Ramble Ramble ...

Spring is just around the corner. I am watching some purple house finches try to build a nest in a wreath I left on a hook on the porch. Rich wants me to take the wreath down, but I enjoy the morning visits by the finches and their song is quite beautiful.

I climbed the ladder and took a look. I guess they are just sitting there in the mornings and not building a nest. So I am going to leave the wreath until they move on or I feel like replacing the it with something else.

This morning I watched a dozen deer on the hill above the house. This is fairly new thing. I used to have cattle in that pasture and all summer I rotate pastures for the mules so I rarely see deer but I do often see their tracks.

This morning it snowed and the ground is white but it will melt.

Sunday I met up with another photographer and we hiked along the Kickapoo River in the KVR. We hiked the Wintergreen Trail and I had to laugh when the gent made a comment about him getting old. We'd just climbed down a bluff and I had pranced back up following a deer trail.
Yes I said pranced! I felt really good on Sunday!

Anyway this fellow, Brian, said he needed to catch his breath.

He and his buddies were talking about how they were getting to that age where they had to worry about things like heart attacks and such like. So I asked him what age is that? He said he was born in 1965. I burst out laughing. I didn't want to offend him, but I did then tell him that I was 9 years older. He just smiled and shrugged.

I learned a lot from Brian about infrared photography. He'd just been to a 'class' out in Utah for 9 days and was excited to share what he'd learned with another photographer.
The sky was perfect, blue, sunny, and dotted with clouds. Perfect for our IR cameras to pick up some IR wavelengths of light.

Brian had some incredible shots that he posted on Facebook that are in the colors of reflected light. Most of what I took became black and white shots.

My favorite shot of the day was this one I took with the non-converted camera with just a filter on it.
I see a face in the bluff...a Warrior! Do you?

Monday morning I felt the effects of all of the extra activities I'd done since playing soccer with kids on Friday afternoon. And when I say I played soccer, it wasn't just a little running here and there.
I literally played like a kid. Yes, I had to catch my breath a few times ... I even got tangled up with a 9 yr old and we tumbled and rolled on the slightly muddy field.
When I got to be goalie I actually prevented 4 goals.
Saturday was an all day sprint of finishing Sven's outdoor pen and moving all those heavy windows out of the corner of the shed.
Sunday was hiking in the morning with Charlie and then hiking in the afternoon with Brian along the river.

Monday morning came along. I felt stiff all over. My feet hurt, my hands hurt [osteo arthritis], my head hurt. And I found a tiny tick in my neck. Shame on me for not changing clothes after climbing around on the bluffs.
I literally took the day off.

I read a book, watched some videos about Infrared Photography, and did nothing but chores and laundry.

However on Sunday I did find Skunk Cabbage! So spring is coming even if it is snowing outside.

And I leave you with that.

My week begins today.
Lots to get done!

Dang it All to ...

Well dang it all to heck and back.

I'm not going to really whine about this too much. Hmmm. Maybe I will. It seems that osteoarthritis has crept into my life. Well at least into my hands.
I of course figured that it wouldn't happen to me.

Stupid me. I sort of knew it would. My Grandmother Pearl had twisted gnarly hands and she barely whispered a word about it. I'd see her gardening, crocheting, sewing, and doing all those normal things with her beat up hands. At the time I admired those well worn hands and said something to her about it.
In all her infinite wisdom that I never learned...she replied, "Oh I don't think you want these hands. Some days they don't do so well."
She said this as she was artfully cleaning a fish with quick skilled movements.

My mom began to suffer the same fate as did her sisters. Arthritis crept up on their hands deforming them and sometimes twisting the joints.

Over the past year or so, my hands began to ache a lot. Certain movements hurt. Grasping things was painful. My left thumb continued to hurt making grasping door knobs a real chore. In fact when we remodeled, I had handles put on the door that I could just push down on.

Opening a jar can be tricky. Using an old fashioned can opener can be a trying feat. Over the winter my hands became worse. I developed Herberden's Nodes on the ends of my fingers. As those nodes develop, the pain is quite intense. I recall my father showing me the tips of his fingers and telling me that once the bump was formed, it stopped hurting, so it wasn't so terribly bad.
Oh, he was not kidding!

So this summer those wonderful little nodes pretty much quit hurting and I was able to get along except for the thumb issue. Sometimes at night, I'd fall asleep with a cold pack wrapped around the left hand. It numbed things enough so I could sleep.
Peeling apples for apple crisp last month made the pain nearly unbearable. So I decided to see how I could process apples without causing myself a lot of pain. Easier to make jelly, juice, and apple sauce than to peel apples.
Plus I got a food mill which helped tremendously.

Brushing the mules out for riding was even a bit difficult, but I decided worth the pain.

I sort of knew what may be going on with the hands. Goodness knows I've seen it in my grandmother, my mom, and my dad. However my fingers are not being deformed much.

So when my doctor and I looked over the hand X-ray results, I was sort of surprised. There it was osteoarthritis in both hands. No fingers were left unscathed.
The left thumb showed degenerative joint 'disease'. Oh. Ick.
Mostly it means that the hands will slowly get a bit worse as I get older.

Now dammit, how did I get older? In my mind I am about 30! I look in the mirror and see that older person looking back at me. She disappears when I take my glasses off. She looks much younger after I take a shower and peer at her in a fogged up mirror.

My doctor recommended that I see Occupational Therapy for exercises to strengthen my left hand and to see how they could suggest non drug like therapies to lessen the aches and pains. I am all for that. Our local clinic has an excellent PT/OT department and they have helped me quite a bit in the past.

How am I going to 'deal' with this? Well, now that I have a name and a cause for the pain, I will not quit doing things or baby my hands. The pain is not indicative of something that will harm me.
It is simply wear and tear. I need to work out how to do some things smarter and need to be aware of the "Use it or Lose it" theory. If I stop doing things with my hands, or I stop being active ... I will be in more pain and more health problems will arise.
If the body stops moving, it will destroy itself.

My doctor said that if the thumb issue got too bad she would send me to a hand specialist to explore injections [eeks!] and perhaps surgery [eek gads! NO!]. She said she had a patient who went through the surgical procedure and the recovery and PT time took about 6 months. No thank you!

This is not earth shattering but it will include some minor changes for me.

Yes, I think my father was correct. Aging is not for sissies.