Tricks? Or Treats?

How much do you like snow? I guess that makes a difference in whether you find the accumulating snow outside as a treat or a trick, keeping in mind that it was 80 a couple days ago. I was planting the last of the bulbs then, and covering them with a bottle-plus  of granulated coyote pee, "Guaranteed to scare squirrels yada yada yada."

It was colder yesterday and I took a long chill. The coyote pee didn't keep the squirrels out of the newest bulbs either. So it was off to the local hardware store for hardware cloth to spread on the ground, after cutting it in half down its entire length so it would cover both sides of the bush in the middle. After that, it was investigate the shed for pieces of lumber that "might come in handy someday." If yesterday wasn't that someday, I have no idea what was. Of course the lumber wouldn't have held the wire down without some extra weight, so the the day ended with my hauling all the rocks I could physically lift out of the east yard, one or two at a time only, since many were about gallon size and those puppies burn calories! But they covered the boards to add weight, covered the middle to add weight, and so forth. Thus the chill. There were periods of just sitting to recover, where I got the most chilled. 

Note to self: get rid of all of that as soon as the snow/ice melts in spring!

I haven't been back to see if the squirrels have attacked the bulbs anyway. I had to be out for my job at 6:30 this morning and it was raining, enough to make it not worth the extra walking, especially since it would still be dark for an hour and a  half this last week of Daylight Savings Time. Can you see little black holes in black dirt under a black sky in the rain? No, night vision goggles would be cheating!  Anyway, I don't own any.

I had to take my client to the store for some holiday shopping, plus groceries, early this morning. Extra small customer base in the store would be less risky for their health, and I could pick up a few things for the home pantry myself. It was a bit extra entertaining this morning, with a scattering of costumes on parade.

First was a pink fairy, shopping for others, pulling a two-lever wheeled platform around with large baskets to hold somebody's pick-up order. I asked her if she granted wishes, but she assured me she wasn't that kind of a fairy, a moderate disappointment to both of us.

Another notable one was a 4-year-old Super Girl with a double red frilly cape. She was helping Mom shop, going straight to the the stack of baskets, and short as she was, picking the one off the top of the stack, on her super tippy toes, of course. After getting the basket down, she got one handle up easily, but Mom had to help with the second one. I guess even superheroes need sidekicks.

My client had to wait for something to be ready at 8 AM, so we took what we'd paid for out to the car in a much heavier rain than when we arrived, and returned to the store where there were a pair of benches near the entrance. It was cold enough that refrigerated items would be just fine in the car over the wait. While my client went to get her final item, I practiced my story in case anybody asked me what my costume was: I was a customer done with my shopping and waiting for somebody else to finish theirs.  Personally, I think I was dressed the part perfectly! Borrowing the bench temporarily for my costume was genius!

After helping carry bags into my clients house, it was raining even harder than before with warnings of snow on the way, so I headed home. I decided I could leave all of my purchases in the hatch. It made a perfect fridge  for what needed it, and things like peanuts wouldn't be bothered a bit. I needed to get inside, under a blanket, and catch the morning news I'd missed.

      Just starting to accumulate, across the road...
 

                    and in the yard.

I also caught a bit of a nap once I warmed up, and when I opened my eyes just after noon, the first thing I saw was snow. Not the earlier "maybe that was a couple flakes... Nope, just small leaves. How about now? No, but now?" This time it was unmistakable. Steve had asked me to wake him around noon IF it were snowing, since he wanted to see it after all those years of missing it. (Not missing it in the I-want-to-see/play-in-it way, just in the we've-lived-in-the-heat-to-avoid-it-for-a-dozen-years kind of way.

     Maybe this will put the rhubarb patch to bed. 

The snow's been busy making it up to us big time. In 3 hours there are 3 inches of accumulation. Yes, the camera has been out. Yes, it will again, soon. I checked the anticipated low for tonight, and decided a few things had to be brought in from the car after all. Cheese does not freeze well, not if you want it to resemble slices instead of crumbs. I like my pepperjack as slices, thank you. So there was a trip to the car.

 

Our stairs are painted wood, so my steps out were very careful to see if they were slick. Not yet anyway.  The sidewalk hadn't yet frozen, so that part was easy. The hatch door, however, had an inch of snow on it, and refused to stay open. Now I'd already had fun with clunks on the head with it dropping once opened, no snow required since AZ seems to wreak havoc on rubber gaskets (I presume that was the issue) so I lifted it carefully about 4 times before giving up and letting it settle slowly across my shoulders while I searched the bags for the ones needing to come in, then a final lift before I backed out and let it slam down to close. 

Alright, yes, I got my hand out in time this time, as well, OK? There is still enough of a bump to remind me, just in case I got Alzheimer's in the few days post stitches or something. This time the rest of what's inside really can stay, down to and past the expected 25 degrees overnight.

                            More snow accumulating.... 

Tonight around supper time it's supposed to have stopped both raining and snowing. The goblins, witches, and superheroes will head out trick-or-treating with coats and boots, but not at our door. The management asked us all to contribute a bag of candies, which got collected daily, and at least three people signed up to manage a table along the street to hand out goodies and keep the goblins out of the hair of the rest of us. 

 Tomorrow it promises to be 45, likely not enough to keep the squirrels in their nests. I do have fond memories of how tasty their fried legs are. I wonder how much that depends on whether they're harvesting my parents' garden and apple trees many years ago, or if bulbs affect the taste.  Just saying....

 

The Journeys Of Little Bird: A Christmas Tale

 It started when we lived in Georgia, back when my youngest, Paul would have been three. My parents, way up in Minnesota, started it off. 

