Brrr.

West of the house

The bird life is pretty incredible right now, but also ... the frogs! Whodathunk they'd be up and around during this cold?

In Memory of My Mom

 Hurray! Hurray!

It's the First of May!

Outdoor screwing

Starts today!

-with gratitude to Joanne Bohl, Mom's best friend, who told me Mom phoned every year on this date and recited this little ditty.
(image: facebook)

Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

Another snowfall overnight. Betcha don't really want to click & enlarge.

 Well sure, I wore my parka and snowboots and a tuque to go for a walk. But the birds are abundant — happy, noisy and busy out there — it’s quite the thing. Blue herons are back, and northern flickers, and robins in flocks, and the red-winged blackbirds are chattering up a (gulp, I hope not) storm. At this point, weatherwise … we just don’t know what's what anymore.

The Canada geese waddle off the road before the dogs can reach them. 

And fly just a little way - glorious creatures.

My back is 100% better, thanks to Destination Health in Wadena. Improvement began the day of the first appointment for a shiatsu treatment, continued to the second one a week later, and the third week’s alternative therapy (applied by some kind of machine-thingy that the retired physiotherapist swears by, but can’t say exactly how it works; only that it does, and I agree) put me over the healing top by the very next day.  I had been suffering for more than a month, and it was only getting worse. 

I was beginning to wonder whether I'd ever feel 55 again. I was getting disheartened, and worried. But mostly, I was moving slowly, painfully ... and why? It's a mystery to me. Or was. Elaine (physiotherapist) explained what had likely happened to some tissue between joints, all due to Too Much Sitting without perfect posture. This has long been causing me problems even though I'm attentive to my posture. Or thought I was. 

Just a thin skin of ice on the water in the ditch.

What a relief it is to feel normal again. Not only can I walk, but I can walk straight! I can sit comfortably for more than five minutes, and can have a night’s sleep without waking up every 10 minutes to change position.

Why, this renewed human body almost inspires me to bake bread. We have been missing the homemade stuff around here in recent months. But let’s not overdo it, girlysue; washing dishes and putting one of my Aunt Marj’s frozen apple pies into the oven oughtta be just the ticket. I may even make a spaghetti sauce in advance of tomorrow’s after-work supper. Between that and washing the dishes and listening to the cacophany of wild birds flitting all over the yard, this day off should be just right.

I am really pleased to have this treatment clinic right here HANDY in Wadena. What a switch from always having to drive at least a half hour, and usually one or two or even three, for anything you need help with, be it dentist or chiropractor or whatever -  you're driving. Not that I don't like driving, but I like any sane-minded gal prefer the Sunday afternoon meander over the medical trip often accompanied by a bunch of shopping (might as well pick up items we can't get out here) that leaves you exhausted by the time you're back in your vehicle heading for home. No friggin' thanks.

Door for a Fairy Family

Image from Facebook; suggested one build these tiny doors and put them on trees. 

"I know exactly what that is, and how to fix it, and what you need to do so it doesn't happen again. I see this all the time."
That was the therapist at Destination Health in Wadena after I described my back troubles to her.
She explained what happens in the body to create this discomfort, treated me, and demonstrated the specific daily exercise that will heal and hold things in place.
When the allotted hour was up, I handed over $65 with pleasure and relief. If she is correct, it is money well spent.

My Place, of a morning

It's been a restful four days off.
My back is much, much better, so I could actually enjoy doing next to nothing.
It must still be healing, because I haven't had much energy, but that's fine: no pain to speak of.
Ah, to be on the mend. Thank goodness. What a relief.
I'll go today for my third shiatsu massage. They are rather uncomfortable, what with my back and feet having so many tender spots, but it's worth it to be able to move like a normal human being again.

I managed to get the dishes done.

Scott brought a tractor over and cleared snow away from the house.

This dark-eyed junco hit the livingroom window and was stunned for a while, but eventually got up and flew off.

Gord (my wasband) was out from Edmonton to spend a couple days with Emil and Everett. He played Easter Bunny and brought chocolate eggs when he drove Emil to the farm yesterday.

Something happened yesterday morning: I started slogging out the porch. After carrying some six large garbage bags of recycling out to the car and letting the roomba do its thing, I felt I'd accomplished quite a lot that was overdue. Now maybe it won't feel quite as much as if I'm walking into a garbage pit when I arrive home from work.

If this book doesn't make you laugh out loud ...

