In this issue:
U-Pik at Amawalk Farm
The Clueless Man

Organic Raspberry U-pik opens at Amawalk Farm in Katonah on August 25th. Enjoy this wonderful family activity!

Come and pick nutritious, delicious, organic raspberries in a beautiful rural setting tucked between the Lasdon Park and the Muscoot farm 3.5 miles from the town of Katonah.

Make jam, shortcake, pancakes, pies and cakes with these wonderful berries. Freeze them for the winter. Early Amawalk Farm berries have been available at local markets for the last month. The main crop ripens in mid August and the farm will open to the public for berry picking from August 25th until mid October.

Larry and Marian Cross have spent the last 3 years converting 5 acres of high pasture of this beautiful 1825 farm into organic vegetable and berry production. Enjoy lovely views down the Amawalk valley while you pick berries and walk among the vegetable beds.

Boxes and picking trays provided. Organic tomatoes, garlic, beans, cucumbers and other vegetables will also be available for sale.

Farm hours: Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 6 P.M, Saturday from 10 to 6 and Sunday from 2 to 6. August 25 through October 15.

Call 914-245-2319 for daily picking conditions, special events and availability of other organic vegetables.

Amawalk Farm is located at 42 Wood Street Katonah, N.Y. 10536. Go left on Wood St at the corner of the Lasdon Park on route 35 3.7 miles west of Katonah and look for farm sign in .6 miles.

This week, a break from the usual, to bring you the truly unusual...my friend Christopher is back with his male witticisms and comments on fatherhood. Please forward to your favorite man-- they deserve some giggles every once in a while.
Enjoy,
Gretchen

by Christopher, aka The Clueless Man

As a young person, conception is not usually the purpose behind romance. So a pregnancy test is not something one might look forward to using. If it were to become necessary, heaven forbid, the general hope was that it failed, for unplanned conception is just that, unplanned. A negative result would be a validation of one's youth and freedom. A negative result would leave one's options wide open.

As one ages, however, and busies oneself with careers and relationships, the thought of raising a child can actually feel like having freedoms and choosing options. The years of building a life might have reached a culminating point, leaving you feeling confident about having a child. Of course, you have yet to cross the colored lines of a positive test or begin the new life that inevitably ensues. You've done no research. You've not considered all the hormonal imbalances your wife and child will inflict upon you for years to come. You just naively think about how nice it would be to have a family...

So it goes that my wife and I decided to have a baby. This ought to have been an easy enough endeavor. From the clueless man's perspective, we would just stop trying not to have a baby. The thought of it actually made me a little giddy.

My wife had a different take. She spoke of cycles and ovulations and a calendar surfaced. She viewed this as serious biologic science. I tried to be respectful while explaining that public school sexual education assured me that the rhythm method was not an acceptable form of birth control. Thus, it should not be counted on as a strategy for impregnation. I used scientific words. They did not help. She became excited, and not in the way that would help us make a baby.

So this is how we came once again to the famous marital activity of compromise. She could monitor all the cycles and calendars she wanted. I would just be heavily romantic! She could schedule romance into her life if need be, but I wasn't to know a thing about it. It would even be great if our tender moments seemed impromptu.

Then the heavy testing began, which was fine. Fine that is until the cost of pregnancy tests became apparent and that we were going through them like toilet paper. It was shocking that one would test for planned pregnancy anyway. You're trying to have a baby and you'll have nine whole months to realize the kid is on the way. You're certainly not in the unplanned, panic stricken mode of, "what do I do if we're pregnant!" Nonetheless, we were heavily testing. And it was only the beginning of the amped up retailing that was to go hand in hand with an expecting mom, but I digress...

So now it was my turn to try and instill some sort of schedule into the process. "Maybe we could test only once a week?" It was difficult for her to refrain, and I'm sure there was some slippage in the schedule, but we did eventually move past the heavy testing stage and finally fell into a more relaxed and relatively normal routine. It was fun-- even if she was calculating cycles behind the scenes and I was tracking pregnancy test wrappers in the trash.

In the midst of such fun it is difficult to consider things like Newton's laws. One of them says something about "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." And it was the last thing on my mind during our wonderful foray into conception. Who knew an enlightened thinker of the 1700s could interject his views so directly into our 21st century baby making? But interject he did, for the moment our pregnancy test came up positive our completely carefree and constant lovemaking gave way to immediate abstinence!

Little did I know that our joyous hugging and kissing upon finally passing a pregnancy test would be some of our last physical contact for at least the first trimester. And then there was the fact that we actually passed a pregnancy test. Although this had been our intention all along, still, it was a little disconcerting, for now that our every available moment was bereft of physical activity, there was plenty of time for thinking and worrying.

A tsunami of adult concerns about bringing a child into the world crashed through the initial euphoria. These were the kind of adult concerns relating to saving larger than life size sums of money for college and how to protect against booze, drugs, boys, and pregnancy tests! This kind of thinking was not what a clueless-man usually concerns himself with. These were concerns for other, more responsible people. The kind of thing your wife should be worrying about. Unfortunately, she was the picture of perfect adolescence, drooling over the color of crib bumpers!

They say that a pregnant woman is on a rollercoaster of hormonal imbalance, and that this gives her some sort of a pass as to her wildly erratic mood swings and behavior. This is scientifically undeniable, but there is also the less obvious trauma to man, who in the shadow of a glowing mother to be, must grow and mature in ways not thought possible. It can be a solitary, and frightening experience that may take much longer than 9 months. And even then, maturity may not be quite so evident.

But there is the belly to consider and then the baby and always the mom. It's a mess of love, science, culture, and retail all rolled into that life changing moment where you actually pass the test. And on the other side of those pee soaked, colored lines, there is tremendous joy to be found, albeit in a strange new world full of innumerable new tests for which clueless-men have yet to even consider...