Mountain Home Ranch Featured on ABC 7LIVE TODAY August 10, 2011
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A Sanctuary of Sustainability
Echoes from the Mountain August 2011
Events
Summer Vacation
in the wine country.
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Book your room today.
707-942-6616
suzanne@mountainhomeranch.com
August 3-7
PlayFair
Still some openings
August 7th
Going away party for Joseph
He is off to College
We will miss you.
Good Luck!
August 6-11
Painting from the Wild Heart
Teachers Training
www.creativejuicesarts.com
Still some openings
August 11-12
LaClinica
Still some openings
August 12-16
Geraci Family Reunion
Still some openings
August 17-19
Castlemont Teachers Training
Still some openings
August 19-21
Blair Family Reunion
Still some openings
August 21-23
East Oakland School of the Arts
Teacher Trainings
Still some openings
August 26-28
John Erbaugh Retreat
 Still Some openings
Septmeber 2-5
 Labor Day
Bay Area Single Adoptive Parents
Still some openings
September 9-11
USF
MBA Leadership Retreat
Sold Out
September 9-11
Margaretta
Von Recklinghausen
Women’s Retreat
415-225-7384
www.healerinlight.com
Sold Out
Tidbits
Warts and Bananas?
What do warts and bananas have in common.
Mark Twain had fun lampooning folk cures for warts in Tom Sawyer, so we hesitate to pass along what has worked miraculously for our staff, but here goes. Take a banana peel and duct tape it over the wart. Change the peel night and morning for ten days and the warts will disappear. Honest. Joseph had horrible warts on his fingers and went three times to Kaiser to have them burned off with liquid nitrogen. Each time they came back worse than ever. He tried the banana peel treatment – his mother thought we were crazy – they are gone and have not come back in over a year. Jason, Joseph’s brother, same story. Now John wears the banana peel over a wart that has survived Kaiser’s liquid nitrogen “folk cure”. We will let you know if the banana won again next month. It certainly is more tasteful than Huck Finn’s favorite remedy of taking a dead cat to the graveyard at midnight!
The gardens are growing and producing some very tasty food for us and the animals, both wild and domestic. Unfortunately that means that the Santa Rosa plums that were ready to harvest got devoured before we had our share. No doubt a raccoon or other nocturnal critter, since they disappeared one night, drats!
All of the feathered friends are fledging their babies. The sharp shinned hawk-letts have begun to fly, as have a lot of little finch types. The funnest of the bunch have been the owl-letts (pictured). One evening we saw mom and dad, out on the perch and out came two, very cute babies. Then one of the parents took a small flight and back to the perch, encouraging the babies to do the same. The next thing you know they were all taking turns. The landing onto the closest tree branches weren’t so graceful but two weeks later, they are getting the landings down and now are learning to hunt. Many of the guests joined us for evening viewings, last week. The night vision, monocular has been very helpful. Hopefully it will quiet down within the next month, lots of squawking going on. But we are glad to give up some of our rest for this amazing experience. And they are earning their keep. Â The parents have been catching 4-6 rodents per baby, per night, plus that many for themselves, not a lot left over for our cats.
We are blessed and grateful to live in such and amazing place.
Many blessings
Suzanne & John
Remember your mother’s admonition: “It’s too nice a day to be inside, go out in the sun”?  She had a point. Perhaps worried about the dangers our fear-based society broadcasts, children are more likely today to be kept indoors, entertained by the latest electronics. Allergies and other immune disorders virtually unknown in our childhood are now rampant. Is there a connection? The latest research says: “maybe so.” The cover story in the latest Science News is dedicated to Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. Vitamin D is important to all body functions from maintaining bone strength to mental acuity, but its most crucial role is in the normal development and operation of the immune system. Among the known vitamins, only vitamin D cannot be maintained simply by a good diet. Only through supplements, or better yet, exposure to sunlight, can sufficient levels be maintained in the body. The Institute of Medicine panel [IOM] has set a minimum daily allowance of vitamin D at 500 IU – just enough to prevent rickets, a vitamin deficiency bone disease. This level is being challenged by endocrinologists who have characterized the IOM standard as “insane”, and recommend a level at least 3-5 times as high. Recent studies have linked low levels of vitamin D to a broad range of diseases that are on the rise in our sheltered lives: influenza rates are believed to be higher in the winter ["flu season"] because the population’s vitamin D levels are lower during the dark winter months. Recent studies have shown that children on Vitamin D supplements are much less likely to catch the flu. Children with peanut and other serious allergies have been shown to have low levels of vitamin D in their blood during the crucial time the immune system is developing. Cancer victims are more likely to have low levels of vitamin D. Asthma, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, hypertension and diabetes have all recently been linked to low vitamin D levels. Before there were drugs, the only effective treatment for TB was sunbathing and doctors now have discovered that vitamin D triggers the production by the cells of a protein that destroys the TB bacterium. One-half hour of sunbathing for a fair-skinned individual generates about 20,000 IU of vitamin D. A glass of fortified milk contains 100, a tsp of cod liver oil [remember that?] contains between 400- 1000 IU. Darker skinned people need more time in the sun, but still receive much more from sunlight than from food. Much of our western medical establishment is slow to adopt nutrition-based healing, but randomized controlled trials have finally been approved. Don’t wait for the studies, follow your mother’s advice – it’s too nice a day to stay indoors.
Offer Expires:Â December 2011
Mountain Home Ranch | 3400 Mountain Home Ranch Rd. | Calistoga | CA | 94515
