I looked out the kitchen window to see the young deer to the right chomping on a sunflower that hadn’t even bloomed yet. He was standing in the corral leaning over the fence – the sunflower was on the other side of the fence. I opened the door, the deer jumped over the fence to join his sibling (I presume.) Then they just stood there and stared at us, fascinated, no doubt, by these strange looking beings (by now, Don had joined me) who were telling them ‘No!’
They stayed there a long time. Mr. Guilty turned and went into the woods, but the other one stayed and stared at me for about 10 minutes. They’re darned adorable, but don’t eat my plants that I’ve raised from seed!!!
Don took the picture.
I didn’t sleep all that well last night – probably about 4 hours in the chair – but I woke up feeling stiff. Eventually, I went upstairs to our bed, where I slept another hour. But I woke up sore. As you all know, pain can be exhausting and when you add in a lack of sleep, it’s not a pretty picture. I’m not a fan of recliners, but I sure wish I had one just for a week or so!
Don’s in the city for the day, helping out a friend by participating in a reading of the latest draft of a play. It’s the same play/musical that is being workshopped and in which he performed one song not long after Margaritaville closed. He had a good day at the Farmer’s Market yesterday; lots of people wanted their portraits taken.
The gardens are starting to look overgrown and a bit past their prime, which is the usual look come August. And though they should be weeded, I’m not about to start bending over and yanking weeds. So, they’ll just be.
That’s about it for this Monday, my friends.
Happy Monday.
Deer can definitely be pesky, though beautiful. Hoping for a restful night for you and healing of your back.
Thank you, Dianne.
Claudia,
Hot Epsom salts bath often help me when I’m sore. I hope they might help you, too.
I have some. I just haven’t felt like trying to get in the tub!
Does Don charge for his portraits?
Sometimes people donate to offset the cost of the film – which is very expensive.
Hi Claudia, I’m so glad Don is doing well with his portraits. They must be another outlet for his artistic abilities. Chronic pain can be depressing so just try and be kind to yourself and rest as much as you can. Hopefully you will feel more like yourself soon.
Fingers crossed, Janet.
Sorry you’re not feeling well Claudia. The picture of the deer is beautiful! It reminds me of a lovely book by Helen Hoover called The Gift of the Deer. I highly recommend to anyone who ever thought off living in the deep woods. Might be hard to find though because it’s a really old book. I was able to walk into and out of church and through a small store yesterday without my walker but I’m super stiff today too.
Hope you have a nice day. XOXO
Good for you, Janie!
I’m so sorry about your persistent back issues. Also, I know you are not speaking about it for a reason, but the events of this weekend are taking a toll on you and you’re on my mind. I want so much to refocus my attention on beauty and creativity and kindness and your words and images help, so I thank you for that. It must be a hell of an effort some days. Sending healing thoughts.
It is. Some days I just want to hide from the world.
Beautiful shot of the “perps” – almost looks like a mirror! Sorry about your bad night. Did you ever try sleeping on the sofa but not lying down on it – but sitting up in the middle maybe? With your feet elevated on an ottoman or something? And pillows on both sides? Just a thought.. Not sleeping is the WORST. It’s like not being able to eat – you just totally lack the fuel you need to function. Hope you’re able to sleep much better tonight. Peace.
❤️☁️🦌
#Resist
#ImpeachTrump
I slept in the chair with my feet on the ottoman. It’s still difficult, because I’m in one position all night long and I get sore. Just as when I try to sleep in the bed, I can only sleep on one side. Basically, there’s no good place to sleep right now.
Love the deer! I have a mama and her fawn come in twice a day. The little one has eaten all my flowers. Amazingly, each time the flowers come back with more blooms than ever! Seeing them and watching them is worth a few flowers to me. I love it when the little one stamps his foot at me.
You’ve probably thought of this, but maybe it is time for a chiropractor? Chronic back pain makes life miserable. Plus, it never seems to heal completely, because we have to constantly use it. And as much as I know you will hate this next statement I am going to say it anyway (just thinking of you) winter is coming and it is harder on a person’s back than summer.