Instead of mailing presents, which likely would not have been anything three kids actually wanted, they sent money. Twenty dollars for each kid. But it came with rules, both for them and for us parents. None of the kids could spend even a single penny on themselves. Instead they had to go shopping, buying presents for the rest of the family. They were to buy anything they wanted so long as everybody else got something, even as small as a candy cane. If so much as a penny was left, it went to charity. There were bell ringers outside every store, after all. This task required at least two shopping trips per child, because when they shopped for Mom, Dad had to take them, and vice versa. Of course the presents had to be wrapped and opened as a surprise for everybody on Christmas Day.

The rules for the parents were simple, if sometimes hard to follow. They could not make suggestions about any present. Everything had to be the kids' ideas. They were allowed to assist with each kid's budget, letting them know how much was left after each purchase, and helping be sure nobody overspent, while nobody was overlooked.

It was an interesting challenge.

Now this was back in the days when my kids watched Sesame Street. There was Big Bird, of course. The show had also recently introduced Little Bird to the cast of characters. While I cannot for the life of me remember any of the other presents anybody gave anyone else, except remembering somebody did actually get a candy cane, I will always remember unwrapping my gift from my youngest: a Little Bird toy, all yellow and soft. Now I could have laughed at his choice for me, a grown-up, but I knew he'd picked out something he valued highly. He was properly thanked, and Little Bird was put on a shelf where he was very safe and out of mischief's way.

Presents were given at Easter in our family. When my youngest opened his present from me, out popped ... you guessed it ... Little Bird! My son enjoyed it for a while, but at the next family gifting event Little Bird traveled to another family member. Then to another. And another. It became a good-natured family joke, wondering who would unwrap him next.

I'm not sure what finally happened to Little Bird. Probably like most toys it got worn out, ragged, dirty...  and the joke had had its day. Or years if you will. The kids outgrew the toy and the joke was no longer that much fun. Little Bird finally left the house the way old toys usually do, and eventually became forgotten.

Until today, that is. I had to deposit a check from my part time job, and in the process get a twenty changed into a pair of tens for a pair of granddaughters with close upcoming birthdays, one party to celebrate for both. The fun will be the wrapping, since the youngest just loves to have her very own boxes. So the bills will be rolled up inside old pill bottles, with a bit of wrapping paper and a name on each. Together they will go inside a little box inside a larger box inside an even larger box inside a really big box. I checked with their mother and the older one won't care a bit if the younger takes possession of all the boxes after the "real" presents are found. 

I was describing this to the teller who got a kick out of it while finding new-looking tens. Her reaction tripped a long ago memory, about 45 years old now, and I shared that with her as well, since there was no waiting customer line. I think we'll be giving those granddaughters a shopping trip this December... with an old set of rules for how it gets accomplished. Maybe they'll get  some memories almost as much fun as the journeys of Little Bird.

"God Don't Make No Mistakes!"

Ignoring the appalling  grammar of that statement, and the double negative, both often present in those I hear this from, how often have you heard that stated? I never hear anybody argue with that idea. God the All Powerful, God the Creator, the Omniscient, Ever Present, Omnipotent, and definitely a "He". No mistakes. Everything has a purpose, whether or not we mere humans, wicked from birth, can understand it.

Seriously?

I mean really, do you take that seriously? No mistakes... really? 

Mistakes happen in nature all the time. That there are two-headed snakes or calves is well known,  or animals with too many legs, or many other deformed creatures who usually live very short, likely very confused lives.

Ever seen or heard of birth defects? Who's God punishing if he planned those? Is an anencephalic baby to blame for the absence of a brain? How about cleft palates? Perhaps you've heard of conjoined twins, even seen pictures of them through fairly recent history since cameras have been invented. I can assure you they are not the recent  product of AI, since they've been known through history. Until recently we called them Siamese twins despite no evidence they happen more in that part of the globe instead of others. They often earned their living, if they survived, as freaks in sideshows. A lot of "mistakes" did. How about the bearded lady or the person with hair all over their body?  If they weren't mistakes, did God make them for our amusement because we didn't have enough entertainment, or needed a reason to feel better about our own minor imperfections and somebody else to feel superior to?

Less well known are malformed genitalia. Doctors occasionally couldn't identify clearly a baby's gender and assigned one at birth. Some times men have an extra testicle, or people can have multiple sets of nipples. Ears can be malformed. Almost any part of our bodies can. So ask yourselves, if none of those are mistakes, why do so many of us ostracize them, punish them, hate them as evil, especially if they were declared one gender and they grew up knowing themselves to be the other? Ever stop to think that we're the mistakes, with all that hate and fear?

How about evil tyrants, are they mistakes? Was Hitler a mistake? If you believe God makes no mistakes and we just don't understand why he allowed Hitler to live and kill millions and millions of people, what could the purpose possibly have been? It my be popular among certain hateful people to claim the Jews earned it because they killed Jesus. Despite knowing the Romans did it, and despite knowing Jesus was a Jew, if you blame Jews, which one of those six million murdered ones did it? How did they manage to live for 2,000 years afterwards? Why did what you think of as a proper punishment fall on the heads of 6 million of them? And why add the Roman Catholics to it? Or the Romany? Or any other human deemed imperfect, like those with Down's syndrome? 

What could your version of a mistake-free God, creator of everything,  have been thinking?

What kind of a horrible, cruel, fickle, arbitrary creator do you worship?

Weird Ads Online

You see a lot of weird ads in between paragraphs of what's posted that you really wanted to read. They just jump out at you. It might be bright colors, or some improbable description of that you might want to look at. For a while they all seemed to be revealing big secrets about celebrities, because who doesn't want to know the dirt dished on somebody famous?

I mean, other than me, because I just don't care. If I had to support whatever is driving those, they'd go bankrupt. Oh, I did try one or two, but there were problems. What was promised never quite made it before the whole thing ended. An arrow would lead off to... nothing. A link wouldn't. Link, that is. The promised thing never made it in. The story was left hanging. Two or three times of that, and I have no interest in who has or was the most beautiful baby. Somebody married cojoined twins and was ready to dish. I'm not interested, but wish them well, whatever it is.

