A Bloody Nose

Carilion, our health care behemoth, received a bloody nose from a Wall Street Journal article last week.

I have watched over the years as what used to be health care in the Roanoke Valley has degenerated to the point where it's more like a massive "make you sick" effort. While I know that the minions of nurses and even the lower-level doctors are doing their best to make the citizens of the valley healthy and happy, it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that their efforts are completely and totally undermined from the top down.

From the minute you pick up the phone to make an appointment until the time you finally write the last check for the bill, dealing with Carilion is, frankly, hell.

Trying to get an appointment at the local clinic is like navigating 36 feet ocean swells in the middle of Hurricane Gustav. You just can't do it well unless you're quite the expert captain, and not many of us reach that level when it comes to health system navigation.

Once you have an appointment, then you have to deal first with the support staff, some of whom I have had - honestly and truly - simply fall apart at the face of yet one more patient whom they couldn't deal with that day. Then you have a harried nurse who can't take your blood pressure without subjecting you to this horrid machine that pinches the crap out of your arm and leaves bruises.

Then in comes a doctor who's lack of attention is second only to the aloofness of the neighbor's cat. And for your three hours of time and your $40 copay you might get a prescription unless you need an antibiotic, in which case they will make you wait another five days and come back in because they fear they are over prescribing Z-packs these days. So that will cost you another $40 copay plus the copay on tests if you can convince them to actually check your white cell count. Not to mention another visit to hell.

I thought the scariest part of that article was the zeal with which Carilion goes after people who owe them money. They place judgements against 4,000 people ANNUALLY. And that's just in Roanoke City. That doesn't count Roanoke County, Salem, Botetourt, Bedford, Franklin - all of the surrounding communities. I daresay Carilion has a judgment against 10 percent of the area population at any given time.

I know from experience that they'll turn you over to a collection agency without blinking twice. My husband went to the ER two years ago with severe hives. He got them while he was at work and his superior insisted he go.

Seven months later, I received a nasty call from a bill collector saying we owed Carilion money. I had paid bill after bill for that particular visit - first the doctor, then some blood work, some other tests, the hospital itself, etc. etc., I think I made out a check to everyone except the laundry for the cleaning of the sheet on the bed my husband probably sat upon.

To make a long story short, somehow Carilion in its magnificence had managed to get our address right on everything but this one $40 charge, which somehow still had a rural route as the address. Of course we haven't had a rural route for about 20 years, so go figure where this came from.

For this, their error, they deemed it necessary to damage my credit and have me accosted by a bill collector when a phone call (or maybe a records check by someone with a brain in the office) could have cleared this up without the surliness.

I know Carilion saves lives. Many people would not be walking the streets, saddled with debt to the facility, were it not for their heroics. But to that I say, that is what they are supposed to be doing. That is their job.

And with the CEO making $2.7 million annually, I'd say they get paid for it fairly well, at least at the top.

So I say good for WSJ for giving Carilion a bloody nose. And to Dr. Murphy, who whines that Carilion can't take the blame for the country's broken health care system, I say to you, Sir, You are indeed the very reason it is broken.

Books: No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home
By Barbara Samuel
Read by Kristine Thatcher
Copyright 2001 or thereabouts

This is a nice little romance novel with well-developed characters. Jewel ran away from home to be with a guitar player and now 20 years later she returns with her son and a gay friend who is dying from AIDS in tow.

The book has some nice things to say about family ties and friendship as well as romantic love.

For a better synopsis, check out Amazon.

The 50th

August 22 was the 50th anniversary of my in-laws wedding.


We took them to dinner on Saturday, August 24.

That's my brother-in-law Gary standing with my mother-in-law Eunice. The young man sitting is my nephew Chris.




I knew I wanted to take a picture to put in the newspaper so I asked the guests of honor for a pose. That's Jimmy and Eunice.

That's my husband standing, my sister-in-law Jennifer in the back, and my nephew Emory sitting. We were waiting on our table in the main dining room.