... then you are a curmudgeon of the highest order.

I especially recommend Dickinson's chapter about her cat Pumpkin.

Maybe THIS was the Last Blast

Last week, the snow was almost gone.

Today it's back. Six or eight wet, heavy inches of it.

Unabashedly Joni

Yep.
I love it.
Love it. Love it. Love it.

This particular song is one of her collection of covers of classic jazz tunes.
Fabulous. One of my favourite of all her albums.
If you love crooner tunes, and Joni's way of singing a tune, well then you've already got this CD:
 Both Sides Now. Read the Rolling Stones review by clicking on the link.

I haven't been listening to much music lately, probably because it's not convenient (I don't have a sound system setup that suits me) and also because silent surroundings are restful, appreciated and rare.

But after listening to the song above just now, and getting so much pleasure from it, I may just pull out my Both Sides Now CD and bask in it over the weekend.

Seventy Roses

Someone gave his mother 70 roses for her 70th birthday.

Men's Haircuts

At the Wadena News there is a well-loved regular feature page called Looking Back, where excerpts from every decade since 1908 are published.

This week there was no space for it. Readers will notice and worry for a moment, but few (if any) will contact us and say What the hell. Put that back. 

Farmers: stewards of land, scourge of trees

La di dah, another day.
Another farmer has knocked down another bunch of trees on his land. It turns my stomach every time I drive past it. The first time, I nearly cried.
Farmers, like all of us, know that trees are essential for soil conservation. They provide a windbreak that we quite badly need around here.
They provide habitat for wildlife.
There is more to know about the importance of trees, of course, and farmers know it as well as any of us, if not better.
And yet they bulldoze those trees to get another few acres of croppable land.
It means more money in their pockets.
The bottom line is a big bold one.

Spring's Sprung

The trees are great big junkholders.

You might have some doubts as you look around my yard; however, out where we park, there are patches of grass appearing.

I have been walking shaped like the letter C for the past day.
This afternoon I went out into the sunshine, down the street to Charlene's clinic, and had my first shiatsu treatment. That's what it was, wasn't it, Charlene? Anyway, I got up off that mattress about 10 times easier than I got down onto it. Thank the goodness. I have been in a bad way for a couple weeks already, and the treatment gave some relief.

What whiners we people who hardly ever have an ache are, eh?
You'd think it was the end of the world.
I am still walking bent sideways though, and it is weird.

Monday

Need I say more?

Old Man Gary

Joan threw a surprise party for Gary's 50th birthday. Look how happy it made him! What a sweetie she is. Joan YOU ARE THE BEST.

Joan is my youngest sister. I like her blog COLLECTING HAPPY and could only like it more if she wrote five times a week.
However, she's a busy girl.
We take what we can get!

Johnson Brothers Elevator

The story's up on the Wadena News blog:

CLICK HERE.

Chef Emil

Emil making his breakfast this morning.

Which reminds me: it's suppertime.

We had snow today.

Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers

On the other hand, if it weren't for Facebook, I may never have seen this:

http://www.wimp.com/jumpinjive/

and it may well make all the scrolling past garbage worthwhile.

Watch all the way to the end; they get very athletic.

Blort

We are back in the deep dark depths of winter.

I am losing interest in blogging, and in Facebook and Twitter, the latter two being mostly time-wasters anyway, with very little substance. 

Hm. 

The Mild Mists of March

It won't be long till there are wild birds out there and the frogs will be croaking like crazy. 

From a journal handwritten in 1977 north of Arcola, Sask.:

“December Fifteenth.
Walking in the hills, an entire network of paths; they are always on the move. Coyote tracks, fox, rabbit turds, elk shit, squirrel tracks – enchanting… until I thought ‘They’re following each other around…’ "

2:39 p.m.

I am making a big pot of fagioli soup and does it ever smell good, reading Uncle Carl’s manuscript (more than two-thirds through; just finished chapter 42) a second time, sipping on a tea made with spearmint leaves, raspberry leaves, rosehips and a pinch of commercial blueberry tea.

On My Walk

These unused granaries are in a field north of our place. I see them from the road. Never walked in there, though drove past from the other side one day last fall after helping herd some cattle. 

We had a week of melty dripping balmy watery spring weather. Fabulous.
Then we had a weekend of winter days again, and apparently there was complaining.

I hear there is at least one duck back.
And today on the way home we saw a pair of Canada geese.

These things make us happy. All of us.