Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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Lots to report

Shhhhhhhh! It’s me, Penny! I’m trying to give you an update on things I’ve been doing without letting the mom know. Cause as you can see, she’s not giving me nearly enough online exposure. So I’m doing what they call an ‘end run’ around her and getting on here myself.

Mom has been taking me on lots of walks in my parks.

She’s sharing lots of stuff about her silly birds, and hardly anything about me and my adventures. All you’ve seen of me is the Easter picture. And to be honest I did that under duress. I mean pink is not my color!

“Hey mom! I didn’t bark at those bikes!”

Anyway.

Since I last wrote to you all I’ve been very very busy. I had a play date with Levi at his dog park which is about an hour away from my house.

Me and Levi. I was watching my mom come back from the car.

We had lots of fun and I made Levi chase me a few times.

We both love to run.

Mostly we did our own thing, you know? He was into running and chasing his frisbee…

Levi loves his frisbee.

…and I was just into running.

I just love to run!

Levi is a very handsome dude and of course the moms wanted a picture of the two of us together. And of course, as is stipulated in the sheltie bylaws, we made it very hard for the moms to get said picture.

“OK here’s the deal. We never both look at mom at the same time.”

Sit next to each other? No way. But maybe on our next play date we’ll be nicer to the moms. I guess it depends on the quality of treat being offered.

“Listen, mom, we’re not going to SIT. So get the shot and let us go play!”

And I also did a Rally Trial where mom signed me up to do two runs. A run is where you and your mom or dad walk around in a ring doing a bunch of stuff at little signs. You’re supposed to take your cue from your mom or dad who is supposed to be able to read the signs correctly.

Frankly it’s a bit boring because they don’t let you have treats while you’re in the ring. And without treats, what’s the point anyway?

Mom said I did great and she’s proud of me.

I did real good on the first run, I got 96 out of 100 points and second place in my group. But then mom rushed me right over to the other run without any breaks (and no treats!!) and we were all of the sudden in there walking around and I was sort of more interested in getting out of the ring, and also I forgot what the word “sit!” means.

Mom says she’s always glad when we make it to the “finish” sign!

I guess I just had a mental block. I don’t know what the big deal is, mom has those all the time! I still got a qualifying score, 80-something, but I didn’t place. Mom says that’s just fine. She says we have two legs of the three we need for a title in Novice Rally.

I’ve been taking her to doggie school every week to practice reading the signs. Between you and me, this past Tuesday afternoon she couldn’t read much of anything right and I got really frustrated with her. So I decided I didn’t know how to sit straight anymore. Or heel. Or wait. Waiting is my hardest thing anyway.

Mom says we’ll be in the basement working on that stuff this week.

Come on down, mom! And bring the cheese!

In fact, talking about the basement, my friend Lance and his folks came over and Mom and I did some work in our new basement, teaching me the tricks of Beginner Novice Obedience! Mom say she has great plans for me. I say I’m all in as long as there’s cheese involved.

Lance and me being patient with the moms.

Oh – and on Friday evenings I’ve been going on group walks with another trainer and a bunch of other dogs and their people. We’re walking around small towns and getting used to traffic and other people and other dogs. Mom says it’s working. I don’t go as crazy now when we’re out and about as long as mom has treats on her. She’s pretty happy with me and we have a lot of fun on the walks!

A perfect evening to walk around an historic little town.

I just know there’s more news to tell you, but mom’s almost done cleaning the kitchen so I better go inspect. Have I told you that the kitchen is my favorite room in my house? I call it the Food Room. You never know what will appear from hidden places there.

Mom’s been taking me shopping too. I don’t know what the point is, she never buys anything.

Talk later, your gal Pen.


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It’s early, but we’re ready!

We’ve had such crazy weather, things began to pop up in my garden earlier than normal. The red winged blackbirds were here early, too, and had to endure a few snowstorms after their arrival.

Everything seems early.

And now, a college friend, who lives about the same latitude as me and about an hour west of here, has had her first baltimore oriole visit! The males always come north first, scouting I suppose, and there he was, sitting on her feeder Easter Sunday!

