Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

September’s been quite mild this year and we’ve had lots of sunny days so I won’t complain about the bit of rain we’ve had today, especially since Bubba and I managed to stay dry. For once, our timing was right. Jack likes to walk around 11:00 because that’s when the school up the street lets out for lunch and the teenagers flock to the sidewalk in gaggles to do their visiting and vaping and they all love Jack. They call out his name as we approach and Jack just wades into the crowd where about 20 kids call him to come all at once. Some of them bend down or crouch and Jack will bestow kisses on them. The others he’ll rub against or give them his bum to scratch and most of them happily comply. He weaves his way through the crowd positively vibrating with happiness and spreading joy. It’s a wonderful thing to witness and it makes me a happy voyager.

Jack’s Walk

Help me, I’m melting! ©voyager, all rights reserved

The air was full of mizzle this morning and I didn’t want to go for a walk. Jack, however, did want to go for a walk and as I went about my chores he kept paddling along behind me making soft, little noises and sighing. When I finally gave in and looked at him he gave me his very best Elvis smile, the one where his left lip curls up and 3 side teeth shine out. Then he slowly raised one eyebrow and gave me the full-of-mischief-liquid-amber-Elvis-eye and for full measure he finished with the flirty Elvis huff. Ah shit, the triple Elvis – I’m helpless to resist. I’m not even into Elvis, but when Jack does the face it instantly makes me want to fill his happiness bar.

So we went for a walk in the misting rain. Without an umbrella because carrying one would leave me with no hands free for pick-ups or pending doom. And it wasn’t that bad. We got damp and one of us smells a bit funky, but so what. Then, 10 minutes after we arrived home the sky brightened, the rain stopped and the sun appeared. Well, Good Morning Sunshine….your timing sucks, but Welcome.

Can You Spot the Parakeet?

A bit of fun from Avalus,

In my parents garden, we had a visitor recently: this young parakeet (I guess it is a rose-ringed one, Psittacula krameri). It was a bit roughed up by the neighbour’s cat, but it stood its ground and was not injured. The cat on the other hand has a new appreciation of sharp beaks, I guess. The bird did not mind us too much and tried to climb everything. We later had to save it from drowning in our rainwater barrel and it then for a while did not want leave the net on a stick we used on him. Still determined to climb something, it finally scaled our toolshed walls and a few hours later flapped away. The photos are a bit of a searching puzzle. 

©Avalus, all rights reserved. (Click for full-size)

©Avalus, all rights reserved. (click for full size)

©Avalus, all rights reserved. (click for full-size)

Jack’s Walk

Harvest time. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I managed to get out for a walk in the woods yesterday and it was exactly what we both needed. Jack’s been feeling a bit put out since I’ve been spending so much time with my mom and it was nice to have some quality time together, just the two of us. Jack was obviously happy. He wore his goofiest grin and wagged his big, heavy tail for most of the walk. He even stayed with me on the path instead of wandering off to explore so we talked about the changing season and sang a silly song or two and by the time we got back to the car Jack was his cheerful self again. I was feeling better, too so as a special treat we stopped on the way home at Dairy Queen and shared a cone. It was a simple day, full of nothing special happiness and if I had a tail like Jack, mine would have been wagging, too.

Holidays: Sagrada Familia 3

I’m sorry. I’m a bad blog host and a worse friend, so I’ve been neglecting y’all again, but life’s been busy again, both at work and at home. No, no catastrophes, just lots to do. But here are some more glass windows to make up for it.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I know, the purpose of these windows and designs was to remind people of the greatness of god, but all I see is the greatness of humans who set their minds to something.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I decided to spend some time in the garden this morning. I did a few minutes worth of weeding and Jack helpfully surveyed the damage done to my hibiscus by hungry little caterpillars – the bastards! No matter, it’s near the end of garden season and Jack and I are both looking forward to the arrival of fall next week. The boy loves the cooler temps and all the new smells that come with the season of decay. My pitiful human nose can’t appreciate most of the smells, but I do have excellent eyes to appreciate all the colours.

We both hope you get outdoors to enjoy this last weekend of summer. We’ll be back on Monday so we’ll see you in the fall!

