Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I wanted to give you an update on the progress of the Mansion Aides Holiday Gift Project, I am seeking to raise $650 so that we can give the aides who work in the Mansion each a $50 gift certificate for the holidays.

I’m been thinking about how we could honor them during this season and give them some recognition, but it was one of you who came up with the idea.

The response to the Amazon gift card idea, suggested by a member of the Army Of Good last week, has been  wonderful. Overnight, I received more than $500 in contributions on Paypal towards the project, and that doesn’t include the contributions that will be mailed to my Post Office Box, (P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.) and will arrive next week.

If you wish to contribute you can click on the Army Of Good donations button on the bottom of this post, just mark the donation “Gift Cards.” You can also contribute via Paypal, [email protected].

I expect I will be close to the $650 by the end of the weekend, if not later tonight. If there is an overage, it will go directly into the Mansion Fund, used to help the residents when there are things they need or outings and clothes and trips (like the boat ride.)

I’ve been working at the Mansion for nearly two years now, and am in awe of the good and hard work the aides do there.

Health care workers are essential in our culture, we trust them to care for our mothers an fathers when they can no longer take care of themselves.

Health care workers are notoriously underpaid all over the country and increasingly important. They do the work no one else is willing to do, they care for the people who are too often left behind.

In a sane world, that pay gap will someday be closed. I am so happy to be able to offer this gift to the 13 aides who work at the Mansion, this was the idea of the Army Of Good, and they have rushed to support it.

I am, as always, grateful.

When I have the money in hand – if there is a shortfall, I’ll make up the difference – I’ll order the cards and hand them out during the holiday season, when they might be the most useful.

Last week, I brought 50 pens to the Mansion for the staff, each one is engraved with the words: “To The Unsung Heroes Of The Mansion: Thank You.”

I think it was a great idea to do this and I am so proud to be a part of it. This one is a great and happy pleasure.

Above, Tia and Megan, hanging out with Wayne.

I’m very happy to report that the readers of the blog have adopted yet another dog from the Friends Of Homeless Animals rescue program. Candy, a four-month old Chihuahua puppy was taken to a Texas veterinarian to be euthanized because her owners thought she was “scared.”

The vet and his staff thought she was especially sweet and adoptable, so he got her to a shelter, where FOHA came to get her out and treat her and put her up for adoption.

Carol Johnson of FOHA – helped foster Bud when he was saved –  tipped me off to Candy, she said she loved people, sat in a lap all the way home from the shelter, ate treats, wagged her tail, and everybody saw her was shocked that anybody would even think of putting her down.

Carol says she sees it all the time.

Carol, a reader of the blog, saw the story about her and contact Carol, and is filling out an adoption application. FOHA will check her out for any health problems, and as soon as it is possible, ship her off to her new home.

Thanks Carol, and thanks to the Army Of Good, this is the fourth dog we have rescued off of the blog. I am happy to be able to say that and thanks. I’ll keep watching and sharing.

Bud comes along with Fate and Maria and I now when we go to the dump on Saturday afternoons. I find I have two navigators on the way to guide me, Fate and the Irish Terror.

In her poem “All Heart,” Amy Herring, a student in the Bedlam Farm Writing Workshop, writes  that she wants to “write a big poem, a fat poem, a poem whose breasts bulge out of her dress. I want a womanly one, with huge hips who wedges herself between tables of men clunking down baskets of bread and mugs.”

In fact, Amy, a novelist and writer from Williamstown, Mass, has written a big and fat and wonderful book of poems, 31 of them, they are on sale at Amazon for $9.95.

My Writing Workshop has gone into its sixth year, and I am glad I stuck it out for this long. Amy is working on her first novel, and is a very gifted and accomplished poet, I am fortunate to have her in my class.

Like all poets, she is figuring out how to get the word out about her new book, Flounder. Maybe I can help.

I hope to be highlighting some of the outstanding work these students are doing,  this is a class  of remarkable and creative women. The class has already published four books, and three more are on the way.

How great.

Please take a look at Amy’s new book “Flounder,” you can find it on Amazon here.

Trust me, if you can. If you love poetry or beauty of thought, this will be about the best $9.95 you have spent. One of my core lessons in the class is to urge gifted writers to use new technology to get their messages out. Life is not easy for poets, or for any new writers.

They need and deserve our support. Take a look at Flounder. You won’t regret it.