What I Did On My Summer Vacation

On my bike I went out to ride

While in my basement my profession I plied.

With all my enjoyment

I got unemployment

And I loved the carp that I fried.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa. In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and honoring a 1 year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand. I followed 3 years Community Health Center work with further travel and adventures in temporary positions in Arctic Alaska, rural Iowa, suburban Pennsylvania, western Nebraska, Canada, and South Central Alaska.  I split last summer between hospitalist work in my home town and rural medicine in northern British Columbia, followed by vacations. Till the pandemic resolves telemedicine occupies my professional time.  Any identifiable patient information, including that of my wife, has been used with permission. 

(Imagine reading this in front of your high school English class.)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

By Steven G.

My summer vacation started way early because of the COVID19 pandemic.  So I didn’t do much in April and May except ride my bicycle a lot and work in the garden.  I got a ton of exercise.

I cycled about 500 miles this summer.  I rode so much I had to get a spare bike while mine got repaired.  So I started rehabilitating used bicycles again.  I like the challenge and the activity.  Sometimes I have to go to YouTube to figure out how to fix equipment that I haven’t seen before.  Now I’ve filled the garage with some really interesting machines.  My favorite ride is this cool orange Trek built in 2006. 

My cherry trees had a great crop. My wife and I picked and pitted cherries but we gave up before the trees did.  We made pies, jam, jelly, and syrup.  The wild turkeys liked to jump into the bush for the fruit we didn’t pick.

The peach tree that shouldn’t have survived these last 7 years also bore well.  We had a squirrel problem, and eventually faced a choice: let the rodents ruin the crop, bring out the pellet gun to kill the pests, or pick early.  We picked early.  We made pies, jam, and syrup. We use the peach syrup to make peach lemonade or peach tea.  The tree-ripened peaches were astonishingly good.

I started working telemedicine in my basement.  I take care of patients in 13 states, from Alaska to Florida.  I love the work and I get good reviews.  It helps that the large firm I work for has a decent electronic medical record system, and stresses providing the right amount of medical care.  At first I only worked an hour or two a week.  For a while I qualified for unemployment, but business picked up in July. I would really rather work. 

We didn’t have friends visit inside or come inside for meals, but sometimes folks come over to chat on our back patio or our front porch.  The weather cooperated most of the time.

I started bow fishing for invasive jumping Asian silver carp on the Big Sioux River or at the oxbow lake at Snyder’s Bend.  I miss 10 or 20 times for every one I hit.  Still lots of fish, like hundreds of pounds of them, jump into the boat.  I figured out how to clean them and how to put the fillets through the grinder to get the bones out.  I gave three good-sized fish to Vietnamese friends who have a restaurant. 

Our middle daughter came to visit and we made blackberry jam and blackberry syrup.  We went on a bicycle ride together and got caught in a thunderstorm. My wife had to come with her SUV to pick us up.