Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  The field adjoining our front lawns was baled and trucked out yesterday.  The yield was unusually high, putting a big smile on Scott N.'s face (he's the fellow who leases our field to grow hay).  That cleared me to turn on the sprinklers for my lawn, which I did this morning.  As I cleared one nozzle, I noted the beautiful sunrise over the Wasatch Mountains to our east, and managed to get a photo of it looking over the fields across the highway east of our home.  That grass hay field is owned by the LDS church, who leases it out to Mike Clawson, a local dairy farmer. 

This morning I'll be transporting the kittens we're fostering, along with their mom, to a veterinary clinic about 25 miles north of us.  This clinic works with the Four Paws rescue organization to neuter stray or feral cats at low cost.  In a week or so, we'll be handing these kittens – now over 3 pounds each – over to Four Paws for adoption.  The little calico girl will be staying behind with us...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Scott and I made a trip down to the PODS storage facility in Salt Lake City this morning, to bring back a load of the stuff my sister Holly and her husband packed up a couple of weeks ago.  The pod made the trip in good order; we saw very little damage to the stuff inside (one plastic tub collapsed, and we haven't yet inspected the stuff in it, and one piece of furniture had a corner's finished rubbed off).  A couple of the things I was most concerned about made it just fine.  We may discover a bit more damage when we unwrap stuff, but I'm not expecting anything serious – it all looks great.

It was really hot down there doing heavy physical work.  The pod had been moved out onto the pavement for our access, and it was in the full sun on a day with a forecast for a 99°F high.  By the time we were done filling Scott's trailer, we were both hot and thirsty.  It's quite a bit warmer in Salt Lake City than in Paradise, and I suspect it's more humid as well.  When we got back to Paradise, it felt almost cool by comparison :)

We took about 2/3 of the pod's contents this morning, and it's all going to Scott's basement for further sorting.  We're headed back down to Salt Lake City to pick up the rest of the stuff next Tuesday.  The next load will head to my barn for sorting and (for some things) shipment back to other people.  I suspect it will be two or three weeks before we finally have completed all that work.

On our drive back to Paradise, I got a most unexpected phone call: from Danny Roger, the chaplain for Rocky Mountain Hospice, the folks who cared for mom while she was here in Utah.  He was checking up on Scott and I, to make sure we were ok, and whether we needed any support from him or their associated psychologist.  It's been almost two weeks since mom died, and nearly every day since then someone from the hospice has reached out to us in one way or another.  It almost feels like we're disappointing them when I tell them that we're doing ok, and don't need anything in the way of assistance ... but it sure is comforting to know that if we did need some help, it would be available...

Every box tells a story...

Every box tells a story...  A few weeks ago, while at my mom's old house in Virginia, I was searching for my dad's old Army records.  He served in the Army Air Force in WWII, as did his brother (and my uncle) Donald.  In that search I came across this small wooden box, about 8" x 6" x 3".  A photo of its lid is at right.

From the return address you can learn a lot.  My uncle Donald was a Technical Sergeant, specializing in radio and radar repair for the B-29 “Superfortress” bomber (photo at left).  He was assigned to the 875th Bombardment Squadron of the 498th Bomber Group, and he was stationed in Saipan from late 1944 through the end of the war in late 1945.  That dates the box to sometime in that period, and tells us that it was sent from Saipan.

Like many of his Army Air Force contemporaries, my uncle Donald had a secondary assignment: belly gunner in the tail belly gun.  He didn't like to talk about the war at all, but one day while we were searching on our farm for Indian artifacts, he told me that he flew on around 70 bombing runs over Japan.  On most of those missions he never fired his guns (except for testing) – American air superiority was so complete that usually the only defense was anti-aircraft guns from the ground.  Nevertheless, being a belly gunner was a risky proposition – should anything cause the aircraft to make a belly landing, you would end up being a smear on the runway.

One thing about my uncle that long surprised me: though he was a highly trained electronics technician, when I knew him (after the war) he never demonstrated either interest in, or knowledge of, electronics.  His post-war profession was accounting, which seems like an unlikely career course for someone so highly trained in then-exotic electronics.  To this day I have no idea why he abandoned electronics.  His older brother, my uncle Earle, was a noted electrical engineer (worked for Scott making transformer-coupled hi-fidelity tube-based amplifiers) who then transitioned into writing for and then editing one of the major publications in the field (EDN).  I guess uncle Donald didn't get those genes :)

The box itself is hand made from 3/16" plywood – three plies, aircraft grade.  It's probably spruce (as this was most common in WWII), but could possibly be birch.  From the broad grain, though, I suspect it's spruce.  This plywood is a material that could be found in any aircraft mechanic's shop at the time – it was the go-to material for interior partitions, cabinets, and so on, so uncle Donald would have had easy access to it.  The dovetailing is hand-done, with a chisel or possibly a knife; sharp blade marks and grain deformation are clearly visible, so it wasn't cut with a saw.  The dovetails are only approximately placed, as though they weren't even measured but just eyeballed.  Similarly, the dovetail widths vary by as much as an eighth of an inch.  I'm fairly certain uncle Donald made this box himself – as I saw him make some similar boxes in the '60s, using thin teak plywood.  When I watched him make such a box, he used an ordinary pocket knife and wood glue to do the entire job.

Then there's the address the box was sent to.  Mrs. Earle Dilatush was my grandmother, and uncle Donald's mother.  Her address doesn't even include a street, much less a zip code (which didn't exist back then) – just her name, town, and state.  At the time Robbinsville was quite a small village, located a few miles north of the farm where she lived – but still, that's all that was required for a letter or package to get to her.

Inside the box you can see fine particles of sand and shell embedded in the wood.  It's possible those particles got there long after the box was originally sent.  But it's also possible – likely, I think – that those particles are actually from Saipan.  My uncle was an amateur archaeologist, and he did some of the very first archaeological field work with the native settlements on Saipan.  He even had an article about his work in Saipan published in a professional journal, despite his (utter) lack of credentials.  His letters mention several hundred pounds of artifacts that he collected on Saipan and shipped back to his mother.  I'm sad to say that I never saw a single one of these artifacts, and I have no idea what happened to them.  But I'm guessing that this box was used to ship one (or some) of them back to his mother – and probably particularly interesting artifacts, given the care taken in making this box.

There you have it: every box tells a story (with apologies to Rod Stewart)!

Mom = safe...

