Ramblings and Reminiscences

The blank page is a particular challenge when the main focus in one's life is waiting for medical messages and appointments. I will just say that Toni has her first appointment with the neurologist this week and hopefully things will move quicker after that.
Now for something completely different.

                                            *        *        *        *        *        *

Last fall I built a simple bird feeder just below the sundeck.

 I put it there to entertain the cat. She can't get to the birds, so the only harm is to her nervous system.

 The feeder got many visitors over the winter.

and even more after the sissy birds that winter in the south returned.

A few weeks ago a small flock of white crested sparrows arrived and set up shop in the cedar hedge.

I am familiar with these cheerful little birds because they are often at the Overton Wildlife Management Area at the same time we are.
Overton is a small town sixty miles north of Las Vegas and a convenient stopping place on the way north and south during the annual seniors migration. We have stopped there many times and always have a bag of bird food ready to put out.
One morning the remnants of a bag of tortilla chips got added to the pile. Later that afternoon, I looked up from my reading and noticed that there was a steady line of tortilla pieces moving over the dusty soil. Like a fleet of tiny sails the orangy white bits were traveling in a tidy line across the lot.
'That's curious' I thought, and went to investigate.
It was ants of course. Hundreds of the industrious little critters were making off with the best treasure that had come their way in a long time. Carrying a load much bigger than itself, each ant was  struggling over lumps of dirt, small stones, twigs and sand. The trail led under a tangled mess of mesquite and brush. I got down on my knees to see just how much further they had to go and there were the pirates.
Two lazy sparrows were crouched safely in the shade, deftly plucking the tortilla bits from the jaws of the hard working ants as they passed by.
I laughed.Why did I laugh? All the ants hard work was being stolen by creatures too big to fight, creatures so big they probably couldn't even comprehend them. It was tragic and yet so funny.
Maybe there's a moral in there somewhere but I can't think what it might be.


                                   *          *            *            *             *

Besides birds and the neighbours Siamese (cat not twins) the only other creatures that visit the yard are the deer.

They and I are still working out an agreement about which plants I can grow and keep. Marigolds taste yucchy and after a bite or two are left alone. Onions and garlic are too smelly. Roses and raspberries are very tasty and fair game, worth trying to get in a quick nibble before a lawn chair or anything else handy comes flying off the sundeck at them.

For some reason peonies are exempt as well as irises and gladiolus. The experiments will continue and in the meantime the sundecks are getting very crowded.

                            *               *             *             *              *
The South Okanagan is a fascinating place to live. The scenery is amazing at any time of the year and the variety of orchards, vineyards and wineries seem endless.

A person who is easily distracted from the task at hand (me) can go out to fetch one thing and end up somewhere else entirely. Just last week I was on my way to the Summerland nursery to buy some cabbages and potting soil. I did eventually get there but first there was a stop to take pictures, another stop to walk along a creek and then best of all the discovery of a fruit wine store. Sampling was required and several purchases were made.

Cabbages and potting soil seemed mundane after that.




         *          *          *            *            *           *


My random thought for today.
         Did you ever think while cooking your morning egg 'This egg might be the one? THIS egg may have the mutation that makes it the Einstein of chickens!!' Do you ever think that and then eat it anyway, because after all how smart could the Einstein of chickens be ? Not very.


                             

Cats are Aliens and other Observations

You are probably wondering about the new header. It's simple. Zoe, the cat who who now runs the house told me to do it.

I lost my free will on a day when, feeling particularly soft in the head, I foolishly said out loud, "Do you think you would like to get a cat?"
Now, by dint of unstinting effort and unbending willpower that cat is in control.

No one knows which planet cats are from originally but I am convinced they have been sent  here on a mission. They are conditioning us to obey orders, to cater to their every wish without expectation of reward or gratitude, robbing us of our will to resist. She has a program and follows it relentlessly.

Eg; If one or both of us have been out we are greeted with a sound scolding on our return. There is a lot of complaining if when she wakes from one of her many daily naps there is no one instantly available for play. She yowls because the glass slider to the sundeck is closed, she chides me if it is open. She demands some of whatever we are eating and then turns up her nose in disgust, and tells us we are idiots for eating such terrible stuff.

Receiving instructions from her home planet

If she approves of our guests, she appropriates their laps as suitable cat furniture, the rest of the time a domestic lap will do as good place to sit while washing up.
8 PM is her dinnertime and if I am not johnny on the spot with her special food, the only kind she will eat, then I am promptly and endlessly told to get it done.

Sheesh, I sure do miss my kind old dog.

Below are some candid duck pictures, taken at their lakefront home. I was surprised at how many wintered over.

That's enough of those for now. I've got plenty more, just ask me.


