Conquering the Divide

Facebook does have its value in spreading news quickly, but without much explanation . . .

Here goes:

After nearly 7 years of rural Ontario living, it’s time for us to take our menagerie into the Big City.  Okay, maybe not so big, but effective 26 January 2010, Don & I will officially become residents of Guelph, Ontario.  Guelph is a community of about 120,000 people, and is a university town, home to highly-regarded University of Guelph.

Why the move from rural heaven?  As with many moves, the reasons are varied:  personal, physical, financial.  On the physical front, while my ankle surgery has been an unqualified success (thanks again, wonderful Canadian health care), I’m still not back at 100% of what I was before my fateful 2005 fall.  My main difficulties are with stairs and uneven surfaces; our home — all 3 floors with laundry in basement — and its 10 acres play right into those difficulties.  It’s time to have a first-floor laundry room, and a much smaller property to maintain.  I’m also looking forward to chopping my commute by about 1/2 – from 45 kilometers (28 miles) to about 20 kilometers (or about 12 miles).

We’re looking forward to being city folk again.  There’s a large park about 2 blocks from our new home, Exhibition Park.  We’re not far from downtown.  Some of the things we’ll regain after 7 years:  home delivery of food (pizza, Chinese – wonder if they’re delivering more these days?); cable television (we’ve been on satellite); cable internet (we’ve been on wireless); sidewalks; a paved road.  We know there will be challenges – our dogs are spoiled by their doggie-door and free run of 10 fenced-in acres.  It’ll be odd for us to hear neighborhood noises, a rarity out in the boonies.

Things I’ll miss?  Unquestionably.  Nothing matches the view out our sun room when snow is falling at night.  Wild turkeys in our neighbors’ field, Clover, our young dear who came on our property for awhile a year ago, watching our magnificent deciduous trees regain their vibrant green in spring, even the “wow” factor of visitors coming to our home for the first time.  But things move on, and there will be equal, if different, benefits to city living.

In the meantime, I dislike few activities more than moving.

In many ways, I’ve already emotionally left our beautiful log home.  Today, I updated Facebook to show my current city as Guelph. But I do expect a tear or two at the end of the month as we leave for good.

Poor Maggie.

Our gentle, shy Great Pyrenees has spent late winter and early spring trying to control, in vain, the skunks who like making holes in our lawn to get to the grubs.  (At some point, if & when I’m face to face with God, I’m going to ask her why she had to make elements of the food chain so unpleasant.)  So we’ve spent much of late winter and early spring smelling eau de skunk on her and in the house.  (You know you’ve lived in the country for a long time when you no longer want to get sick at the smell of skunk.)

But this a.m., Maggie outdid herself.  Not with a skunk.  A porcupine.

I thought I was in a bad dream when I awakened this morning to see Maggie next to the bed.  It took me a bit to realize I was awake, and Maggie really did have quills coming out of her face.

I didn’t understand the mechanism of injury, but the vet filled me in.  Maggie comes across porcupine and attacks.  Porcupine has quills – but her urge to attack overwhelms any pain response, at least while the attack is occurring.  I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that the porcupine probably lost the fight.

Anyhow, Maggie spent the day at the vet, part of it under anaesthesia.  Her shoulder and leg also took a beating, and some quills had to be surgically removed from those areas.  I should have asked how many quills total were recovered, but I forgot.  I bet it was in the hundreds.  She’s home now, resting (not sure how comfortably).  And she’s on antibiotics and other meds for 2 weeks.

I hope she’s learned her lesson.  But if her skunk experiences are any indication, she hasn’t.

Below is a picture I took this a.m.  It’s literally right out my window to my right.  See the piece of tissue at the bottom?  It’s on a shelf right next to my temporary bed in the sunroom.  Near the centre is the base of our birdbath with a crown of snow; to its left is the post with our salt lick for Clover.

The window faces due south, and is the first place where we saw Clover.  What the picture does not capture is that it is snowing ever so gently this morning, a true winter wonderland.  Because of the snow over the past 24 hours, the surface is undisturbed, but I suspect that this afternoon it’ll be the site of a Don-Reggie Frisbee Throw (with Maggie, our non-fetching Great Pyr, if she’s up to it, playing interference).

