This is just a note to my blogfellows: I will catch up with your posts soon but can’t sustain at the moment, due to our freak/freakish storm. I have had to delete most of the last two day’s worth of email notifications in order to keep my sanity – very sorry!
Storm 2
Two days ago I went into the local town (Bunbury) to see Anthony at the nursing lodge. It had been raining and windy but I hadn’t actually heard the weather forecast so I was surprised to find tree branches all over the road as I travelled into town. At the nursing lodge, which is right near the beach, the wind was strong but not overwhelming, but 5 minutes into my visit the wind became an audible howl and I opened Anthony’s curtains so we could see. The little trees in the garden were being whipped around madly and I said I thought I better go home as one of the nurses said a big storm was coming.
“Oh sure,” Anthony said, uncharacteristically grouchy, “I’ll be an old man next time you see me.” He was walking me slowly to the exit, then he stopped and looked up at me (I am much taller than him now because of his stoop). “Oh, that’s right, I am an old man aren’t I,” and he chuckled. “That’s for sure,” I laughed.
Outside the rain began to pelt down as I leapt into the car, and my 15 kilometre trip home was hair-raising. There were trees down everywhere in all of the paddocks and the road was almost blocked here and there by trees, branches and debris. As I turned into our little country town a shed was rolling across the road this way and that and momentarily seemed to somersault towards me so I sped up, wanting to get home quickly in the hope things would be better. But when I got home it was worse – the wind was almost impossible to walk against and inside the whole house was rattling. It was about 2.30 in the afternoon so Son had gone off to the neighbours to milk the cows. I turned on the radio to hear the weather forecast and at that moment the power went out.
The weather was so wild that I was afraid to go outside and very worried about Son who soon came back saying they couldn’t milk the cows because there was no electricity. It wasn’t until around 11am yesterday that he and his boss could milk the cows with the aid of a generator for electricity. By this time, of course, many of the cows were suffering from mastitis having missed two milkings.
A few hours later the power came on again but only lasted a couple of hours which is when I wrote my posts and read a few blogs. Then it went off again and only came back some time in the middle of the night last night. Son went over to milk at 3am (it’s usually 5am) and apparently things can go back to normal with milking this afternoon at the usual 3pm.
Another storm is predicted for tonight, but here is a link to a news item. Thankfully, it seems that no person has been hurt so far.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13917214/western-power-battles-storm-damage/
To give you an indication of the ferocity of the storm here on this little farm, one of the massive wattle trees that the peafowl and guinnea fowl sleep in has come down, some of the guttering on our roof has catapulted to the ground, there are huge branches all over the place, bits of the old washhouse have peeled off, the dogs will need psychiatric treatment and I have a new respect for electricity.
And the birds? Without exception, they have all absolutely loved every minute of this excitement and none have been injured. Oh to be a bird!
Storm
We are experiencing a cyclonic storm beyond anything I have ever seen before. The electricity has just come on after 24 hours but I don’t think it will last so this is just a quick post. I think the storm has hit a lot of Western Australia. Very frightening.
Rooster refuge
Roosters are the ‘unsung’ of the poultry world because they’re not very necessary. In fact, they are completely unnecessary if you just want eggs and, even if you want to breed chickens, you only need a single rooster for a whole bunch of chooks. People are constantly advertising free roosters or cheap roosters and some of the ads read a bit like this: Ten roosters FREE, wonderful breeders, lovely natures, not overly noisy – seller is willing to travel up to 1,000 kms for FREE delivery. Be quick or you will miss out! Well, you get the picture.
However, if roosters are re-perceived as birds, rather than as poultry, they become quite a different category altogether. (I’m thinking of writing an article called “In defense of the rooster” for the local poultry magazine so this is a practice run – hehe!)
You see at the moment we have four roosters and no hens (chooks). Most of the chooks were killed during that dark night of the fox several months ago, and we lost the remaining few, one by one, until only the roosters were left. Here is a picture of Malay and No-Name about to go to bed. They sleep in that tree, high up in its branches, safe from the fox.
And here is Tina Turner (who has featured in previous posts), wondering whether to join the peacocks on the car. He eventually decides that the table might be a better roost.
And here is our relatively new rooster (given to us) on his first day here, not sure whether he is being scrutinized or worshipped by the peafowl. NK (short for New Kid) has adapted very well and the other three roosters adore him, so much so that he has been given his own special bedtime branch in the tree.
All four roosters have their own personalities:
Malay (raised by his mother under a shed here) is big, strong and loud, and loves flying.
No-Name is shy, deferential and always waits his turn when I am hand-feeding them.
Tina Turner is vain and aggressive; he particularly likes to fly at my legs and claw me but I have now decided that this is his version of a hug.
NK is gradually becoming the head rooster for some reason and the others seem to think he is a kind of god.
“Why do you have so many roosters?” poultry people ask me.
“I just love them,” I say.
Note: We are getting hens soon!
Spamming error
I know this happens to lots of us but, just as I was clearing the spam (which I had given up checking because it’s always spammy), I noticed a couple of familiar names just as they were whooshed away into the place where deleted stuff goes.
So far I have never not accepted a comment and have tried to reply as well, so, if I haven’t done either, it means you’ve somehow ended up in the spam. Not my fault but I’m sorry anyway.
Arghh!
Charlie Chaplin
My father died on June 9 over 30 years ago and every single June 9 seems to descend on me like a nasty cloud.
