The First Piece of Equipment

Did you have a good Valentine's Day?  It's my favorite.  A personal, low-key celebration of love.  No pressure, no hassle.  I like that.

This is the card I gave my honeybaby this year.  It looks a little self-absorbed and maybe it is.  But really, it's a thank you for all the support he shows me, especially this year.  My honeybaby knocks himself out for me.  Sometimes it takes my breath away.

And this is what he gave me.

The scallop shell is the emblem of St. James and the mark pilgrims wear on the St. James Trail.  And so my supportive, thoughtful husband tracked down these earrings.  He calls them my first piece of technical equipment.  And I call them that, too.  They are my anchor.  The shells tie me to St. James, but the earrings tie me to home.

Thank you, Bud.

A Walk to Remember

The New York Times reported good news last week for all of us who love to walk but can't always remember where we left our shoes.  Regular walking -- just 40 minutes a day, three times a week -- can improve memory.  Here, read it yourself. 

A Walk to Remember?  Study Says Yes
By PAULA SPAN, Published: February 7, 2011
(Reproduced from The New York Times)

In healthy adults, the hippocampus — a part of the brain important to the formation of memories — begins to atrophy around 55 or 60. Now psychologists are suggesting that the hippocampus can be modestly expanded, and memory improved, by nothing more than regular walking.

In a study published on Jan. 31 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers randomly assigned 120 healthy but sedentary men and women (average age mid-60s) to one of two exercise groups. One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands.

After a year, brain scans showed that among the walkers, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent. Since such a decline is normal in older adults, “a 2 percent increase is fairly significant,” said the lead author, Kirk Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Both groups also improved on a test of spatial memory, but the walkers improved more.

While it is hard to generalize from this study to other populations, the researchers were delighted to learn that the hippocampus might expand with exercise. “And not that much exercise,” Dr. Erickson pointed out.

People don’t even have to join a gym, he noted. They just need shoes.  PAULA SPAN

Locking It In

I got an email from the Pilgrim Office in St. Jean Pied de Port last week.  It said their doors are open till 10:30 on Saturday nights and the hostel will have plenty of room on March 19, no reservation required.  That means my schedule is good.  I will arrive in St. Jean just in time for supper under a full moon, and when I step onto the St. James Trail the next morning, it will be on the first day of spring.

If I felt uncertain about this trip, I feel certain now.  With such omens, surely the wind will lie calm on the mountain and there will be no snow.  Not right there where the trail begins its steep scramble into the French Pyrenees or where it crosses the pass to Spain.  The signs say the sky will light my path; winter will give way to spring.  They tell me to pull up AA.com on my laptop and lock in my plane tickets.  And so I do.
  

Gwynn is the bad one.

But, Good Lord, there is so much more to be locked in here before I go.  I have to get everything ready on the farm so Fred and our petsitters can manage it while I am gone.  That means putting up permanent fencing around my donkey pasture to replace the electric wire Gwynn keeps walking through.  I have to put new sawdust in the stalls and lay in enough hay to last till I get home.  I have to introduce my donkeys and horse very gradually to spring grass.  If they graze too long in the beginning, they will founder.

I have to fill the freezer with quick dinners -- pot pies and quiche and tomato sauce -- because, as long as he is feeding and mucking in addition to going to work every day, Fred won't have much time to cook.  I have to iron shirts and hang the new tv on the wall.  I have to clean the chicken house, buy grain and sunflower seeds, and fill all the feeders.  I need to put a flotation device in the donkey trough to make it refill automatically.  I need new automatic waterers for the chickens, too; the current ones leak.

 

Our garden has six beds like these.

At the last minute, I'll need to plant my spring garden: bok choi, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, greens, lettuce, onions, spinach, and green peas -- lots of green peas.  We'll have to till it with the tractor and rotovator because I put so much sawdust and manure on it over the winter.  Then we'll cover the tilled ground with newspapers and cover the newspapers with mulch to lock in the moisture and prevent weeds from coming up.  Thank goodness, that system works like a charm; Fred won't have to do a thing in the garden while I'm gone, except maybe harvest some of the greens.  I'll be home in plenty of time to put in the summer beds.


Maybe by mid-March

But right now, today, I need to start seeds for my broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage, so I can get them in the ground before I leave.  I start my own because our chickens make store-bought transplants so expensive.  One way or another, they usually manage to break into the garden and eat our first spring planting and sometimes even the second; three rounds of store-bought plants can add up to $15 to $30, and that's too much.  So, I start my own.  A $1.97 pack of seeds will make plenty for our birds, for us, and for our freezer, and of course, we like to share when we can.


This pink lady slipper is our favorite native plant.

I have to plant more native shrubs, too, and make wire cages to protect them from the deer.  After battling invasive vegetation on our farm for 10 years, we are just now coming free of it; and we're finding it's at least as hard to restore the natives as it was to get rid of the invasives.  The deer eat everything we plant because there is so little else for them now that the native understory is gone.  And, of course, as long as we have no understory, there will be erosion.  So I am trying to restore the plants, and right now is the season.

At least I won't have to worry about it over the spring because I'll be gone. 

Bueno, eh?

Packing

So, I am about to go off to TJ Maxx in search of clothes to take with me on the St. James Trail.  That might make a purist's skin crawl (Bill, are you reading this?), but I am looking for comfort and easy-to-care-for, and I really don't care where they come from. 