I imagine by the menu you can tell where we went. I had shrimp if you need a hint.

We had originally planned a big party. The invitations were set to go out on July 15. They were in the envelopes and the stamps were next. And then on July 13 my mother-in-law broke her hip.

My husband and his sister canceled the party because they didn't know how well Eunice was going to get along. It probably would have been a stressful weekend for her.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary to Jimmy and Eunice.

Thursday Thirteen

In case you've wondered why my posting suddenly declined...

1. When you start shivering in the middle of the day and its 85 degrees outside and 72 inside, you start thinking something isn't right.

2. When the shivers get so bad you can't do anything but go to bed, you KNOW something isn't right.

3. When you spend the rest of thee day bowing to the porcelain throne, something definitely isn't right.

4. An inordinate amount of time sitting on the porcelain throne also indicates something isn't right.

5. When the cool tile in the bathroom floor feels so good you don't want to get up, but instead you just lay there, you know something isn't right.

6. Know that we know something wasn't right, what else did I learn?

7. Dreams made by fevered minds seem wildly colorful and profound. Unfortunately you can't remember them when coherence finally returns.

8. There is absolutely nothing better than the first gulp of ginger ale when you've been sick for hours.

9. The attention of a worried and fearful husband can make you rally if only because you don't want him to feel so bad that he can't make you better.

10. A shower can make you feel a whole lot better but a hot shower can zap your energy pretty quickly.

11. Trying to get back to work immediately after a day of sickness pretty much guarantees a second day of sickness.

12. A fever of 103 is nothing to laugh at.

13. My Chinese medicine doctor called every day to see how I was. We're still waiting on a return call from our clinic (which pays its CEO $2.7 million). Fortunately I don't need to talk to them anymore.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Corn and Butterfly

Just Some Deer

Nature's majesty.

A late fawn streaks across the front yard (taken this week!)

Growing up (taken last week)

Study: Geese

Canadian geese have been landing in the alfalfa field in recent weeks.

Geese can do a number on a field of grass. The birds are worse than deer. Deer just eat it; geese pull it up by the roots and destroy it.

The first of the following three pictures is the original; the other two have been enhanced with Microsoft Picture It! software.





This picture also has been enhanced with the same software. The remainders are original photos, though cropped.

Thursday Thirteen

Here is a list of blogs I read (in no particular order). Some are on my links to the side and some need to get there but I haven't had time to do an update:

1. May Muses. This is written by a former writing buddy who used to live around here but has now taken herself off to Asheville so she can learn to be an acupuncturist. She has a different slant on life.

2. Stillwater suite. I just found this blog. I like the writer's voice and the subject matter.

3. Tom Atkins. Tom writes interesting poetry and has an interesting take on creativity and life in general. I really enjoy reading his work. His blog address changes a lot, though.

4. landuvmilknhoney. This is a local blogger who is doing homesteading and self-sustaining efforts in the biggest way. She makes her own butter, for heaven's sake!

5. AROOO. A different take on politics and life in general. Good reading if you're into women's issues and what is right (but not right-wing).

6. Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl. Beth doesn't write enough but when she does you can bet your sweet bippy that it is worth the read.

7. Sweetfluttersbys3. This blogger writes about food and offers up recipes, along with a picture of some luscious and fattening cake. Makes me hungry every time I visit!

8. Spatter. June's photos are among my favorites. I wish I had her great photographic eye.

9. Roanoke Firefighters. An interesting take on the place of my husband's employment and probably enlightening reading for the citizens who live there as to how the government is actually working. Did you know this blog was recently banned from the city computers?

10. Jen's Bike Blog. I do not ride a bicycle but often wished I did. Jen writes about her work in the health care system and her bike rides, which includes fun outings and races. I live vicariously through her words, I think.

11. Ron Bailey. Ron is another who keeps changing his site around but at least the address stays the same. I am never quite sure what he is doing but if you're interested in scratching your head check him out.

