Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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trees-1061 A couple days ago I went berry picking at a local farm.    The blueberry bushes are about five feet tall, and as you pick, sheltered under your particular shrub, you hear the conversations of the people around you.  Most people were there with families, complete with lots of little kids.  I heard innumerable Moms and Dads explain to excited elementary schoolers and toddlers to “only pick the blue ones, the pink ones are yucky!”  Generally after that would come a chorus of “Is this one a good one Mom?” and “Dad!  Dad!  I found a BIG one!”  Followed shortly by “MOM!  Eli HIT me!”

I heard many of the adults talk about  how peaceful it was to be out picking berries.  Mostly it was mothers who were out with their kids, chatting with their friends or relatives while the kids crawling in under the bushes to find the “bestest” blueberries.  But on one occasion it was a dad who exclaimed loudly that “picking berries is the most peaceful thing in the whole world.”  To which his son disagreed. “No it isn’t Dad.”  “No? Then what is the most peaceful thing in the world?” asked the Dad.  “EATING them!” triumphantly crowed his son.

We all chuckled in agreement.


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Reconstruction

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You know when you watch people on the news after a tornado or a hurricane has ripped their lives and homes to shreds,  how they look around with tears in their eyes, in shock at all the damage, but still grateful that they’re alive?  And how they always say that no matter how bad things are, regardless of their terrible loss, that they’re going to rebuild?   Well, I always wonder how they’re doing after the news trucks and reporters have gone on to other stories.  How they are months later when the really hard work of rebuilding is happening and no one is there to notice.

In a smaller, more personal and more human way I’ve witnessed something similar; the destruction of a lifestyle, of a commitment, of certainty.  The confusing disbelief, the crazy anger, the debilitating sadness;  the hopelessness, the exhaustion, the constant and wearing questions and lists.  And as time went on  I’ve also seen the hope shining through the tears, the growth of a human spirit, the strength  growing, and the rebuilding beginning.  Out of disaster, disorder and deconstruction, through heartache and hard work, comes a new life.  Here’s proof that reconstruction is possible; that’s it necessary and difficult, but satisfactory and joyous all at the same time.  Even when no one is watching.

Congratulations little sister on your reconstruction of a deconstructed life.  You’re on your way, no time to look back, the future is yours now.  Go with it.  I’m proud of you.

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Another tricky-T day!

Katie will, about 80% of the time, “roll over” when asked now.  Even if I’m not right there luring her over!  She only rolls to her right;  going left is not an option at this time!  I figured out how to make my camera shoot some “video” but try as I might I can’t get it loaded into this blog.  So here are a couple still photos.  You’ll have to use your imagination!

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Do I have to roll ALL the way over Mom?

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Oh, really?  Well OK.

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Geeze Mom, if I do all the work, the least you could do is get all of me in the picture!

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I still think “Shake” is more fun though.

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We’re going to try a new trick for next week…can’t tell you which though…cause we don’t know!

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Sad little garden

Last fall I said I wasn’t going to plant another vegetable garden.  Too much work I said, too little payback.  Could go to the neighborhood farmers’ market and get things cheap, support my local farmers, bla bla bla.  And this spring as usual I was sucked into the illusion that I would have better luck, an overflowing garden filled with lush foliage and vegetables.  Enough to share with the neighbors, to make it all worthwhile.

It’s mid July now.  If you squint at the garden you can sort of recall that once upon a time, many years ago it used to resemble a fruitful garden.  This year, however, it has not lived up to my expectations.

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And what appears to be an empty bed, toward the back on the right?  That was supposed to be my green beans.  I planted after Memorial Day and only three bean seeds germinated.  Then some sort of bug ate all the leaves off the three plants and they died.  I replanted just before I left for the 4th of July, and about a week later I had pretty little rows of green beans, about an inch high.  I was delighted.  Then something came and ate everything down to stubby little stems.  So.  No green beans.  I do have some beets and some chard though.

And three, maybe four tops tomatoes.  Not even many blossoms.  And something ate one of my tomatoes.  Already.

vegetable-garden-2009-009 vegetable-garden-2009-007It’s been a cold, wet summer.  We’ve had a couple of days into the 90’s but mostly highs in the 70’s.  So maybe it’s not my gardening skills.  But still.

