Sammy

 Apparently I have a pet squirrel. He showed up a few years ago and didn't seem scared of people. So I threw out a few nuts for him and I noticed that he ate the bird seed that I threw on the ground. As time went on he became even less scared of me. I could set up obstacles in the yard for him to eat his nut and he would go through them to get that nut. Eventually I could feed him by hand. 

That looks like one fat squirrel 

Last winter in the snow

This relationship has it's ups and downs. Sometimes he digs holes in my planters, messes up the grandkid's fairy village, chews on some of the planter webbing, or chews on some of the wood around the deck. I've learned to deal with those things-mostly with peppermint essential oil. Squirrels don't like this oil and stay away from things that smell like it, so I liberally spray peppermint on things I want him to ignore. For the most part, this works; part of the problem is that it wears out over time and I need to reapply the spray-remembering to do that is iffy sometimes. But for the most part he is pretty friendly and doesn't get into trouble too often. The squirrels we had in CA were very destructive but this one isn't bad. 

Checking out the "other squirrel" in the house

 

Sometimes he sits on the table waiting for a nut
 

Getting his nut out of the truck 

Eating some of the sunflowers I grow for the animals

This squirrel has a name, Sammy. Sammy works if it's a boy or a girl, turns out he's a boy. I first started calling squirrels Sammy when my kids were little. We had squirrels that ran around the trees in our yards and my girls were interested in them, so I named each squirrel I saw "Sammy". The kids got older and discovered that there were many squirrels and they thought I was crazy to call them all "Sammy". Well now I still have many squirrels, but I've gotten to recognize and know one pretty well and what else would I call him but Sammy. 

Sammy has gotten to the point that when I open the back door - he comes running for the deck, expecting to get a nut. Then he wanders off and does whatever a squirrel does and we do this again the next day. If I'm working in the yard, he finds me, stands in front of me or follows me around asking for a nut. And I still set up obstacles for him to climb over to get his nut. Even the grandkids can feed him a nut, they have learned how to stay still while Sammy checks out the situation to see if it's okay then he takes his nut. If I'm too busy or away for the day, Mr UAW feeds Sammy his nut. 

You've got a nut for me, right???

His nut is a walnut. He really likes walnuts the best. I tried almonds but apparently they seem like something to bury; each time he get one, he buries it. I always have walnuts around, I eat them every day in my oatmeal. He usually shows up at breakfast time. Our table that we eat from is by the slider to the deck. He just shows up at the slider, stands on his hind legs, folds his front hands in front of him as if he's praying for food, his little ears perked up, his tail in a graceful arch behind him, he looks intently at the door opening and at us as we are sitting at the table. Once in a while he climbs the screen door and peers around the edge of the slider to get a closer look at us. 

The only time I don't see Sammy is if there is a predator around. It could be a cat, an owl, or an osprey. He's pretty smart and knows how to take care of himself. But one day I noticed that he had a problem. 

Sammy got mites or maybe it was mange. Anyway, he came to the door one day and most of his fur was gone and he looked so thin. He scratched at his sides a lot. Each day he still came for his nut but he seemed a bit depressed. It was October and I was concerned that his fur wouldn't grow back in time for the cold weather that was coming. So I looked up squirrels and mites/mange. There were many things I could do but the most reasonable one was to feed him Ivermectin-a horse dewormer. I was familiar with Ivermectin from working with horses. The amount of Ivermectin to give a squirrel was "half of a grain of rice" and since I could already feed him by hand I was sure I could put it in the creases of the walnut and he would eat it. He would need this once a week for 3 weeks. Problem was this was the time of the year that people were trying to use Ivermectin for Covid so I couldn't find any at the feed store. But I remembered my friend at the stables where I volunteer. I told her the story and she was glad to give me a very, very, very, little bit of Ivermectin out of one the tubes she kept on hand for her horses. So I was able to do that for 3 times, once a week for 3 weeks. Sammy ate it all up, the taste of the Ivermectin didn't bother him. (I know some horses that I wish would take their dewormer that easily). Then over time his skin started to heal, he wasn't scratching himself so much, then his fur started growing back, then he started gaining weight again, then he was back to his normal fat self.

When Sammy first showed up with a problem 

Then he started looking worse 

Eating his nut, his skin was starting to heal 

Getting his meds in a nut  

Getting better 

And now he's all better! 

