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Fall is here, and the harvest was abundant. The plants produced even more than last year. This month we are offering a new Lavender Chef Kit, specials on essential oil, soap and other things, and finally a story of inspiration, hope, joy and love of life.
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The Lavender Chef's Starter Kit $20.00
Cooking with lavender is not only fun and delicious, but its all the up and coming thing - quite in vogue. So with Thanksgiving just around the corner, we decided to make it easy to cook your turkey with lavender spices. You will be amazed at the flavor. Here's what you get: one each of Lavender Salt, Lavender Pepper, Herbs de Provence (with extra lavender) and straight culinary lavender you can use as you wish. Plus a small lavender honey - a great addition to yams or even to baste the turkey. So here is a recipe for lavender stuffing: whole wheat bread, cubed, one good sized onion, one red pepper, diced 1/2 cup dry white wine, one cup chicken broth, lavender salt, herbs de Provence and lavender pepper to taste. Thaw and stuff bird. Cook as directed on bird using lavender salt and herbs de provence as a rub. So to be the Chef on the leading edge and the talk of the turkey day happenings CLICK HERE |
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FALL IS HERE AND HARVEST IS OVER
Harvest is always a wonderful time, especially in the early part where the flowers are blooming and everything smells heavenly. As the Summer goes on, however, its quite a lot of work.
Summer is the busiest time for making products and we need more hands than we have available for products and harvest. We may buy a second hedge clipper and have two crews and halve the harvest time. As for now we are done, and enjoying the warm Fall days.
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 Night Blooming Cereus Cactus To welcome me home (see below) this cactus has produced the most spectacular, fragrant and abundant bloom I have ever seen on a cactus.
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People are already
Holiday Shopping ! So here are some stocking stuffer ideas. Lip balms, small or Large Sachets (what a fragrant stocking), soaps, small or medium Lavender essential oil, Honey, Tea, 2 oz hand lotions, small misters - there are lots of small items that can make for a fragrant holidays above and beyond the tree. And, of course, all of our various gift packs. To go to our shopping cart and look at our gift items, CLICK HERE |
House for Rent
With the old tenant now out we have ripped up old rugs exposing beautiful oak hardwood floors. We are painting patching and scraping to beat the band. In just a couple of days this will really be a gem. To be honest Meryl and I would rather be there than in the big house on the property. But we cant because of the store. It has a stunning view out over Alamo Pintado road. Its the most beautiful secluded setting that $2,200 can buy in all of Santa Barbara County.
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Two Extra Large Handmade Soaps $12
Weighing in at about 6 oz, these big boys are 2 oz bigger than the soaps we sell for $5. They are very popular and are a real handfull.
To Get Two of these
just CLICK HERE
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Two Small Essential oils $12
You all know our essential oils, and their healing powers and fragrance. Well, here is a chance to get two of them for $12, they are usually $8 each. One for home and one for the office, purse or car.
Two is better than one.
CLICK HERE to get two for $12.
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Custom Labels for Weddings or Party Favors? We can do special and customized products, and personalized labels for Weddings or special occasions. The picture above is some of the one hundred ten 1.5oz Lavender Honey favors that Glenn made for his son's wedding in September. They say "Heidi and Nicholas, September 24, 2011. So if you have a wedding or special occasion that needs personalizing, call Glenn - he makes all the labels, artwork and photos on our website and products!
