Category: A Daily Tree

This tree existed.

You can see the treehouse in there. It’s still structurally sound, though it suffers a leaky roof, which I need to fix sometime when things dry out and I feel a sufficient motivation.

It’s been weirdly warm the last few days. Highs in the low 50’s. Though still quite drizzly-rainy. More typical of July, here, than January.

Along with our weekly Thursday shopping trip, today, I went to the dentist. I hate the dentist. Not personally. I hate the experience.

My jaw hurts. In fact it’s hard for me, post-cancer, to keep my mouth widely open. Too many cut tendons or missing nerves in my mouth and jaw for things to work quite correctly. So that’s a layer of unpleasantness for dentist visits that maybe sets it apart.

I survived. And for once, Art had to be patient and wait around for me, rather than the usual other way around.

[daily log: walking, 3km;]

This tree (slightly blurry foreground) is going to be gravely disappointed when winter comes back, which it will.

Art tried to take a walk and fell down on his face. Not really a cognitive failure this time, as far as I can tell – more likely just stumbled on a rock – bad luck (Friday the 13th, as Jan pointed out).

This was just on the road (Port Saint Nicholas Road AKA The Expressway), only steps from our house. I had been out on my own walk, with the dog, so I found him lying in the middle of the road when I got back to our house. At first I thought it was a log that had fallen out of someone’s pickup truck, because of his brown coat. Then I realized, and in the moment I found him, he was unresponsive. He did finally respond. It took about 10 minutes to get him to stand up – he’s too heavy for me to simply lift (and he resists my effort to try to lift him because he claims it hurts his shoulders, which is no doubt true, but having him cuss at me while I’m trying to help because it hurts isn’t helpful).

Finally I got him to the car. I got my wallet and such and we drove to town. We got him to the clinic (the sorta kinda “emergency room” on the island) after a 30 minute drive. He was still bleeding.

They cleaned the wounds (sorta), did some xrays, checked vitals. He’d broken his nose and there was gravel embedded in a deep gash between his eyes, and a large patch of missing skin on his forehead. After two hours (I suppose it’s just a matter of being “under observation” but of course he complained repeatedly at how long it was taking), they gave us some prescriptions and gauze and antibiotic ointment and sent us on our way. They want us to keep the wounds as uncovered as possible but keep them moist with the antibiotic. For the broken nose, they gave him an anti-inflammatory.

I knew he wasn’t feeling too terrible since he decided to spend the drive home criticizing my driving.

When we got home, I walked up to the spot where he’d fallen down 5 hours earlier. There had been so much blood. The drizzle had washed some of it away, but some blood was definitely still visible in the mud of the road.

Some days are harder than others.

[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]

This tree stood aside as I commuted home as the sun set at 3:30.

[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]

This tree is down at the neighbors’ house. I took it a few days ago, when things were snowier.

Today, it rained a lot. The snow has washed into a kind of slush underlain with ice.

We went to the neighbors and had a Christmas dinner. Other neighbors came from farther down the road, too. It was a very low-key Christmas.

[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]