Until today. Well, technically it’s today but it’s not even 1am yet so daylight will take awhile and I am going to bed, not with the usual June 9 Dad grief but with a whole bunch of happy memories.
He walked like Charlie Chaplin
Canadian autumn leaves brought tears to his eyes
He talked to himself on the train, just silently, but I could see his mouth moving
Perspiration sometimes beaded his upper lip
He was strong, stern and silent
He was tired, relaxed and vociferous
His adoration of my mother was evident in every blink of his eye, every day I knew him
I was sometimes afraid of his intensity
And my own
But this didn’t stop me from rushing to hug him
He let me buy bazooka bubble gum even though he hated gum-chewing
He was a grammar school teacher
Then he was a chiropractor
If patients couldn’t pay, he would accept milk or apples or smiles
He was not a business man
My brother were playing football when he died
It was too sudden
I was on the other side of Australia
The nun from the hospital rang my mother and told her to come quickly to the hospital but wouldn’t say why
My mother drove those 20 kms not knowing that her husband was already dead
He loved dogs
And squirrels
He loved my older brother’s determination
He loved my younger brother’s gentleness
He loved my being so much like him – well I think he did, maybe he didn’t know
My mother’s gregariousness was difficult because he was a bit of a loner
And a poet
Not a perfect man
Impatient if I didn’t cut my asparagus before putting it in my mouth
No stirring of the icecream
He got us our first television and we watched Disney at its inception – the wonder of it!
Everything about his memory makes me cry and laugh
Live and die
Bleed and heal
Today I refuse, for the first time in all these years, to mourn his death
Today I will walk like Charlie Chaplin
And I will grin my dad’s grin
Because I have thousands and thousands more memories
As Dad might have put it – “buggar off, grief!”
The ‘now’ of before, during, after ….
I just got permission to name the wonderful surgeon who fixed Son’s spine (you need to see previous post). His name is Peter Woodland and I am trying very hard not to fall in love with him – hehe! Son took this photo from Peter’s computer at our last appointment.
And here is a picture I took today of Son’s brace-free back:
Thank you, Peter Woodland!
Before, during, after ….
Those who have been reading this blog for awhile will already know the story of Son’s scoliosis and surgery, but newcomers may not, so I thought I’d do a little pictorial recap here. This is because, yesterday, Son was told that he could finally, after over three months, take his post-operative spinal brace off and leave it off for good – YEEHA!
Before his scoliosis became so severe (it went from around a 40% curve to nearly 80% in the space of around eight months when he was 15), he was a passionate football player and had tentative dreams of pursuing football professionally. He was very good at it.
However, despite taking Son to numerous series’ of appointments with a chiropractor, physiotherapist, osteopath, kinesiologist, personal trainer and others (all of whom were wonderful and possibly prevented his scoliosis from getting even worse), the following X-ray speaks for itself. Surgery, which we hadn’t contemplated before, became a matter of inevitabilty rather than an option, so we saw a surgeon and Son was told he would have to have surgery and that he must stop playing football immediately. As this was two days before a school football trip in which Son was the star attraction (of course he wasn’t the star attraction, but I’m his mother so I like to say things like that), the devastation of this news was difficult to deal with and I will never forget Son’s sobs after that appointment.
So, on Valentines Day this year (Feb. 14 2012) Son underwent major surgery which took, I think, over eight hours and in which twelve of his vertebrae were fused, using quite a bit of titanium, and bone from the bone bank (a bit like a blood bank). I will spare you the gory details as there are plenty of youtubes on how this works. The following pictures show Son with the electrody things in his hair, the evening before surgery (we were allowed to go out for dinner!), the second is in intensive care after the surgery, the third is us mucking around and trying to be silly, and the fourth is Son a week later in the rehabilitation unit with the teddy I bought him and some gravy and chips!
And this is Son in his brace, standing 3 inches taller than he was (I kid you not!) with my mother – and another picture of him feeding the gang with some visitors.
Taking the brace off after all this time (Son had to wear it except when sleeping), has been, for him, wonderful but also a bit scary. He said today, before he went into town with his friend, “I feel a bit naked!” But, apart from that, the exhilaration of such a fantastically successful surgical outcome takes my breath away. Son is a new man!
In the next post I would like to show pictures of now, and to thank the surgeon publically, but I need to check if that is okay with him before I mention his name.
Meanwhile, Son has decided that instead of playing professional football, he will become a rock star.
And he will!
A few bloggy questions for those who might know the answers!
1. How come, if I click ‘Follow’ I am sometimes automatically subscribed to a blog and sometimes not?
2. In relation to the above, why is ‘Follow’ enough on some blogs but on others I have to do the email subscription thing (which I don’t mind – just wondering)?
3. Is it normal for photos to sometimes take 20 minutes hours to upload?
4. In relation to the above, why will one photo upload in a few minutes, and another take a century, when both were taken by the same camera, at the same time, on the same day?
5. Where exactly did my blogroll go when I unwittingly lost it?
6. In relation to the above, will those ‘lost’ bloggers now hate my guts?
7. How many posts per day is too many? (Yes, I have raised this before)
8. Is it okay to not particularly like the whole award thing or does this seem ungracious and offensive?
9. How is it that all the bloggers I now know seem like perfect people?
10. In relation to all of the above, is scotch the same as whiskey?
Get off the car!
Anthony (Husband): Would you mind putting the car away, Jules?
Son: Put the %$#@*^#@** car away, Mum – the peacocks are pooping all over it AGAIN – aaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!
Me: They’re sweet aren’t they!
jmgoyder 