Mom = safe...  One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 7 or 8 years old.  My brother Scott and I had been playing out in the field near our house, digging a hole to make a “fort”.  I was wielding a spade, and Scott a garden rake.  At one point we encountered some hard dirt, and Scott swung the rake overhead like a pick – but hit my head instead of the dirt.

Various people I've told this story to have immediately assumed that this skull vs. rake encounter explains some of the mental aberrations they believe I possess.  However, so far as I can tell the only direct consequence of that rake to the head was blood – a lot of blood.  Scalp wounds are notorious for bleeding heavily, and I had a bodacious scalp wound: a semi-circular incision about 8" long, resulting in a flap the size of a small dish that fell forward over my forehead.  Blood was pouring over my face, to the point where I could scarcely see.  My head hurt like hell.  I did what any kid would do: I ran for my mother.

She was perhaps 100' away, working in the kitchen of our house.  I can only imagine what she felt when she heard me burst through the door, yelling my head off, then saw me looking like someone who'd had a bucket of blood poured over their head.  I do know that she fell to her knees and looked absolutely stricken.  That so surprised me that I stopped yelling and started to get worried.  Years later mom told me that she had very nearly passed out, but managed to get herself together while on her knees.

Shortly after that she was talking to me, to make sure I was still alive.  Then she started looking carefully at my head, discovered the flap of scalp, and flipped it roughly back into place.  Watching her, I saw her getting covered with blood (especially her hands and arms) – and that's the first time I really understood that I was bleeding heavily.  Next thing she did was to call our family doctor, an old fashioned general practitioner named Dr. Norman Garwood, located in Crosswicks (about a half hour from our home).  She got his wife and assistant, who quickly got the doctor himself on the phone.  Good old Dr. Garwood calmed mom down, asked some questions, had her put a clean towel over my head, told her to have me press that towel down (which hurt!), then told her to bundle me into the car and get me to his office as fast as she could.

Mom did exactly that – we were on the road in about 30 seconds.  She didn't even wash the blood off her hands.  I remember riding in the passenger seat (instead of the back seat like we usually did), with her talking to me the whole time to make sure I wasn't passing out.  She also kept hollering at me to press harder on that towel; she was worried about how much blood I was losing (later, Dr. Garwood assured her that I hadn't lost enough to be worried about, other than making a mess).  The blood on my face was starting to congeal, and that felt weird and uncomfortable.  It also smelled and tasted odd.

Most of all, though, I remember feeling safe, despite the frightening thing that had happened to me.  Why?  Because mom was there, doing her mom thing: comforting me, making sure I was ok, getting me to medical help.  To me, she looked cool, calm, and totally on top of things.  I never felt in danger at all.  I felt pain, to be sure, but never actually threatened.  Her total focus on me and my injury surrounded me like a protective cocoon. 

Moms are an awfully good thing...

When we got to Dr. Garwood's office, he was all ready with the cleaning supplies, needles, and thread.  He spent a half hour or so getting all the dirt (from the rake) out of my wound, then just a few minutes stitching it up.  I got a lollipop and bragging rights for a bunch of stitches (which were, much to my chagrin, almost invisible under my then-thick head of hair).

Many years later, mom told me that the trip to Dr. Garwood's office that day was one of the most terrifying things she'd ever done, and not just because I was bleeding all over the place.  As long as I kept talking, she said, she figured I wasn't about to croak.  She was most frightened by the possibility that my skull had been cracked, and that I'd suffered some sort of brain damage (and I can hear the jokers now!).  She was also frightened by something else: she and dad had no money to pay Dr. Garwood or a hospital: I'd sustained this injury at a very dicey moment for them, financially.  I don't remember hearing her talk with Dr. Garwood about the money issue, though she said I was there.  Dr. Garwood told her not to worry about the money; he'd give her a bill that they could pay if and when they could.  If and when they could.  He also told her that that was true for any emergency medical situation – don't worry about the money, just get the emergency dealt with.  Years later, when she told me about her side of this story, that was what she remembered most clearly: Dr. Garwood telling her just not to worry about the money.  Mom and dad did pay Dr. Garwood back, but it wasn't until the following spring, nearly a year later.  She took him a check with an apple pie as “interest” – and we heard about that apple pie for years afterwards when we saw Dr. Garwood :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, yesterday's furniture assembly project didn't go quite as intended.  The long table and hutch assembled just fine, and you can see the result in the photo at right.  The desk?  That's a whole 'nother story...

The desk was supposed to go right about where I stood to take the photo at right.  As I got ready to disassemble the desk (so I could get it through the office door), I noticed that it seemed a tad big for the space it was supposed to fit in.  I measured the width available: 64".  I measured the desk's width: 81".  Yikes – 17" too big!  What happened?

My first thought was that I had screwed up the measurements used when we ordered the furniture, and that I had actually ordered the 81" desk.  However, when I went back and checked the paperwork, I saw that we actually ordered a 60" desk.  The craftsman messed up!

So we contacted our furniture broker, and she's already committed to fixing the problem.  It took five months to actually receive this furniture, though ... so now we're worried that we won't see the (correct) desk until near the end of the year.  Dang!  For a while, Debbie may have to put her computer on the same old folding table she was using, while the rest of her office is gorgeous.  There's also the matter of this gigantic desk we can't use, and that's now sitting on the second floor of our house.  Somehow that will have to be sent back to North Carolina, from whence it came. 

Tomorrow my brother Scott and I will drive down to Salt Lake City to unload the “pod” of my mom's stuff that was shipped out of Virginia.  It's likely that it will take us at least two trips to get everything; the second trip will be tomorrow.  We're going to go early in the morning to try to avoid the forecast high heat, but ... we'll be unloading in the heat no matter what.  Oh, well...

This morning we had a beautiful full moon hanging over the Wellsville Mountains just before sunrise (at right, from our front yard).  If you're wondering why we have three trash cans in our front yard, they're for storing bird seed.  I'm going through about 25 pounds a week now, of four different kinds of seed (black oil sunflower, high energy mix, Nijer thistle, and cracked corn). 

Today I'm expecting a split-system air conditioner to arrive via truck.  This is going to cool my office down to something livable on hot summer afternoons.  The model I got is actually a heat pump, so it could also be used to heat the office in the winter.  That means I'll have three sources of heat: the forced air from the (floor heated) first floor, the wood stove, and the heat pump.  I should stay nice and cozy no matter what :)

Card from mom's hospice folks...

