December... and the Trials Continue

Johnny's fall back in November seems to have disrupted more than his knee. Once it started feeling better, he realized how much his feet hurt, both of them. And his legs. In fact, he could barely hobble around with two canes (ski poles). So a friend brought him a loaner wheelchair from church and that has made Johnny's life much easier. A trip to the doctor (a month after the fall) and x-rays showed that his feet had internal as well as external swelling and some arthritis, cause uncertain. He is doing all sorts of exercises and treatments and has hopes of being "normal" again. In January, he will go to a foot and ankle clinic in hopes they can figure out what's going on. Meanwhile, he can drive the car and, for short periods, the van, so is doing all our usual birding events as vehicle-bound chaperone. You can't keep a good man down.

To add to the excitement, our car developed a flat tire. Well, I suppose it developed it because I ran over something that poked it but I didn't know that until two different friends mentioned that the car in Johnny's shop had a flat tire. So Johnny in his wheelchair and I in my cap (it was cold out) went out to change the tire. With his excellent instructions and my brawn, the tire was changed... but not without incident of course. The incident being that Johnny forgot to set the brake on his wheelchair before reaching over to help push the tire onto the little pokey things that the lug nuts have to fit over. Chair went zooming backwards and Johnny landed on his butt. Fortunately, he did no further damage to his legs. After the fact, he took a photo of me, and I took one of him, giving directions.

Bad things come in threes, they say, and the third was the worst. One of our two llamas came down with what, in retrospect, I thought was tetanus. So we now have only one llama, Lindoro, who is 18 going on 19. His son was 16, going on 17. I thought they were youngsters in llama years but the internet tells me the average lifespan of a llama in captivity is 15-20 years.   I have now given vaccines to all the goats and gone to a clinic to get a vaccine myself, since it had been 20 years since my last one... The vet came out the next day to give shots to the llama and the horses and said it didn't sound like tetanus to him but all the animals should have tetanus shots anyway because horses carry tetanus in their intestines.

Christmas Day offered a respite from the stress. We traveled, as usual, to Tillamook to have Christmas dinner at the Shiloh Inn with friends and fellow birders, John and Barbara Woodhouse. The meal was wonderful... and none of us had to cook or clean up a kitchen afterwards! And then we went car birding. I had taken my Nikon P900 camera along and John stopped frequently to let me indulge my mania for photos. The meadowlarks were a surprise at the end of Bay Ocean Spit road. One of them looked grumpy.

The rocks off Cape Meares are visible from this road. A Northern Harrier flew across as I snapped the photo...

An unlikely pair, cormorant and heron, shared a log in the lake alongside the road.

They were quite content together, even grooming themselves...

What a difference one day -- with good friends, good birds and good scenery -- can make.

That evening, Steve called to set up video conferencing so we could see and talk to all of them. Such magic!  And the kids sent us a fantastic Christmas video they made for us of Kestrel on guitar and singing, Cedrus on keyboard and singing. They are amazingly talented. What a wonderful gift.

And what a great note to end a not-so-great year on... Happy New Year!