Now that glorious spring is here I have tuned up my bike and am looking forward to getting out on the mountain trails. After the cold and snow arrived and I quit riding I began to gain weight so I bought a punching bag and hung it in the garage. It was a good choice. On the days when the stock market is being irrational (most days), or the lunatics who pretend to govern us are being especially crazy (way too often), or if I just want to forget that I am sixty seven I go down there, put one of my hard rock CDs and pound away. It's great for my mental and emotional health, I highly recommend it. 

We are still waiting for the medical system to grind along and get Toni the treatment she needs. She is marking time. Speaking of time.....
How different our lives must be from that of our ancestors. Clocks are only a few hundred years old and for many of those years they were big clunky things, quite impossible to carry around.
Of course peasants didn't need clocks, their workaday routine was simple. Go to the fields at the crack of dawn and come home at dark before the witches and vampires came out. Since 95 percent of the population were agrian there was no incentive to develop a better clock. The market forces were just not there.
And calendars?!! Go back a few thousand years and calendars were giant stones stuck out on a plain in the middle of nowhere. If a person wanted to know what month it was, he or she would have had to walk miles to find out and probably would have needed to bring along a nice goat's head or maybe a bottle of mead to make the priest happy enough to give them an answer.

On the up side, in those days just about everybody was dead by thirty five so the wait times for medical care were really low.

That's it for this week.
All the facts in the above article are mine, any resemblance to reality are purely coincidental.
Doug

Random Comments on the Week

  On Wednesday a neighbour fired up his lawnmower, signaling to the rest of us that it was time to get busy in the yard. Just over two weeks from the last snow melting away and the lawn needs mowing!
I started with the weed eater, chopping away at the fringes and then switched to planting onion sets between the rows of strawberry plants I salvaged from a sea of grass and weeds last fall.

The local deer consider anything in our yard their's to nibble as they please. After seeing how callously they destroyed my carefully planted and nourished tulip bed I did a search for 'plants that deer don't like' and onions was one of them. I don't know how well they will work because when I paused to look up from my labours there was a very pregnant doe watching my efforts from ten feet away.
I think she was making a list of what to eat in which order.

This corner of our yard is the maternity waiting room

I will be learning a lot about container gardening this year, all done on the sundecks. Fortunately this house has two of them. I even built this thing to give me more room for pots.

Note the tub on the lower right with the few tulips I was able to rescue.

Zoe the watch cat has no influence over the deer

On a slightly different topic the motor home has come out of hibernation. It now has two new deep cycle batteries and the yucchy anti-freeze has been flushed from the lines.Windows have been opened and floors washed. We are expecting friends from northern Alberta next week and the motor home will be a guest cottage on wheels while they are here.

Thursday we drove 150 km (95 miles) north to Salmon Arm to meet my brothers and sister-in-law for lunch. The weather was perfect for a scenic drive along the lakes.It was great to see my family but I couldn't help noting that we have reached the age when medical concerns are the main topic of conversation. Except of course for politics, the economy and  few jokes.

Eg: A woman in labour suddenly starts shouting, "Shouldn't. wouldn't, couldn't, won't, can't, didn't!"
"Don't worry." said the doctor. They 're just contractions." 

I did get a good picture of everybody but was cautioned by my oldest brother not to put it on the internet. I learned at a young age that doing things he told me not to do always drew consequences - so no picture.

It's been strange to spend this winter in the north and we have missed our friends but like the hummingbirds and the swallows the southern sojourners are returning. I see them standing around in the stores looking rumpled and slightly unfocused as they begin adjusting to their summer life. Welcome back!

April 4th 2019 Filling in

Hi Everybody.

I'm sure most of you ( faithful followers that you are) have noticed Toni's blog entries getting to be few and far between. Part of that is because she felt we weren't doing anything worth blogging about but the other reason is that often these days she just doesn't feel well.

She started looking for answers last autumn and finally after many doctor visits, blood tests and various scans we have a diagnosis.

It is called hydrocephalus which means too much fluid on the brain. According to the doctor it is a relatively rare condition that can affect adults usually occurring past the age of sixty. Toni was pleased to hear that if she had to be ill at least it was something unusual. I am not convinced that is in any way a plus.

Our brains produce about a pint of cerebrospinal fluid a day and and if the excess does not drain away properly it increases pressure on the brain causing difficulty with walking, dizziness, and drowsiness or fatigue.

In most cases the only cure is surgery to place a shunt in the brain to drain away the extra fluid.

Now we are waiting for appointments and no doubt further tests before the surgery can take place.

In the meantime y'all with have to put up with me filling in for her.