Card from mom's hospice folks...  From the moment mom arrived out here in Utah, we were impressed with the quality of the care her hospice team delivered.  Even more we were impressed by the genuine caring that they repeatedly demonstrated.  While all of their folks were great, the nurse assigned to mom – Logan A. – was particularly good.  When mom died, Logan was the one who called me (in the middle of the night) to let me know, and she did so in a sweet and caring way.  In a conversation a little later that same day I found out this was the worst part of the job for her.  After mom died, Logan went out of her way to reach out to me, to make sure that Scott and I were doing all right.

Yesterday we got an envelope from Rocky Mountain Care, the hospice organization, and it was obviously a card.  From the outside (above), it looked like a standard generic corporate card.  Inside was something else altogether (click to embiggen):

That was the last thing in the world that I expected.  Some of those people I never even met.  Some, like Logan, were an important part of mom's care.  I cannot even imagine doing the job these fine folks do every day.  Even if I somehow managed to make myself do it, I can't imagine maintaining that degree of caring for people – strangers to them – that they know are going to die soon.  That's the very definition of their work.  But these folks do it, and they do it very well.

Kudos to them all.  Now pardon me while I wipe a tear or three away...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Yesterday Debbie's new office furniture was delivered: a long table (with the top in two pieces for shipment), a large hutch for storage, and a desk.  All of this furniture was custom-made by the same craftsman who made our dresser and a few other pieces.  We ordered it back in February, and only now did it arrive.  It's made of massive black locust slabs with trunks for table legs.  It's stunning stuff, the kind of thing we'd only seen in glossy magazine photos before.

“Delivered” is a bit of an ambiguous term, however :)  The delivery company knew they had some heavy pieces (the hutch is over 400 pounds), so they promised to send some muscle along.  The driver, a very nice fellow named Preston, stopped in Wellsville and picked up a few relatives: his brothers and their wives and children, and his parents.  We had the whole family clan along for the effort!  My brother Scott and I were the muscle on our end.

While the delivery folks wanted to be very helpful, in fact they were completely unprepared to make this delivery.  They didn't even have knives to remove the packing material, much less any hand trucks, skids, etc.  Worse yet, they had no experience at all moving furniture.  I am vastly more experienced than they are, simply from having moved my own household a few times.

Except for the hutch, the clan and us managed to get everything upstairs.  There was a bit of damage to the desk in the process (we're working on resolving that), and the house suffered a ding or two (nothing serious).  The hutch, though, was simply too large to get upstairs.  That's my bad; I measured the hutch to fit the space and didn't even think about what it would take to get it into the upstairs office.  It was too big to fit in the front door!

So the delivery folks left, and it was just Scott and I left.  After some thinking, we realized we were going to have to partially disassemble the hutch.  A couple hours later, our front yard was littered with beautiful furniture components, and the remaining hutch framework was just small enough to fit through the door.  However ... it was too long to make the turn required to go through the front door and up the main stairway.  What to do?

After considerable thought, measurement, and plotting, I came up with a way.  We put the hutch on a pallet, and used my tractor to get it to the back door, which opens into our kitchen.  We then skidded it on a piece of cardboard through the kitchen, rotated it (with about 1" of clearance!), and skidded it into our dining room.  From there we could easily get it to our second staircase that leads up into the TV room.  I'm not quite sure how Scott and I did it, but we managed to get that monster up the staircase without dinging either it or the walls – despite having less than 1" of clearance on the width.  Once in the TV room, skidding it into the office was a piece of cake.  The hutch was upstairs – we did it!

That ended our efforts for the day.  We were both exhausted.

Today is assembly day.  The furniture is all upstairs now, but partially disassembled and not in the right place.  So far this morning I've assembled the table (though all the screws are not yet in place).  The two pieces of the table top weigh over 100 pounds each; they were quite tricky to get into place by myself.  Ingenuity was required, along with a tolerance for smashed toes :)  Next up: the desk, which will have to be disassembled to get it through the office door, then reassembled once it's inside.

It promises to be a long, long day...

The chair...

The chair...  A few weeks ago I bought a fancy electric reclining chair for my mom to use here in Utah.  With a simple hand-held control, the chair's back could be moved anywhere from lying almost flat to sitting up straight.  Likewise, a footrest could be placed at any desired angle.  On top of all that, the seat would rise high enough to stand you right up, and then go back down to normal chair height.

Mom never had a chance to use that chair.  The day after we set it up, she was admitted to the hospital, and she never returned to her independent living apartment.  After she died, we owned this very useful chair - but nobody in the family had any need of it.  What to do?

After some thought, I decided that mom would want us to find someone who could use it - preferably someone local, or a veteran ... or both.  I've come to know my predominantly LDS community well enough to know there's a good way to search for someone in need of particular help: the bishop of the ward we live in (Paradise ward 2).  

So I called our bishop and explained the situation to him.  A few days later he called back to tell me that he couldn't find anyone in ward 2 - but the bishop of ward 3 had a great candidate: Roy and Maxine M., whose house is less than a mile from ours.

Last night my brother Scott and I picked up the chair from mom's apartment and delivered it to Roy and Maxine.  We had the pleasure of getting to know them a bit - mom would have called them "salt of the earth", and she'd have liked them.  Roy has a number of physical challenges, and that chair will be a big boon to him.  Furthermore he has back surgery scheduled for next week, and he'll be unable to bend his back for a few weeks - making the chair a very timely gift for him.

Roy is local, and he's also a veteran.  Mom would have loved it that we found someone like him to give her chair to.  On the short drive home from Roy and Maxine's place I had a big smile on my face - it felt so right for mom's chair to be there for Roy...

Slo-mo puppies!

Slo-mo puppies!  Just go enjoy...

Obituary...

Obituary...  My sister Holly and I collaborated to write an obituary for mom, one that we hoped she'd approve of.  But when I called the Trenton Times (the paper she read every day for over 50 years, even after leaving New Jersey) I got quite a shock: the cost for published her short obituary would be well over $500.  Even more shocking: the tiny little newspaper in Lincoln, Maine would charge over $300!

My mom would never forgive us for wasting perfectly good money on something stupid like that.  I can almost hear her hollering at me for even considering it.  So instead, I'm going to self-publish it right here, where anyone searching the Internet for her name will find it:

Elinor Bernice Dilatush, 83, died peacefully in Logan, Utah early in the morning of June 8, 2016. She was the daughter of Donald and Mable MacLaughlin of Red Bank and Locust, New Jersey. For most of her life, for reasons that nobody really understands, Elinor lived voluntarily in New Jersey. Almost 50 years of that time was with her husband Thomas Jobes Dilatush on the Dilatush Nursery, along U.S. 130 just south of Robbinsville. Her only escape was the many summers she spent at Long Pond, Maine and camping all across the country with her family. She is survived by her four children: Mark, Holly, Scott, and Tom. While Elinor thought her children and their progeny were all extraordinary and superlative examples of humankind, an objective observer would almost certainly be less charitable – but she loved them all anyway, warts, questionable characters, and all.

