Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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An update on me.

Katie here.

I thought I’d jump on my mama’s blog real quick while she’s not paying attention and bring you up to speed on the most important Princess in your her life – me!

Mama says I shouldn’t cry wolf all the time cause people aren’t gonna believe me later on, but seriously, this past week has been a roller coaster of emotions and feelings and stomach aches for all of us here.

Me taking mama for a walk this week.

The stomach aches were mostly mine, but luckily I have meds for that!

You all know I have kidney disease, and I’m stage 4. That’s bad enough, but in the past couple weeks I’ve decided I’m not going to eat my Royal Canin food, the stuff I’ve been eating happily for months. Mama and daddy had a routine down and we all knew exactly what I was going to eat and which pills I was getting at any particular time.

We were a well oiled machine, I tell you.

One of my happy walks.

And then one morning I turned my nose up at the food in my bowl and walked away. Mama was perplexed. And it got worse. Every day I randomly decided what I would eat. And what I would not. In the beginning they coaxed me into continuing to eat my prescription food, but now days even the smell of it makes me feel nauseous.

I’ve had lots of good days.

So mom is cooking for me again. Daddy took me to the vet on Wednesday and she said I could eat whatever I wanted! I thought it was the best day in my life! Chicken! Green beans! Boiled carrots! Brown rice! Pasta! Whatever I wanted mama prepared for me!

Wednesday night it was like she was my personal chef!

I’d like to order a filet with some peanut butter on the side please.

But now I’m turning my nose up at chicken, though I still like the ground turkey. Mama made pasta for me last night and I thought that was pretty good, though she only gave me one macaroni noodle. She said she was testing to see if I’d eat it before she made a whole bunch. You see I had loved the brown rice when she first cooked it on Thursday but now I think it’s disgusting.

I’m kinda fickle.

Another walk yesterday, I was starting to feel not so good.

Yesterday morning while mama was making her oatmeal (she gets to cook for herself too!) I was looking at her intently. I wanted my piece of apple, like I get whenever she makes oatmeal. Just a tiny bit of apple, no skin. It’s my morning treat, and I’m all about routines, so I was waiting expectedly for it. She casually handed it to me, figuring I’d snap it out of her fingers like normal but I just sniffed it, then took it from her and spit it out on the floor and walked away.

Mama knew right then that something more than usual was not right.

By late afternoon I was restless and just wanted to be outside in my cool grass, so we were sitting out there a lot, but I kept moving around. I looked very sad. Daddy came out with us and I got up to move away and they were discussing giving me an extra pain pill when I started to shake.

I just want to lay here in the grass, mama.

They looked at each other and scooped me up and the next thing I know I’m in the car and I don’t feel good and mama and daddy are stressing.

So we got to the emergency vet and they don’t seem that busy and mama does the paperwork and a tech comes out to look at my gums (pale pink) and they say they will get to me. But they never did. I finally fell asleep on their nice cool floor.

I wasn’t shaking anymore and had spent most of the two hours we waited visiting with other people who all, by the way, said I was adorable and beautiful and cute.

Which of course is true.

We finally left the emergency vet place and went home where I refused to take a pain pill and everyone got frustrated and then mama said we should just go to bed and see what tomorrow would bring.

So we did.

This morning I was very lethargic, sleeping on my bed out in the living room, instead of in the bedroom with her. Mama was worried cause I was sleeping with my head hanging off the bed.

Looks like I had too much to drink last night!

She petted me and I woke up and we went to get weighed (I still weigh the same) and then she made my pills which I took no problem, and my yogurt, with my special powder in it, which I loved, and my special breakfast, of ground turkey and a little pasta and one green bean, which I ate without arguing. Though I left 4 pasta noodles, cause really? Pasta??

This morning’s walk.

And then we went for a tiny walk, just down to the corner, and I did my business and then we went out back and filled the birdfeeders like we do every morning, and now I’m settled in for a nap, waiting for breakfast #2.

Watching mama, cause she has grape jelly and I want some!

So, as you can see things are normal, at least for us, but I think you should know that I’m slowing down and not feeling as happy all the time as I used to be, and mama and daddy and I are discussing the possibility of me going on my next big adventure. Mama says I’ll have to do that one without her, though she says she and daddy will be there to see me off.

I don’t know if I want to do an adventure without her, she and I have always shared everything. But she says I’m a strong girl and that I’ll love it across that bridge once I get there cause lots of my friends are already there. She says I won’t be sad or lonely there at all.

Earlier this week when I was a happy girl.