The websites I have looked at advise walkers not to carry more than 10% of their body weight.  For me, that would be 13 pounds, but I will try to limit my load to closer to 4 or 5 pounds because my arthritis probably won't tolerate more.  I can't carry any weight on my back; it will all have to go around my hips, so I am giving this a lot of thought. I'll need a water bottle, some pills, a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, deodorant, soap.  I'll need socks and undies, gloves, a hat, and a change of clothes.  I'll need a couple of tiny plastic panchos for the rain, something for the cold, and some sort of sleeping bag (good to 32 degrees) for the hostels.  I'll need a light, a camera/phone, an ID case, and some first aid things, and I would love to take something to read.  I haven't weighed all that out yet, but I am hopeful.

For clothes, I plan to take tights and a shift -- a tunic of some kind, washable, lightweight, and tough.  That's what I am shopping for today.  I don't really expect to find it; in the back of my mind, I guess I expect to have to make it, if I can find a suitable fabric.

While I'm out today, I will also try to walk my 5-mile loop.  I have walked twice this week so far and it's going well, but I think I need to pick up the pace.  So, if I survive this afternoon's walk, I think I'll add another mile or two here in the neighborhood after supper.  We'll see how that goes.

This trip is beginning to look possible -- no pain, no shin splints so far.  Up to this point, my plane tickets have been on hold, but if I am still standing after 7 miles, I will lock them in before bed tonight.  Big day.

Training

I should tell you first that I have always been a walker; this trek on the St. James Trail will not be my first.  There's just so much to see in this big ole world and, as A.E. Houseman said, "...to look at things in bloom, fifty springs are little room."  So, I have roamed as much as I could and am oh so eager to go again.

With 45 days remaining till departure, I am in Day 5 of preparing and have just laid out a walking program.  If you have been a boy scout, you will recognize at least part of it.

Walking is sometimes easy and sometimes not, but it always pays to be prepared.  I walked 28 miles my first day on the Morman Trail, and it almost killed me because I had only prepared for 14.  By the time we finally stopped for the night in Casper, Wyoming, I could barely catch up with a piece of litter drifting by on the breeze.  I needed help to put up my tent -- no, well, let's be honest -- somebody pretty much put up my tent for me and all I did was crawl in and pass out; but I walked 14 miles the next day, stayed on to the end, and cried like a baby when it was over.  So all's well that ends well, but I wouldn't recommend the experience: it pays to be prepared.

Since developing arthritis five years, I have become sedentary.  I do still walk from time to time, usually three or four miles, sometimes five, and usually at about 3 1/2 miles per hour.  At that rate, I'll have to walk 4 to 5 hours a day for 32 days to finish the St. James Trail by Good Friday.  And that's how I approach this walk: it's not the miles that matter as much as the time; if I can put in the 5 hours, the 15 miles will take care of itself.

I try to walk almost every day.  I walk until I begin to feel tired and then I turn back to where I began.  If that wears me out, especially if I feel it in my shins or my shoulders, I take a day or two off.  When the discomfort has subsided, I walk again, less distance or more, it doesn't matter -- whatever feels right.  I don't set goals or watch the clock.  I don't tell myself, "Okay, today you'll walk 5 miles."  Because as long as I don't hurt myself or make myself hate it, I will do it again, and each time, I will just naturally go farther than before.

This is not to say that I don't care how far I go, because I do.  In fact I am thoroughly obsessive about the distance.  I clock all my walking routes and I know exactly how long they are and mileposts along the way.  It's just that I don't push myself.  When I have walked as far as I want, I take a look around to see where I am and then I turn around and head for home.  That's all there is to it.

So here's how the training has gone so far.  Day One, I spent driving my route and noting the distances along the way.  I know the 1, 1 1/2, and 2 1/2-mile marks (twice that makes a round trip).  And that's all I need because on the trail I plan to walk in 2-hour increments of about 6 to 7 miles at a time.  So, when I can walk my route twice in a day, comfortably, without shin splints, leg cramps, pulled muscles, or exhaustion, I'll be ready to go.  Well, except for one thing.  Right now I'm walking on level ground, but before I go, I'll have to add hills.

When the 5-mile loop is comfortable, I'll add two last miles, which go down a hill.  I haven't driven them yet or marked the mileposts, but I will.  Right now, I have enough to think about with just the flat land, and I am not going to worry about that stupid hill.  When the time comes, it will still be there.  But I know I have to climb it before I leave.

And one more thing, too.  At least once before my departure, I want to walk in the mountains, 12 to 15 miles at 3,400 feet, which is what it will take to cross the Pyrenees.  I hope it will be cold and miserable.  That way the Pyrenees won't be too much of a surprise, and my biggest worry there will be finding the signposts in the fog rather than coping with the ascent, the distance, or the temperature.  So, that was Day One, working out the route and the distances and the hill -- and making the plan.

Day Two, I walked.  I intended to do three miles but wound up walking four.  It isn't my legs I have to watch out for, it's my shoulders because of the arthritis, and the four miles left a mark.  So for the following two days, until I felt perfectly normal, I stayed home.  Today is Day 5.  I am feeling quite swell, so I will go again.