The Garden Dog

The whole idea was to extend my garden a bit and make it easier to mow.

Or..
just plant more flowers so I'd have more to look at!

Ignore the broken down garage...it is

a project to be taken care of..

one day....

So I started putting the mulch down on the 'walkway' and re-arranging other parts of the garden.

I gathered up my collection of odd rocks and put them all in one spot, so I can admire them.

Really, aren't they odd and strange rocks? I want to say they are concretions, but I have never had any one tell me exactly what they are.

Odd and strange fossils are abundant in our area.

Apparently Charlie believes I put the dirt out just for him to sunbathe in. Won't he be surprised when I put seeds in there?

It seems as if the Unicorns have started to move in.....
I hope they like the big barn I built for them out of a coffee can.

Oh and the Rat Skeleton! Well, I was building this 'garden' on the idea that it would be fun for kids or adults to walk through the flowers and find odd and interesting things.
I intend on continuously changing it of course.

The Squirrels? Well, the Rabbits will come soon and hide out between flowers and stumps I imagine.

Okay...this was a Christmas Card holder...but...
I'm putting it in the garden...
the head bobbles...
It was one of the strangest gifts I've ever had. I've had a mind to toss it, but oddly enough I can't just toss it. I find myself putting it away for a while, then bringing it out again.
People can't help themselves by touching the head and watching it nod wisely.

Maybe this reindeer thing is wiser than the rest of us.


But maybe I just got a Garden Dog instead...

~~ that look...
Charlie has the right idea. Just lay out in the sun light and don't worry about a thing.
I wish I were Charlie!

It's okay not to be okay....

The other day I got an email from our CrossFit coach, Josh, that was a mini read by a man named Jon Gordon. I looked him up and he is an author of what I would classify as 'Self Help' promotions and books. You can read about him at the link if you like.

But the email addressed the fact that it IS okay not to Feel Okay right now. Of course he offered words of encouragement that really struck a cord with me. I've gone back to read those words more than once in the past few days.

Because with the mounting death tolls of the Coronavirus, the politics, the demonstrations, the economic outlook, and then the possibility of staring this thing in the face for a very long time...
well, it seems that there is no more normal.
Everything I thought I had planned out for our future is no longer our future.

I texted my neighbor and CrossFit friend who I haven't seen for weeks and we met up on a back road to take a walk. A Distancing Walk with Charlie to just talk and just walk. We used to kid each other that we were the Elderly CrossFit people.

I stopped Bill and said I needed a photo of him in Tainter Land. He quipped that I'd ruin the scenery and the photo of course.

No, it didn't Bill.

We talked about our futures and ideas. He has worked for a nursing home so we have no misconceptions about aging and futures but only to try hard to stay healthy and fit. We talked about 'at what point' do we give up our homes?
In light of recent events we discussed our luck in living a rural area. At the same time rural wouldn't be so great as we aged.

We didn't talk gloom and doom our whole time. Most of the walk was spent marveling at the scenery. Bill kept commenting on how amazing Charlie was with his tiny legs and seemingly boundless energy.
Bill talked endlessly about his grand children and how much he enjoyed having them around. The things he still wanted to show them and do with them.

We discovered the 'first' violet coming up on the valley floor. We spotted Virginia Bluebells all over the valley as we walked. We marveled at how the floods in recent years had wrapped trees around other trees, changed the flow of the stream, and piled boulders and rocks in so many odd places.

I took photos with my Infrared Converted camera and explained light spectrums as best I could with some limited knowledge.

We did as two people would do. We walked ... distanced... and talked. We enjoyed the outdoors and sunshine.

Maybe in that time we learned a lesson from Charlie.

Just live in the moment for right now...

And it is okay ... not to feel okay.
But we are trying not to let it bring us down.