and houses.

Mark did falling asleep in the sunshine we had to turn him every now and then and occasionally swab him down with teak oil, here are his feet getting a basting.

We had a lovely run round from there to Cedeira with a freshening wind and a following swell. With Sam at the helm, and Pete doing pointing which way to go, the Martlet flew along; we may have scraped 7 knots and that was not bad going given the light conditions...of course just as we entered the ria and just before we came into sight we were in the lee of the cliffs and the wind fell away to spoil our sprint finish but we still managed to sail all the way to the mooring.

I really had a wonderful time...we all did. Pete is berthing in Cedeira between now and October or maybe longer, his partner Geraldine is arriving via the Pont Aven on Monday and bringing with her the spinnaker pole - that is kind of useful to have on board the same boat as the spinnaker. Martlet will be occasionally available for charter over the summer. She will soon have her own blog I hope to start it off with some video of today's trip if I can persuade the vidcam to part with its film - its a bit reluctant at the moment. Apologies about the poor quality images the still camera thinks its memory is full despite being emptied shake rattle and rolled and the vidcam is ancient and does not do great stills...normal quality will resume ASAP.

Until I get the Martlet's own blog underway - if you are interested in chartering the boat drop a comment on here with some contact details; the comment wont be published but I will send your details on to Pete.

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Kite

Outside a Red Kite just circled our garden, I could see its gaze scanning the field lingering on the hen coral, the hens all ran for cover when it was still far off but it is not interested in them it is the two big black rooks that have build a nest in the top of a 35 meter eucalyptus tree bordering our field that are its focus. I think it was circling finding a good updraft it went over one spot a couple of times low down then third time it powered down into the spot then soared almost vertical with massive acceleration, twice the height of the tree and straight down again wings folded talons out. In a couple of long stretched out seconds loads of stuff happened ;one rook rose up from underneath, the other had a messy launch from a branch a few meters from there nest lots of flapping and feathers flying as branches whipped around it in summer squalls. Both went for the same side of the Kite trying to twist and turn it off trajectory, the three fellflew down through 10 meters of branches, separated, recovered flight and with one crow ending up in front the kite gave chase and they were swooping across the maize fields just above ground level then soaring up into open air twice as high as the trees all in a few short seconds. It looked like the kite was drawing the crows away offering some aggression and just avoiding the harrying until they were circling a kilometer or so away one crow went in with big hits to the Kite’s wing while the other went off in a broad swoop towards the nest site. The Kite sends the harrying crow spinning down and uses the few seconds advantage to gain some height and make a straight vector for the nest the crow that had arced off was also heading in to the nest at a tangent and again the Kite was deflected, the second crow arrived and they all headed off to do the thing across the fields. The Kite gives up and heads off to hassle at another tree top venue, the crows return to their nest to make a fuss and tell the world how brave and clever they are. The kite got their first hatchlings about 10 days after they hatched, this is their second clutch. I wonder if they have learned how to defend the site well or if this was a temporary victory. It was a close run skirmish; it seems to me that a mere flapping of a butterfly’s wing could tip the balance against them. Ah well time will tell - that was a almost live glimpse through my window at work… best get on and do some.

Saturday 11 July 2009

On the lake again

Wespotted a few granos on Callum yesterday evening so, fearing more varicela might be going to keep him at home for a few days, Kate and I took him to look at the sunset on the lake again, no otters but a lovely 30 mins of tranquility. He did some great paddling into the sunset.




And sure enough next day he is covered in granos and feverish poor chap he hates taking medicine. BTW we are managing to have a few meals a week constructed soley of home grow produce, we picked some fresh basil today and it smelled like a different herb to what is available in most shops. We never intended to become self sufficient but it really is wonderul eating fresh picked veg going from plant to satisfied tum without all that processing packaging and transportation. During the 2nd WW the UK was covered in gardens and allotments full of food, I wonder what the environmental impact would be if we were back in that frame of mind again. It is not hard keeping a couple of hens, growing some beans and onions a few tomato plants and lettuces, if you are limmited for space a lot of veg does wll in big pots in the UK and it is surprising how productive and rewarding a few plants can be and for us at least it really is comforting knowing a fair proportion of our food has not been touched by pesticides or boosted by artificial fertiliser, irradiated fumigated etc etc.

Sunday 5 July 2009

Another bit of the Fragas and our garden

My daughter Kate arived a few days ago weather has been waarm and changable ah well. We headed out to the lake above As Pontes for a change yesterday and after trip traping our way over the Dam we found a lovely walk along the lake edge, First we looked at this little valley... then we looked at the next one.
Then Rowan got obsessed about picking bilberries.

And we headed out to Club nautico in the evening to see the sun set on our lake.Now that chicken pox has started to fade we were planning to go to the beach for the first time in what seems like ages but today is raining ...at least the park the van in the potato patch with the radio on strategy seems to have helped fend off the wild boar - they popped in the night before last and borrowed some of our potatoes, we did not notice untill all of the shops had closed so we managed not to buy an electric fence again.

I have managed to move my office outside most days
Sunflowers are doing fine with a few gazenias at their toes

We have a fair bit of this on the garden not sure what it is but it is welcome to stay

This is just what you don't want to see on potatoes and all that activity leads to this...

they are pretty endemic here and a lot of spraying goes on - we have managed not to spray the potatoes so far but have picked a few hundred of them off and are cropping potatoes as fast as we can

Maize is coming along well
And the strawberries are doing fine too