We’ll see. I’m pretty sure I’m not going over that bridge today. I told her that too….”not today, mama, not today.” Mama smiles but her eyes are leaking and she gave me an extra hug when we were outside this morning.

Not today, mama.

I don’t really like to be hugged, but I let her this time.

Seemed the least I could do.

Love to you all,

Katie-girl


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Besides the night sky

Sometimes when I go north to camp it’s with the sole purpose of getting night sky images. Those trips I don’t care much about the campground, it’s just a place to nap during the day. Mostly I care if there’s a dark sky park nearby, or at least some open sky with something interesting in the foreground.

Our campsite, tucked up on a knoll, deep in the woods.

Those trips I usually spend the days sitting around at the campground reading and nibbling on snacks that aren’t good for me. When I begin to fall asleep over my book I tuck myself into my sleeping bag and take a nap.

It was spring in the woods, with the pine trees in ‘bloom.’

Sometimes that’s the best part about camping…eating, reading, napping. Repeat. I’m usually impatient for the sun to set, eager to try again for the shot I can see in my head but rarely get captured on my camera.

This trip, planned months ago, just happened to coincide with clear dark skies and no moon. So I got lucky.

I had my stove and my friend brought most of the food.

During last week’s camping adventure I had company, and a more varied agenda. We were camped in a walk-in site, we were the only people camping on our loop which was wonderful and so quiet we could hear owls at night as we sat around the campfire.

Thank goodness we were able to buy dry firewood!

OK, full disclosure. Mostly we sat around the campfire to get warm because it was stinking cold out there! Last year, on our camping trip the exact same week, we were wearing shorts. This year we were wearing long underwear, layers of sweatshirts, jackets and winter coats. I slept, the first night, wearing gloves and a hat, as well as my winter coat while in a sleeping bag and under multiple layers of blankets.

Not your typical sleeping attire.

But the next day, after a night of shivering and then squealing over the Milky Way, the sun came out and we paddled down the Platt River, almost all the way out to Lake Michigan. We got out of the river at the exact location I shot the Milky Way the night before.

Grateful for the sun while we were on the river.

That made me smile.

Lake Michigan is right on the other side of those dunes.

We had the site reserved for three nights, Monday through Wednesday, but though the second night wasn’t quite as cold as the first, I still slept in all my clothes and piled towels on top of the blankets on top of the sleeping bag.

Being cold all the time can wear a camper out.

Looks warm. Wasn’t.

Plus the weather people said it would get warmer but we were going to get rain Wednesday afternoon, and that it would rain all day Thursday, the day we were scheduled to leave.

Time to pack things up.

We decided to pack up on Wednesday morning and hightail it out of there. There’s nothing worse than packing up camp after a night of rain. Wait. In truth it’s worse to pack up camp after a full night of rain, while it continues to rain. Trust me on this.

The sun just tipping the trees above us made me want to stay….for a moment.

So we abandoned ship a day early. I think I did that almost every camping trip I took last summer, and always because of rain. Rain while camping in a small tent is not that fun after the first few hours of listening to it drum on the rainfly. Rain accompanied by wind and thunder can be pretty terrifying.

This could be another good spot to shoot the Milky Way, don’t you think?

Anyway, we chose to bail, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to go back. Camping in the woods without big RVs next to you is a delight.

I stopped at Pt. Betsie on my way home, but the lilacs weren’t open yet. And the storm was coming in.

I just hope next time it’s warm enough that I can sleep without wearing my hat and parka.

On the beach waiting for the sun to set on our last night.


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Magic

Some of you know that I’ve been taking an online photography course centered on getting images of the Milky Way. There are many many modules, but I’ve been stuck in the first set because I haven’t been able, for months, to get that first single image. And for me it was hard to go on to the next modules that talked about panoramas and stacked and stitched images when I couldn’t get the single image.

A friend and I had a camping trip scheduled for this week. It’s been exactly one year since we camped at this same campground, with it’s walk-in sites far from the world of mega RVs with their generators and large noisy families. Yes, carrying all your stuff down a wooded path to your site is a lot of work. But once again, just like last year, we were the only ones in that section of the campground, and it was heaven.

And, coincidently, this campground is located in a Bortle 2, a part of our state with less light pollution than where I live in a Bortle 4. AND the moon wouldn’t be up to interfere with finding the Milky Way. AND there was one night out of the three we’d be there that the weather folks said would be clear.

Win/win/win

According to my Planit app, the Milky Way would rise high enough to see it over the trees by 2 a.m. But my friend and I went out at midnight, after sitting around the fire all evening waiting for it to get dark, just to check out my chosen site, which was at a park at the mouth of the Platt River, where it empties into Lake Michigan.