Definite unexplored and wild retirement trails-Part 1

I've tried starting this blog post many times and each time I get caught up in the details of the current part of the story that I'm living. Focusing on these details doesn't help, the big picture gets lost in the telling of the details. My unexplored and wild retirement trails have lead me to the death of a parent, and taking over for all the needs of another parent-all from a distance of 583 miles away. It's the part of retirement that doesn't come up first in someone's thinking, it's something that doesn't come up first in most conversations with other retirees.  But it happens to all of us, the death of a family member. So how did I get here? What happened? Who died? Well, my mom died April 27th, and dad while already in a residential care facility, still needed an advocate for his care, especially since his health is quickly fading. That is the facts, the "big picture". So how did all this happen and what has been going on for the last 7 months? What happened is pretty factual, how to deal with it and all the ramifications-those answers have been anywhere from obvious to "wait and see"...so if you're interested in the story and a bit of details you can continue reading. Otherwise, just know that I've been absent from the blog world dealing with family matters. 

My parents lived in a 1500+ square foot house in the suburbs of Sacramento CA. Fifteen years ago my dad had a stroke that greatly affected the left side of his body. Over the years the right side got worse as it was trying to compensate for the left side not working. His care became too great for mom to continue so she found a residential care facility for dad. This care facility has been where my dad has mostly lived for the last almost 5 years. Over the years my dad was unable to conduct his financial affairs so my mom "took care" of things. Mom continued to live in the primary residence until she died last April. The house was too much for mom to keep up but she refused help from us kids (me and my brother) and she would not hire anyone to help her out. Finally she trusted her bookkeeper to help her with not only her finances but with taking her to doctor appointments or to the store for groceries and putting away the groceries. But no other help was allowed in her life for herself or the house. It became obvious to me and my brother that we needed to have more than the usual discussion about her living situation as it was becoming unsafe for her to continue to stay there by herself. She really needed to be in an assisted living center or to hire continuous help to stay at the house with her. And it was in April that I was going to visit her to have this conversation with her-even though it was going to be very difficult.  However, she got sick, taken to the hospital by ambulance, didn't want me or my brother to know...but the bookkeeper got word to us via dad's caretakers. I kept in touch with the hospital as to her condition. She was not able to make decisions for herself, so I took over as Power of Attorney. The doctors said she had been neglecting herself. She had a foot condition that she would refuse treatment for, and a very large ulcer they found that she also refused to have treatment for. I finally talked to her but all she wanted me to do was get her out of the hospital and go back home. I told her I was coming and we would talk more when I got there. I gathered all the information that I could at home. My parents had a lawyer draw up a trust and power of attorney papers for health and finances years ago and I had copies of them. Being the oldest I had the authority to use those papers to make decisions for both of my parents. So I left for CA a few days after she was admitted to the hospital. All the staff at the hospital kept me posted as to her condition and agreed with me that she could not go back to her home, she was being uncooperative and needed to be transferred to a skilled nursing facility. There was no talk of her being anywhere close to death but on the morning that I was driving to CA, she died unexpectedly. 

We stayed at my son-in-law's father's house, he's a good friend and provided a wonderful place for us to stay while I dealt with all the details of what happens after someone dies. My parents never wanted a service and they wanted to be cremated. So I arranged that. My brother arrived and stayed with us. Then we had to deal with the house...the 1500+ square foot house that they lived in for over 50 years and never threw anything away. On top of that it was very messy because my mom was unable to take care of herself or it. So we had to clean up the house enough to be able to close it up for a few months until we could return and start the process of selling it. We filled a 20 cubic yard dumpster-and there was still sooooo much more to go through but at least the messy stuff was gone. The bookkeeper offered to come over and help me go through all the papers that were all over the place, figuring out which ones to save and which ones to toss. My daughter that lives in the Auburn area said she could come over once a week and check the mail so that I could keep up on the bills. Neighbors came and said they would keep an eye on the place until we returned in July. One neighbor gave me the number of her gardener so I could have the lawns kept up. 

When I returned home I called the realtor that I used to sell my house in that area and he agreed to take us on as clients and to keep an eye on the place as needed. I lined up a lady to run an estate sale and her staff would go through the things in the house throwing out things that were unsaleable-she ended up filling up another 30 cubic yard dumpster. It was at this time of the year that the twice a year special garbage collection happened so I could set stuff out for that when I returned in July-junk collectors come by those piles and take what they want and I ended up setting out more stuff that didn't sell at the estate sale. The estate sale lady gave me the number of a hauler that would come after the sale and take the rest of the stuff to the dump-he ended up taking 60 cubic yards of stuff. I hired a cleaning crew to come in the next day and professionally clean the house. Then we could put the house on the market. All this happened in July. 

