Feb. and its the normal blah

Snowed last night. One of the turkeys refused to go in the hen house, she sat on the fence with a layer of snow on her insulating back feathers and her naked head tucked into her breast feathers, she looked like a hummock balanced on the fence rail. Stupid bird.

They are great birds and make lovely pets when raised right, but they truly are not genius's and will never be doing any higher math problems but then quite frankly neither will I.

February is usually pretty blah around here, mud season for sure, and this year has been oddly warm without much precipitation, so the normal grey has not been broken much by new layers of white. Of course I have barely left the house in the last two months, but from my office window today, the white snow and dark blue pines make a beautiful and striking pattern in the sunshine breaking through the cloud cover. The mountains are so close in the clear air, almost touchable, I can see the dusting of last nights snow on the the pines.

I wonder if I will ever walk the mountains again. Before the knee replacement, I could barely walk around a grocery store, the weakness, pain and muscle atrophy, made it difficult though much better than just a few months ago when I was struggling with nerve damage and the bone breaks from the dog incident. There is still nerve damage, the foot will probably always be weak and since the surgery the quad muscles have shut down, the atrophy is quite extraordinary on that leg. It will get better as I heal, I'm sure, this is the eight week since surgery and the difference is profound from even a month ago.

My doctor says I have to be very careful about this knee, he says I am too young for a knee replacement and I want to do things I should not do, things the "normal" replacement recipient at seventy years would not want to do or could not do anyway. The Dr., when I speak of walking with the dogs for a mile a day again, flinches and says it is not a good idea. It seems there is a certain mileage built into these knees and he is concerned about me wearing it out. That is a concern of course, I cannot even wrap my head around having this surgery done again. It was such a beast.

My husband and sons enjoy camping and backpacking, I do not. Camping is doing the very same thing I do at home, preparing meals etc., but in primitive conditions. Tim did mention a few times getting pack goats or llamas to carry packs but that went by the wayside, he is too absorbed in work, it is his obsession and everything else is far down the list of his priorities. I would have loved having goats again. They are great animals. My goats, The Lily and The Rose were pretty useless and could not have carried anything other then a few chickens on their backs, which they did, but they were good for a grand laugh every day.

My ADD addled brain does not enjoy doing nothing. It is not "relaxing" but nearly painful for me. Camping is not fun for me, but I do love going to the mountains with the boys and the dogs for a walk and a romp in the river. This is the very situation when the very large dog knocked me over this last summer and broke my leg. We had the dogs up the canyon playing in the river. we should be able to do that again but not for a while and I certainly will stay away from other's dogs and use my cane to keep them at arms length.
The family loves the mountains and wandering about but I must be doing something, making messes, using my hands, something! It might be ADD and it might be my Yankee upbringing, my parents believed in a work ethic and work and contribution was what gave value to a life. These last two months have been difficult because I have not known what to do with myself. It is getting better. Every day it gets better.

I no longer need pain meds, they befuddled my brain anyway, and the back to back exercises, well I have gotten bored with them and am not doing them anymore, I have a great deal of motion in my leg when it is not utterly swollen stiff. I am very pleased with the movement I have.

What a self absorbed post. Hmmm, I guess I am really just thinking out loud so to speak.
I am so grateful for the extraordinary blessings I have received. So very blessed.

We all must take our life changes with grace, we should at least, but some of us, me included want to go kicking and swearing. I do not like the changes in my body, I do not like the way I cannot even do a simple leg lift because of quad muscle shut down, I do not like the thought of a piece of titanium where my knee used to be, it is strange and touches on the belief of who and what we are, something we never think about until forced to do so. We take for granted the way our bodies move so easily without effort until they cease the normal fluid action. Without much thought we move through time and space doing our "thing" our bodies and our thoughts are our own, we are in charge, until age sickness or disability changes our paradiem. To have something that is not my own, that is not "me" is a very weird thought. I can only imagine how terrible and odd it is for a transplant recipient. To have a heart or liver that is not your own? very very weird to say the least. How does one convert someone else's cell memories to your own? At least mine is metal and has no life, it is part of me now and I will make it perform as I insist.

There is a great mental adjustment to the word and the condition "dis-abled". For me hopefully I will regain full strength and movement but in the meantime, the cane or the walker, the gimpy walk, the pain and fatigue is a challenge and a complete and utter change of self perception.

What a bizarre post. I had not intended to blather on like this. back to the turkeys..... spring is coming, regardless of the weather, the hens are laying again and the turkeys have nests which they fill regularly with large lightly speckled eggs. Huge eggs perfect for baking.

Speaking of baking, one of the boys said how much he was missing the extra cooking I used to do, it has been a bit difficult to stand for very long, painful, and then the swelling is worse. It seems I need to get back to the routine and feed the boys a bit better, standing in the kitchen has not been something I have wanted to do much.

Tonight for supper we are having roast chicken, carrots and potatoes roasted along with the chicken and I think I will use those huge turkey eggs and make molten chocolate lava cakes. Jacob, the youngest son has been begging for something chocolate-y, although he probably doesn't deserve it since he ate the last of my powdered sugar donuts this morning, and I thought I had hidden them well!