Then there were the medical ones. One secret food to make you thin/younger/healthy/happy/whatever. Or the one meat to never feed your dog. Why to never eat blueberries for breakfast. Even if my curiosity might be peaked, I have the patience for about three words in answer to the  question they raised. It would be a video, maybe half an hour long. I never lasted that long. They just weren't that good. Twenty minutes trying to prove they had some kind of special research, or education, or knew more than my doctor, or listened to this ancient wise.....  If they were a bit speedier in their presentation I might hear they had been miserable before....

Click! Off. 

Why couldn't they ever just say avoid meat X when you fed your dog, plus a sentence about why? Nope, 45 minutes... or more, I never lasted... to permanent unfulfillment. I love blueberries for breakfast, and if you truly have a reason to discourage something harmful, why not just blurt it out? I will continue to add them to pancake batter or cottage cheese or yogurt, because you are just too damn slow off the mark. Obviously you do not care about my health. My dogs through the years have eaten about everything and none dropped dead.  Heck, they even eat the shit off baby diapers, and if that didn't do it....

There's the one about THE REAL exercise that can keep women of a certain age from having incontinence. They show a woman around 35 - so not the "certain age" they claimed to target- on the floor with her legs straight up but spread in a "V". OK, do you just hold that pose? How long? If not, how do you move in and out of it? If it works, why? I mean, I just might need to know this stuff some day, right?  After 20 minutes of telling me everything doctors have told you is wrong, and all the exercises you've ever done (you have done exercises, right?) are exactly wrong... the phone rings and I find I don't give a shit about any of what they haven't gotten around to selling. If it's a simple exercise, why the hell not just show it for 10 seconds?

There's supposed to be a way to infuriate your doctors by pushing on the side of your face near your ears to stop tinitis. Do you press hard or lightly? Do you tap? Wiggle your finger? Hold it there for two months? Who knows? Who has the patience to find out? If I get tinitis, my fingers will be plugged inside my ears to close out all sounds and whatever you wanted to sell will be too late.

Do I need a financial planner? Hmmm, let me see how big my fortune is.... Nope. I don't.

Then there are a set of recent ones about how to retire comfortably on 7 Million. Dollars, I presume. I'm retired comfortably, aside from the consequences of old age that no millions are going to fix. That's just as well, since I don't have 7 million, nor hopes of acquiring 7 million, and cannot figure out for the life of me why anybody thinks they need 7 million at retirement to be comfortable. Is "comfortably" some new code word the uber wealthy use to convince themselves if they have to downsize to 7 million that they can still manage to survive? And if so, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? I have a place to live, enough food and entertainment to not want for it, things to keep me busy, friendly people in my life, affordable health insurance to deal with whatever comes along that's fixable. My brain stays busy... though often wondering about silly things like who thinks 7 million is a hardship?

A (Yummy?) Tip For Saving Tools

A couple decades ago I had a neighbor whose non-work life consisted of family and gardening. He taught me a lot, and I've slightly expanded on what he taught, out of desperation and cheapness.

In his back yard, inside his shed, he had a plastic pan like the kind one washes dishes in. However this one was filled with dirty looking sand. I asked about it when I saw him running this tools through it either before or after using his yard tools. I can't recall which since I've seen him use it both ends of a job. He happily explained that the sand looked so dirty because it was, with old car oil. (Apparently he was a handy auto mechanic too, at least with the small stuff.) Running his shovel, hoe, or whatever through it before he started kept the dirt from collecting on his tools, and afterwards replenished the coating so they wouldn't rust in normal months of Minnesota humidity and severe temperature changes while they just sat. Occasionally he had to replace a wood handle. But the metal stayed whole and strong.

So why do I call this a yummy tip? Obviously not for the old 10-30 or whatever his vehicle needed. In my case, I've been spending a lot of time pruning a couple bushes ignored for years and badly in need of some sharp-edged TLC. Branches crossed, rubbed, tangled,  overgrew, and choked each other out. All that was even before they tried to invade the house and windows whenever the wind blew, or blocked the sidewalk or the lawn mower.

Said bushes are limelight hydrangeas. Their sap, even this late in the fall when leaves are dropping, is very sticky. Pruners, whether hand held or lopping shears, both of which are required for the job, operate on a pivot around a nut and bolt. Or at least they do until the sticky sap stops them in their tracks.  What is already a challenge, though satisfying and fun, now becomes hard labor. What is open stays open. What is closed stays closed. All the muscles which I'm developing this planting/pruning season then struggle with the tools, and that's even without taking arthritis into the equation.

No, I don't do my own oil changes and I do not save nor harvest used car oil. I tried something different, something which I have in abundance in the house. The refrigerator, to be precise.

I use margarine. The soft spreadable kind.

With the tool as open as I can force it, I smear it all over the rubbing sides of the blades. I had no interest in trying to force the bolt off and greasing that area, then trying to reassemble it tightly enough it would stay together with use. No worries with my muscle power about getting it too tight, but others might. So I smeared it as close to the joint as I could get as well as along the whole touching sides of the blades. Force it closed/open a couple times, and set it aside on a paper towel or something overnight. 

The first time, the hand held ones needed a second day to move easily again. The second time overnight did the job. I was surprised to find that the loppers, which even combined full arm and leg strength had trouble moving yesterday, were silky smooth this morning. Something in the margarine almost oozes up inside the joint while it just sits on the counter, or across a cardboard box, or wherever it sits. Even better it takes a lot more cutting to make the hinge freeze up again after its first treatment.

That's a good thing since cooler temperatures are moving in and my time per cutting session will be shrinking accordingly, so I don't chill. 