Elinor loved flowers, ornamental plants, weeding, watering, birds, four-letter words, playing cards (almost any kind would do), and talking about creative ways to eliminate liberal politicians, ignorant voters, and religious fanatics with violent tendencies. She owned a .357 revolver and knew how to use it; allegedly she even occasionally hit a target when practicing. Elinor was a talented crafter: painting, sewing, and creative decorations were all in her repertoire. Her teasel Santa Clauses and gingerbread villages were famous; articles about them were published in the Trenton Times. Her cooking was legendary amongst friends and family; anyone lucky enough to eat at her table would remember the experience the rest of their lives. Her willpower was extraordinary; amongst her feats of self-control were her instant cold-turkey smoking cessation when the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964, and control of her diabetes through diet alone.

Elinor's favorite place on Earth was Long Pond, just north of Lincoln, Maine. She had much to cherish there: many friends, the natural beauty of the pond and its surrounds, and most of all the good times to be had fishing, paddling on the pond, and playing cards with the delightful cast of characters who frequented her cabin on the pond. Per her wishes, Elinor's ashes will be scattered in Long Pond so that she can look at the fishes, the loons, the people, and the pond she so cherished.

Elinor asked that no service or ceremony be held at the time of her death – she had an aversion to the very notion of formal mourning. Instead, she asked that family and close friends gather at Long Pond at an appropriate time to scatter her ashes and celebrate her life, and this is exactly what we are going to do.

We miss you, mom...

Long Pond...

Long Pond...  North of the town of Lincoln, Maine there is a body of water named “Long Pond” (Google Maps satellite view at right).  Maine has a lot of bodies of water, some quite large – so what they call a “pond” in most places would be called a fairly large lake.  Out here in Utah, Long Pond would probably be a national park :)

My grandfather – my mother's father – bought a few acres of land along the side of that pond back in the 1940s.  It was located on the western leg of Long Pond, on the south shore, accessed via Sweet Road.  My grandfather had a slew of fishing buddies up there, and they had a grand time each summer when he went up there for his vacation.  They fished, drank (lots of) beer, played cards, cussed, told stories, and played outrageous pranks on one another.  Adding to the charm was the presence of a good many “characters” who lived up there year-round.

My mother grew up amongst this joy and carousing, and for her it was some of the very best that life could deliver.  Of course she came to associate that with the place – the beautiful country that Long Pond was a part of.  The people there were also a major part of what made that place special to her, just as the people here are a big part of what makes Paradise, Utah special to Debbie and I.  Mom had a million stories about Long Pond, and every one that I can remember now involved someone there.  That's very different than the stories I remember about my dad, as often those stories involved wild places and plants – but not people.  I suspect my introversion was inherited from my dad; certainly my mom's genes did not contribute to that at all :)

Long Pond was my mom's favorite place on the planet.  Her explicit wish is to have her ashes scattered over Long Pond, so that she can “look up” to see the fish and the loons – and her son, Mark, fishing there just like her father did.  We will be honoring those wishes when we can arrange a time that works for everyone who wants to be there; tentatively that's going to be in June 2017.

Mark now owns that land alongside the lake, and he's in the process of building a new “camp” for his family to use.  His children grew up enjoying and loving Maine much as my mom did, and I suspect his grandchildren will do the same.

That is just how my mom would have wanted it...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Cabo and Mako, our two field spaniel puppies, continue to delight us.  Click the video at right to see why.

Yesterday afternoon, Debbie and I took a drive up to one of our favorite local spots: Hardware Ranch and the road to Ant Flats.  Debbie felt ready to try an outing, and while it made her knee a bit sore (with the bouncing), she pronounced it well worth it.

We saw a few wildflowers along the way (below).  The first one we're familiar with from San Diego, but I don't know it's name.  The second is a particularly nice Indian Paintbrush.  The third is unfamiliar to me, and is interestingly weird.  First, the flower's aroma resembles skunk cabbage – most unexpected!  Second, the stem is hairy and fairly tacky – but doesn't leave your fingers sticky.  It grows in low-lying, wet areas, usually in bunches of wild onions.

Even better than the wildlife, though, was the birding!  We had beautiful close-up views of a cedar waxwing, a banded kingfisher, and (we think) a juvenile black-headed grosbeak.

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  While I was setting out sprinklers for our lawn this morning, the glorious rainbow at right suddenly lit up right in front of me.  The conditions were nearly perfect: a rain squall passing to our west (headed north), and the early morning sun shining through a hole in the clouds from the east.  If you embiggen that photo and look closely, you'll see that there are two additional (much dimmer) rainbows besides the primary one.  One is just below the primary; the other is about twice the radius of the primary.  Both were clearly visible to the naked eye; the camera didn't do a great job of capturing them.

As I was drinking my tea this morning, I spotted Tim D. walking toward his hand line (irrigation pipe), getting ready to move them.  I pulled on my boots and went out to help, and the two of us spent a very companionable hour moving his three strings of hand line.  For each cycle of irrigation, we move those pipes six times, in 30' increments, so that the entire field gets watered.  Generally he irrigates about once every 10 to 15 days, so about a third to half of summer mornings we need to move hand line.  This morning, we mostly we shared our thoughts about the beauty around us, and it truly was a gorgeous morning.  The skies were mostly cloudy, but the occasional holes in the clouds led to bright sunlight playing over the hills and mountains around us.  Every piece of land in sight is a beautiful green right now, and washed clean by yesterday's rainstorm.  Everywhere we looked we saw life: crops, pastures, cattle, sheep, horses, and more.

I love this place, and the people in it!

Willpower and the 1964 Surgeon-General's report...

Willpower and the 1964 Surgeon-General's report...  My mom was a 3-to-4 pack a day cigarette smoker for about 12 years, from age 17 to 29.  U.S. citizens younger than about 60 would likely be surprised by just how normal that was.  In 1955, about 56% of adult men (and about half that percentage of women) were smokers.  Mom's smoking habit wasn't at all unusual back in those days.

I have some memories of her smoking, but even more memories of an errand she often had me do: running into the pharmacy with some change to buy her a pack or two of Kent menthol cigarettes.  It seems very odd, these days, to think that a pharmacy would be the place to buy cigarettes, but that's where she usually bought them.  I found that little errand exciting, as it seemed like a very grown-up thing to do for someone my age (I did this for a few years starting at about age 8 or 9). 