Just sayin’.
Actually, summer is harder on my back than winter. I’m consistently having to bend over and garden and life heavy things and mow, etc. Winter involves shoveling snow, but it isn’t all the time and some winters, we don’t have to do it all that much!
You’re lucky in that regard, Claudia. Where I live in SoCalif, our temps used to always dip the first week or so in November (not so reliable now with climate change; nothing seems to hit normally and reliably like it used to in our subtle seasons) and I could feel the temp drop, cold coming on, because where I have arthritis the worst (particularly in my hands) I would begin to ache, ache, ache, like ache down to my very ‘bones’. My grandma would have called it ‘the rheumatism’. I don’t like to take prescription ibuprofen but that’s when I have to, because OTC Advil just doesn’t do it for me (not enough mgs even if I take 3 which, by the way, I don’t advocate and a doctor’s advice should always rule; you have to be careful with ibuprofen, even tylenol; and I think most of us would prefer to never have to take ANYthing in the way of pills .. !!! .. I can recall when all my parents took was an occasional aspirin for a headache, maybe Alka-Selzer or a Rolaid for indigestion, rub some Bengay on the chest if you were hacking with a cold; and Mom’s go-to for flu and throwing up was saltines with sips of icy 7-UP [more things of when life seemed simpler; sigh]).
It was simpler!
Oh, how I feel your pain. I, too, never wanted a recliner!! But….. I have one now that looks just like a regular chair (not one of those big puffy things), and now I can’t imagine life without it.It has helped so much!
It is quite hot & humid here today w/ a chance of storms tonight. Would be nice for hubs if he didn’t have to water. It is the little things… We have so many cucumbers right now it is kind of ridiculous!! And the tomatoes have started turning and are so very good. But, the flowers look quite tired and ragged. Each day is different.
Hope you had a peaceful day today and you are feeling a bit better.
We don’t have room for a recliner even if I wanted one. Space is limited here and the amount of space a recliner would require is non-existent here. Thanks, Chris!
My long-long-LONGtime physical therapist sleeps every night in a recliner. As soon as he gets home from work (he puts in a full day; his own practice; he’s in his 70s), he gets in the recliner and puts ice to his back for 30 mins. (He always says, “Ice is Nice.’ He was in a bad car accident 20 years ago and can’t sleep comfortably in a bed. So he sleeps in the recliner all night. Yet my primary care doctor doesn’t advocate it.) In the last years of my mom’s life, she’d start the night in the bed but wind up in the recliner in the wee hours (she’d had a broken back due to osteoporosis brought on by medication she’d had to take for years and years due to an auto-immune disease; her back ALWAYS bothered her after that injury, understandably).
My foot doctor (podiatrist) gets in the reclining examining chair at his office, twice a day for 30 mins each time, so that he can elevate his legs which I think he said is good for the heart, something about blood flow in the legs. (He’s in his 60s, tall, thin-normal, very healthy, vegan; former jock/competitive bicyclist but has wrecked his hips/back with OVER-exercise when younger and is now having multiple surgeries; same thing with my dentist, in his 70s who, also for years, worked out too excessively and lifted too many weights [overkill; he’s strong but short in stature]. With my foot guy, it sounded like when he takes these two ‘breaks’ in a day, it also allows him rest he needs as well [stretch out; supportive aspects of the reclining position], since he’s been in odd poses/contortions all day working on people’s feet, which is hard on his bad back/hips.)
Age; we’re falling apart!
But I want to take some cues from the above: I have no room for a recliner-chair and I’ve thought of them as being unattractive but I have a determination to make space for one as soon as my half-remodeled house ever gets finished. I just hear too much about the benefits of recliners. My cousin had once worked for the La-Z-Boy brand and their recliners sold like hotcakes; she was equally sold on them because they were designed for the curve of the body and cushioned for good support.
for people (like us… and most of your readers here) the horrific bad news of the shootings plus three different occasions of little BABIES left in the back seat of cars and simply “forgotten!???” and by supposedly intelligent people… how is that even possible??? I mean… how distracted do you have to get?
and the senseless carnage. it’s just all too much really. it’s like living but with one foot always in despair.
try to be as kind to and easy on yourself as possible dearest bean!
this is like a strange nightmare that refuses to end. I have always wondered how people in history who were trapped in a particularly horrible time actually felt.