I will post again in a few days as soon as I can put together something more fun and interesting than our various states of health

Doug

Update to mid-February

My blog has now become more of a diary for myself than interesting travel stuff for my readers.  We are "enjoying" all that winter has to offer.  We thought we were getting off easy because winter didn't really start here until the beginning of February.  And it seems Old Man Winter has a quota of cold and snow to fill.  It has been as low as -20C overnight and it barely reaches 0*C during the day.  It snows nearly every day.  No snow today and because it is 0*C some of the snow is melting.  None of this is really a problem for us.  Being retired means not having to drive in the snow unless you want to.

You see, we got railings on our front porch.

Although the lake itself does freeze over, the marina does.

This is the pile of snow at the local Walmart.  The rest of the parking lot is on the other side of this pile.

The main highway just out of Summerland was closed due to a landslide for about 10 days.  Last week we decided to take the detour which was supposed to be about 90 minutes long.  The next town from here is Peachland which is normally about 15 minutes down the highway.  The detour was almost 2 hours.  The roads were well maintained and easy to drive but remember 2 hours over, means 2 hours back and all we wanted to do was visit Costco which is normally an hour and 15 minutes from home.  To make matters even more frustrating, we found out the highway was reopened the following day!

The short cut over the mountains.

We went out for a very nice dinner Valentine's night.  It was a small venue, about 20 tables of 2, and a set menu.  The food was delicious, the staff very efficient and the music was sensational.
Local wines were featured with each of the five courses.









As Murphy's Law rules, that night after dinner, which was two towns south of here, about 25 minutes, we drove home in the pitch dark in a horrible snow storm.  Slow and easy.

The cat and the birds keep us entertained.  It is so cold now the cat, who normally wants to hide on the deck and watch the birds, refuses to go outside.  She watches from inside.  We get many and assorted birds and lately even the ducks come from the lake to our bird feeder and the neighbour's bird feeder.

We have been heating our house with the fireplace downstairs.  The fireplace is very efficient and heats the whole house.  Each time we buy a load of firewood we think that will be the last load but the load we got yesterday should do it. Hopefully it will warm up.

Doug has started quite a garden in the games room in the basement.  We have hyacinths and tulips and loads of herbs.  He bought a grow light and the plants are doing well.





Well there's an update of what we are up to.  We watch a lot of Netflix, we play cards nearly every night and do lots of relaxing.

Mid January 2019

I am sure that many of our traveling friends are thinking that with the snow, we were wishing we were south with them.  Well, I miss them, but honestly we are enjoying the snow.  We are retired, right?, so there is no need to drive around in the snow. And just look.  Isn't it pretty?

This latest snowfall is the only significant one.  The two previous snowfalls were gone with a day or two.

We enjoy watching the birds dealing with the snow.  Doug built a bird feeder just off our deck to entertain the cat but we find it fun too.

The cat sits out on the deck staring at the birds.  I think the birds enjoy taunting the cat.

Of course there is the shoveling but Doug does a fine job and seems to enjoy it.

The only snowman in the neighbourhood, built by Doug

We took a little trip this past weekend.  We drove to Olympia, Washington to visit our son David, his wife Stefani and their dogs.  It was a long drive but worth it.

David, Stefani and dogs Molly and Sasha

Smile for the camera Sasha

I have a new project.  I am planning a class reunion at our home in Summerland.  I have stayed in contact with quite a few of the girls that I graduated with in 1969 (!!) in Prince Rupert.  We had a reunion several years ago with just 7 of us.  We have been in touch with about 15 girls.  It's not until August so I have lots of time.  Those of you who know me well know that I love this kind of challenge.

Winter and Christmas 2018

The snow is gone but the lake is very wintery.

I really don't want to give up blogging completely.  Nothing much happening around here, well except for Christmas and winter.  And they came in that order.  We did not have a white Christmas!  It snowed first thing Boxing Day morning.

I thought it looked particularly festive around the fireplace

We didn't have any trouble with the cat and the tree.  She just liked to sit under it.

Graeme and Adrienne came up for Christmas eve and Christmas day and then had to leave in the snow Boxing Day morning.

Graeme plays with Zoe

We had a scrumptious Christmas dinner.  I had help in the kitchen and so it wasn't as exhausting as usual.
 

The pretty table before we got started

Santa Doug brought me a Cuisinart.  I have used it for bread a couple of times.  No kneading is wonderful.

 

Isn't she a beauty.  Reminds me of a red Mustang.

So Boxing Day morning the snow came.  I must admit is sure was pretty.  Yes, I say "was" as it is just about gone this morning.  Made for some pretty pictures.

From our deck

|Mountain Ash berries in the snow

We know quail well but have never seen them in the snow,

Driving wasn't a problem.  It sure is nice to have a garage.