On January 11, 1964, my mom quit smoking.  Cold turkey, immediately upon hearing the news reports of the Surgeon General's report on the health hazards of smoking – and his recommendation that all smokers immediately quit.  I remember her searching out and throwing away all the packs of cigarettes she had squirreled away in convenient places.  All the ash trays in the house were cleaned and put away.  I was just 11 at the time, so I didn't understand that she was doing something that most people find difficult; she never showed any sign that quitting was hard for her at all.  I remember her urging her father to quit (he did not, and emphysema claimed him not many years later), along with several siblings.  To the best of my knowledge, she was the only smoker in her family to quit at the time.  I never saw her waver in her determination to quit smoking: she heard the report, made up her mind, and just quit.  Right then.  Just one attempt.  No nicotine patches or gum.  No furtive tokes when she thought nobody was looking.  She made quitting look effortless.

This is one example of an important element of mom's character: her amazing willpower.  It manifested in quite a few ways, some of which will be the subject of other posts.  Her willpower is legendary in our family, with good reason.  This is the earliest example I know of, though I'm sure it didn't spring up fully formed on that day.

To this day I have never heard of another person who quit smoking, cold turkey, on the day the Surgeon General issued that report...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...   As I write this post, it's raining outside – a nice, steady, moderate rain.  The forecast says we're to expect about 0.15 inches, but I'd guess we've already got that much, and the storm is only about half over.  The storm is coming from due south of us, and on the radar snapshot at right you can see that we're about to get slammed with some harder rain.

The farmers around us have started to cut and bale hay.  My neighbor to the north, Tim D., just had his baled on Wednesday.  Yesterday I picked up 21 bales of around a half ton each from the 3.5 acres he's raising alfalfa on.  That's up substantially from the yield last year, much to his satisfaction.  He'll get three cutting this year, and probably between 25 and 30 tons of hay total.  On our own field to the south of our house, we have 11 acres in alfalfa (it's leased out to Scott N., a local hay farmer who mostly uses leased land).  Scott hasn't cut that field yet, but he likely will within a day or two.  All this cutting, hay drying, and baling means that the air around here is full of the delicious aroma of alfalfa and grass hay.  The farmers who are caught with hay cut and drying right now are not going to be happy about this rain...

The puppies continue to be a joy for Debbie and I.  The video at right shows Cabo enjoying a delicious stick, until Mako comes along and tries to steal it.  Yesterday I took the two of them in to see our vet for their second round of puppy inoculations.  In the waiting area they were a big hit with the staff, the dogs waiting, and their owners.  Lots of people asked what breed the dogs were, and several of them were writing it down.  The vet (Dr. Watkins) gave them a good exam, then pronounced them beautiful and perfect.  After he gave them their vaccines, he just sat back and watched them for a few minutes, a happy smile upon his face.  He told me that I had made his day by bringing these two in – and that I should be charging him, rather than the other way around :)  There are now a couple hundred puppy videos uploaded to YouTube, most of them around one minute long.  Any of them will make you smile (and if you don't smile, please schedule an appointment with a psychologist posthaste!).  The photos below capture a few kinetic puppy moments, and the joy of Debbie at last able to hold a puppy.

Meanwhile, our five foster kittens are thriving.  They've had their first round of inoculations, and they're old enough now to be rambunctious and naughty.  Very naughty!  The photo at right shows their room after they apparently held a party in it on a recent night.  Some of those objects are heavier than you'd imagine a kitten could move, and yet there the mess was.  Shortly the kittens will all be neutered and get a second round of inoculations, then we'll be returning them to the Four Paws organization for adoption.  One of them will likely be staying with us, though: the little calico kitten has captured not only Debbie's heart, but also our friend Michelle's.  I think I'd suffer terribly if I didn't cave in to their desire to keep her.  Not that I'll get any credit for caving, of course :)

A few days ago I somehow found an hour to talk my beloved morning walk.  It was overcast and cool, and the dogs and I had a lovely time exploring all the life around us.  The lowest field we walked by was planted in alfalfa, and it was in bloom.  There was a leaker riser that provided great entertainment for Race, who loves to bite streams of water.  He went sort of bonkers for about five minutes, apparently thinking he was defeating the water.  He wasn't, of course :)  Our neighbor now has four horses and two mules pastured, so we stopped for a while to chat with them.  Then there were large patches of a beautiful yellow weed.  I'm sure the farmers would do their best to eradicate these, but when the show up in great masses (as they are right now), these tiny yellow flowers can be quite beautiful...

Of friends and raspberry pie...

Of friends and raspberry pie...  The first friends we made up here, just over two years ago, were Bruce and June N.  They were the realtors who helped us find our home here, and since then have become good friends.

Yesterday Bruce was driving home (they live just south of us, in Avon) from Ogden, a route that takes him past Maddox Restaurant.  Knowing that we love fruit pies, he stopped in and got a raspberry cream pie for us.  Usually fruit pies from restaurants are ... less than spectacularly good, but Maddox is a standout exception.  Many of their fruit pies are made only when the local fruit is in season, and that's the case with their raspberry cream pie.

Last night we'd already eaten when Bruce showed up with the pie, so it went into the refrigerator.  Today we just ate our lunch, and we each had a nice slice of that pie for our dessert.  Heaven in our mouths, it was.  I don't know how one could get more intense raspberry flavor than that pie.  The cream filling and whipped cream on top just added to the overall decadence.

Oh, man, that was good!

When my mom first got to Utah a couple of weeks ago, Bruce and June were the first local friends of ours to visit with her.  Mom greatly enjoyed meeting them, and experiencing a heavy dose of Utahan niceness; Bruce and June likewise enjoyed meeting this character from New Jersey.  Bruce told me afterward that he was really looking forward to getting to know mom better.

Bruce didn't know that mom had died, so yesterday afternoon when we told him, he was quite shocked.  When he and June visited mom, just 10 days ago, she was energetic and brimming with vitality; there was no indication of someone near the end of their days.  After he recovered his own composure, he was full of compassion and sympathy for us.  We had a warm conversation about mom, losses of loved ones, the trials and tribulations of life, and more.  It was one more manifestation of the reasons why Debbie and I feel so very lucky to have joined the community here...

The story of “Mildred”...

