To purchase a copy

Title: High Up in the Rolling Hills
Author: Peter Finch


Category: Biography, memoir, manifesto, sustainable living
Format: Trade paperback, hardcover, ebook
Publication Date: April, 2013
Pages: 204
Recommended Price: $17.95 softcover, $27.95 hardcover, $9.95 pdf
Trim: 8.5 x 5.5 inches
Available from: iUniverse; Amazon in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Brazil; Barnes & Noble; Borders; Chapters Indigo in Canada
First Print Run: On demand (with iUniverse on-demand capabilities, there is never an out-of-stock situation)

Wednesday 14 December 2022

The Healing Journey: A Personal Perspective

Mexican street market

Sometimes in life a health crisis helps to bring about profound changes in how we approach illness and recovery. Maintaining good health can, after all, be a tortuous journey. 

Health Crisis, Hospitalization
Sixteen years ago my wife became very ill in the last week of a wonderful long winter vacation in Mexico. Having experienced tummy problems from contaminated fruit in Chile a few years previous, we assumed that Gundi had picked up parasites from market food, possibly tainted chicken. On return home, severe diarrhoea continued for a month or so and she lost a ton of weight. Finally we called an ambulance and doctors went busily about administering antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and IV fluids. Their tests resulting in a diagnosis of the catch-all IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). She was prescribed stronger anti-inflammatories. The visiting surgeon wanted to remove her colon. Worryingly, several weeks in hospital over two stays failed to stem the draining depletion of her system. Have you or yours experienced a health crisis? What mechanisms have you used to see you through?

Fresh lavender bunches

Herbs & Naturopathy
Once the public health system had stabilized her condition somewhat, we turned to a concoction of herbal healing teas from a traditional Chinese medicine (also Western medicine-trained) practitioner. We boiled up the powerful mix of barks, seeds, leaves, flowers, and roots, which smelled awful and tasted barely digestible to Gundi. I told her to get it down her; it is doing you good. With a calm, reassuring and practical manner, the doctor looked his patient in the eyes, examined her tongue, and took her pulse in a variety of ways. He concluded that her system was out of balance and needed adjustment, recalibration. We also returned to a naturopath for homeopathic and energy treatments. My dear big sister in Berlin, also a naturopath, prescribed personalized Bach flower essences formulated from English countryside wildflowers; for Gundi, Rescue Remedy, aspen, olive, Star of Bethlehem, sweet chestnut, wild rose; for me, her carer (yes, carers need care too!), Rescue Remedy, aspen, elm, gentian, hornbeam, pine, Star of Bethlehem. Over a long hot summer during which I pressed on with growing and tending our organic market garden and taking our produce to the city for sale in farmers markets, Gundi began a long recovery and eventually put on the fifty pounds in weight she had lost. We decided to wean her off the strong anti-inflammatories prescribed by her gastro-enterologist to be taken "for the rest of her life". What would you have done?

Pesticides, Food Toxins
When I first came to Canada over forty years ago, I worked first in my cousin's landscaping and lawn maintenance business. I loved it all except the toxic chemical spraying for weeds. In those early days we bought and consumed food that was largely 'conventional', drenched in a chemical cocktail of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. Organic came later. The fast-consolidating industrial food and farming systems with their processed junk would get their teeth into us first! As Earl L. Butz, as US Department of Agriculture Secretary famously thundered at farmers back in the 1970s: "Get Big Or Get Out". I decided to stay small and carve out a niche, a plan that continues to this day with this latest endeavour! 

Certified organic garlic

Turning to Organics
By the time we purchased our farm in the hills twenty years later, I had decided to go all-in by developing a two-acre market garden with greenhouses and by growing and certifying according to organic principles. Pure nutrition came from a simple recipe - sunshine, plus fresh air and wind plus moisture from dew, rain and snow, plus organic glacial-till soil full of minerals. We feasted on fresh arugula, spinach, lettuce mix, mustards, and certified organic culinary herbs such as garlic, mints, basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme....
We ensured a regular supply of local grass-fed grass-finished beef and free-range chicken and eggs from farmer friends. No more of that industrial glyphosate-treated corn, grains, and feedlot grain-fed beef for us! I made herbal healing teas for various uses - digestive, relaxing, uplifting, for immunity support, against infection and winter chills. I even wrote a book around this time in our lives and this organic farming experience. It bacame a memoir entitled 'High Up In The Rolling Hills', published in 2013.

Fresh-picked Tulsi (holy basil), sunflowers, cilantro flowers

Our Medicine Cabinet
Our shelves remain free of any pharmaceutical medications. We remain stubbornly drug-free. Instead, you will find an eclectic array of flower essences, high quality organic essential oils, creams, and salves, dried medicinal herbs, herbal tinctures, homeopathics, vitamin and mineral supplements. The benefit of free drugs prescriptions for seniors on the public health system in Canada is lost on us. The occasional brief winter cold soon goes away with lemon, ginger, honey, hot peppers, and garlic in hot water. In childhood I had measles and chickenpox and, having enjoyed an active, sporting youth with many outdoor pursuits, find I have strong natural immunity. A resilient belief in bodily autonomy and personal informed choice for all stands me in good stead. I believe so anyway. As Eric Idle of Monty Python reminds us (come on, whistle along now): "Always look on the bright side of life..."

