Back to work

Ugh.  I went back to work last Monday.  I am very uninspired..  ready to not be working, though I'd rather be healthy and not working than on disability.   I can bend my right knee so that my heel nearly touches by back thigh.  The left knee is getting there, but is still very stiff and aches a lot.  I walked for an hour yesterday in two half hour stretches, and by the time I was done the muscles were very weak, but I wasn't in a great deal of pain.  We signed up for our Vail ski trip, so I guess that means I'll be skiing this winter!  YAY!


We bought a white lily for the pond, so now there are pink lilies and white lilies blooming.  There are also TWO little green frogs!  I have no idea where they came from, but I really, really, really hope they stay.   The redstarts are darting in and out of the bushes, trying to work up the nerve to dip into the waterfall, and I have seen raccoon prints along the rocks early in the morning some days, as though I've disturbed their morning foraging. They can't get the fish, but they might be eating the snails.  Three days ago a doe and two fawn, mature beyond their spots, crossed the yard near to the apple tree. We do not prune or bother with the apples, so they get wormy and drop.  The deer are the beneficiaries of our purposeful neglect.  We also don't net our blueberry bushes, and the berries disappear as soon as they are ripe.  And we have seen the fox, just at dusk and in the pre-dawn hours, skirting the edge of the yard, hoping for something tasty like a mouse or mole who might be searching for stray seeds under the bird feeders.  Once we watched him grab a squirrel before the sun had set, but we rarely see him in daylight these days.   We only have a half acre of land in a suburban neighborhood with a patch of woods nearby, but we've planted our yard for the wildlife, and the pond is a magnet for critters passing through.