Friday, May 12

As I start
this posting Lise and I are driving across Ohio, headed to Pennsylvania and
Delaware. Hopefully to be posted from Lynn’s house in Jonestown. Kind of
telling that I only have time to update the blog when I’m away from home.

I haven’t been
posting because of a couple reasons. One is that Okemos just isn’t that
exciting. Unless you want to hear about the nuances of pulling carpet tack
strips out of a concrete basement floor. There’s just a whole bunch of things
are more exciting than that.

Another
reason is that we have been pretty busy. Lise has been bust with her work. I
even had a couple paid gigs, doing some training sessions for a local
non-profit. I’m catching up on some of the home maintenance work that has been
neglected for a number for years. We’ve gotten in some birding too, getting out
for the new migrants coming in and chasing a yellow-headed blackbird up at
Maple River. The blackbirds usually pop up a couple hours from where we live,
so having one 40 minutes away was kind of nice. Birding wise we’re doing OK
this year. I’m at 165 so far and Lise is at 149. These numbers should go up
with a couple weeks in Delaware.

One of our
time sinks has been helping with a neighbor’s dogs. This person has three largely
untrained golden retrievers. One untrained dog should be enough for anyone but she
has three of the beasts. And the two boys still have the family jewels in
place. So the problems aren’t multiplicative, like three times the problems of
just one dog. They’re exponential, more like nine times the problem of caring
for one dog.

The whole
situation is a great example of poor planning. I’m continually stunned how
little thinking most people put into any kind of planning. It’s not hard. Nothing
ever works out like you think it will. Assume the worst is going to happen and plan
as such. Because that’s usually what happens. That little bit of realistic
planning prevents an unfortunate situation from becoming a crisis situation.  If you do plan for the worst, and it doesn’t
come about, you and everyone else involved are way ahead of the game. I can’t
count the number of times I’ve seen someone rely on naive assumptions, only to
suddenly be in a crisis situation. Then they lose control of the situation and control
of the outcomes. Hoping or expecting everything to go all right is a pretty
lame strategy. If you want to maintain some control of a situation, never,
never, never expect things to work out the way hope they will. All it takes is
something as common as a car wreck to turn the world upside-down.

This person
with the dogs has added another complication. She brought her mother with
Alzheimer’s here to care for her. So, she has three unruly dogs, a cat, and a
mother with Alzheimer’s, all depending on her. I’m pretty sure thoughts like
“what happens if I don’t come home” or, “what happens when I can’t take care of
myself”, were ever part of the thought process. If these thoughts were ever
considered, they probably fell into the “nah, it’ll never happen to me”
category.

So back in
January this person ended up with a rather nasty cancer diagnosis, and has been
put on a rough drug routine. Luckily, before the cancer diagnosis, the mother was
put in a care facility. We, and some others, started walking the dogs. We take
them on a mile loop around our neighborhood. The dogs used to do this loop two
or three times a day. Now they’re down to one. Recently, there has been a slide
in the owner’s ability to take care of herself, yet alone the dogs. She has
ended up in the hospital with no idea when she may be released. Given her
condition, she could easily end up at a convalescent center. So now the dogs
are stuck in a house by themselves, having little human contact. A neighbor
lets them out in the yard and feeds them and we do the daily walk. The rest of
the time these poor animals are by themselves, essentially stuck in a large
crate. We can tell a very distinct negative change in their behavior when we take
them for their walk. There is no Plan B. No matter how much she may want these
mutts, there is no way she will be able to give them the care they need. Even
if she decides to give up the dogs, being so untrained there isn’t much
likelihood of them ever being adapted. Her lack of planning, or unwillingness
to consider potential scenarios, is not going to do well by these poor dogs.

On a
brighter note, we got in a quick trip to Middle Creek Game Area, in
Kleinfeltersville, PA, not far from Lynn’s house. We’re over 40 species for the
trip with the promise of better things to come. A good start to a vacation.

Tree swallow.

Gray catbird.