Happy days

Fond memories.

 

On our deck with Barb and Miss Lily

on a native prairie with the court jester and her Majesty the Queen

going gator hunting, with camera in Florida swamp.

With the grands

Late fall in grand smoky national Park

Checking out  Leinenkugels brewery in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin.

She gave up smoking though except for Prairie smoke native wildflowers.

Our first puppy, Max the wonder dog

 

Yellowstone National Park the bear tooth highway

 

Lily now and then

With Barb unfortunately but now safely residing in Cottagewood memory care it seems the other senior female in my life has pretty much taken over. For a number of years now I had critiqued Barb for spoiling our second German Shepherd to no end. That had never been the pattern for all the hunting dogs who resided in an outdoor kennel, as well as Baron there GSD successor. All of our previous dogs had limited indoor privileges so that they could socialize with the family. Lily is an indoor dog pure and simple who also had the run of the yard and went for long walks with the both of us. She was fed table scraps from the table and pretty much allowed to roam throughout the house and settle wherever she felt like it. Some nights I had to force my way onto  our bed to regain my spot. How things have changed. Now since I'm learning to cook  oversized meals   according to the directions on the boxes, Lily  as a result gets lots of  leftovers. Thus she is putting on serious weight. For myself with a bad case of vertigo, tramping through the woods isn't always safe for me. Unfortunately my new membership in the local fitness club isn't helping Lily at all. She is not eligible for membership

Spring Prairie flowers in Bluff Country

On Saturday Mrs. T's nephew Ray Junior came down from the cities to visit her at memory care  in Rochester. Later that afternoon because he had indicated an interest in Prairie wildflowers I took him South for a ride along the Iowa Minnesota border. It was a very special place. We saw some rare and very rare wildflowers. This year the flowers were relatively late because of the two long and too cold spring weather this year. The first pictures are some scenes from my point-and-shoot camera and the second batch is from my photography mentor Mr. Science who quite simply is a world class photographer and Prairie expert. I hope you enjoy.
Among the prairie wildflower connoisseurs native orchids  are often the top prize to photograph. In this case two cars and six people were cautiously checking the ditches   for a  very rare orchid specimen  in Minnesota and Iowa. It was the white lady slipper as luck would have it Barb's nephew Ray, a complete novice, spotted them. The other group, keeping an eye on us and looking for the same thing, quickly caught up. These orchids are protected by law but there is a certain secretiveness involved here  as occasional  lawbreakers are known to exist. These are people who dig orchids up and usually kill them off as they are very difficult to transplant successfully
. Thus some become endangered or even extinct.

White lady slippers and the somewhat larger and less rare yellow lady slippers

 

From the same area taken by Mr. Science (Gary)

 

Prairie Phlox

 

Prairie smoke

 

 

White lady slippers

 

Shooting stars

 

Cream Indigo

 

The following pictures were taken several years earlier of Baron and a very large patch of shooting stars. If you compared to the first pictures taken this year you'll note that the area is much more wide open  meaning there on lots of shrubs and little trees sprouting up all over. This is because the local conservation agency had not deliberately burned this area to defeat the shrubs and allow the wildflowers to thrive in nature this process would have been continued by lightning storms. For the photographer it's also much more difficult as you have to scrounge through the thickets to find the wildflowers.

Baron among the shooting stars. My big guy  fondly remembered

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily Waiting For Lunch

So Spring Valley has seven places to eat out. That includes one truckstop, several breakfast lunch cafés, a pizza place  and a couple of franchise fast food operations. That's all okay on occasion but on a permanent basis, I don't think so!.  Thus I've been learning how to cook. On that subject not totally without some experience and skills. There is always old standbys like cooking over campfire in the wilderness or on picnic outing's. Then there is the old standby grill located on our deck. Back in the day in our first home we had a Ben Franklin fireplace/stove. It was like cooking over a campfire in the Minnesota winter. Then there  is the kitchen. In that area I am almost a complete novice. I have a lot to learn.

As you can see in the above photograph where this Lily is watching me work in the kitchen, She does not look very optimistic. My frequent supper disasters have fairly frequently led  to some unplanned addition's being added and mixed in with her dog kibble. What's a good dog got to complain about? :)

 

Woodland Wildflowers

The year was 1970 and that summer Barb and I, after several years of renting, purchased our first home. It was in a small wooded subdivision with about 10 homes, approximately 1 mile East of Spring Valley, Minnesota. To close the deal I persuaded the seller to include an extra several acres to meet his price. In the year 2000, Mrs. T noted that a tuck under garage and a very long driveway to the state highway might be too much for a soon to retire couple. That summer we split our 3 acre property in half sold the old and build new house our woods. That house  sits comfortably amongst some very large oak trees   with very little lawn to the mow and  lots of woodland wildflowers and hostas mixed in…. Spring was very late this year and I haven’t had much time for any tending. Still that was the idea to begin with reduced lawn upkeep and  letting the wildflowers  go wild. Come on along then, let’s just go take a look.:)