An image I took of the Platt River while we were waiting for the Milky Way to show up.

It is a wonderful place to star gaze, but of course the Milky Way wasn’t putting in an appearance early, so we went back to the tent to take a nap.

I set my alarm for 2 a.m.

But when the alarm went off I didn’t want to crawl out of my warm(ish) sleeping bag. The temperature was hovering around 40F (4.44C) and everything in me wanted to stay in the tent and hunker down. But when would I ever again be in a dark location on a night that was clear?

So I crawled out of the tent and looked up. Stars, thousands of stars, were there, just hanging in the pine tree boughs above me. I scrambled down the path to the car and headed out to the river, smiling.

And as I carried my camera, already affixed to the tripod, around a building to the river I squealed. Because there it was….the illusive Milky Way, in all it’s glory.

There she is, as if she were just waiting for me to get my act together.

And suddenly I wasn’t cold anymore. Suddenly I didn’t care that it was 2 a.m. I wasn’t worried about waking up early the next morning after being up all night so we could kayak down the river ending up at this very spot.

No, all I could think about were the stars, all I could see were the stars. And in the quiet pre-dawn hours that morning I shot images and grinned, and then just stood there in awe for a very long time. Alone in the quiet I listened to gentle waves lap the shore and watched the stars move across the sky and there was no place I’d rather be.

You’ll have to image that part on your own.

From the boat launch, looking out over the Platt River and then, past the small dunes, to Lake Michigan. See the big dipper up there?

But if you ever have a moment like that you’ll know….It’s magic.


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Just can’t

I’m back from camping in northern Michigan where I was lucky enough to have a couple days with sunshine and one clear night. I have photos for you that I’m anxious to share. But I can’t. Couldn’t yesterday and it doesn’t feel right today either.

Because while I was blissfully floating down a beautiful river through the wilderness, enjoying the blue sky and birds and fish and turtles, somewhere in Texas terrified children and their teachers were locked in a classroom with a gunman.

I never checked my phone for news that afternoon, didn’t through the evening while we enjoyed dinner under swaying pines, or later on the beach as we waited for the sunset, or even later sitting around the fire with a glass of wine.

I didn’t know until, on a whim, I turned the phone on just before rolling over to sleep in my warm sleeping bag in my snug little tent. Immediately I knew something was wrong, the first Facebook pages to pop up were filled with obscure but horrifying posts. I didn’t know what had happened, but it was clear something terrible had.

So I googled “news today.”

You all know what that news was. And now I find myself feeling overwhelmingly sad, and frustrated, and very very angry. As the mayor of Buffalo said….”We haven’t even raised our flags from half mast for the last mass killing and now there’s another.”

I thought we’d have reform by now. I thought that after Columbine in 1999 where two students killed twelve other kids and one teacher. I thought certainly this shows there is a need to rethink gun accessibility.

But then there was Virginia Tech in 2007 with 32 dead, and Northern Illinois University in 2008 with 5 dead, and of course Sandy Hook with 6 educators and 20 first graders dead. That one, little kids, for sure I thought would make us start discussions that resulted in real change. But the killings continued, in churches, in theaters, in stores. In schools.

And nothing significant has happened to resolve the problem, other than those who feel it’s all a mental health issue and those that feel it’s all about the guns stand harder and faster on their beliefs and the gulf between them widens.

It’s incomprehensible to me that we can’t each move a little closer to the center. It’s obvious it’s not all about mental health or all about gun control. Adults should be able to find ways to adult. There are things both side could agree on if each side were willing to compromise.

Maybe we can find ways to increase the availability of mental health support while at the same time lower the accessibility to individuals of weapons designed for war. I’m not saying everyone needs to get a mental health screening and I’m not saying no one can own a high powered gun. (Though I don’t understand what purpose those types of weapons have in an individual’s collection.)

What I am saying is that we can’t continue in the direction we’re headed. We can’t continue to stick our heads in the sand and mumble that these problems are too big, not fixable, that nothing would change the outcome.

And if those currently in office do nothing more than throw their hands up and say it’s too hard…well…those people need to be voted out so there’s room for people who are willing to work hard to fix the problem.

Because whether you want to admit it or not….we have a serious problem and none of us are safe. Wishing it was different won’t make it so. Doing the work, making the hard decisions, risking your friendships, your constituents, your donors, even your job, doing the work is the only thing that will cause change.

Change is hard.

I’ll give you one image from my time away. The sunset we watched on the day those innocents died. Now I can see how it represented that day, and the way our country, maybe even us as individuals, are split, shadowing the light that is our democracy.