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| Thanks again for your interest in our farm and our products. If you have any suggestions or questions, as always, we are available at 805-688-7505 or email us at info@clairmontfarms.com |
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A Story of Life, Hope, and Proof that Real Miracles DO Happen in this life
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What follows is an unbelievable story of luck, being saved and a second chance to live that almost no one gets. I, Glenn, am going to write this in the first person, as I don't know how else to do it. Its a permanent life changing experience. I flew back East for my son's wedding - it was GREAT! Everything wonderful that one would hope for for at your son's wedding. On my return trip from Philadelphia to Santa Barbara, while changing planes in SFO airport I suffered Sudden Cardiac Death due to ventricular fibrillation. I had no pulse or respiration. When this happens the victim has only 4-6 minutes before the brain starts to die from lack of oxygen. Its not a classic "heart attack" where there is a blockage, but rather an electrical problem where the heart turns from a pump to something like a bag of worms contracting individually without any rhythm. There is no prodrome, no warning and you literally drop on the spot. I had the UNBELIEVABLE luck that right next tome on the moving sidewalk in the terminal was an emergency room physician who was traveling on his own vacation out of the country. He immediately assessed I had no pulse or respiration and started CPR. Also immediately a United Airlines flight attendant ran up and got a AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) machine from a nearby post. SFO airport has a program of placing many of these machines around the terminal. These two wonderful people shocked me back to life within two minutes. I remember looking at my ticket, up at the gates, determining how far it was to the gate, and then next thing I knew there were people all around me and I was coughing food I had aspirated into my lungs. I was disoriented and asked "where am and what happened?". They told me I'd had a cardiac arrest, although it was a little while before I was really cognizant of what had just happened. The hospital that I was taken to, Mills Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame (right next to SFO) took superlative care of me. They determined I had three very blocked arteries in my heart, even though I had never had chest pains or angina. They also determined that I needed a 3X bypass operation and placement of an internal pacemaker and defibrillator. Over a period of two weeks they did these operations, and then I had to stay a little longer because of unexpected arrhythmia complications.
It's been a life changing experience. Fewer than 5% of people with Sudden Cardiac Death survive, and of those that do a large percentage have varying degrees of brain damage. I had no brain damage and no damage to the heart muscle either because of the quick actions of those around me in the airport. If this had happened here at the farm, I would have been gone 10 min before the EMTs arrived, even if 911 was called the instant I dropped. So every day now is a second chance to be alive that almost no one else in my situation gets. I'd be more likely to win the lottery with one ticket than to have the luck I had that day.
So now I'm home a week, making products that don't weigh too much, sitting the store some of the time, and getting around superlatively well for someone 4 weeks out from open heart surgery. And taking naps from time to time - and oh yes, LOTS of different pills in the morning and evening. One of the things that kept me going was that I had Meryl and Sean to come back to, as well as this farm, and also the gratitude that I was given this unbelievable second chance to live. But it was hard month on everyone.
I also had luck that this hospital was only 6 months old and has an absolutely A+ cardiac team - many come from Stanford. They took wonderful care of me and literally saved my life. I can't thank them enough. They were all wonderful caring and skilled people: doctors, nurses, everyone.
Another thing that helped me keep sane was my little netbook -they have wi-fi in the rooms so I had a phone, movie theater, email, You Tube music videos and Google News to watch with this tiny computer. The first couple of weeks were a real fog, but I have cleared up fine. In fact having been through all of this, I am stronger, more focused, and more aware of the value of every day and everything I do in the day. Its like a fog has lifted, and I see everything with a new crystal clear view.
So, if any of you have any year end tax deductions to make or if you just want to say "thanks" to this wonderful hospital for saving me, here is an address to send tax deductible charitable donations to. You are contributing to the foundation that runs the hospital and medical facility - this has nothing to do with my own hospital bills, most which have already been covered. Its just a way to say "Thanks for helping save Glenn's life". Or just to give to a very worthy cause. The address is as follows:
Mills Peninsula Hospital Foundation
1505 Trousdale Dr.
Burlingame, CA, 94010
If you wanted to put a note in that says "thanks for saving Glenn from Clairmont Farms", that would be cool, but not necessary.
Thank you all for being part of Clairmont Farms and for getting our newsletters - this place and my family here are the best reasons to live that there are.
Happy grateful and recovering at a VERY rapid pace,
Glenn
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Sincerely,
Meryl and Glenn
Clairmont Farms Lavender Company
805-688-7505
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