12. The Virginia Scribe. Amy is in the Hollins Horizon program, following in my footsteps even though she doesn't know me. She has won some writing contests and I expect great things from her. She is doing it all while raising kids, too. Plus I think she married someone who is from around where I live.

13. Bad Jokes and Oven Chips. Another Thursday Thirteen-er, who lives across the sea. I enjoy learning about her world and her trumpet-playing adventures. She also does something with Girl Scouts or something like that group.

There are many more. Hope you found some new reading!


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Country in my soul

I love everything about the country. For instance, there is nature in all her glory, the cows lowing, the deer eating my rose bushes, the rabbits chewing holes in my plastic fence to get at my beans.

It is all wonderful and beautiful and pleasing to my ears, eyes and nose. Even the rabbits.

But I do not listen to country music. I do not care for the wail of those who need to leave their husbands to catch a train because their mother-in-law is coming home from Folsom prison.

No, these days I listen to adult contemporary, or pop music, with new artists whose names I do not know. I do not listen to country music.

I was, however, raised on country music.

My father plays the guitar and back then he sang the country songs of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Conway Twitty, Tom T. Hall, Charley Pride, Charlie Rich and Kris Kristofferson, not to mention Johnnie and June Carter Cash – that was the music of my early childhood.

I remember my father playing in the evening, strumming and trying to work out chords. He mostly played by ear as he sang the words to whatever country tune he decided to croon out any given evening.

My mother often joined in and they sang duets. I can still hear them singing “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout. You’ve been talkin’ ‘bout Jackson ever since the fire burned out.” It made for a fun evening.

When I was 11, I decided to learn to play the guitar, too. I picked it up hesitantly. I quickly discovered that of the several instruments I played (piano, flute, saxophone), this was the one I truly loved.

I practiced in secret, moving quickly from Skip to My Lou to more popular pieces.

The first song I played for my parents was called California Girl (And The Tennessee Square) by Tompall And The Glaser Brothers.

It was a country song, played in the key of “A”.
I do not think I have ever heard that song played on the radio, but I heard my daddy sing it so that didn’t matter. It was his version I learned and his version that I played, only I played it faster and made the chord changes very quickly.

I went on to play guitar in a band, a short-lived teenage endeavor called Almost Famous that broke apart as we graduated high school and moved on to other things.

These days I very seldom pick up an instrument. My fingers are soft and tender now and the strings hurt when I try to play my guitar. Those hard-won calluses have vanished along with my youth.

But on quiet days sometimes, when I’ve something on my mind and the silence of the house can be a bit much when my husband is not at home, I sing.

And it’s often those old country tunes, with the sadness found in For the Good Times or the swaying blues of Bobby McGhee that I sing aloud to the kitchen walls.

Not some modern Bubbly or some belly grinder belted out by the likes of Britney Spears.

No indeed. I sing those country songs that I no longer listen to.

I sing them over and over again, as if it was yesterday and I am again 10 years old.

***
This originally appeared in The Fincastle Herald on August 20, 2008, under my Country Crossroads column.

Say What?!?

There is a reason why driving around Valley View Mall in Roanoke can be treacherous!

This sign is at the intersection of the off-ramp from Hershberger Road onto Valley View Blvd. I am directionally challenged so I don't know if it's east or west or north or south but it's the ramp one would take after passing Crossroads Mall going toward toward Interstate 581. Take the ramp and go to make a left turn toward Valley View.

I do know, however, that a STOP sign with a sign beneath that says "No Stopping" makes absolutely no sense.

Nature's Bounty (or Why I Shouldn't Cook)

Our six tomato plants have been especially fruitful this year. I have had tomatoes and more tomatoes.

We've given tomatoes to my in-laws, my husband's aunt, our next door neighbors times three, and my best friend. I have not yet grown desperate enough to leave them on people's doorsteps but with as many as 50 more ready to pick in two days' time I may get that way.

I do not can, though I should. I have made pickles in the past and they were good, but my cucumbers this year are not in the numbers for pickles. I have enough tomatoes to can, but we don't eat that much tomatoey foods anyway because I have a tender belly that can't tolerate all that acid.

