Suburban life and memories of a quarter century back

 

I had enough energy, and the weather was mild enough, so I pulled some weeds out of the river rock bed in the past week.

I also acquired a couple chairs to add to the outdoor space.  This one went on the front "paver patio", along with "Stoney" the labrador gardening bench.  Stoney got relocated to the front last year because Ember was knocking him over and chewing on him.

Ember got her monthly shipment of toys, and this month it included a teething toy in the shape of a pizza slice.  It's curvy and rocks, so she had a good time tossing it around in her x-pan.

We had a bit of regression over the weekend when I forgot my own learning and tried to introduce too many changes.  I was dragging one of her big branches around, rearranging the back yard and she decided she needed to participate, but she chose my arm to drag and that started a wrestling match that resulted in bandages for me. 

Haven't had that kind of episode in quite a while.  What I noticed was that both she and I have learned better skills for ending such an unfortunate thing.  We both said "I'm sorry" in our species appropriate ways.  

We really do have to make changes gradually, one step at a time in this house.  It is mom who gets in a hurry!  Bottom line, though, is that we recover, mend our relationship fences, and move on. 

We will be tested this coming weekend with a Carl visit.  Son and DIL will be transporting foster kiddo a state over to visit his aunt and siblings.  This is part of the process of letting him help make his own decisions about where and with whom he wants to live.  He might even stay the night with them, but son and daughter in law will be there in town for that night. 

Tuesday morning, we had our own chapter of "Make Room for Ducklings" right on our own corner.  I lost count of how many adolescent mallards were in this flock, this is only about half of them.  Adult male and female followed along after.

Ember and I watched them from our back deck.  

I have been appreciating how much just having this dog in my life keeps me enjoying the simple things like being outside during her early morning outings and at "last call".  Both are at a time when the temperatures are moderate, this time of year.

Meanwhile, halfway across the continent, back in the little village where my son was raised:  Sunday brought 5 inches of rain in 3 hours, resulting in flash flooding.  I thought my older sister was mistaken when she messaged me that she'd seen the village on the morning news program she watches, Monday morning.  This sent me to Google and to Facebook to find videos, and sure enough, the roads that were part of our daily lives were turned into rivers!

Photo is at the corner with the only traffic light in the village.  Off to the right would be the library and the post office and the town hall.  Down the road to the left would be where the creek is supposed to be, a bridge over it leading to the village residential area, including what used to be our house during my son's growing up years.  There wasn't a whole lot of news time captured by this event, because no one got hurt, but there was a lot of property damage and it's going to take time for it to all get cleaned up.  Local area first responders, a motorcycle club, and a church were all involved in helping folks affected get shelter for the night, food, water and supplies.  The local consolidated high school opened its doors to provide shelter.

It is not that the area had never known flooding.  I mean, any small hamlet with "Valley" in its name, probably has a reason for that moniker.  Back when I lived there and commuted out of town for work, there was one weekend when I could not make it from the airport to home because of flooding when an unusual warm spell melted all of the snow at once.  But this is the worst anyone remembers it being.

Prayers for all those around the world experiencing weather challenges, whether it be fires or floods, earthquakes or volcanoes.  Hopefully these things remain rare, and we have time between events to clean up and put things back into a livable state to carry on.

Life is good.  Keep Sparking!