 

 

 

 

 

Sulfur Springs by William Kent Kruger

Troutbirder talked to New York Times Best Selling Author William Kent Kruger to find out why he risked getting some cheap shot reviews from the fans of the White House con artist. Click on Mark Twain and Troutbirder above to read my review on my other blog Troutbirder II. I also bought a new red Leinenkugels hat which happen to be detective Cork O'Connors favorite beer....:)

The best and worst of it. Part II

 

The best: Cottagewood. According to several social workers from both Mayo Clinic and Olmsted County it was one of the very best memory care facilities in all of southern Minnesota. I believe that is correct.

The worst: based on experiences almost to frequent to keep track Cottagewood is not that good on occasion. They claim to have the most trained staff and appropriate facilities to keep your loved one safe and the residents family involved and informed. The problem is quite common to large bureaucracies of all kinds. Communication fails and lawyer written red tape designed to protect the bureaucracies bottom line or reputation sometimes defies common sense.

Barb had just arrived several days before from Mayo Clinic’s maximum-security psychiatric ward. Two days later I had received early in the morning a phone call from Cottagewood which indicated sometime in the night Barb had fallen and possibly had a broken arm. It was swollen and I needed to drive 30 miles to Rochester and take her to Mayo Clinic’s emergency room for an x-ray. I wasn’t sure as explained in my previous post if she would even be admitted. But more than that should I be the one to drive her there. I told them to call for an ambulance. They refused. I refused to take her myself, pointing out that because of her extreme agitation she well could possibly jump out of the car grabbed the steering wheel begin choking me and we would both be at risk for our very lives. I rushed up to Cottagewood and found that Barb’s arm was swollen but she was not in severe pain. Getting an aide to apply an ice pack, I then demanded to see the chief operating officer. And after much ado an ambulance was finally called and at St. Mary’s emergency room they found that Barb had a fractured arm.

Several weeks later another phone call informed me that my wife had been “assaulted”upon arrival that word was changed to “molested” this was followed some days later when she assaulted a knocked to floor a male resident who was giving her a neck message while she was eating lunch. Apparently she had previsouly be calling hime “Ray” (my name} . The last report was that she hoped in bed with the culprit who nude and presumably assaulted him. All this led to a promise that each one would have a separate aid watching them and keeping them apart. Numerous efforts on that behalf all failed due to lack of communication of the various pertinent protocols among the aides. Then he disappeared for three weeks after I was chastised for threatening him if he ever got within 10 feet of my wife again. Not good the poor fellow has dementia. Then he finally disappeared and reappeared three weeks later now looking and acting somewhat zombie like. More recently when Lily was with me visiting dementia land I still had the unfortunate reaction on my part as he approached me and Barb to inform him that if he approached any closer to my wife my dog “killer”the highly trained German police dog would rip his arm off. My bad again but I have further stories about Cottagewood to add to my future New York times best-selling book Adventures in Dementialand

The best and the worst of it!

The best:

W. F. M. C.   The world famous Mayo Clinic. Their motto is the patient comes first.
Not always. Though they saved Mrs. T's life twice and rescued me from a very near to death experience once. I could write a book on that subject.
The worst:  Chapter 1. Like the time after Barb had been in the psychiatric lock up for three weeks. Came home for 2 1/2 days while she was freaking out. And they wouldn't admit her to the emergency room to send her back to  what she called" prison" because she said "I won't go in to that f**&*place because the doctors will send me to the nursing home!" Whereupon the two nurse/aides told me I would have to call the Rochester police dept. to get her in. I refused to do that until they decided to get there supervisor. When suit and tie guy arrived on the scene and repeated the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo I began yelling at him for a bit, in front of a large audience were listening to this dramatic scene, when I lowered my tone of voice and said " sir I have a solution to your problem. Have your worker bees bring out a wheelchair and set it in front of Barb and me. I'll sit in it. And if they happen to mention that I might possibly be having a heart attack. It might all be good." It was. As my beloved Barb grabbed the wheelchair and push me ahead into the emergency room. Within a half hour the head doctor from Mayos psychiatric lock up arrived on the scene where or three weeks a tinkered with her meds and she was on her way to MEMORY CARE at Cottagewood. That's another story which I will relate on another morning when I wake up a little less cranky from thinking about my dealings with large bureaucracies, who don't always live up to their missions or even worse their promises.