Algebra Birds

 

Does this nectar make my butt look fat?

There must be an equation to explain the way the foggiest mornings bring the highest number of warblers, with the possibility of identifying them declining with every single drop of misty water.

 Add in leaves as a variable and their nearly magical propensity to vanish behind branches and you have a challenge indeed.

Today was such a day. The fog was thick and swirly with the warblers nearly as thick, flitting around in the black walnut trees.

Alas, they might as well have been hidden inside paper bags for all the chance there was of knowing who was who.

Chipping Sparrow, fall plumage

Picked out a Magnolia, a couple of Nashvilles, what was almost certainly a Blackpoll that I didn't count because of the almost part, and a Blue-headed Vireo. That was it among a dozen or so.

Fun to see the incredibly fat hummingbirds though. They love the cannas and morning glories and we have a few stop almost every day to partake.

Water is stupid high everywhere. This is normally a trickle

Later in the day the fog burned away, with the warblers melting right along with it.

We found the pheasant above though, and a couple of first of the year birds in another county.

Plus we bought a gigantic watermelon from the Amish up on Lynk Street for a buck! The rind was as hard as some of our firewood, but what was inside was delicious. Also got some corn, spaghetti squash for Liz, and a few apples down at Shaul's.

Sure was a pretty day for a drive. 

Sunday Stills...signs of Autumn

 

For more Sunday Stills....

If you see this Guy Today

 

Wish him a very Happy Birthday....

Happy Birthday, Ralph!

Timeline of a Terrible Time

 

This was during the height of the ****** crisis when government nannies were ripping families apart and leaving loved ones with no advocates in horrible situations.

Mom hospitalized with COPD

I go to Dad to do what I can to take care of him.

Dad falls...a lot...can’t do his pills, won’t let anyone else do them either, failing fast.

Mom released to rehab in what we thought was a good nursing home. (So wrong)

Dad briefly hospitalized, sent to rehab, different wing, same nursing home.

Fire in a dryer at the nursing home. Mom wheeled over to Dad’s wing for a welcome visit. They hadn’t been apart for more than a day or two in almost seventy years. We were happy for them for a while...and then

Dad diagnosed with *******. Mom caught it from him during that little visit.

Dad recovers quite quickly, scheduled for next day release to a different nursing home. The original one had done things like leave Mom sitting with her legs swathed in soaking bandages, shivering with cold, and ignoring her until I called and made them go change them and get her a blanket. GRRRRRRRR I wonder to this day if she ever got her insulin.

I call the hospital and Dad’s room. No answer all day. Can’t get anybody.

Finally doctor calls, Dad has crashed.

Hospital calls, Dad has died.

I call mom, the boys, and family.

Hospital calls. Dad has not died, but probably will. We decide not to tell Mom until morning.

However, the doctor calls to tell her...rightfully I guess

Mom spends the entire night on the phone with the doctor exhorting him to save Dad. 

“If you can’t save him, I am going to go too,”

They couldn’t.

He did.

She did too. .

The news story about the doctor in the story below took me back there this morning. I find that I am finally ready, after nine months, to share it with you. Thanks for reading. 

Truth Imitates Fiction

 

Woke up today to find this story on Facebook. I tend to lie in bed for a while when I awaken before the rest of the house for a good reason. Once my feet hit the floor downstairs Mack welcomes me with a cacophony of high-pitched barking, awakening people from their peaceful dreams.

However, when I read the story I found myself, by some sleight of text, back in the living room of my parents’ house late November into December last year.

I called their house one fateful day, having had a feeling that I should talk to Mom. Little did I know that I had already seen her for for the last time, and would never speak to her again except on the phone.

Dad answered. He seemed confused. I asked where she was.

“In an ambulance on the way to St. Mary’s” he managed to tell me.

Actually the ambulance was still in the yard as they were trying to stabilize her.

I grabbed a bag of chargers, NOOK, a few clothes and snacks, and Ralph raced me up to watch over Dad.

11 of the longest days of my life ensued.

Dad had been falling regularly. Vertigo from his meds? A wonky knee? Both?

Who knows?

Anyhow he kept falling, plus he blasted FOX at eye watering volume off and on all night. Plus I was sleeping on a camp cot in the living room.