The story of “Mildred”...  An astute reader noted that the filtered view (link at right) for my mom uses the tag “Mildred”, and she wondered why.  After all, my mom's name is Elinor, not Mildred.  So what gives?

I don't remember how it got started, but in her later life “Mildred” was my mom's favorite nickname for herself.  It was used by both family and friends, and she often asked people to call her Mildred.  I do remember that at one point, when I was a child (this would be back in the '60s), we'd tease her by calling her Mildred – and she reacted just as you hope someone will react when you're teasing them.  We'd say things like “What a Mildred!”  Sounds quite silly now, but my mom didn't appreciate it.  She certainly didn't embrace the nickname as her own back then!

Her given name is actually Elinor, a slightly unusual variant of the name that's usually spelled Eleanor.  I've no idea why her parents chose the spelling they did, but I will note that the name Eleanor was very common for girls in the year she was born, and that spelling variations (including Elinor), while not as common as Eleanor, were certainly not rare.  I've only run into two much younger people who spelled their name as Elinor: one a young woman of perhaps 25 years, born in England; the other the baby girl of an employee of mine, adopted from a Chinese orphanage and named in honor of a grandparent.  I suspect it's pretty unusual these days, even if it wasn't in 1935.

Mom's memorial...

Mom's memorial...  For the past year or so, mom was actively engaged in making sure that her worldly possessions would go to people who cherished them (for either material or sentimental reasons) or who needed them.  For example, her paintings will be distributed amongst family members as a remembrance of her.  A table made of holly tree wood will be in my sister's house, beautiful on its own and a remembrance of her.  Her car has been donated to a (very appreciative!) veteran.  Scott will have a favorite stuffed armchair.  Debbie and I will have some cut glass and glass paperweights.  There were far too many of these arrangements to list here, but they are all of the same spirit.  Settling the disposition of her possessions brought her much joy and satisfaction.

Some of her possessions were left undesignated, though – especially things that were very recently acquired.  We're distributing them in the same spirit that she would have.  For instance, she owed an electric reclining chair for her room in Williamsburg, and the bishop of our local LDS ward is helping us find someone who could really make good use of that.  A beautiful bouquet and vase that was in her nursing home room has been given to a patient there, someone all alone in the world and in need of some cheer.  Her glasses will be donated to an organization that sends them to Africa.

These gifts, collectively, are a kind of memorial for mom.  They epitomize her generosity and kindness.  She wanted her passing to bring some light to others ... and it already has.

Mom left us very simple, explicit instructions about services and ceremonies after she died: there shall be none.  She didn't want us to mourn (sorry, mom), and didn't want us to hold any sort of service or ceremony at all (we're honoring this).  She wanted to be cremated, and at a time of our choosing when the immediate family and some close friends could get together alongside Long Pond just north of Lincoln, Maine, have her ashes scattered over the pond.  We're going to do that as well.  It may take a while to organize that gathering, but we will do it...

The manifestations of grief...

The manifestations of grief...  Years ago I took a management course, one segment of which dealt with handling the grief of employees who had had some tragic experience.  Probably the most important thing they taught us was this: that everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, and that you might find some of those ways surprising, odd, out-of-character, or even inappropriate.

I had a small experience of this myself earlier today, of the out of character kind.

This morning I visited our favorite grocery store to pick up a few items we needed.  As I was loading fruity sparkling water into my cart, a woman I didn't know came up to me and asked, very gently, “Are you ok?”

I had no idea why she was asking me this, so I asked her.  She said “Because you’re crying, and you look so sad.”  Only then did it dawn on me that I was crying; tears were streaming down my cheeks and into my beard.  Until that moment, I had had no idea at all.

So I told this kind woman about my mom's death yesterday, which was why I was crying.  She gave me a big hug, talked with my a bit about her own experience losing a brother (to a drunk driver), and left me feeling better.

The world has lost a character, and a cherished mom...

The world has lost a character, and a cherished mom...  My mom – Elinor Bernice Dilatush – died early Wednesday morning.  She was free of pain and fear, comfortably in bed.  Up until just the past few days she was active, happy (oh, so happy!), and excited about her new situation here in Northern Utah.  My brothers and sister and I are thankful that her last days were as good as they were, and that she didn't have a long, miserable time at the end.  We're also thankful that she was able to see my brother Scott and Debbie (my wife) once again; these were high on her bucket list.  If we could ask her what regrets she had, I suspect her answer would have been something like “That the 2016 election has Trump and Clinton as candidates!”  As regrets go, that's not so bad...

I will be writing more about her when some time has passed and the emotions aren't so raw.  I'm expecting that writing about her will be much more challenging than writing about my dad was, as my memories about her are less about stories and more about feelings...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It is so good to have Debbie home!  As I write this, she is perched in a recliner in our dining room, pillow under her feet and a blanket over them, with a view out to our bird feeders through a bay window.  Her iPad is in hand, and she's smiling and good for a bit while I work out in my shed office.  We fed the puppies together this morning, and she got to pet Miki and Race.  Jahar is curled up alongside her at night (or whenever she's in bed).  A home physical therapy guy showed up yesterday for her first session, and he was very impressed with how well she was maneuvering, considering the surgery was just 12 days ago.  Her experience helps here, even thought the fact that both her knees are locked is new and different.

Not much to report on my mom.  She's still in the hospital, and still having some confusion.  I'm headed up this morning, hoping to catch her doctor on his rounds.  At this point we can't help worrying that she won't get past this confused mental state, and will have to be admitted to a nursing home instead of the independent living setup she moved into out here.  Despite all that's happened, she is still happy – sunny, even.

A friend sent me an email on Friday that I've reread it about ten times.  I'm not going to share it (as I'd be embarrassed by his compliments), but I'll tell you that it was exactly what I needed at that moment.  I had a very emotional reaction to reading it that took me completely by surprise.  Good therapy, friends are...

Debbie's home!

Debbie's home!  There was lots of last minute scrambling, but around noon she was in her truck and I was driving her home.  Yay!  She got to greet the dogs, hold a couple of puppies, and get reacquainted with Jahar (her Savannah cat).  Major smiles :). From my perspective, it's just wonderful to have her home.

We're both a bit tired tonight for some reason :). But happy...

Debbie and mom update...

Debbie and mom update...  Got the word late yesterday that if we could buy/rent/borrow/beg/steal the right kind of wheelchair for Debbie, she could be discharged today (Friday)!  So ... I found a place that had what she needs, and it's now in her room.  We're not sure what time of day she'll be discharged, but it looks like it's going to be today.  Yippee!