A final note while writing this: our view from this room is out the window facing the street. We can see neighbors pass even though the blinds keep them from seeing us. Everybody reacts to the new look, which is admittedly VERY bare. Some sticks didn't fit into the garbage can last night, but it's empty again so they'll go in as soon as it's warm enough for me to head back out. A few neighbors frown, even though anybody who bothered to stop for a chat while it was in process got the 15 second tutorial on what was needed and why, and knows what to expect next spring. After all, once upon a time I did this for a living. I know the whys and the wheres of each needed cut, though I didn't bother to explain that. Who needs to know?

And thanks to a long ago neighbor, I know how to keep the tools going for the job. 

It's so much cheaper that way.

Stitches... Gone.

I was supposed to have my stitches gone this morning. That's not exactly how it worked out.

I could see the incision was well healed days ago. The stitches were what were now causing issues. They pulled the skin on the back of my hand up into a high lump.  I could have said painful, but so long as I didn't use the hand it wasn't much of an issue. 

Yeah, right. Have you ever tried not using your main hand? Especially since I'm so strongly left handed. I took a quiz decades ago, asking which hand was placed where on a broom, and how often, for example, to help you figure out how strongly left or right handed you were. I was top of the chart, lefty leading everything. It's such a habit that I'd kept bandaging the hand for several days after I needed to just to remind me - sort of - not to use it yet.

It did manage to keep the hand dry, and let's please not discuss sanitation, eh? I did manage not to poison myself, and let's just let it go there. There are workarounds if one really tries.

But I was still using the hand for nearly everything, just because after three quarters of a century, one does what one has always done. I did put gloves on for some heavy pruning of a bush (not completed) which managed to dig the glove into the back of my hand just below the stitches, accentuating the bulge. Yes, of curse it hurt, enough to nag me for days. I'll get back to the bush... some time. Technically next early spring will be fine, though now is better. Right now planting takes precedence.

With the skin still pulled tight from the stitches and general swelling, there was one advantage - if I were vain. (Personally I find it amusing.) When I compare my hands side by side, the undamaged one has about 140% more wrinkles! Look, if wrinkles on geezer hands bother you, I do NOT recommend this solution. Particularly because what was also happening was the stitches on the back side were disappearing into the skin. When they first went in they made a solid black line on that side. Now they were three dots, and not even in a very straight line at that, as if that mattered. I'm not criticizing my surgeon on her sewing skills like she was putting together an heirloom quilt. I'm not that old yet! Come check if I'm an heirloom in another 25 years!

The stitches were starting to bother me more than the hand issues before surgery had. It was time to see about getting them out. There was this morning's appointment. It turns out there was also one last Wednesday, and somebody called me from the office to push my Friday appointment forward, also to Wednesday but late in the afternoon. Hmmm, one appointment per stitch? 

Yeah, I don't think so. How could they charge the insurance company for three visits, for starters?

Fortunately I got the usual (thank goodness!) pre-appointment reminder call (please confirm you are coming, or not) for both Wednesday appointments, and called back to take the earliest one and let them know to cancel the other two for the same thing. I hadn't even known about the first one, just the Friday one.

I was a little nervous walking in. I'd gotten a do-it-yourself stitches pulling kit from the surgeon, but once those stitches started digging in, lost all interest in doing it myself, especially since I'd need to use my "wrong" hand. Just a bit pain-averse, you see. With all I've gone through, it seems a bit silly, but even so. I was actually hoping for a local to numb it, but while they didn't actually laugh, it just wasn't done. "Overkill" was the word they used. As it turned out, they were right. The person pulling them out was skilled and gentle. No pain, just the relief that the pulling from them staying in was gone.

There was one tiny issue, however, The black lines on the back of my hand? Still there!  I pointed them out, and she pointed out that the stitches removed were wholly intact, let me use my fingernail to try to remove what turned out to only be a discoloration in the skin. Dye transfer? We're not sure. But the lump is slowly going down, I'm back busy digging in the dirt trying to take advantage of a warm fall to get my bulbs and seeds all planted, and while I get tired and achey after - heck, WHILE I'd doing it! - it's getting done. The rest of me aches of course, but that's normal. The hand is fine.

Weird looking. But fine.  

A bit tender if one pushes on the lumpy part, which I'm the only one who does, but, really, fine. Honest!

Still fewer wrinkles than the other one though. But all the liver spots are intact. Lucky me. You know, just in case I was worried somebody switched hands while I wasn't looking, or something else Halloweenish, eh?

Getting The Car... Fixed?

It was time for an oil change. I'd been putting it off, opting for just refilling oil every so often. It got even more complicated with the new job, knowing I had to make an appointment and not knowing the changeable schedule sometimes more than hours in advance.

I got a very pointed reminder yesterday morning, however. I was warming up the car to take off for the job. It was a chilly morning, but the weather people - and I do check several - said the nearest frost was about 80 miles away. Need I say they lied? A very solid layer of frost was glued to every car window.

Luckily I keep a tool in the car, the same one from back before we moved to Arizona, that has a window squeegee on one side of the end of a short handle and a hard plastic scraper on the other side of the same end. It was definitely a scraper morning.  A short handle to reach across a full windshield is not a perfect solution, especially with my shoulders. It was fine on all the other windows, and fit the side mirror surfaces.

I know you're about to say just use the washer fluid and get rid of the ice.  This is where our years in Arizona  said "Not so fast!" My last oil change happened there, and in the Phoenix area washer fluid is called "water". No anti-icer. After all, why? When would it be needed? Fortunately I'd bought a gallon jug of the stuff about a month earlier, and still kept it in the car. Not in the fluid tank, but back in the hatch. Before you get all superior about how stupid that is, it's been warm, and the washer fluid tank was still full. I've been squirting it out way more than dust and dirt required, but still, there's been no place to put in enough washer fluid to make a difference. Since I had it, though, I just opened it and splooshed it across the outside of the windshield straight from the jug. Instant melt!

