The Farmers and the Guides

This has been a very busy week! In the first place, there were several days of Lyme disease awareness events, and in the second place, I'm working on a project with my daughter-in-law. We're both very excited about it, but won't talk until it is done!

 OFA CONVENTION

The biggest event was as mentioned in a previous blog post, that Joe managed to get us a table to share information about Lyme Disease at the OFA convention [Ontario Federation of Agriculture], which was held from Sunday to Tuesday near the Toronto airport. We went down on Sunday afternoon to set up our display. We had a great position where people could see us.

There was nowhere to hang our banners, so we 'borrowed' a luggage trolley and tied the vertical banner. It worked, and after the convention, the cleanup guys were happy that there was a trolley ready for use! 

That afternoon kept us hopping as farmers came by to pick up brochures, ask questions, share tales and stories of ticks found and bites happening. Most mentioned that the ticks have been out since February this year, which confirmed what we have found out during the summer events we had.

Many signed the petition (see link at the top of this blog page) to ask for a national Lyme disease strategy. We need to get more of the MPs [Members of Parliament] on board! People took note of the blog address and several promised to get on board for the Awareness events in May.

All things considered, it was an extremely successful event. The OFA will also publish links to their site. We owe them a great thank you, but also needed to get the word out to farmers so that they can protect themselves in order to feed the rest of us!

TREFOIL GUILD

 A friend asked if I would speak to the Trefoil Guild. Of course I said yes - no passing up on an opportunity to share information, answer questions and hand out brochures! But what is the Trefoil Guild, you ask? I had to go look too!

From Wikipedia: "Adult members over the age of 30 have the option of becoming Trefoil Guild members. A woman can opt to be a member of the Trefoil Guild and participate in other roles within the organization. Trefoil Guild groups usually meet once or twice a month, and often participate in various Guiding events. Many Trefoil Guild members are senior citizens, some of whom have decades of Guiding experience."

Happy birthday!

There were about twenty ladies on Tuesday evening, from different guilds. They were wonderfully warm, accepting and interested. They were also suitably horrified about the lack of treatment. Many super connections were made and promises to be there to help if we should need them. I'm so grateful for the opportunities!

Friend Jean and her friend Rita had a birthday earlier in the month, so candle-lit cupcakes and a bunch of flowers were delivered! I didn't have my big camera there (shock! gasp!) but grabbed a cell picture.

 MEDS REPORT
Still feeling a little queasy every day, but hopefully things are settling. I'm only taking the Tinidazole three days on and three days off instead of two weeks on and two weeks off. The Bab-2 is twice a day, along with all the other meds plus several supplements.

Wednesday I had to work to make up for Monday when we were at the OFA. That evening I had another volunteer group meeting in a nearby village, but kept yawning through it! Good thing I'm the recording member and had to keep notes, or else I might have fallen off my chair. Fell into bed and spent Thursday mostly in a daze, trying to recover before meeting another volunteer group to discuss the 2013 Fall Fair, and then taking out our married children for sushi.

 WORLDWIDE LYME AWARENESS 2013
Please take a look at the buttons above on this blog, to view other pages - the Petition, and especially the Worldwide Protest pages. We now have 18 countries joining in and more to follow!