I usually put up my oriole and hummingbird feeders the first week in May. But today, on the 22nd of April I went down to the basement, grabbed my oriole feeder, and filled it with grape jelly. I stood in the door to my deck, surveying my birdfeeder domain, and wondered how to rearrange things so that the oriole feeder would be prominent.

Last year’s oriole, announcing that the grape jelly was running low.

Eventually I decided to move the suet to another hook on the other side of the house and put the oriole feeder front and center, out in the sunshine where it would attract attention. I worried somewhat that the suet, being moved, wouldn’t be found by the birds who have grown dependent on it. But I figured it was almost past suet time and they should be out looking for bugs or something.

Then I sat down to write this post intending to document when I put the oriole feeder out. As I sat I glanced out a window and saw a female downy woodpecker contentedly chowing down on the suet in it’s new location.

Last year’s downy woodpecker and female hummingbird sharing a lunch date.

I guess I don’t need to worry about my birds. If there’s food, they will find it. But when they’ve finished this batch of suet I’m taking that feeder down for the summer and putting the hummingbird feeder up. If the orioles are on their way the hummingbirds won’t be far behind.

A 2022 image. I’m waiting for him to show up this spring too. I put his favorite food in the flat feeder this morning. Just in case.

Spring has, indeed, sprung.


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Love my goldfinches

I’m really enjoying the goldfinches this spring. Some years we don’t see many, but this years there’s an abundance of them.

Wait! That’s a hairy woodpecker!

I’ve watched as the males turn from an army green, similar to the color the females stay year round, into their exuberant and brilliant summer gold.

And that’s a blue Jay!

They sit in the beech tree not far from the finch feeder and sing for their supper. If there are a lot of them in the tree I know that the feeder is probably nearing empty.

Where’s our lunch, lady?

They don’t tolerate it getting too low.

Well I guess there’s time for a little kissy face while we’re waiting.

They’re used to me being out there and don’t leave their tree, if the feeder is empty, even if Penny and I are on the deck.

That’s enough! She’s watching us!

They are picky and only really like the finch food I buy from a specialty bird store in the town just north of us. The employees there know me.

This feeder is definitely empty!

The finches are so much fun to watch, though they are eating me out of house and finch food!

This place has the best food around!

Soon they’ll be busy raising their families and we won’t see so much of them. But they’ve sure brightened my spring!

I’ll sing you a song, lady, to say thanks for my supper!


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Happy Easter

Penny would like to wish everyone who celebrates a Happy Easter.

Mom? What happened to your head?

She’s hoping for ham, but I fear she will be sadly disappointed.

This week all my training treats must be made of ham!

But I might take her on a walk in one of her parks. That’s better than ham.

Seriously, mother?!

Right?


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Going earless

Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago (more than 35 years), my husband and I were dating. As Easter approached he bought me a solid chocolate rabbit as a gift. We left it, in it’s box, on an end table in the living room when we went out for the evening.

When we got home the rabbit was partially out of the box, but still in place on the end table, and it’s long chocolatey ears had been bitten off.

The cat immediately pointed a paw at the dog who looked slightly, but not completely, guilty.

Long before we knew anything about dogs and chocolate we laughed at how Daisy the Sheltie managed to nibble the ears off while leaving most of the rabbit still in the box on the table. And to this day when it’s chocolate bunny season we remember Daisy and what a delicate and polite girl she was

No dogs were injured in the making of this post. A hollow chocolate rabbit was, sadly, sacrificed.


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And everyone lived happily ever after

I’ve been worried for weeks. I even had a nightmare about, of all things, spaghetti. Whenever I expressed my concerns, which was often, I was assured that things usually work out.

Setting up

The thing I was worried about was the Clarkston Community Band’s concert this last Friday evening. You all know I’m a natural worrier and I generally hold pre-concert jitters inside as the performance time approaches.

But this was different because we weren’t just responsible for the music. This time we were attempting our very first fundraiser, and feeding 100+ people a spaghetti dinner while we were playing music from around the world.

Before the music started

And so I imagined the worst case situations. Most of which revolved around food and getting said food to the venue, and cooked and presented to our guests while most of us were busy, dressed in our concert blacks, playing music.

You know…playing the fiddle while Rome burned. But that’s a different story.