I still had just water in the tank this morning, and was making sure to get rid of it as fast as possible, barring just letting it run while idling on the driveway. It was another frosty morning, and I left the house so early that I couldn't see across the local lakes for all the fog rising off them, enough to block lights across the way. They were just black.

But as soon as I finished my short job duties this morning, I headed over to a close Walmart where I'd scheduled an appointment the day before. Yes, it would provide clean oil, and a full washer fluid tank instead of a water tank. But that reminder I'd mentioned? Yesterday being the first near to sub freezing morning since we moved into the area, I also suddenly had my low tire pressure light come on. I don't mess with those. I made my appointment, knowing they would at my direction pay special attention to tire pressure, and I'd find out how serious it was. We all hoped the problem stemmed from the fact that the last air fill in 4 brand new tires was the day before leaving AZ for good. It was spring. It was warm. Perhaps the air pressure had lowered with air  temperature 50 degrees lower, first cold of this season for the car. One could at least hope, right? Air is free, the cheapest fix of any potential issue tripping the warning light.

An hour and a half after sitting in the waiting room my car was ready. While paying for the oil change I asked if they had made a note of what they'd found. They had. After checking the air pressure in all four tires, (in their warm bay), they pronounced all four tires properly filled. I had a bad tire sensor.

So it was going to keep registering low pressure? I wouldn't know when it lied, or I needed it replaced, or even which sensor it was? 

Yep.

Well, that could get to be really nerve wracking. I started to plan a trip to the metro dealership for a big bill. I need to go there anyway after getting yet another recall notice. I'd fixed all the previous ones, but the irregularity of the job has kept me from making that appointment. Now, however, I at least know one day off I have each week. The next one of those will be devoted to getting stitches removed from my hand before they totally disappear under my skin. So maybe the following week? I'll have to call them.

By this time all those musings had brought me to my car. I sat down, turned the key, and... no tire pressure light. Seriously? Is it just warm enough still that it's all it took to flip it off? If so why didn't they catch that while it was in the nice warm bay? Did they top up the tires enough to get them back to normal pressure?  Did they somehow turn the light off completely after determining it was faulty? All I can say for sure is it registered perfect, i.e., no light, all the rest of my errands this morning. I guess I won't know until tomorrow morning when I start it, if, of course, the morning temps are as cold as the last couple of mornings.  Or maybe not until I get a flat tire, which of course will be at the most inconvenient time possible, since life just works that way.

We Finally Voted!

 It took us a while. The reason for needing to vote early is the same reason for not getting there yet: Steve's back.  But I've already written about that.

In the days since, there was one "maybe" day, where he felt pretty good (for his current normal) and thought he might be good to go... once I got home from work. But of course, by then, no go. Again. 

I was  beginning to feel like a nag: "How's the back today? Do you think it might be OK  by the time a: I'm off work? b: we get you back from the doctor? c: you get a nap? d: you let the pills work for a couple hours?  And so forth. We'd start with hopeful some days, discouraged others, and kept winding up with no-go.

Until today. I drove us under three miles to the county court house where absentee voting happens. We walked in, and neither of us, as usual, had to go through the metal detector. By know I suspect they know us, our implanted hunks of metal, my pacemaker. We've been there a lot these last few months in getting established in our new abode. Likely the handicap parking right outside the door helps a bit too.

We were directed down the hall, found chairs by the voting set-up, filled out the paperwork to get our ballots, and exchanged that for the real deal. After filling them out, I went back to the window to turn mine in. However, I was not allowed to turn Steve's in,  just to let them know he was finished, so they could come out, take the envelope holding his folded ballot and seal it, then put that in another envelope which the county employee brought out with her,  signed and sealed it all together before returning with it into her office. They have a system for people who are not mobile.

While I had been in line at the window, I heard another woman give her name, and her last name caught my attention. I hadn't seen her since February of 2012 at our commitment ceremony. Her husband, a long time friend and personal attorney, had officiated for it! She was there as well, of course, just as I had been at their church wedding. Unfortunately he'd passed away from cancer while we were in Arizona, and I'd never seen him after our ceremony. She and I caught up briefly on the intervening years before getting back to our own business, but it was a good accent on the day's job done well.

Steve asked me on our way out why we'd voted then (instead of asking for a ballot to mail, I presume.) I reminded him of how long it took to get a good enough day for him to get out for a very short car trip. In fact, with any kind of luck at all he might be in the hospital getting surgery for his back on election day. If he hadn't had another day "good enough" to vote day by election day, it would be too late. Who knew how long before the next "good enough" day would roll along? Plus I tend to lose faith in the promptness needed for the post office to  get ballots through the system in time to be counted, with it's current leadership. Look at the primary, where we'd gone in person to vote and he'd hit some issues with mobility. The day after that election we had gotten our postcard in the mail giving us the address for where we were to vote. It was dated 8 days earlier, and had to travel less than a couple miles. Good thing I already knew where to go. This election I wasn't ready to fool around.

This time when I asked Steve how his back was after voting, I added was he feeling OK enough to go a few more miles to the local grocery store and pick up each of us a fresh apple fritter? I'd go in the store, of course. He was! 

Oh yeah, the baggy tee shirt with the sandhill cranes? That's from Bosque Del Apache in New Mexico, bought on our honeymoon trip. We headed to a wintering ground of their sandhills and found out they'd left to go north the day before! But Steve bought a belt buckle, we got our National Park senior pass for $10 which has been well used, after which we headed on to Sun City to look at the house we wanted to buy after viewing it online, met our realtor for a real showing, and signed the documents. 

If you wish to visit there to see winter cranes, take my advice and head down in January! As with voting, a day too late is still too late to count.