We need to do the hard work necessary to make that light shine bright again.


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Backyard spectacular

I’m so excited by the birds in my backyard. Some come every day, no matter the weather.

“I hope she’s provided a better quality jelly this morning.”

Some only show themselves to me for moments…

“Please note my subtle beauty.”

…in all their finery.

“I know it’s hard not to stare at me.”

And this one has only visited once and luckily I was standing in the window with my camera.

“Do you see me?”

If I could, I’d stand all day long at my windows with the camera.

“I’ll pose for you!”

Pretty amazing.


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Looking for spring

Last weekend I got to enjoy a walk in the park with my aunt. And here another weekend is approaching and I haven’t shared with you what we found.

I guess I better get cracking.

A perfect spring day spent out in the woods.

We went to Hudson Mills, a park over near Dexter Michigan, not so far from where she lives, but far enough away we don’t get there very often. It reminded me quite a lot of my favorite park, Kensington, and in fact it’s part of the same park system.

Such wonderful light falling through the new leaves.

There was a paved bike/walking path, and then lots of wooded nature trails to explore. We walked some of my aunt’s favorite trails, looking for evidence of spring, especially a particular dogwood tree she enjoys every year .

We found her dogwood in full bloom, shining in the morning light.

Luckily for us we had sunshine and slightly warm temperatures for our walk. Perfect. These are trails she knows well, and she knew just where to look for the early wildflowers too.

Spring beauty, so delicate with it’s pink stripes, was everywhere.

We walked in the dappled shade of newly leafed trees and watched the ground intently for surprises.

A trillium hides waiting to be discovered.

You could walk right past many of these wonderful bits of spring. But if you’re vigilant, you’ll see very special things.

My mom loved these jack-in-the-pulpit plants. Later in the season there will be red berries too.

It was so much fun when one or the other of us found something special and explained “Look!”

Wild geranium added color.

There was something to see no matter where we looked.

Tiny, deep purple, violets made us smile.

You could spend hours wandering these nature trails any time of the year and see beautiful things.

Purple is such a great color for spring!

We had such a good time walking in the woods together.

Walking just for the sheer joy of being out there.

And when we headed back to the car, we ran into a goose family with one little one trying to be grown up before he or she was old enough to care.

“And another thing! My mama’s gonna whip your….”

It was a fun end to a perfect day at the park.

“Geesh, kids today…”

Can’t wait for our next one!


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I’m the neighborhood Mrs. Kravitz

There’s an older widow living across the street. I swear her adult kids must think I’m the nosiest person around. Seems like any time one or another of them pulls in to check on their mom I’m out front.

Walking my dog in her ditch. Letting Katie sniff her mailbox. Wandering in my own yard or down my driveway.

What’s going on over there?

Yep. Always out there.

Other neighbors might think the same. For example I know that the newish neighbors next door got a sofa, loveseat and big plush chair delivered a couple days ago around 7 a.m. I was walking my dog across their lawn when the truck backed into their driveway. Katie insisted on watching the guys unload the truck.

The new furniture is beige.

What are YOU doing?

The people that live three houses away haven’t been there for a very long time. The adult son is still living there, and I wonder where his folks went. He and I wave as I’m walking the dog early mornings and he’s headed to work.

Got to keep an eye on everything around here.

Next door to him is a house that just sold. I saw a steady stream of cars head down their driveway the weekend it was put on the market. I figured it would sell fast; it’s on a lake and there’s no real estate inventory around here. About 5 days later I watched as a young man in a black jeep drove slowing past me as I was walking the dog, then back up and head down the driveway. An appraiser or maybe a home inspector. The house must have sold.

Bet they got full price, or more.

If you want to keep track of things you need to sit way up high.

I knew the people on the other side of me were back from an extended trip when I saw, as I was walking the dog, the husband put the garbage out. That’s how I know when they’re home or when they’re traveling, by the garbage cans waiting to be sniffed by a little sheltie-girl.

I watch another neighbor pull out each morning, towing his work trailer behind him. He doesn’t work every day, but I’m usually walking the road with a short fuzzy furball when he does. We wave.

So I’m thinking, when Katie crosses the bridge I’m not going to know anything about what’s happening in the neighborhood! No more sitting in the front yard watching everybody’s comings and goings. No more wandering slowly up to the third driveway and turning around to sniff our way home multiple times a day.

Always note what’s above too.

No more sticking our heads in places they don’t belong. Mrs. Kravitz will fade away.

Apologies to those of you too young to know who she is. You can google her.

All this watching people is exhausting.