Last night I decided I would freeze some of the tomatoes. I have done that before with good results, and it's easy.

All you have to do is boil the tomatoes for about a minute, then plunge them in ice water. This allows you to easily remove the skin.

Then you cut out the bad spots and the core. Rinse out the seeds. Put the meaty pulp in a drainer and then place them in labeled quart freezer bags. Remove as much as you can and then stick them in the freezer.

I made a pot of tea for my husband and then gathered my ingredients for the tomato freezing. A big pot for boiling, a plastic dish for the ice water, a spoon for dipping the tomatoes from the hot water, my colanders for draining, a knife.

As the water heated, I cleaned the tomatoes I planned to use.

Then I filled my plastic bowl with ice water and set it on the stove next to the boiling water for easy transfer.

I plopped in the tomatoes and set a timer. The skin on some of the riper tomatoes began to strip right off. When the timer went off, I grabbed the spoon and plunged the tomatoes one by one into the icy water.

Then I decided to pick up the bowl to carry it to the sink so I could put the tomatoes in the colander.

But what was this? The bowl ... would not budge. Had I become a weakling suddenly?

No.

The bowl had melted to the eye on my Jenn-Air stove. Remember that pot of tea I made before beginning the tomato process?

This eye was still a little hot when I placed the bowl of ice water on it.

First I laughed at my stupidity and then I cried. A new set of stove eye inserts for a Jenn-Air is expensive.

I dipped the tomatoes out and carried them individually to the sink as I tried to figure out what to do now.

I thought about turning the stove eye on so I could remove the bowl but I wasn't sure that was a good idea.

My husband was out but expected back in an hour so I decided to leave the bowl where it was - it wasn't like I could do anything with it anyway - and continue with my tomato freezing.

It took about 35 tomatoes to make up five quarts.

My husband came home as I finished up the tomatoes, and I explained my predicament to him. He vetoed the "turn on the eye and let the bowl melt free" suggestion, saying it would smoke up the house. He's a fireman so I had to respect his knowledge on this subject.

He tested the bowl and could not remove it, but after he emptied the bowl of ice water, he tried again. Perhaps because the water was gone, he was able to wrench it free.

That left just a little tiny ring of plastic on the eye, which he was able to scrap off with his pocket knife. The eye burned fine after he cleaned it.

The bowl is still usable, too. Catastrophe averted!

Regular readers will remember I melted a plastic spoon into peanut brittle back in the winter.

Some folks are meant to cook, and are artistically creative with food.

Some folks, like me, are just meant to eat it, I guess.

Study: Silo

Thursday Thirteen

1. Why does a 55 degree morning in August require a sweater, but a 55 degree morning in March means short sleeves and shorts?

2. The best sound of summer is the swish of the tree leaves as the oaks and maples talk quietly to one another.

3. Tomatoes, whether fruit or vegetable I do not know or care, is among the finer things to eat in summer. How can you beat a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich?

4. Peaches make for a fine dessert. Or main meal, if you like. And they're best this time of year!

5. Apples are a mainstay in a healthy diet (that doctor saying, you know). In the next several weeks fresh apples will be inundating the local markets. Yum.

6. The number of fogs in August supposedly means you will have that many snows. (Or so my mother always said.) We have fog this morning...

7. The dog days of summer should be behind us. During that time cuts don't heal and animals are overheated. (Or so my mother always said.)

8. The mountains are generally cooler than the lowlands but often its just a matter of degree and imagination.

9. In August the sky seems to move in closer and the blues are more intense.

10. After a rain, everything seems so much cleaner in the summer. Sometimes the green glistens and the raindrops are like diamonds when the sunshine hits them.

11. The days have grown a little shorter and that means less time to harvest, garden, mow and gather stores for the winter.

12. When I was a child we spent our summers with my grandmother in Salem. She lived along the Roanoke River and up the block there was an abandoned house. Can you guess where we weren't supposed to be and usually were?