Autumn In Crex Meadows

A friend and I, after waiting a few weeks for our schedules to both be clear, finally made it for a full morning in Crex Meadows. We usually get there in the afternoon, or even at sunset one time. For those not familiar, it is a 30,000 acre wildlife refuge on the north side of Grantsburg, WI, the former location of Crex carpet factory. For us it's less than a 40 mile drive one way, heading across the state border to St. Croix Falls, then straight north. How much one drives once there is your individual choice. I've tried over the years but still haven't seen it all. 

The goal for this particular trip, aside from fall color, was to arrive as soon after sunrise as possible. The sandhill cranes are collecting there now, feeding heavily in the surrounding areas during the day and returning in the evenings for a safe staging ground before they fly south. Unlike the cranes everybody hears about in Nebraska which head south to New Mexico and Arizona, these head to the SE US, currently knows as hurricane central. Milton just hit Florida last night, if you need a bit of perspective on why they wait till late fall at Crex while stuffing themselves for their long migration. Usually they head out in late November, when numbers can rise to 20,000 birds .

Just after sunrise the cranes are lit from below in bright colors by the sun when the sky is clear, which we were lucky enough to arrive in time for. This time of year that means leaving home around 6:30 to 7:00... and being lucky. I will point out that sandhills can usually be indentified in flight because the neck is held straight out in front and the feet straight out behind, making them look much like a grey stick with wings. Other large birds tuck their necks, their feet, or both.

After most of the cranes have taken off for feeding grounds, the waterways are still full of trumpeter swans, in this case with three of this summer's cygnets. At this time it is possible to see a hundred swans when you visit...

and very dense flocks of ducks, also working on their southern migration. Hunting is allowed in season. In fact the duck hunters give a huge amount of financial support to the refuge.

 

Flocks continue to fly up and out  for around an hour in the morning, and can range from a pair of cranes to over a dozen, usually several flocks airborne at any given moment. Even if you can't see them you will hear them, their primordial sounding calls unmistakable, and audible long before they themselves are visible or they disappear again.

Fall colors can be spectacular this time of year. This birch has been dead for several years now, but is a great marker for where a stream meanders out of Fish Lake and a great blue heron likes to hang out.

I have summer shots of it, but the morning light down in the hollow was not kind so early this day, eight different shades of grey not quite making the cut, so I threw in a summer shot.

We decided to head over to the Phantom Lake area after a bit.

Driving north up the west side of Phantom Lake one can find cranes out and about hunting breakfast. Being omnivores, that can include anything they can catch and swallow.

Some will be off below the road in a large marsh.

This time we saw something very unusual, a road full of them catching some early morning rays along the road. I knew stopping the car to open the door and avoid shooting through the greenish car windshield would set them flying.  They would have already been gone had another car been on the road that morning before we were on it. My friend did manage to get photos reaching her camera out the window and aiming forward, but even that motion set the nearest couple in flight. Yes, she got great shots of them launching while I was driving. I both envy her and celebrate her success. C'est la vie! Creeping forward another few feet set the next pair off, and an oncoming car (finally!) set the rest off to cross the lake.

By this time, most of  what there was holding still enough to catch a good shot of was literally rooted to the ground.

Our last half hour was spent shooting trees in all their glory. They didn't fly, nor make noises without aid of some wind, and their glory is short lived each fall. But if you can be there within the correct but ever changing range of days, they are not shy to show off for every visitor.

Fall, Finally

Temperatures are dropping into the 40s at night, and 60s in the daytime. The first reports of frost... in other places ... are making the news. For Minnesota that's pretty late. Colors which should have already changed are now finally working at it, before we're back into the high 70s or low 80s again, later this week.

Sumacs are usually the first, and by now most would usually have dropped their leaves and be left with only the red clumps of seeds.

Right now they are full of both, though leaves are ready to thin.

There are trees that, thanks to several weeks without rain, are dropping their top leaves after the merest change in color. But the maples, always the most spectacular of the trees around in early fall, are putting on a show, either in oranges or reds.

 My pardon for the poles in this shot, but these two maples are right around the corner, and this is the only shot without tresspassing. One is red, the other orange, Nothing else has started changing near them.

This is a shot of a tiny section of a single tree, high over a rooftop. It has quite a range of colors all by itself, and much greener leaves lower if one looks at the roof and half a dozen cables spoiling the shot even lower, in front of it. Since this is above the cables and roof, you can guess how large the tree is. It also spreads more than the total width of the house, which itself is quite large. I have shots with cables and dormers and skylights on the street side of the house roof. I chose to stick with fall color, and this tree has quite the variety.

Finally, I have a shot of a tree with a long history, more than the years I've passed it on the highway. I include it for its history, both in life and color, along with my expectations of how the picture should change in a week or two.

Note the frontage road in front and the highway with cars and buildings in back of it. You also see a lot of dead branches. For years I had thought it had finished its life while we were in Arizona. But the back right side of the tree from this viewpoint is a luscious dark green. The pale yellows are other species.

You may well ask where the fall color is. A dozen years back it's fall color was absolutely scarlet. Yes, it's another maple. Another of matching color resided across the highway, just out of this picture to the right. It died and was removed several years ago. This hardy specimen hung on and produced new growth on its back right side, and has been left to continue its life by whoever owns the land. As for fall color, we've always been back down south by the time the new growth changed. I can only hope it has the same capability for bright red leaves its younger version had. Now that we're staying close, I will be watching it nearly daily, waiting to see what happens. 

I hope to have new photos by the end of the month. The oaks should be turning by then as well.

 

Why Beat Your Head Against The Wall?

 I have a pen pal. I've never met him in person. I never will. We connected online, on a political blog site called Daily Kos, where anyone who follows what they call the Rules of the Road is welcomed to contribute, either writing articles or commenting on those of others. I've mentioned this before.