I think I am learning the answer. future people will look back on our time with the same question.
sending you love. and hopes for a good night’s sleep. XOXO
Yes. Exactly. “One foot always in despair.” That’s what anyone with a heart faces every day now. Endlessly.
Someone said on Twitter the other day. “I always wondered how Nazi Germany could happen. Now I know.”
Thanks, Tammy.
You’re so active, I can try to imagine how frustrated you must be with the back. And, yes, pain is a drain. Very sorry you’re hurting, Claudia. I don’t even know how you feel well enough to sit and post.
Can’t conceive of what it must be to look out in your very own yard and see deer; they’re so, so beautiful (sorry they’re destructive). I haven’t seen deer in my neck ‘o the woods for a long time but it could be because we got a good amount of rain (for the first time in years) some 7-8 months ago which means things would be growing in the back country as a food source and maybe they’ve had enough water in the canyons with little rivulets and streams; thus, the deer have no need to come into the city limits as they did in former years when desperate for life-sustaining sustenance. I realize I also haven’t seen the bunnies in the foothills at dusk either. Hope they didn’t all die off in drought and wildfire. We’ve had a raccoon population which also seems to be wiped out but I’m not sorry about it as I was getting very tired of them being in the yard as they carry disease and just make a mess, taking a bath in the cats’ water dishes, uprooting plants; very bold, too. They need to go somewhere else!
We have deer on our property every day. They often walk through the back forty. I don’t always see them, though. I find it’s the young ones who are often the most brazen. And they look surprised when I express my displeasure! But they’re beautiful.
Don sure did take a striking photo of them today; I think it’s cool that you BOTH like photography and are good at it!
Mother kept back what was probably among the first of my childhood books as a toddler, about two deer in the forest (Dash & Dart). The illustrations are among the best I’ve ever seen, in full color, each a work of art (nothing clownish or cartoony). I’m sure this book fostered my awe and love of deer yet I know nothing about deer except that, sadly, they also carry the tick for Lyme disease, true?
Actually, not quite true. That’s a myth. Even though they are called deer ticks, the infections they transmit come from small rodents, like mice. Deer are only a part of it because they are the ‘main reproductive host for the adult stage of the ticks.” The disease comes from rodents.
Oh, wow, I really did have a misunderstanding. And you’d know, having been stricken.
xo
Deer can be a problem as well as squirrels. They dig up all our bulbs we plant. They chew them and leave the remnants behind. Hope your back feels better.
Marilyn
Thank you, Marilyn!
hope you can get comfy, sleep better and your back heals soon. like today, huh?! yes!
sweet photo of sweet faces, don!
hope you both have a good night.
kathy in iowa
Thank you, Melanie!
This is my 2nd attempt at a comment…my first one was deleted. Grrrr. Glad Don “captured” the culprits. With those faces, how could you stay angry with them? Lol!
Sorry to hear your back is still a problem…unfortunately these things take time to heal. I was thinking you need a comfy recliner…but then, where would you put it? I need a comfy recliner…but then, where would we put it?? All good questions…no good answers. Hope you can get a good night’s sleep…I’m sure that would help! ;)
That seems to happen on most blogs. It happens to me when I visit other blogs. It’s a server/timing thing.
Thanks, Donnamae.
I love the deer but boy do they eat everything. I’m resigned to it I think. They even help themselves to the bird feed at times. Love the photo. Hoping your back will be better soon. I had Scout here today as her school registration got messed up but she should be good to start tomorrow. We painted and had fun. My cough is getting better but this is the second time this summer with this horrible cough. My Dr is trying to figure out what is causing it. As you said pain or any illness just wears you out. I’m not sleeping as well as I should either. I watched the news for the first time in months and months tonight and I know why I don’t watch it. Therapy tomorrow so that will help. Get better and much love to you and Don.
Get better my friend! xoxo