Not much news on my mom.  She's comfortable, not in any pain, and a couple of things the doctors saw that they didn't like (sodium level and swelling in her legs) are slowly getting better.  I'm hoping to get with her doctor today (he's a busy guy, and hard to meet up with) to get a better idea of their plan of action and an estimate for the duration of her stay.

My sister Holly and her husband Warren packed a “pod” full of stuff for mom yesterday.  It's going to be picked up for shipment to Salt Lake City today.  Yesterday I received my mother's computer, also packed by Warren.  That was one studly packing job he did on that thing: built an inner box out of Masonite and packed that big old iMac screen inside it exactly the way it needs to be.  UPS did their level best to destroy the computer, but their efforts were puny compared to the manliness of that inner box.  After I unpacked it, I used the Masonite inner box and the packing material to build a small shrine to Warren.  It will stay in our living room for a few days, to pay the proper respects to the master of packing.  I suspect I'll need to do this again after I see the pod.  Holly warned me that it's packed very tightly and intricately, and must be disassembled with great care to avoid injury and explosions.  I can hardly wait to see this :)

Debbie and mom update...

Debbie and mom update...  That beautiful smiling lady at right is Debbie, yesterday, when I managed to sneak in a kitten for her to pamper for a little while.  She's doing great – lots of progress on the physical therapy.  Today she walked about 30' on a walker, hopping on her one weight-bearing leg.  Then she wheeled herself in a wheelchair about 200' to visit another patient – and then back to her room again.  Later, she made that same trip again.  That's an amazing increment of progress since her surgery 9 days ago...

Mom's not doing quite so well.  She fell early this morning and was discovered by aides on the floor.  She wasn't injured at all, but she also wasn't responding and had not pressed her emergency button.  Yesterday she'd had some confusion and memory issues that already had us concerned.  The staff at Williamsburg called for paramedics, and they were able to get her up and talking, but she was still confused.  So they transported her to the local hospital, and now she's been admitted for observation and treatment of anything they find.  So far they haven't found anything at all.  Mom is on the same floor as Debbie, about 200' away – and if you haven't guessed, she's the other patient who Debbie went to visit :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It's Memorial Day, and I'm remembering the two people I knew who were killed in Vietnam, the one I knew who was killed in Afghanistan, and the fallen I didn't know whose names are inscribed all over this country on monuments to WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and even the Civil War (especially in the South).  I – we – owe so much to them.  Some of them I remember often, though less often than I should.  It's good to have a day set aside to remember and honor these men and women.

When we lived in San Diego, this day was mostly about hot dogs, hamburgers, and the social occasion.  Rarely did I run into anyone there for whom the day had deeper meaning.  Most knew why we mark this day, but I met quite a few – mostly younger people at work – who had no idea why the day was set aside.  For them it was strictly a day of fun and food.  When I ran into that, it always made me sad.

Here in rural northern Utah, where I've lived for over two years now, I'm still startled by the difference.  It's impossible to live here without knowing why Memorial Day exists – there are news stories, placards, posters, and other reminders everywhere.  The hospital where Debbie is staying has a poster and display in the lobby.  McDonald's has a kiosk, very nicely done.  Our grocery store has a table with remembrances of fallen locals.  Organizations like the scouts, schools, and 4-H all hold events designed to help the kids understand.  More than a few parents take their kids to the local memorials, services, and cemeteries.  I could go on and on, but the real point is the pervasiveness of the honoring of the spirit of this day – something basically completely absent in San Diego.

One other manifestation of that honoring I particularly love: the display of American flags.  Every town and city has flags hanging from lampposts and buildings.  Many homes have special flags planted in the front, in public view, like the one planted in front of our home in the photo above (taken just this morning).  These flags are courtesy of the local Boy Scout troops, who put them up on every patriotic holiday.  Those who can afford it contribute $35 a year for the service, but I know that the homes of several locals who would like to have the flags, but who cannot afford it, are similarly festooned without cost to them.  The result is that our local roads have dozens and dozens of flags on them – rarely can you go even a quarter mile in rural country without seeing one.  Then of course there are many, many folks who (like us) permanently display a flag on their own flagpoles.

I love this patriotic display.

But it is a bit disturbing to me in a way – the presence of it here underlines the absence of it in our cities.  It's the “two Americas” notion, and my own experience tells me it's very real.  The urbanization of America is leading us to a culture I find frightening and ... un-American, and that makes me very sad for a reason totally unrelated to the sadness I always feel on this special day...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  When I let the puppies outside for their first outing this morning, even before my morning caffeine I couldn't help but notice what a gloriously beautiful morning it was.  The temperature was 69°F, humidity 40%, with a light breeze from the southwest.  Everywhere I looked on the ground there were varied shades of green, except that the mountain tops are still white with snow.  The sky was a deep blue, with a few pink and orange clouds heralding the sunrise.  Birds all around me were singing the songs of springtime.  Swallow chicks nesting under our roof peaks were squabbling amongst themselves.  Several adult robins were plucking worms out of our lawn.  A hawk circled overhead, scanning the adjacent alfalfa field for low-IQ voles.  Dogs barked in the distance, and our dogs ran around the yard playing with the puppies.

We live in Paradise...

Debbie update...

Debbie update...  She's doing great!  On Friday she was transferred into the Transitional Care Unit (TCU), where they've already started on physical therapy to help build her upper body strength (she's going to need it with both legs out of action) and training in how to maneuver with both legs locked straight for the next six weeks.  Her spirits are good, her attitude positive, and she's making progress every day.  She's on email and available on the phone, and if you'd like to visit she's in Room 326, Logan Regional Hospital (435-716-1000).

Below are the X-rays taken of her knee immediately before surgery (left) and after (right).  In the left X-ray you can easily see the largest broken fragment – it's on the bottom bone (the femur), on the right.  It's displace downward from where it should be.  If you enlarge it and study it carefully, you can also spot three other fragments, all much smaller.  In addition to those, the surgeon found two more when he actually went in.  In the right hand photo you can see the bones are back in place – and there is some rather imposing hardware in there holding it all together.

Puppy videos...

Puppy videos...  Lots more like the one at right by going here!

Of Debbie, mom, puppies, and kittens...

Of Debbie, mom, puppies, and kittens...  What an eventful week this has been!  And I thought retirement was going to be calm, peaceful and relaxing...

Debbie and my mom are both doing just fine, and so are the puppies and kittens.