Perusing the silent auction

Many of the band members arrived at 4 to help set up the venue, a large room, essentially a gym, at a local church. The kitchen was at one end of the room, and we arranged the other end as a concert stage. In between we set up 16 round tables, eight chairs to a table, complete with table cloths, a candle and a flowering plant.

So much to do.

By 5 almost the entire band had arrived, many people taking time off from work to settle into our role as hosts and musicians. We tested the sound as we warmed up, tuned, played a few difficult transitions. Surprisingly, in such a large room filled with hard surfaces bouncing the sound around, we were pleased by what we heard.

The food was being warmed in the kitchen, the room looked great, the musicians were relaxed. I started to let my shoulders down just a bit.

Warming up

The doors opened at 6 and there was a line of people waiting to get in! As we greeted our guests I finally let the nightmares go. Regardless of how the spaghetti got from the kitchen to the table we were ready. It was, as everyone had assured me, going to work out.

And it did.

The place was packed, every seat filled and more people sitting along the sides. The music was fun, our guests were engaged, the atmosphere was casual, spaghetti and meatballs eventually made it out to the tables and at the end everybody ate cake.

The trumpets playing a bit of German polka.

I’m so proud of our group. A couple weeks before we had only sold 14 tickets, had no volunteers for essential duties and some of the music was pretty rough.

The saxophones playing some jazz.

But, as always, we pulled together. Everybody pitched in, hauled tables and chairs, set up the silent auction tables, unloaded percussion from the box truck, heated food, delivered meatballs to the tables, played music, cleaned the kitchen, packed up percussion, put away tables and chairs, emptied the trash and smiled all the way through.

And everybody had a good time

And our 100+ guests smiled, too, as they walked out into the darkened parking lot, humming, I’m sure, bits of Funiculi, Funicula or Hey Jude, or Live and Let Die, or the Stars and Stripes.

In fact I’m still humming some of that myself.

PS: I just listened to the sound recording of the concert. Man, that was a fun one. And listening to the audience sing Hey Jude when the band cut out…that just made my heart smile. What a good time.


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PT fixes more than my shoulder

I started physical therapy this morning to strengthen my shoulders. Years ago I had an issue with my right rotator cuff, and did PT in an effort to avoid surgery. It worked. Lately I have noticed the same pain in both my shoulders so I asked my Nurse Practitioner for a script to start PT.

I’m scheduled for four appointments, 2 this week and 2 next week, all at 7 a.m., at a physical therapy place about 6 miles away from home. Should be easy. But as we all know….

It was a chilly but beautiful morning.

The state of Michigan is working on the freeways around here, and all 3 of the nearby entrance ramps, going north or south, are closed. So when I left home at 6:40 to go the 6 miles to my 7 a.m. appointment I shouldn’t have been shocked to see all the surface streets bumper to bumper.

But I was.

What was I thinking? I’d forgotten about how awful commuting is around here, especially when the freeway is essentially closed. I’ll spare you the gory details but I was 15 minutes late for my first PT appointment.

After my workout, in an effort to find a more strategic route before Wednesday’s appointment, I drove around in ever expanding circles, trying to find a way onto the freeway. Eventually it was obvious that wasn’t going to work. The freeway is not an option. (I guess thousands of commuters had already come to that conclusion, hence my morning.)

I headed home, down a dirt road I rarely travel, through farms and woods, with little traffic. Which was good because I had to come to a dead stop to avoid running over a bunny rabbit skipping across the road in front of me. And shortly after that, at eye level on a tree right next to the road was a male pileated woodpecker with most of his face inside a tree. If I’d been in my passenger seat I’d have been able to reach out and touch him. He was so focused he didn’t move as I drove slowly by wishing for my camera. And as I drove up the last bit of dirt road, close to home I had to stop again as a muskrat ambled from one swampy area and across the road to another.

If I hadn’t been late to my PT and attempting to find a better route I’d never have seen the rabbit, the woodpecker or the muskrat. The combination of all three made me forget my morning commute frustrations. I’m still smiling.

Mom, I’ll help you do your shoulder exercises here at home!

I don’t have photos, but I know you have a sense of imagination…so I’ll leave it to you to picture it all. And later today I’ll go out and figure out a better way to get to that next appointment, but it feels like I’m going to have to leave home at 6 a.m. to make it on time.