On the other hand, the perennial garden seems to like the chilly weather.  The cone flowers are unstoppable of course, but  other things are pretty this year too.

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So next year I’m not doing a vegetable garden.  Going to go buy my produce at the farmers’ market.  Yep.  Not going to put all that work into three tomatoes, no siree.  Going to plant flowers in that space instead.  Or turf.  Maybe make it into a big ole rock garden.  Yep.   That’s what I’m going to do…bla bla bla.

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Here's Daisy

Essex and Deacon’s dad asked us to show you a picture of Daisy, our very first sheltie.  She was such a good girl when I met her while dating my husband.  She didn’t get on the furniture, sleep on the bed or bark too much.  She loved to fetch the tennis ball for as long as you were willing to throw it.  Then her daddy and I got married and she moved into my home.  I spoiled her and by the time she died a year or so later she  enjoyed snuggling on the bed with me whenever daddy wasn’t around.  She also learned about people food at my wedding shower when guests thought she was cute.  Poor girl, she was just getting used to being spoiled when she died of a blood illness.  No sheltie of ours since has had any concept about staying off the furniture or the bed.  Wonder why?  LOL!

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This is Daisy, running in our backyard shortly after we got married in 1990.  I haven’t found many pictures of her, though in this one she’s smiling, like she always did when running around the yard.

Then there’s Katie.  We’re still working on “roll over.”  She will now do it while I’m slightly away from her.  I don’t have to lure anymore.  But she’s sneaky.  While I was messing with the camera, trying to figure out how to make it convert to video, she got up on her hind legs and stole the rest of the “good” treats off of the desk.  Guess she was tired of having to work for them!  So far I have a few fuzzy still photos of her rolling over.  If I figure out how to use the video, then figure out how to upload it, you’ll see the trick next Tricky-T day!


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When we go to our favorite park

This evening, feeling bad about a trip to northern Michigan that I didn’t get to take today, I decided to compromise with a walk in my favorite park with my girl Katie.   It’s about a 30 minute drive; we arrived early evening.  It was 76 degrees and quite humid.  I carried treats and a water bottle, plus the camera and a doggie bag to pick up any deposits we might leave.  I felt like a bag lady.  Katie was quite impatient with all my preparations.  She was ready to go Go GO!

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As it was quite warm we stopped every quarter mile or so for a drink, but mostly she was just doing the “Sheltie prance” right down the bike path.

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Of course there was much sniffing along the way.

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And of course, lots of times I made her pose for me near beautiful places.

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Katie and I had quite a long discussion when we got to the 3/4 mile mark, but she wanted to keep going, so we turned around at the one mile mark.

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Which turned out to be a mistake.  We should have turned around at 3/4 of a mile.  Shortly after we started back Katie just stopped walking.  We goofed around for awhile, got a drink, sniffed some stuff, then she trotted off.  We rested each quarter on the way back too.  During one rest two sandhill cranes flew overhead, squawking madly.

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It took us more than an hour to walk the two miles.  The sun was going down by the time we got near the car.  Low evening light makes for pretty pictures.

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We got to watch a family of geese and a few ducks on the way back too!

Happy girl!

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puppy pictures

We were sorting out some boxes that have been packed away for a very long time.  In one of the boxes I found the “baby book” of  Bonnie, our previous sheltie who died at 15 years February of 2007.  I can’t resist showing you some pictures of her, and compare them to similar pictures of Katie.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Bonnie, investigating things when she was just a few months old.  Compare it to the picture of Katie, also a few months old and I can hardly tell them apart!

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And here’s the infamous, hang out in the dandelion field photo of each of them:

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And a couple of our favorite winter pictures.  I think Bonnie was just a year old in this photo, Katie is about the same age.

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I have been very blessed to have lived with three shelties in my lifetime, the first being Daisy  who came with my husband when we got married.  They have all been a joy!


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Tricky T-day again already!