Fungi Friday

This week Opus has sent us an interesting fungus that he found growing on his property.

   Finally had a little time for photography so started with some fungus from the property.  I have no idea what this is, or why it grows in square segments, but it is striking.

©Opus, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

I’ve always thought of hibiscus as a tropical flower, but over the past few years I’ve noticed several of my neighbours plant the bush successfully right here in not-even-remotely-tropical Ontario. I love the big, bright, showy flowers that hibiscus put out so I thought I’d take a chance and plant one in my own garden. That was in the spring of 2018 and I took great care to give the plant the best start possible. I chose a nice sunny spot, amended the soil with horse manure and peat before planting and then hand watered it twice a day for weeks. By early July when we left for the east coast the plant had settled in and was growing well so I was expecting to see flowers when we got home.

Then our return home was delayed and delayed again and then delayed some more after that. By the time we got home it was the end of September and the flowers were finished and gone. The big, beautiful flowers were bountiful – so I was told – but I never got to see them. I had lots of people describe them to me and every single person made a circle with their hands to show me their size, but no-one had a picture to share. I’ve had to wait all the way until today to see what my big, red hibiscus flowers look like. I won’t describe them to you. I took a photo instead.

Jack’s Walk

Rose of Sharon ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s a beautiful day in my neighborhood and there are still plenty of flowers left to make me smile. This Rose of Sharon has been making me smile most of the summer. It’s been in full bloom for weeks and shows no signs of slowing down in the shorter days and cooler nights of September. I spend a lot of time admiring this particular Rose of Sharon because it lives at a home with a dog and Jack insists on a long, slow, careful sniff of their hedge every time we walk this way. It’s Jack’s Walk so I try to never hurry him along, but it’s always nice when he stops places that I can appreciate, too.

Jack’s Walk – We’re Back

©voyager, all rights reserved

Hello, hello! Jack and I are back.

Our situation really hasn’t changed, though. My mother is still hovering in the shadowlands and I’m still spending most of my time at her nursing home. Mom beat the infection that began her decline and she did so without antibiotics. Her Dr. and I decided to withhold antibiotics because they would prolong her death, but her body didn’t get the memo and took care of it anyway. Now, she’s bedridden with heart failure, weakened, confused and barely taking anything by mouth, but she’s full of fear and not ready to die. She has near constant anxiety and calls out for help all the time, even when I’m sitting with her holding her hand. When you ask her what help she needs she tells you “I don’t know” or she says nothing at all. It’s difficult for her and for all of her caregivers because we feel helpless to keep her calm.

Mom’s pain is mostly well controlled, except for when she needs to be turned. That’s a painful process, but staff have it timed half an hour after her morphine injection and she generally falls asleep quickly afterward. She has medicine for the anxiety too, but it often takes 2 doses to settle her. That’s likely because it’s a part of her personality and not a new symptom. Mom has borderline personality disorder (not just my opinion – she’s had at least 3 psychiatrists tell her this over the years) and she’s struggled with anxiety most of her life. The calling out for help actually started about a year ago when she was hospitalized with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. Back then, on one of her better days, she told me that she needed help because death was stalking her. I think that same fear is what’s driving her behavior now. Staff here are great, but they don’t have the time to give mom as much reassurance as she needs, so I’ve been spending my days hand-holding, forehead kissing and doing my level best to calm her fears in this final stage of life.

So, that’s our basic situation and it means that Jack and I are walking closer to home and often at odd hours. It could be like this for while, too, so I’ve finally organized wifi for mom’s room and we’ll see how it goes.

This out of focus photo is from yesterday when Jack and I went to the Vansittart Pond. It’s fuzzy because I’m laughing and trying to back away from Bubba who really wants to wipe himself off on my pants. He’s covered in mud up to his neck from racing through the mud chasing frogs. It was awesome. The frogs were pop, pop, popping and plop, plop, plopping in all directions. Dozens of them, like a wave moving through a stadium crowd, down the length of the shore. Jack’s tail was at high mast and he was wearing his goofiest grin and when it was all over he was so happy that I just couldn’t get mad about the mud.