At the end of July the house went on the market and sold in 3 1/2 hours. Yes, you read that right, 3 1/2 hours. A 7 day closing, $25,000 cash over the asking price, and they paid the closing costs. It was a whirlwind of activity and a relief that the house was sold and all the bills associated with it would be gone. 

In order to do any business for my parents I first had to establish the right to do so. That's where the Trust and Powers of Attorneys came in handy. So before selling the house, I had to establish the fact that I had the authority to do business for my parents. I won't go into the details of all the accounts that I had to deal with, but just know this, each business that I dealt with had it's own requirements for establishing the right to speak for my parents. Some business would accept information spoken over the phone and that was enough for them to do as I wanted. Others had many requirements, over a period of many different conversations/faxes/emails and then I could speak for my parents. The first and most important ones were establishing the right to do their banking. After all, the bills still needed to be paid and my dad was unable to do that. It has been almost 5 months now and I'm still dealing with a few accounts that need to be closed. So while on paper, writing this looks like step one happened, then step two happened....reality is all these things are going on at the same time. And at the same time I was dealing with my dad's needs.....

So what's up with my dad? Well, a month before mom died, dad landed in a skilled nursing facility. It turned out that his gall bladder wasn't working, he had a bag attached to his body that drained the bile from his gall bladder and that bag needed to be flushed daily by a nurse because it would plug up and not do it's job. And the residential facility he normally lived in did not have a nurse on staff to flush that tube. Hence he was in a skilled nursing facility.  Mom didn't want him to have surgery to have the gall bladder removed, so he just stayed in the skilled nursing facility in limbo waiting to see if the problem would resolve all the while still paying for the residential care facility-they held his spot for him. While he was in there I noticed that mom was not advocating for dad very well, so I took over with my Power of Attorney that dad had drawn up anticipating that mom would not be able to help him.  I asked many doctors if my dad could withstand surgery to have the gall bladder removed. Half said if his heart and lungs checked out as fine, it should be fine as a laparoscopic surgery. The other half said no he was too old, and being a quadrapalgic with Parkinson's didn't make him a good surgical candidate. So I started the process to get all the doctor appointments done for a maybe surgery. In the meantime, mom died. Telling dad that mom had passed away was difficult, no details needed here. Dad had always wanted the house to be sold and mom to move into an assisted living facility. Now that mom was gone I could sell the house for dad. 

As time went on, we got all the doctor appointments accomplished for the maybe surgery, but it was taking too much time to get to the final surgery date, his 100 days of medicare coverage was coming to an end and we would have to pay out of pocket for the skilled nursing. So I had dad moved back to his residential care facility and we hired a nurse to flush his tube. The cost of doing that was less than staying in the skilled nursing facility. Dad had wanted to move back to his old place and he wanted the gall bladder to be removed so he could get rid of the bag. When the surgery was to happen in late August I flew down to sign him into the hospital and spend some time with him. However, on the day of the surgery, his heart was deemed too weak and the surgery never happened. In order for him to have continuing care, to be able to stay on his many medications, and to live in his preferred place, I had to put him on hospice. There were many details involved in that process and it was a very long day at the hospital (from 5am-4pm) and involved another trip to his general practitioner the next day, but it was all done. The owners of his normal residential care facility are wonderful people. They really care for their clients and bend over backwards for them. There were many times that I could not be there for some of dad's appointments and they would step in for me, even though he was still in the skilled nursing facility. These wonderful people told me that they felt it was time to put dad on hospice and they were going to have this discussion with me in the near future. However, the events of the cancelled surgery had made the hospice decision the only choice left for dad so it was done. 

Here is where the situation sits now. Dad is doing okay physically but mentally he is declining fast. He has a form of dementia that affects his ability to think through decisions, to understand the repercussions of those decisions, and it affects his understanding of what is reality and what is "wishful thinking". I keep in touch with him every few days. He is glad to be back at his normal living place and seems to be happy. Hospice comes daily to take care of his needs and the owners of the facility and I talk on a weekly basis. 