Sleep was elusive at best. I managed to get through the nights reading JA Jance books, particularly the Ali Reynolds series, my favorites. JA is hands down my favorite author.

Some of her books deal with a fertility doctor who used his own genetic byproducts to get families with child, producing a southern family reunion’s worth of genetically damaged children, who later found each other.

The story above is so eerily similar to the plots of those stories, that I had to come downstairs and hustle Mack out to his run so I could write about it. I also sent Ms. Jance the link and my thanks for helping me through that awful time

To be continued in Timeline post above....

2021 Stuff

Assorted photos, taken in assorted places, on assorted days. I just have to....you know....take pictures of everything I see... 

Sunday Stills....Dogs

 

For more Sunday Stills....

Sunday Stills...Fences

 

On Tuesday no less....better late than never and all....

Our county fair was last week, spilling over into yesterday as well. Peg took a lamb and she and her mom showed some bunnies and a duck too.

Peg and her friends also had a good time setting up elaborate farming, ranching, and fancy stable facilities in the dirt neat the lamb pen.

Kind of a fence...sorta

I am envious of the wonderful horses and other assorted animal figures available to horse crazy little girls these days. I had to save my popsicle money all week to buy one at the five-and-dime and there were only a couple of choices available. I still have one of them though and he is a pretty fierce looking little guy. Can't lie, I nabbed a few of Peg's from another corral they had over on the other side of the lamb pen and put them in this fence. I do love to mess with her that way.

For more Sunday Stills...

Does the rope fence
around the sheep show ring count?

The Hunter

Tiny cashew of a crescent moon, sitting duck up in the sky.

And there he came along behind, bow drawn the fullest, belted dagger dangling. 

Ida swept away summer last night, let him out of his cave to run and fight.

To sport across the sky all winter, and dance victory on the barn roof after each and every night.

They say he travels east to find his eyesight, blinded once in someone's anger.

Will he step on that scorpion again tonight or live to hunt another?

Will moon escape to fly again the summer skies, a pirate ship with sails unfurled?

Will we somehow stay warm when the wildwinds whirl?

Ida's broom seems to have tumbled away the misty, smoky morning clouds that overhung us every day all summer. We've seen a star or two sometimes, poking dull, skinny beams through the blanket, but for the most part this year's only summer stars have been fireflies dancing in the garden.

In the clear, cold of the first unofficial, but very real fall morning (O' dark thirty...there was a four involved in there somewhere) as I took the dog out, I saw the first satellite I have ever observed, sailing steadily among the stars. There is normally way too much light pollution and dirty diesel air to see such things from our riverside home.

Before first coffee had time to cool a faint blue glow stained the horizon, palest pink to follow. Orion slunk away to hunt again another morning.

Not ready for this, nope, nope, nope. I am never ready for this.

But there is consolation. #warblermigration.

Common Yellowthroat 
Nondescript but noisy in the shrubbery

Almost 70

 

Today would have marked their 70th wedding anniversary, but they only made 69. They met on a blind date, lo these many years ago, went to each other's proms that year, and then did everything together for all the rest of their years forever.

They used to call out to one another in their later years....or maybe forever as well, but I only learned about it in the past few years...

"I love you," I would hear Dad yell from somewhere upstairs or out in the office when I was talking on the phone with Mom.

"Love you," she would holler in her scratchy COPD voice. Then she would go right back to what we were talking about when he called.

How about that? Wish they were here to enjoy their 70th, but wherever they are, I'll bet they are still together, still calling out, some way somehow...

I love you....

As Promised

 More of our wonderful beach day in the Outer Banks, one of my favorite spots in the whole world.

I love it there!

The Rest of the Story

 Above is a slightly redacted (to hide the kids' faces and the name on the mailbox) photo taken at the same time as yesterday's Sunday Stills Black-and-white shot. What a difference color makes to the mood here. And what a job those iron wheels do on the road surface!)

Below is another shot of the straying sheep that appeared in the first photo. They were in a big hurry, but not nearly as much as the farmer chasing them. Driving the roads around here is rarely boring...glad we are not usually in a hurry, and kinda sorry for the folks who are. It can get pretty western just traveling from place to place.

Sunday Stills...Black-and-white

 

Through a rainy windshield......again...

For more Sunday Stills......

Sunday Stills....Abstract

 

Rainy windshield

For more Sunday Stills....