Conclusion
I encourage all to find simple natural solutions to health problems. Mother Nature has a truly wondrous and full medicine cabinet. All good things come from the earth, the soil beneath our feet, and the sky above. Sunshine, fresh air, pure plant and animal food, clean water, vitamins, minerals, and shelter provide the foundations to nurture and sustain us in body, mind, and spirit. Personal positivity can see us through many of life's challenges, wouldn't you agree?

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Time to move on...

Our future home view in Cape Breton

Time to move on!

Gundi and I have now been living in these lovely Northumberland Hills for nineteen years. This has been a very happy and fulfilling period in our lives. Gundi has continued and elaborated her glass art sculptures and also returned to work (and play) with textiles in endless inspired forms. And I have put my heart into being an organic market farmer, growing specialty salad greens, herbs, and vegetables and taking them to twice-weekly markets, mostly in Toronto.

We are now up for a fresh challenge and the next chapter in our lives. We are embracing the prospect of living right on the ocean. A little cove in Cape Breton is calling us as our new home.

First, there is the little matter of selling our home, farm and land here. We are keen to pass on this special property (which has never seen chemicals) to conscientious buyers who will continue to steward it organically with a low-energy footprint. Lots of organic prospects responded to our posting on ecoproperty.ca and we had several viewings but we were unable to agree sales terms. And so, we are now on the open market, listed through Kim Hadwen of Century 21. Kim is a farmer turned real estate agent who specializes in farm properties in Hastings and Northumberland counties.

So, if you know of anyone who would love to own a secluded, very private farm property with an open concept artsy home and 55 acres of mixed hilltop with panoramic views, pastured fields, market garden, greenhouses, woodland, and wetland...

UPDATE: THE FARM IN NORTHUMBERLAND IS SOLD, THE HOME IN CAPE BRETON IS PURCHASED!
After our winter break on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, ocean here we come!






Sunday 21 January 2018

Ne Plus Ultra



Quintessence,

acme, zenith,

the ne plus ultra

of travels

far and wide;

green-girthed volcanoes,

cobalt-blue waters,

on this magical lake

at the top of the world.


An air clear and pure,

auras, vistas,

recharged by time,

each bright new day

a well-rounded wonder,

sweet natives embracing

bright-eyed travellers,

Buen día, indeed.

Monday 15 January 2018

How we love to travel...

Motor boat and cayucos (fishing boats), Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, 2018


How we love to travel...


In my youth, I raced around Europe with countless other students, passport, traveller's cheques and InterRail monthly pass tucked into trousers. In thirty days, I would travel from England to Norway, Sweden, all the way down to Greece, back home via Yugoslavia, Italy, and France. Phew, that's a lot of trains, all for $75 or so; $2.50 a day, and just imagine the savings in overnight accommodation if schedules were planned well!


My first trip with the love of my life was a doozy. A long-haul flight with the impeccable Singapore Airlines took us from London to, yes, Singapore, a good, safe landing pad for me, experiencing Asia for the first time. From here, we flew to Bali, staying for a month before travelling overland across Java for another month, ending with two weeks in Malaysia, including a heavenly few days on the island paradise of Tioman.

Now, finally, thirty five years later, we are back to a trip that is two months plus. Instead of a busy itinerary, we now choose to fly to Guatemala, spend a few days in Antigua, then settle into a home away from home right on the jewel that is Lake Atitlan, happily rooted for a full eight weeks. After trips to Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, Greece that were usually two to three weeks, we have graduated to longer and more satisfying stays. Last year, our first in Guatemala, was six weeks. Once we moved from hotels to rented houses and rented cars to public buses and collective taxis, everything changed for the better. We shop at local markets for fresh, in-season food, we cook at home, we flit from town to town on day trips, we relax fully, and we save a lot of money on restaurants and accommodation. And I get to plant seeds, growing arugula, lettuce, spinach, mustards, and kale for super salads fresh from the garden.


I chuckle to myself when I see each new harried young traveller, glued to his device, not even taking in where he is in the here and now, too obsessed with his inner world and getting to the next brief stopover. Most stay for a day or two here at Lake Atitlan, which is without question one of the most beautiful places in the world. One needs at least a week to do it justice. Then it is on to continue the Central American tour... Tikal, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama.... Good for them. What a way to see exotic parts of the world most only dream of. Maybe I envy them their youthful energy as they race off climbing another volcano, diving to view pristine coral reefs, or riding Pacific surf. Instead, it's easy as she goes, all in good time, maybe mañana. Travel can be so life-affirming, given the opportunity it provides to take into our hearts vibrant cultures and exotic locales.

Tuesday 7 February 2017

Just you and me

 

Just you and me
midst the birds and the bees,
the lake and its waves,
the peace that we crave,
the morning glory light,
a raptor aflight,
volcanoes frame the scene,
so radiant, serene.

Just you and me,
in this moment, we are free.

Tuesday 24 May 2016

Forever Young



(Note to self on turning sixty, courtesy of Bob Dylan, with whom I share a birthday; Happy Birthday, Bob)

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung

May you stay forever young