I have to say that this journey has been a difficult one. There have been times that I don't know what to do, and times that I always knew how I would handle a certain situation. I have to say that my faith really plays into this. It has been amazing to see how things come together. I usually wake up in the morning and say I wonder how this day will go and I'm curious to see how it will work out. Notice I said usually, some days I worry some, but it's comforting to know that I have a God that provides and guides me in all situations. If I took all this on without my faith I would probably be distressed, worried, anxious, pushy all the time. I've gotten a lot of support from my friends and family and I've felt the results of their prayers. There are too many times that things came together that were more than just a coincidence. That's where all the details come into play in this story. If I told all of those details this blog would go on and on and on..... So that is why I've been missing from my blog for a while. And this story will continue for a while. When something develops, I'll let you know. 

Ice Storm

 Ice storms are new to me. I've experienced freezing rain for a few hours. I've had it happen during the night but at that time the amount of freezing rain was minimal...so it's affects were mildly annoying. But this time it was a large amount of precipitation falling in the form of freezing rain for not just one storm but back to back storms, the second being the worst of the two. I knew some things to do like leaving the windshield wipers up on your car so they don't freeze to the window. And I knew that I should try to remove ice from the car each day in case I needed to use it, like for an emergency, so I would not be trying to remove 3 days of ice instead of 1 day's worth. Every winter we always insulate the water spickets. And when it freezes I usually cover my sensitive plants outside or bring them into the garage. Also having a stock of food that you could easily cook would be a good idea. But beyond that I didn't know much about ice storms. I now have an education! 

According to the National Weather Service:  Freezing rain occurs when snowflakes descend into a warmer layer of air and melt completely. When these liquid water drops fall through another thin layer of freezing air just above the surface, they don't have enough time to refreeze before reaching the ground. Because they are "supercooled," they instantly refreeze upon contact with anything that is at or below freezing (32 degrees F), creating a glaze of ice on the ground, trees, power lines, or other objects. Even light accumulations can cause dangerous travel, while heavier amounts can cause significant damage to trees and power lines. A significant accumulations of freezing rain lasting several hours or more is called an ice storm. 

Snow starting falling for a day or so, then the ice storm started. Overnight we were blanketed with a 1/2" of ice to start with. The high temperatures didn't get above freezing for a few days. My thermometer on the porch read 27 degrees for a high for at least 2 days. 

Trees. Apparently cold weather will cause some trees to explode by freezing the sap, because it contains water, which expands as it freezes, creating a sound like a gunshot. The sound is produced as the tree bark splits, with the wood contracting as the sap expands. I also learned that only a 1/4" of ice can increase the weight of branches by 30 times making them susceptible to breaking and falling. Also any preexisting conditions of the tree (now where have I heard of preexisting conditions before...?), such as rot inside or growing unevenly will cause problems as they accumulate ice. They can also makes a great thundering noise as large branches and whole trees fall to the ground. Even the small branches made noise as they hit other objects on their way down. 

And I also learned that just 1/2" accumulation of ice on power lines can add 500 pounds of extra weight to them. Ice, trees, and power lines can be a disastrous situation during an ice storm. 

The second storm came in and we gained another 1 1/2" of ice. We now had an accumulation of 2" of ice in some places. 

The ice was beautiful to look at. It enveloped our world in hard, clear sheaths of ice on everything. It made an amazing world to look at and photograph. The pictures I took do not do it justice. 

But there is a dichotomy with an ice storm. It is beautiful to look at but is also dangerous to deal with. And the danger started almost immediately the first night as trees around us started to explode and drop to the ground, or branches weighed down with the ice fell to the ground. We had at least 2 days and nights of listening to this occurring every 30 minutes. It made sleeping at night difficult. And during the day you made sure you never stood, walked or parked under a tree. Sleep happened in cat naps during the nights. If we went for a walk it was in the middle of the street and even at that you had to watch the area above you.  Fortunately our branches never fell on our house, fence, cars or sheds but our neighbors were not so lucky. Driving was okay because our RAV 4 and the traction tires handled it quite well-but you had to be careful to stop 4x before you needed to just to make sure you didn't slide on the ice, and NEVER park under a tree or a side of a house where the ice could fall on your car as it accumulated or loosened as it melted. Even walking was dangerous because without traction it was soooo easy to slip and fall. We used our microspikes as we walked around, we originally bought them to take on trips to the snow but they sure came in handy at home now. 

