u/90sRnBMakesMeHappy

I am really struggling as I lost my mom last year, and mother's day was extremely depressing for me, kind of been in a bad state since. I was extremely close to my mom, and she was emotional abused by my dad and he also tried to drive her over with a car and told her he wanted to shoot her.

I kept in some connection with my dad after my parents split. The weekends arrangement, which would be the saddest most depressing time of the week. I had to put on a mask and display no emotions to not upset my dad and his precious new wife. I was even nervous to laugh, I think I only laughed once around him, and I squashed that quickly.

After my mom passed, my dad promised to help me clean her areas in the my house. He canceled the next day, and I was just done. Done with trying to think he would be a parent. Whenever I had issues or needed help, he would always say "isn't that something your mom can do?" I was just fucking done when he told me his stupid wife couldn't drive him 5 hours down to help. I have no other family, so I only assumed he would be there.

When I see in this group of the family trying to reach out, I get a weird jealously. My dad stopped that only months. I see years later, parents are still trying to reach out to their estranged kids, and for my dad, it took him only months. I have to accept he'll never take acceptance of how he treated my mom and I. How he allowed his wife to treat me so badly. How he allowed his step family to treat me like utter garbage. I just became mute growing up, and I tend to do that now to not ruffle feathers.

Sorry, just really having a hard time with grief, and I noticed when I saw Father's Day stuff out, it just made me even sadder. I was already so depressed with Mother's day. Like I am an orphan with no other family.

I just opened the hotpot kit, and I am kind of blown away with what it included. I like trying to have extra liquids with my meals, and I thought this is a way for me to do it, and also I love an excuse to add more veggies to my meals. I am very new to hotpot, but I am excited for a new appliance! I haven't bought a new appliance in DECADES, so this was a big deal. I am also excited to try different broths. AHHH!

What made me extra happy is the hotpot is stainless steel.

I got mine in Niles, IL.

A crosstown classic overseas would be EPICCCCC.

I feel bad for him, but I still don't like how he screwed people over who paid for CSA that year and never got refunded. From what I heard, anyone who contested, it was a fight since Farmer John has the contract.

From Farmer John's GoFundMe page:

Greetings,

I’m Don Glasenapp, friend of Farmer John Peterson and Angelic Organics Farm. For seven years, I coordinated the festive vegetable packs at Angelic Organics.

John and I had many great times on the pack line alongside the 20 or so volunteers who regularly showed up to help pack CSA vegetable shares.

As many of you know, John had a stroke in the spring of 2024, causing the closure of his storied farm Angelic Organics, after 34 years in business as a Community Supported Agriculture Farm, and after 70 years total of John farming on his family’s farm.

My wife Laura and I coordinated the shareholder harvest days in the spring of 2024 when the farm closed.

I am now serving as John’s assistant, since medical, administrative, and financial hardships have befallen him, and he needs help with transportation, opening and reading his mail due to degraded eyesight, and with numerous other tasks.

I am the organizer of this crowdfunding campaign, trying to help my good friend John to get his life back on track.

John's beloved wife Haidy, who is recovering from her own health challenges under the care of her mother in Finland, is also very involved with supporting John from afar, such as with this campaign.

Life Post-Stroke

Since gradually recovering from his stroke in 2024, John has been working diligently, while very compromised, to get his beautiful farmstead listed for sale, which is sitting on 11.5 acres, with its constellation of many unique, artistic and well-kept buildings that he has been developing for his whole life.

John’s family built this barn in 1957 when John was eight; John has nurtured it his whole adult life

Tragically, since the closure of the farm in 2024, to John’s astonishment, there have been many bureaucratic/organizational hoops to jump through for the sale of his farm—his right to sell it is still pending. (It’s not about a material default or a foreclosure.)

We are unable to share details of these delays, but suffice it to say that John is now working with an attorney to get an agreement in place to get his farm listed for sale.

Impact of Delayed Farm Sale

The seemingly endless negotiations (2 years) to sell the farm property have resulted in high carrying costs: building upkeep, insurance, taxes, utilities, plus John’s living expenses–around $10,000 per month total, not including medical bills, and now $5,000 per month in attorney's fees, the cost of an assistant, and a handyman (farm buildings need a lot of upkeep).

And, of course, since the closure of the farm in the spring of 2024, there has been no income.

While recovering from his stroke, John was flabbergasted that he has to pay an attorney goodly sums of money to be able to sell the farmstead that he helped build up since he was a child–his lifelong home ensnared by relentless red tape.