Debbie had her surgery on Tuesday, and the results were good: the surgeon (Dr. Rowley) was happy with the way he put the pieces back together.  There were six bone fragments after her break, and it took a steel plate and seven screws to hold it all back together in the right place.  Dr. Rowley said she should expect full knee function back after recovery; there was no significant compromise of the socket surface.  She probably did have a meniscus tear, and if it proves problematic she may need a minor arthroscopic surgery later to clean that up.  Her recovery process is identical to that of two past injuries she's had to her right knee: no weight bearing at all on her left knee for the next 12 weeks.

In her past injuries, only one leg was affected.  This time she also broke (cracked) her right patella (knee cap).  No surgery is needed for that knee, but for the next six weeks or so she can't bend that knee.  She can put weight on it, but no bending.  That means that for about six weeks she can't bend either leg, and that makes almost any kind of mobility much more challenging.  Because of that, they've transferred her to a transitional care unit (TCU), where the nursing staff will take care of her until she learns how (with the assistance of some physical and occupational therapists) to do some basic things safely: get in and out of bed, go to the bathroom, take a shower, etc.  They're guessing she will “graduate” from this course around Tuesday or Wednesday, and then she can come home.

My mom made it safely to Utah, accompanied by my niece Amber G.  She never needed the oxygen that gave us so much grief the prior week.  The manager of the Williamsburg independent living home (Dan H.) was at the airport to pick the two of them up, and they drove the 90 minutes to Williamsburg without incident.  All of her luggage arrived safely, we've got her in her room (which she seems positively giddy about), and she's regaining her strength after the rigors of travel.  Her spirits seem to be soaring.  The hospice folks here who will be taking care of her have been right on top of things, with care much better than I'd have expected.  She even had a musical therapist visit to sing and play music for her!  So far our impressions (including hers) of Williamsburg and the hospice are very positive.  We're hoping it stays that way.  The staff there seems to enjoy my mom, whose personality is just a tad ... different ... than that of most of the other residents.  Not only is she not LDS (as most of the residents are), she's a lot more boisterous and talkative than they are.  She also has a much more colorful vocabulary, which the staff seems to be quite amused by.  Craig, the handyman there, turned to me when I came in yesterday and said “Your mom’s a hoot!” – and further said that he was really going to enjoy his visits to her room :)

The puppies?  Well, they're puppies!  So of course every time I get to play with them I have a ball!  I've got a few puppy and kitten photos below.  Mako and Cabo are taking to their new home very well, and Race and Miki almost instantly seemed to realize that they are new family members.  The two adult dogs both play very sweetly with the puppies.  Race is especially cute, as he'll bring a stick or a pine cone over to them and tease them with it.  Several times he's been carrying a big stick while two puppies are attached to either end – and he very gently pulls it around while they're wrassling with it.  So, so cute and endearing that is...

The kittens are all health and growing, and the mom kitty has weaned them.  The mom looks good too – she had an eye infection earlier this week, but that's completely gone now.  Soon they'll be getting their shots, being neutered, and finding a home...

Through out this past week, our friends and neighbors have been helping me.  Without them I'd have had some real problems.  Two of them especially stand out: Michelle H. has been coming over to our house several times a day to care for the animals, and Tim D. has been handling any other contingency that came up (including even mowing our lawn!).  Debbie's had a steady stream of visitors, thanks to them.  This attention just underlines what a wonderful community we ended up being a part of.  We feel so lucky to have picked this particular spot, and so grateful for the help that we needed...

Some photos:

Debbie update...

Debbie update...  She's in surgery as I write.  The past few days have seen her steadily improve, in the sense that swelling in her knee kept decreasing and her pain was being better managed.

I've mentioned before that the people in the hospital have been much more caring and attentive than we're used to from our experiences in San Diego.  This mostly manifests in little things to make Debbie feel better.  A good example from this morning: for 10 hours pre-surgery she couldn't eat or drink anything.  With the pain meds she's getting, that meant she had a bad case of dry mouth.  She's been through this before, so she knew what to expect.  It's uncomfortable, but noting more.  Here they brought her little sponges on a stick, moistened with a glycerin compound that made her dry mouth disappear.  She didn't even have to ask for it - they just brought it to her.  Dozens of little gestures like that added up to a big difference.

This morning I experienced a couple of these personally.  As I left her side when she was being wheeled into the OR, a young woman walked beside me.  Her only purpose was to make sure I understood what would happen next, where I should wait, and that I wasn't anxious.  In all the too many times I've left Debbie in the OR, nothing remotely like this has ever happened before.  Then just a few minutes ago the phone in Debbie's room ( where I'm waiting for her) rang, and I answered it.  On the other end was the OR nurse, giving me an update about Debbie's surgery (all good).  Again, I've never had anything like that happen before.  

Debbie's comment: best hospital evah!

Well, you just never know...

Well, you just never know ... what life is going to hand you.  All the more reason to take advantage of every moment you have with the people you love.

On Friday, Debbie entered her first agility competition in over three years.  She took about 10 steps after getting Miki started, and then her other knee (the left one that's never before been injured) broke, badly, and down she went.  Her left knee is broken in four places at the top of the femur, with several more small pieces.  She landed on her right, previously injured knee and broke the patella (with no bone displacement), a relatively minor injury (though painful).

She's going to need surgery, and that's tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.  If the swelling in her knee doesn't go down, the surgery will have to be postponed until it does.  Once the surgery is complete, she's facing 12 weeks (minimum) of no weight bearing on that leg.  She's been through that twice before, so she knows exactly what lies ahead.  That's not a pleasant thing to know, so it's challenging for her to keep her spirits up.  At the moment she's stuffed full of pain meds, a little loopy, fading in and out – but she's on her phone and email.  If you know her, it would cheer her up to hear from you...

I just returned from a visit to Debbie, and there's a bit of news.  First of all, her surgeon (Dr. Rowley) is positive that she has a bad bone density (and therefore strength) problem.  He says she has the bones of someone 20 years old than she actually is.  Given the condition of her bones, he was unsurprised that she sustained this injury.  Debbie's been tested for bone density twice in the past 10 years, and passed both with flying colors.  As soon as she's done with this surgery, we're going to poke into this issue with some vigor.  On the other hand, the swelling in her left leg was greatly reduced, and Dr. Rowley is sure she's going to be ready for surgery on Tuesday.  That's good news, indeed.  Debbie looked a lot better to me than she did last night, and her spirits seemed better until she had an attack of muscle spasms (very painful) in her left knee not long before I left.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I'm taking care of five kittens (all doing great!), their mom, and (as of yesterday) two adorable little field spaniel puppies.  Some photos of this bunch are below: