WILL WE MOVE

Another Summery day on planet earth. It will easily get to the 80s F today. The trees are leafing out. Wild flowers are blooming. I saw bloodroot and trillium on my drive yesterday. The forsythia are magnificent this year and so are the flowering currants [Jamie calls them clove currants because they smell like cloves].

The shearer was going to come yesterday. Our sheep are not trained to come for a rattling bucket of corn. I have one that will respond and sometimes the rest will follow her. In years past, on shearing day, I go out the night before or in the morning before dawn and lock them in the barn. That has worked for thirty years or so. Last year I went out several times at night and they were not in the barn. I was lucky I caught them going into the barn in the morning before the shearer came.

Monday, late afternoon I didn't see them in the pasture, so I went out, the barn was empty. I went out at dusk, again at 9:30, again at 11:30. No luck. I awoke at 5:20 AM yesterday morning and was sure they would be in the barn. They were not. I spied them way down in the corner of the pasture. I went out several more times but they never came close enough to try the corn trick.

I took ten or eleven trips to the barn. It is a hundred yards one way. That is a lot of walking for an old codger. I need the exercise though, it was good for me.

We are questioning if we want to do this anymore. Jamie is struggling with a mood disorder and almost chronic nausea. She is constantly researching and tries various vitamins etc. to help heal her brain. Her latest brain scan shows no further damage to her hippocampus so her problem does not seem to be Alzheimers. Her doctor agrees that the brain damage is the result of sleep apnea, but the medical profession has no solution. Jamie's research would indicate that the damage is reversible. She is willing to try anything. We have been on a roller coaster. Sometimes it appears to be getting better, then a nosedive occurs.

We have been considering moving closer to some of our children and perhaps a different environment would be helpful. We are in the process of talking things over with a Real Estate Agent. He was here last week and will come again next week. We will see. Jamie needs to be sure that a move would be helpful. She struggles with memory and that can be exacerbated by a new environment. We will take it slow and ask for guidance. I am sure we will make the right decision.

It would be a big change for me. I expected to live here until I left this planet. I planted almost all the trees and shrubs in our yard, at least fifty trees. Some are now huge. When we moved here there were mostly aging and dieing box elders in the yard. There was an American Elm approximately forty year old. It was the center piece of our back yard and still is. However, at the time we were at the apex of the Dutch Elm disease. Our pastures were loaded with three varieties of elm. They all died within a few years. I expected that Elm to die and I planted several Sugar Maples to take its place.

Jamie reasoned that since Dutch Elm was a fungal disease and zinc was a fungicide, she would drive in several zinc coated nails into the tree. She did that for a few years. Every elm tree in our neighborhood died except for that one. It is now over eighty and more glorious than it has ever been. It is scattering seeds on our deck at this very moment.

Yes! I have a great attachment to this place but I am ready for a new adventure. If we stayed here I would need a handyman to do work that I am now reluctant to engage in. We had a huge old box elder fall over the fence, crushing it, and land on the lawn. It is a chainsaw project that I may not want to undertake. We had great winds this last Winter and Fall and there are several trees down in the West pasture. They would make wonderful firewood. Somebody needs to convert them.

This last Winter was the Winter from hell. At my age I would like a day when I could just look out the window to enjoy the weather. Going out three or four times a day to take care of animals was no fun this past Winter. Most of the time the paths were so slippery I had to take my life in my hands.

It is hard to remember the Winter now. I have almost nothing to do but water the animals [with a hose] and gather eggs. It is a joy going out in the Morning to let the chickens out and close them up at Night. The lawn mowing season is upon us and I have yet to pick up the sticks.

I may have to bow to my age but I hate to put it in print. I don't want to fix it in stone. I am hoping for rejuvenation.

I do love every moment of this process and have no regrets.

Love and Peace, Gregg