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You Can Help Develop
Dear Friends,
Hare Krishna!
As most of you know, Balabhadra (William Dove) is president of ISCOWP and the main working force on the ISCOWP farm. Due to Balabhadra's back problems, he is now limited as to what he can do on the farm and can no longer work long hours in the mall during the winter season to earn our personal income. Training oxen and giving tours of the ISCOWP farm while explaining cow protection and earth friendly agriculture are the major activities he can do with his condition. We feel it is timely to emphasize these activities by presenting to you what it will take to open the ISCOWP farm to more guests. This summer we had more guests than ever before (please read page 9 of the latest ISCOWP News. They came without any advertising on our part. The idea is to showcase cow protection and eco-friendly agriculture. Not only would we be educating but also acquiring some income and help around the farm by requiring either for each tour. In the future we could offer a simple rustic guest house, but for now we first need to clean up the farm and make arrangements for greeting guests. The first need is to have a greeting cabin where guests can sit inside as well as in rocking chairs on the porch, view pictures of cows to be adopted and farm activities, and purchase farm products.
We have built a greeting cabin but we are still paying for it. It is at the entrance to the farm on a hill. Rocking chairs on the porch, comfortable chairs inside, etc. are needed.
Balabhadra, center, explaining cow protection to a tour group. Many guests, and would be guests, often say they had a hard time finding us or wanted to visit but could not find us. We are located a mile down an unmarked road. Attractive weather -proof signs are a real necessity and more than one is needed to direct guests to our location. Eleven years ago, Balabhadra salvaged roofing tin from local old barns and repaired and built almost all the roofs on our barns. There are many little holes that leak rain into the barns from all the roofs. We can use a paint that will seal all the holes, prevent rusting and is guaranteed for 15 years. The old barn roof, which still has some of the original 45 year old tin roof, needs to be replaced. The barn gutters we installed a few years ago have proven not to be sufficient and need to be replaced. They can be used on a roof that is not so expansive. We have been cleaning up the entrance to the farm which is also a work area. An equipment shed would enable us to organize all the equipment under roof and present a clean entrance. Allowing additional space for picnic benches, etc. thank you! What is Needed to Open ISCOWP to Guests.
Donate here
Greeting Cabin $5000 Furnish & Decorate Cabin $1000 Directional & Informative Signs $1000 Special Painting of Barns $2400 Barn Gutters $1000 Replace Old Barn Roof $9000 Equipment Shed $7000 Total: $26000
This summer has brought a lot of changes for Balabhadra, who is now 62 years old. Although he has always had troublesome back problems, he was always able to push on. This summer he collapsed times. After each time he was not able to do anything for a couple of weeks. Due to a donation, we were able to get an MRI to acquire a realistic look at his back. The results showed he has 2 herniated disks in his lower back. He also has spinal stenosis which is the narrowing of an area in the spine that can put pressure on the spinal cord or on the nerves that branch out from the compressed areas. The MRI also found a curve in his lower spine which puts pressure on his entire back, small osteophytes which are projections that develop along the edges of bones and disk degeneration throughout his back. Along with his back problems, he has arthritis in his knee. On one side of his knee joint there is very little cartilage and sometimes the bones touch which causes pain, at times excruciating pain. The back condition causes pain and is serious as it can cause paralysis of the bowels and legs. Both conditions can cause mild to extreme pain.
Balabhadra, (William Dove) president of ISCOWP, in the bean patch.
Balabhadra has worked very hard for 18 years developing ISCOWP. For eight years he worked a night job and worked on the farm during the day, maybe getting five hours of sleep each day. For more than five years he hauled firewood out of the forest not only for our own needs but also for fourteen other families. In general, the hard labor on the farm was done by Balabhadra. In the years before ISCOWP, Balabhadra was also mostly engaged in labor intensive activities. We have been to a specialist and she feels that Balabhadra’s back condition can improve with physical therapy. At present he is not allowed to bend. It has been a few months and we see some improvement. However, he will never again be the work dynamo he has been in the past. It is a matter of time to see if the physical therapy will bring him significant improvement on a long term basis. For the last seven years Balabhadra has worked four months during the winter in malls to earn our personal income. This allowed us to continue our service to the cows during the rest of the year. Now this has to stop as he would be on his feet often 14 hours a day. His doctor has instructed him to vary his activities every half hour to take pressure off his back and knee. Balabhadra’s garden activities have also become limited as there is a lot of bending and kneeling involved. Next growing season we will use plastic on the beds to minimize weeding. Instead of growing to sell, we will grow more variety for ourselves and you our members. This will decrease our grocery bill even more. We will plant more fruit trees and berry bushes that grow on trellises. There is less bending and kneeling for these plants and there are many nice products like dried fruit and fruit leathers that we can send you, our members. Whatever excess we have we can sell. Due to Balabhadra’s physical limitations we have a plan as to how to move forward. Thank you
Check out this link to learn how you can help.
Thanking you in advance,
Balabhadra and Chayadevi
(William E. Dove and Irene M. Dove) ISCOWP Managing Directors
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