USDA Celebrates National Homeownership Month
Activities and Events across the Nation to Spotlight USDA's Efforts to Help Families in Rural Communities Achieve Prosperity through Homeownership
WASHINGTON, June 3, 2019 – Acting Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Joel Baxley today kicked off National Homeownership Month by highlighting USDA’s ongoing role to help residents of America’s small towns and cities purchase homes in rural areas.
“Homeownership provides a strong foundation for hard-working people to build household wealth and climb the ladder of prosperity,” Baxley said. “By helping rural Americans achieve the dream of homeownership, USDA is supporting benefits that extend far beyond the home, resulting in stronger, more prosperous rural communities.”
USDA Single Family Housing programs have served more than 4.4 million families in rural America since President Truman signed the Housing Act in 1949. Throughout June, USDA employees will celebrate National Homeownership Month with events across the Nation that demonstrate USDA’s commitment to provide access to affordable housing for rural Americans.
Rural Development has several programs that support rural homeownership, including:
To learn more about USDA’s observance of National Homeownership Month, contact a Rural Development State Office near you.
In April 2017, President Donald J. Trump established the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity to identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes that could promote agriculture and prosperity in rural communities. In January 2018, Secretary Perdue presented the Task Force’s findings to President Trump. These findings included 31 recommendations to align the federal government with state, local and tribal governments to take advantage of opportunities that exist in rural America.
To view the report in its entirety, please view the Report to the President of the United States from the Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity (PDF, 5.4 MB). In addition, to view the categories of the recommendations, please view the Rural Prosperity infographic (PDF, 190 KB).
USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities and create jobs in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural areas. For more information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.
Don’t Be Like Cardi B And Rush Back;
5 Tips For Healing From Plastic Surgery
Healing time from plastic surgery varies, depending on the patient and type of procedure. But surgeons agree that following post-op instructions is key, and failing to do so can extend and complicate the recovery period.
Rapper Cardi B is proof of that; she cancelled three upcoming concerts because, according to her publicist, she was “overzealous in getting back to work and didn’t take the necessary time to fully recover” after plastic surgery.
“It can take several months to fully heal, but patients often minimize this fact and try to resume activities too quickly,” says Dr. Dennis Schimpf (www.sweetgrassplasticsurgery.com), founder of Sweetgrass Plastic Surgery and author of Finding Beauty: Think, See and Feel Beautiful. “It’s important to be patient and allow the healing process to occur.
“Most cosmetic plastic surgery procedures cause significant swelling, edema, and inflammation in response to the moving or tightening of tissue or the placing of implants. Thus there can be long periods of post-operative healing requiring resolution of symptoms. But while the patient’s age, health and type of procedure are factors in the healing time, the post-op care and the patient’s part in it is equally important.”
Schimpf recommends following these post-op instructions:
Use ice, not heat, for swelling. Heating pads or hot compresses should be avoided until the plastic surgeon gives the “all clear” to use them. “An ice pack applied to the area for short intervals can help reduce the inflammation,” Schimpf says, “but care should be taken when using ice packs. Since the area is numb following surgery, it can be difficult to feel the cold, and too much cold applied too close to the skin can actually cause injury. Use a towel or other material to protect the skin, and apply the ice pack for only limited periods.”
Take care with sutures. “Occasionally, small openings may appear along an incision site, and these require additional attention such as washing with soap and water, applying an antibiotic cream, or more frequent redressing,” Schimpf says.
Elevate — it’s key with some procedures. “Sleeping propped up against a pillow to elevate your face after a facelift is extremely important,” Schimpf says. “Elevation helps dramatically to reduce swelling and discomfort, especially when dealing with extremities.”
Be active, but not too soon. “In short,” Schimpf says, “if any activity causes significant pain, don’t do it. Moderate walking is encouraged, but strenuous activity or heavy lifting should be avoided following a procedure.”
Manage your wound dressing. All dressings should be removed before taking a shower. “Use soap and water in the shower, but don’t scrub the wound,” Schimpf says. “Pat the area dry, don’t rub it dry, after getting out of the shower, then replace the dressing.”
“While there are some issues that should be addressed with your surgeon — significant swelling, drainage, pain, or redness at the surgical site — the bottom line is that healing after most procedures is just going to take time,” Schimpf says. “Trust the process. And the better you understand the process as explained by your surgeon before the procedure, the less anxiety — and hopefully, the more patience — you will have during recovery.”
About Dennis Schimpf, MD, MBA, FACS
Dr. Dennis Schimpf (www.sweetgrassplasticsurgery.com) is the author of Finding Beauty: Think, See and Feel Beautiful, and the founder of Sweetgrass Plastic Surgery, a multi-faceted practice focusing almost exclusively on cosmetic plastic surgery of the face and body. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), as well as a member of the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) and the American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS).
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Tasty and teary food memories
Buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy—a staple of the Appalachian culture. A traditional meal for country cook’in the mornings.
And my mother made the dynamic duo from scratch. Biscuits: flour, shortening, and buttermilk. For a season, she baked the store-bought biscuits from a canister, but returned to homemade. Sausage gravy: flour, milk, butter, salt, pepper. Fried apples functioned as a side dish.
Recently, I decided it was time. Biscuits and gravy were calling. It would be another step toward living in a world without my mother. A world without her homemade breakfast and brunch get-togethers. The Appalachian queen of biscuits and gravy died May 3, 2017.
And so I drove to the best place around to order the culinary combination. It was early and quiet in the restaurant. The main dish arrived shortly after ordering.
Starring at the plate and bowl, my mind replayed a video of memories. The sense of smell is the strongest sensory memory and it transported me back into another time
and another place. Food memories are often bittersweet. Mom standing at the stove stirring her concoction in an iron skillet. Opening the oven door to make sure the biscuits didn’t burn. So many conversations over biscuits and gravy. As a youngster, not once did I consider that one day she would die unexpectedly.
Feelings flooded in from my food memories. I wanted to look across the table and see my mom. And thank her for the bazillion biscuits she’d baked over her lifetime.
Noticing the apple butter condiment, another memory popped up. My grandmother and mother washing, peeling, slicing, and dumping apples into an outdoor iron cauldron. Adding brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Stirring and talking the entire afternoon. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; the best of friends. The aroma of apples and cinnamon filled the air as the mixture boiled and bubbled. As a youngster, not once did I consider that one day they both would pass away.
“These days, apple butter is mostly produced at community get-togethers, fall festivals and courtyards of aging country churches, but a hundred years ago producing apple butter was a family event,” according to a 2018 article in Appalachian Magazine.
Berkeley Springs, West Virginia and Grand Rapids, Ohio has an annual apple butter festival. There is also an Apple Butter Stir Off held on the first weekend in October in Belpre, Ohio.
Before bakeries and Betty Crocker arrived, breakfast items were made from scratch in cozy kitchens. Extravagant dinning rooms did not exist in most Appalachian homes.
“What we eat and how we cook our food tells a story about who we are, where we've come from and what we care about. Our food also connects us to other people — family and friends with whom we share our meals. That’s why our favorite dishes often stir up strong memories of people we love,” according to a 2017 article on NPR.
Tasty memories. Teary memories. The past lives on in the deep alcove of my mind.
Paying the bill, I leave the restaurant with my memories and a doggy bag with a leftover biscuit.
My next memory meal will be cornbread and brown beans.
“The food memories will remain. There must be a corner table in heaven; a place where one can meet with those we’ll forever love. A place where food memories come to life once more,” penned Sandra Gutierrez.
Melissa Martin, PhD, is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She lives in Southern Ohio.