Then there's the issue of power-electrical power. Lines came down from the weight of the ice. Lines came down from the trees falling on them. Our electric company said it was the worst storm in 40 years and more than 2,000 lines were down, over 200 miles of larger transmission lines needed repair, 7 substations had been knocked out, 4,500 feeder lines to neighborhoods had come down, over 330,000 people were without power in the Portland area and they had to call in help from neighboring states to work on restoring power. Our power went out Thursday night, the 11th, as we were sleeping. It came on again for 12 hours on Saturday. Then it was out again until Wednesday the 17th. Thank God we have a gas stove in the livingroom, that kept us warm throughout the outage. As I write this, on the 19th,  I still have friends that are without power and there is no estimate of when their power will be restored. Without power there is no internet, there is no refrigeration, no freezers, for me-no hot water, no oven but I do have a gas stove.  Charging cell phones was something we did in the car...that was parked out in the icy street because of the roof with all the ice on it slanting towards the icy driveway where the car would have been parked-and you needed to wear microspikes to get to said car. It's a chore to live with ice. 

Then after the ice storm things have to melt. That means all the ice that is above you has to come down and it doesn't all drip down in nice little drops. It's nice to see icicles drip small drops of water as they melt away; it quite another thing to have all the balls of ice fall from the fir trees above you, or to have the ice fall from the power lines above you, or from the neighbors trees. It sounded like we were under siege from heavy artillery blasts. And this went on for a few days...and nights. So instead of jumping up from bed to see if a branch hit our house we just stayed in bed listening to the ice war going on outside. Or if it was daytime, I went outside with my riding helmet on and lots of padding on my body-which was appropriate because it was still cold outside and heavy jackets were needed. The ground looked like I was standing in an ice cube machine. 

And when all of that is done, there is the clean up. Because of this ice storm our city has a free tree debris drop off for it's residents at 3 local parks for at least 4 days. We took advantage of this and took 4 truck loads there. We still have things to clean up but the major stuff is gone. We figured that it would have taken 7.5 months for us to put all the debris from our fir trees in our green can. We also had to take out a tree out front that split in half so that would have added to that 7.5 months. Point is the free drop off was greatly appreciated. And I'm sure the other residents here would agree! I'm finishing up this post on the 20th and all I hear outside now is chainsaws and chippers. It'll be a while before all this mess is cleaned up. 

I'm sure my experience pales in comparison to people who deal with this all the time, or with the people currently experiencing the cold and ice in the midwest and Texas. 

But enough of the dangerous side of ice storms. It made for some beautiful icicles to look at in some interesting places. It covered all things and gave a different perspective looking at them. It brought the birds out to look for the birdseed that I threw on the snow/ice. I saw groupings of birds that I don't usually see as all were hungry and looking for food. Even Sammy the Squirrel came out to investigate his "new icy world". Enjoy the pictures and sorry there's so many of them. 

Icicles-

  Icicles at the bottom of the deck 

   

 Icicles at the top of the deck 

 Icicles on the plants 

 Icicles on my shed-the longest was 21"

      

    weird icicle 

 multiple layers of icicles 

 Wind chime frozen to table with icicles hanging from it 

Ice coverings....

 weeping cherry tree

lilac bush  

 there's a bush under there somewhere

fence decorations 

    

    so much ice on the fir trees 

 ice off the fir trees-standing in ice cubes

              

    ice on top of snow

 this strand captured some ice

                

 I now have an ice plant 

 tomato cages with ice decorations 

           

Birds and a squirrel 

 Junco trying to land on the feeder and a Pine Siskin trying to keep it away 

 a truce at the feeder, Juncos normally eat from the ground 

 now the Lesser Goldfinches rule the feeder 

 

 no feeder arguments from these guys!

this Bushtit didn't mind sitting on ice  

 this one didn't mind sitting on ice either or being covered with ice 

 I had to pour hot water on the hummer's feeder so he could eat 

 a Northern Flicker

 Varied Thrush 

 this House Finch was blind in one eye and sat here for hours, unfortunately it didn't make it through the storm 

Even Sammy Squirrel was out looking for food 

Flowers

Broken trees 

my neighbors tree...everywhere

my front tree splitting in half-that's okay we didn't like that tree anyway

some of the fir branches in the back 

staying warm

my favorite way to get around on the ice-Microspikes