Sunday, November 25, 2012

Windswept

The snow on the hillsides has been tickled 
with the Chinook winds this week.
No human intervention. 
It always reminds me of a sandy beach, 
apart from the lack of ocean 
and no trace of soaring temperatures I guess.

The sun shines and the warm winds tease the snow 
to melting point, carving away tiny little caves and crevices - and then it freezes again overnight.
And I am tall and skinny, if only for about half an hour 
(yes, it felt good). 

Monday, November 19, 2012

Annual Waxwing Party

Every year the Bohemian Waxwings 
come and devour every berry 
on my mountain ash tree.
They arrived two weeks ago 
and had another celebratory 
and pre-migratory stuffing session.

Linking to OurWorld Tuesday 


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Snow Scapes and Footprints

Smudge Snow Beard

I was walking the dogs around my neighbourhood last night when a deer came running out of a garden, across the road right in front of us and flew off down the path through the park. The dogs were momentarily enthralled - "woah - let me at 'im" as they both attempted to run after it. Good job I had hold of their leads nice and tight!  So we then followed and sniffed its hoof prints in the snow.  

I followed, and they sniffed, you understand.
Honey, the Red Nosed Spaniel

Which brings me to a little snow show taken during another walk last week.
Hoof prints?  Small, deep, round and even, but surely they don't walk in such a straight line? 
There are not many birds here right now, so I'm guessing this is either one of those large pain-in-the-butt big black ravens (they really bug me - noisy things with few redeeming features!) or an American Robin.
A Raven Rave?  A Rockin' Robin?
A lonely figure on a frigid day.
At first I assumed these were from another dog.  But we were walking across virgin snow and there were no accompanying human prints so I think this must have been a coyote.  We sometimes hear them howling in the evenings.
The views are just one big 
Christmas card scene-scape right now.
Branches weighed down by the layers of snow and frost.
Winter shadows on a snowy hillside
And a print from yours truly.

Linking to Our World Tuesday 

and Camera Critters this week.

Clink on the links and find some other treasures from across the world.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Just wanted to vent a little...

Life at home with a 14 year old with post concussion syndrome has been challenging these past six weeks or so. For everyone.  Four weeks ago, her legs stopped working properly and she's been a wibbly-wobbly person ever since. She had ten days in a wheelchair, then under doctor's orders, we removed it again. She has no control over her knees which flail about at unnerving angles, and it has been a bizarre and painful side effect of a tired and overloaded brain, and a head too full of teenage anxieties about life, the universe and everything.

She goes back to school tomorrow, for one class only.  And we break her back into "normality" very gently.  The prognosis is good, if slow.  Normal function will return, we just don't know when.  She is very worried about how she looks and what people will think.

And this is the kid that had signed up for twelve dance routines for competitions next spring.  So we've just had to bow out gracefully (or not so gracefully if you could see her!) from all her classes - I have said until at least the new year - and that too has caused great anguish.  Apart from that bothersome need to breath, this is probably the most important thing to her right now.  And usually, even if you are a bit sick, you go and watch the dance class so you can keep up with the choreography.  But even that is too noisy right now.
And she was going on pointe for the first time too.

However, I have placed a dangling carrot ahead of her for the New Year - she has chosen two classes/routines that, IF she is well enough, she can slot back into.  Her dance teacher is good with that. The cruel reality is that dollar deposits for costumes are due next week, and  I cannot afford to purchase 12 costumes which may languish in a lonely closet next Spring, and remind her of a crappy few months when her legs didn't cooperate.  That might rub sparkly sequinned salt into the wound.
Adults have been good around her.  Teachers, doctors, other medical professionals.  Friends of ours.  Understanding, no pressure, what can we do to help you?  

Her peers however, all bar two, have been absent.  Which doesn't help actually.   In a life dictated by Facebook and Instagram, a couple of glib messages have been passed along but no face-to-face real life visits or calls or action.  No reassurance from the people that really matter.  And for that, I am so disappointed.  Maybe I expect too much.

Tomorrow I will be the one fighting off the tears.  Like taking my child for her first day of school.  She is slow and wobbly and noticeable.  She might get mowed down in the frenetic corridors.  She will struggle and panic and get frustrated with trying to keep up with the class - all from pressure from within herself.  And then she will be home again by 10.30am, and we will dissect her morning over a hot chocolate.

It's a good job my husband and I have very understanding bosses right now.  Our timekeeping has been, er, erratic.