Do you see why John has been trying to get out from underneath this burden for two years by selling his farmstead?

With enough funds, John imagines achieving a fair outcome.

Cancer Enters the Picture

Last summer, as John endured interminable negotiations for the sale of his property, a lump gradually formed on the right side of his neck.

Neck and tonsil cancer were diagnosed in the fall of 2025, taking over the right side of John’s head, causing excruciating pain and mental debilitation.

Cancer Treatments

Grueling chemotherapy and radiation treatments started in early February 2026, and ended in mid April 2026. ("That's a lot of poison," say the doctors.)

John is now recovering from this slew of radiation and chemotherapy treatments, seriously depleted, 50 pounds lighter and with no appetite, unable to collect his thoughts, suffering from declining vision and sudden bouts of stuttering, and nearly broke. His throat feels like cardboard, food is tasteless, rashes appear here and there and linger. (The doctors say that these are standard indicators on the way to recovery.)

Thankfully, the tumor on his neck has now receded. And, with the cancer treatments behind him, he can now have his eyesight tested, and hopefully have his vision restored.

Did the delays in selling his farm and the corresponding worry and sleepless nights contribute to this cancer? Maybe.

A Life of Service

During its 34 years as a Community Supported Agriculture Farm, Angelic Organics fed about 500,000 people in the Chicagoland area nourishing organic vegetables; it was the biggest farm of its type in the world.

In addition, the feature documentary film The Real Dirt on Farmer John premiered in the early 2000’s in many countries. John inspired millions of viewers with his story of vision and courage, and the film garnered 33 film festival awards. John conducted over 1,000 press interviews and screened the film in over 500 theaters around the world.

John has led a life of service to his community: stewarding his family farm for seven decades; transforming his farm into a thriving organic farm organism; training hundreds of employees in the art of organic farming; facilitating legal well-paying jobs for our less fortunate friends from below the border; providing farm tours, festivals and field days for thousands of people; touring 18 countries with his film for five years–sharing a message of hope and community.

If John were to coin a tagline that has defined his life, it would be, “be there for others.”

The Future?

John wants to sell his farmstead, and he wants to resume his writing in Finland, where he hopes to settle with his lovely Finnish wife, Haidy.

(Here are samples of John’s Angelic Organics Farm News . He has many other types of autobiographical writing to share, which you can peruse here .)

John notices, now that he is not consumed by farming, that the world beckons him again, sort of like when he started Beloit College—a fascinating, bountiful, and multi-faceted world—full of opportunity and discovery.

John says: "You might wonder what that was like for me in college: I commuted from my farm 8 miles away where I tended crops and milked 34 cows morning and evening. I found out that other students had not spent their summers tending crops; many had been traveling abroad…or sailing. Many of them had attended boarding schools. And the kind of fencing my fellow students did was a sport; it didn't keep the cows in. I was unleashed into a big, new, wondrous world of adventure and discovery."

John's college days

John is not sure where his current journey is leading; however, he is ready to explore a new world.

But, he has to be able to sell his farm first.

How You Can Help

John is in need of financial assistance from friends of the farm to finally resolve the obstacles to the sale of his property.

Please join me in helping John get through this time of trials in his life, and to hang on financially until he has the green light to list his farm for sale.

Contribute to John’s staying power by donating to this crowdfunding campaign.

Please share this GoFundMe page with your friends and networks.

Thank you so much for your care for our Farmer John.

Sincerely,

Don Glasenapp

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I just want to know how to survive.

I buy from a roaster in Vermont for my Ethiopian beans, but I am hoping to buy local. Are there any good ones who sell 5 pounds a go? I really love Ethiopian, and I prefer the fruity, bright notes of a light roast. I will travel for it.

My mom passed 7 months ago, and I feel I am still so anxious. I feel like I am in survival mode. I am pretty high strung, but it's not shaking. I think I have pretty rough grief too, almost thought I had depression but therapist said nope, it's grief.

I had no support other than hospice, which sometimes were helpful, sometimes not.

I just feel like I'm never getting ahead. Since I had no other family other than my mom, I'm still going through her stuff. Organizing for donations. And I also went back to school since I out so much stuff off to be a caregiver, so I haven't been able to really address her piles of stuff.

I'm just so tired, burnt out. I wished I could get help.

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I am in school part time, so my exercise schedule is poorly impacted. I am really into TCM 20 years ago but strayed away. Just seeing if anyone else is trying to follow or found ones that helped with PCOS.