We connected over the issue of climate change. Then took our conversation off those pages and onto email pages. He has time and resources (internet) for research deep into what others are publishing from their own science and data, and shares with people who will listen. I have watched the list of people he sends joint emails out to grow, albeit slowly, and some of those pass the information and sources on back at the original blog site for a much wider audience. 

The following discussions can be long and interesting, occasionally frustrating, as the large crowd splits into two basic sections. The first sees the progression of the changes, has learned about the tipping points, and is "watching" them tip, and  recognizes it's happening at increasing speed while most of the world sits on the information and evidence, ignored, and/or inactive.

The second group is mostly newer on the scene, hasn't watched the progression speed up, doesn't yet know the significance, and is absolutely sure it won't be happening till after they and theirs are dust. (Well literally that is kind of true. They just don't see how things speeding up will cause that dust rather than slow aging like their parents did.) This second group is absolutely certain that somebody, somewhere, will find the magic bullet to stop the process in its tracks and reverse it in time to avert disaster, because we humans are clever and can engineer our way out of whatever mess we've made.

Each group gets frustrated with the other, naturally. It is out of this frustration that my pen pal asked me a question this morning. I took him seriously. I always do, and he tells me he appreciates it. He's currently pretty isolated, aside from a few people helping him with the things he needs while he lasts, stuck home, and in official hospice status.

The topic of his latest dive into other's climate research was about what they call a "double blue ocean event". It is tracking the decreasing amount of polar ice, noting how the process is its own feedback loop in our warming world, and extrapolating how fast it might be until no polar ice remains to keep us within survivable temperatures. It raises the possibility that point could be reached in 2025. That's how important the feedback loop part of the math is. He sent me the link to the research to go over. (If you want to read it for yourself you have to ask. I'm not going to browbeat you with it.)

Yes, that science is grim. And the question my pen pal asked, out of his frustration for all his fighting and spreading the word to those who would hear, was so likely to be useless, was why was he still beating his head against the wall? Or in other words, what was the point of still fighting to get people to pay attention and do something when likely it was now pointless and he wouldn't be around to see it anyway?

After some chatty news, I decided to answer his question, as I heard it:

"As for why beat your head against the wall? You still care. Simple as that. Despite being in hospice, despite being in pain, despite how hopeless everything looks, you still care. Whether or not you're around to "live" through it, you are a normal, feeling human being. (Unlike some we won't name for the moment.) And because you still care, you keep reaching out to others, like me who can't do a damn thing about it but still insists on putting in a garden just for the beauty of it, and possibly to some who can pass it on to others till the ones who can make changes will hear and act. Because we humans hope until we're past the point where hope has any logic in the world. And we have learned, we who read and explore and care, that way beyond us there will be something else here, some new life we can't understand yet, filling and molding this big blue ball on some time scale we can write in numbers but not truly comprehend, and accept we haven't been that omniscient and omnipotent after all. That's why."

Answers, Options, And Hand Surgery

So, the bump didn't go away. It still maintained a square shape, not something abundant in nature.  And it had become, literally, a "hot spot." All the rest of the bruising had disappeared by now, one of the things I was told to be patient and wait for. My bump hadn't obliged by doing the same.  And during the evening when Steve and I were sitting watching TV, the house warm enough for short sleeves and the ceiling fan going,  while both my arm above the wrist and all my fingers on that hand were cool to the touch,  my square bump was warm to the touch. Not neutral warm, but warmer than the hand touching it. Even without the fan it stayed that way.

I wasn't waiting for a referral. My insurance doesn't say I have to, thank goodness, because I'd already been waiting too long. I made a phone call and got an appointment with a hand specialist at an orthopedic clinic, with a Dr. Aundrea Rainville, in Stillwater. They scheduled me for the next afternoon. It was nearly an hour's drive away, but I took it.

Happily.

I showed up with all my medical info and my photocopy of the original x-ray showing no bone damage. They got a new set of x-rays, making sure nothing had changed in the meantime. While waiting for my doctor to show up after reading the new one, I entertained myself with the view of a large pond out the 2nd floor window, and several very red mature maples scattered across the mostly green landscape. It was very relaxing, something I returned to during subsequent waiting periods.

When the doctor showed up, the x-ray still showed no bone problem.  She carefully felt the edges and height, asked how far out the painful area was and where, and explained it was in fact a hematoma. We were exactly where I'd been with two other doctors at this point. But instead of dismissing me, she took it further.

Why was it square? The blood was trapped in between layers in the hand, and could only push up at this point. Being clotted, it retained some shape. 

How long might it be this way? Several months, was the discouraging answer. Not "a bit" or "a while" like the other docs had said, but it might easily last through next spring. She added we could just leave it alone - not what I wanted to hear- but continued that this buildup of blood would attract bacteria in the body to the site, resulting in an infection. It may already be happening as it was becoming a hot spot.

Then, she offered a solution, music to my ears! She could open it up, suction and flush all the built up blood out, and stitch it back up. It would have to be bandaged with gentle pressure to keep a new hematoma from forming in the same location. 

Was I interested? Oh you bet! 

When would I like to have it done? I seriously replied that yesterday would have been good. She informed me that her surgery schedule for today was full...  (DAMN! I mentally reviewed my schedule for the next few days) ...but if I were willing to wait around until she found a space between patients this afternoon she would fit me in before she left for the day.

YES! Yes-yes-yes! Did she want me to head  out to the waiting area? Nope, she'd keep me right here. Now, did I want a local anesthetic or... I stopped her right there. I had no back-up driver. It would be a local, I'd be driving home. Knowing it was a long drive, she agreed it was the only choice.