Guess what finally arrived at the library yesterday!  The 101 tricks book!  Katie appears to be less than excited, but that’s because she didn’t get to see it until after her bedtime, when I finally arrived home from work.

katie-1719 I haven’t had time to study anything yet, but I have hope!  Meanwhile, last Saturday I took Katie to our local pet store and purchased an inexpensive CLICKER!  It’s really loud.  And worse, Katie HATES HATES HATES the clicker.  I sat on the floor with a bunch of treats and called her.  Clicked when she came to me and attempted to give her a treat.  The clicker caused her to back away, eyes wide.  I tried again.  She backed up further.  Didn’t want anything to do with the clicker OR the treats OR me!  I tried several times, tossing her the treats which she gulped down, but she wouldn’t come near me.  Over the past 3 days we’ve tried a few times, but she still HATES the clicker.  I’m not sure if this is normal and if I should keep trying to get her to come to associate it with treats.

Then I tried the free timing that Ludo explained by putting a large tin in the living room and seeing what she’d do with it.  I didn’t use the clicker, it was scary enough for her to have something in the living room “THAT WASN’T THERE BEFORE MOM!  katie-1716 IT DOESN’T BELONG THERE MOM!  WHAT’S IT DOING IN MY LIVING ROOM MOM?  I DON’T LIKE IT!      NOT AT ALL!  oh…there’s a treat on the top?  Well…maybe…I’ll just take that treat off your hands, you know, just help myself to that tasty morsel… ”  katie-1717 But that’s about all she would do.  She wouldn’t have anything to do with it except to take a treat off the top and stare at it intently.

So far, our tricky t-day isn’t all that tricky is it!  Well, we HAVE been working on “walking the board” in an attempt to get her over her fear of the dogwalk at agility.  Not that we’ve been able to actually GO to agility class, but maybe someday.  So, we practiced that a bit this week.   katie-1695 We played with the frisbee as a treat in between working on our obedience skills, heeling, staying, standing and then running on the board.  She’s almost at the point that I can say “Walk the board!” and she’ll go (almost) on her own and run the board.  She stops though if I’m not running next to her, to make sure that’s what I really meant. katie-1704 She’s not quite ready to just run it herself.  She has, however, on occassion, gone over and walked over the board all by herself without any direction at all from me.  Then she looks at me and grins as if to say, “SEE?  I can do this board thing..where’s my treat?”

Silly girl.

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Yesterdays

It completely slipped my mind Saturday, when I was so busy with my list of things to do, that it was the fifth anniversary of the day Mom unexpectedly died.  I knew earlier in the week that Saturday was the anniversary, and I remembered again on Sunday while watching a special about the life of Walter Cronkite.  When they talked about his wife of 65 years I thought of Mom and Dad, married 52 years when she died.  If they had lived another 13 years they’d have been 88 and married 65 years.  I was doing the math when I realized that I had missed the anniversary.

I don’t think that not noticing the anniversary of Mom’s death, on the day itself, means I love her less, or mourn her loss less.  I choose to think that some healing has occurred, a bit of the overwhelming sting has lessened, gotten a bit more fuzzy around the edges.  Loosened it’s grip on me.  This is such an interesting experiment, this walk through grief, if it weren’t that I had to lose two of the most important people in the world.  It used to scare me when people whose parents had died many years ago told me they still missed their parents every day.  I was depressed to imagine living with such an intense pain every single day.  So it has been good to come to know that yes, you miss them every day, but it is a manageable pain, livable.

So today, as I’m baking bread I think of my Mom, and the last time she was in my kitchen.  I don’t have that loud wailing going on inside of me anymore.   It used to shriek “Moooooommmmmm!” constantly, interfering with thought and logic and every day tasks.  That’s subsided and in it’s place is just a warm, slightly sad, quiet place.  I can still conjure up the wailing, if I think about it too much and sometimes I do it just to prove to myself that I can, that she’s still right there so to speak.  But it’s not interfering so much, and the pain is a little softer, and I can say for sure now to other people who are just at the beginning of their loss that someday, in their own time, it will get better.

Another lesson I’ve learned from my mother.  It will get better.

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