It is this view that caused me to hatch my plan for the hospital bed in the sunroom.  It helps that to my left is our television.  I’ve taken advantage of this time to watch movies we’ve pvr’d over the past couple of years that I’d not seen before, like Jerry Maguire, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Smokey & the Bandit.

Of course, I wish I’d not broken my ankle back in October, 2005.  And of course I wish I’d not had the complication of severe arthritis.  But if those things were to come my way, how fortunate that I live in a country where I could have the necessary surgery in a reasonable period of time, that I have a wonderfully supportive and helpful partner who attends to my every need and want, and that I’m able to convalesce with a view of heaven.

We had a fairly major storm here last Friday.  As a result of snow – and even moreso, strong winds – our property Saturday was devoid of footprints, human or canine, except in the area right around the house.  There were some interesting, dune-like drifts.  So it was no wonder that Don decided he would, for the first time this year, don his snowshoes and go exploring.

We shut the sliding door in front of the doggie door, so Maggie & Reggie, our dogs, couldn’t interfere with Don’s adventure.  After all, Don was going to look for Clover, our deer friend.  With the dogs looking longingly after him through our large sunroom picture windows, Don trudged off.  (I think the word “trudge” originally meant “to walk in snowshoes” – it’s the perfect verb for what he was doing.)

We got our snowshoes in 2003, our first winter here, 5 years ago, a Christmas present from my mother.  We decided on traditional snowshoes for a couple of reasons:  we knew we wouldn’t be in competitions, and we knew they’d look wonderful on our log-home walls.  We were right on both counts.  We enjoyed them that winter, and the next.

Then came October, 2005, and my life-changing fall.  Dislocated ankles, broken bones, and resulting severe arthritis resulted in limited range of motion and pain that’s not compatible with snowshoeing.  This is the 3rd winter that my snowshoes are merely decoration.

But that may change!  This past week, I had an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon – from what I understand, the top orthopaedic surgeon in Canada for ankle replacements.  I’m now a candidate for a TAR (Total Ankle Replacement), a Hintegra.   It’ll likely be close to a year before I can have the surgery done, as there are very few docs who perform it, and there are those pesky Canadian waiting lists.  But that’s okay – as my regular orthopaedic surgeon (who referred me to the ankle specialist) noted, TARs are fairly new, and constant improvements are being made, so waiting can only help.  In addition, I’d rather have the certainty – even though the date is a bit far away – than be faced with the uncertainty that so many folks in the US face trying to get approval for TARs from their medical providers.  (I’m on an ankle replacement group, and the stories are horrifying:  in one case, a TAR was approved, that is, until the patient had the surgery, then the approval was revoked.  The patient was on the hook for $63k; in other circumstances, folks have flown across the country after initial approval, and the morning of the scheduled surgery were told it was a no-go.)

Back to Don’s outing.  He did find Clover, with evidence that she may be living (at least parttime) on our property.  We’re engaging in continuous discussions (so far without resolution) about whether to feed her (knowing at the same time we’d be feeding less loved critters like racoons and squirrels).  He saw her, and she scampered away, but not over the fence.  He also found several areas where she’d apparently laid in the snow.

I’m jealous of his outing – but, with any luck, this is my last snowshoe-less winter.  I just hope Clover sticks around!

Politics 24/7.  U.S. election; Canadian election (maybe you didn’t know that).  CNN, Washington Post.  New York Times.  Up early.  Sitting in our sunroom with my trusty laptop.  Thinking about next blog post.

Then . . .

Don & I have a new friend.  She made her first appearance last Saturday, same time, same place.  She was back today, in spite of Maggie (Great Pyr) (asleep on front deck) and Reggie (Yellow Lab) (oblivious, as usual, in the house).

In an effort to revive a sad, weed-filled large lawn, last spring we overseeded much of the area with environmentally-friendly white clover.  Our new friend thinks that was a great idea.

We hope she’ll stick around and munch away.  Her all-too-brief visits remind me why I love where we live, and that there’s more to life than politics & work.