Now the flurry of activity started. Two women brought in trays of instruments, stacks of gauze pads, large sterile square drapes to cover the table my arm would rest on, and bunches of stuff I could neither name nor wished to know the function of. One spread the first drape over the table, asked me to put my hand on top of it, and  got to work with a couple cleaning pads with a bottle of sterilizing solution fed into them from behind to cover every bit of my hand twice. When my hand was done I was required to keep it in the air. A new drape was set on top of that just used one, with some gauze added where my hand would rest again... but I still had to keep it in the air.

Now the doc came back, checked the progress, and opened up a syringe full of anesthetic. I was allowed to put my hand down again, and she asked if I wanted to watch? 

NO! I mean, it would have been fascinating if it weren't happening to me, but watching might make me react by flinching, or tell myself I could feel it just because I could see it. She slowly gave me three injections, which I could count only from the first fraction of a second for each, plus by feeling her gloved hands move around mine, touching areas not needing to be numbed. When finished half the syringe's contents remained and it was set on the table holding all the other supplies. I joked that we'd better not throw it away yet: we might need more! (We didn't)

She then left the room for a while, giving the anesthetic time to fully work. (Why can't dentists get that right?????) The two women who'd hauled in the supplies stayed, further organizing them to how and where the doc liked them to be for surgery. I could see my hand, which now had a very tall bump rising from over the square, presumably full of the fluid just pumped in with nowhere else to go. I wondered that there was enough loose skin in the area to stretch over all that. Weird as it looked, it was doing its job fantastically well. For the first time in weeks the ache was gone.

Several minutes later the doc popped back in, looked around at where everything was, regloved, and sat down. Several times she asked if I could feel something, and I rather flippantly asked in return whether she was doing anything? Yes, she'd been pinching, rather hard, and was testing if I was properly numb. Yes! I could feel my hand being moved, occasional pushing against it, and as she got down to business, hear something liquid go into a metal pan, feel cool liquid running over my fingers after they'd been set inside a kidney shaped metal pan along with the rest of my hand. When no more liquid ran down my fingers, I felt it lifted, set back flat on the draped table. The palm side all had normal sensation.

I knew more was happening, and sneaked a peek. Stitches were going in. Still no feeling at all, so I actually watched them get tied. There are three. The hand around the area was flat for the first time in weeks, except now for the ridge the stitches make.

It was conversation time again.  Stitches have to stay in for a full two weeks. I could make an appointment with them to come in to get them removed. Or I could see my local doc and save a long trip to get them removed. I thought I might give it a go myself. I'd already told her that I'd self treated my previous break in that hand. So part of my take home supplies included a sterile pack of tools to remove stitched, and she interrupted wrapping the hand to show me where to pull and what to cut, because these were blanket stitches, not going where I might have assumed where they went, and if I were to do it I need to know that. (Pretty cool doc!)

After giving instructions that no water touch the hand for two days, the pressure dressing stays on those same full two days, and can be replaced after removing for washing to keep swelling down for the full 2 week, she left for her next patient. One of the assistants remaining bandaged the hand, first with a multi-folded gauze pad, then winding a stretchy/sticky breathable wrap around the hand until the spool it came from was used up. It looks like what some vets are using on pets these days.

I'd mentioned I had ibuprofin in the car, so no further pain meds were suggested. I took them once I got in, even though I was still feeling nothing in that hand. That started to change once I started driving, but then the ibuprofin kicked in... and after picking Steve up some requested milk, it kicked off for most of the drive home. I'll definitely have a full dose before bed, and start again first thing in the morning, I expect. It's no worse than the ache before surgery, and I expect it will diminish steadily with time.

Trying To Vote

 The primary election went pretty good. Lines were short early in the afternoon, the ballot was party only, so pretty quick to go through, and Steve had a chair to vote from. Getting up when he finished, as it was so low, required my pointing out his issue to a couple of assistants standing around, but they were prompt and effective.

That of course was before his back's pain interrupter went totally FUBAR.  These days he can be reasonably fine when he wakes up but a slight coughing fit will destroy all hope of moving with just moderate pain. Say, like a level 7 of 10. Thus it was this morning. We'd agreed we'd hit the courthouse a bit later to vote absentee, which Minnesota is great about, before he coughed. 

Now it will be an ordeal to get to the bathroom. Or just stand up.

We'll see if there's improvement by around 3, giving time to get there, vote, and get out before the place closes.  If not, each day will be a repeat until fate gets it right and is kind to him.

There has been one major improvement at the house end of the trip. Paul has thoroughly braced the railing along the front door's steps. It had been wobbly enough Steve was afraid to trust it. I noticed the wobble but have been working on going up and down without needing it. The wood in the bottom post anchoring the railing had been rotting, both top and bottom. After much thought and measurements, Paul replaced that post (declaring those stairs temporarily no-go), dug a hole in the dirt next to the concrete where the post rested, and put in a second angled post, making a triangle for true stability. The bottom of the brace is down about 10" in the ground, its hole filled with concrete.

Despite the 4x4s being treated wood, I insisted on paint, and not just because the management would have insisted it be "pretty". I've seen how soon even treated wood, ignored once installed, starts to rot. The new wood got two coats of white primer, which I'd gotten over a month before for this and other painting needed. There was some in the shed left by a previous owner, but after stirring Paul declared it the consistency of cottage cheese. We plan to leave that can and a few similarly old ones open out in the shed over the winter to fully dry out so they can be just tossed in the garbage like rocks. 

Now that the concrete has fully set, I've gripped the railing and tried to shake it. It's immobile. Steve should be just fine using it... as soon as he is just fine for long enough to use it. Monday he gets in to his back doc again to discuss getting his FUBAR machine removed and possibly replaced by one with a better history rather than broken leads and shocks creating spasms, etc. We have no idea how much added wait that will take, and whether it takes one surgery or two. We do believe pulling out the old breaking one will be a big improvement. We hope a better quality replacement will be another improvement. 

Meanwhile we need to get him to vote.