13. I love to watch the sky in summer. The other day I saw a dinosaur and then a castle... and the other night I saw a glowing Jupiter as it squatted near the moon.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Study: Apples

Great Customer Service

After I made my purchase of RAM Sunday at CC, I came home and unhooked the desktop. I carried it into the kitchen so I'd have room to work.

The case had not been opened since I purchased the computer. There were dustbunnies in the bottom.

I blew those out and rid the thing of the dirt. That alone as probably worth the hassle of unhooking the computer.

Locating the memory was not a problem. Getting to it was a bit difficult; it was behind a tangle of wires. After much huffing and puffing and wondering why it took so much force to get the RAM in, I finally wiped my brow and stood back and admired my work.

I reconnected everything and hit the start button.

The silence was deafening and the blackness on the monitor was blinding.

She was dead, my poor dear little desktop.

I reread the instructions with the RAM. I hunted up the owner's manual for the desktop. I'd done everything right.

The RAM offered free tech support.

This time I kept the desktop connected except for the power, and brought a chair in to lay the computer on so I wouldn't have to sit in the floor.

Then I called tech support for Kingston, the makers of the memory chips. After not even a minute's wait, a very nice man named Eric came on the line.

I explained my problem. He said, "We'll fix that."

I removed the memory and put it back in in various ways. It turns out my computer wasn't even supposed to have four memory slots but it did. Then he determined that the memory should be installed 1 GB chip 512 mg chip 1GB chip 512 mg chip instead of the other way around, which is how I had it.

After some more grunting on my part because the memory chips are hard to clip in (he said it takes 40 pounds of force to get them in! Imagine.), I booted and ... hurrah!

3 GBs of RAM on the desktop. It is a little faster and I think this will satisfy me for some time to come.

I really just wanted to acknowledge the tech at Kingston. He was very patient and I am very happy.

Why can't people always be nice?

I take it back

Remember my whines about my laptop purchase? I bought a little Gateway from CC about 10 days ago.

I felt like I paid for things I didn't get with the "quickstart" service. And then the computer went on sale for $50 less with a rebate and they don't match rebate prices.

The little laptop uses MS Vista. It has 3 or 4 GB RAM and it's very zippy. It whistles and sings and snaps along like a bee buzzing on a fine flower in the best part of June.

My desktop, on the other hand, is a Gateway purchased in 2005. It still uses Windows XP and (up until yesterday) had only 1 GB RAM. Still plenty of hard drive space left on it, though, even with all the photos I take.

My desktop, while reliable, plodded along like a groundhog seeking supper on a hot August day.

I spent some time Saturday trying to tweak the desktop. I consulted a knowledgeable friend about the items I could take out of "start up" in hopes of making it load faster. The computer takes about two minutes to boot (which really isn't all that bad, I mean, at least it boots).

Sunday I decided I should add RAM to the desktop. I did that several months ago for my old Toshiba laptop, which my husband now uses, and that helped it immensely. It went from 256 RAM to 1 RAM and it loads decently now.

I checked online to see what kind of RAM my Gateway might need and discovered it takes PC3200. Then I checked the websites of various stores.

I found it at CC for $45 for 1 GB. So for less than $100 I could soup up the desktop and hopefully use it for another couple of years.

At CC, I found the memory chips but none were marked $45. I found a helpful salesman (I think he was the same one who sold me the Gateway laptop, actually), and he went to look it up for me because I didn't print out the page or preorder it on the web.

As I trailed after him, I walked down the aisle where the laptops were. Lo, there was my Gateway laptop, marked down $50.

I stared at it, looking to see if this was still the sale price with the rebate. A young woman asked if she could help, and I explained I'd just bought that computer but paid $50 more.

This was on sale now WITHOUT the rebate! She said I didn't need my receipt, either, I could just go to customer service and tell them my name and just like that I'd get $50 credited to my card.

Meanwhile, the young man discovered that the memory RAM I needed indeed was on sale for $45 and was not $99 as marked.

Well! My estimation of CC increased exponentially with this nice service and $50 back on my laptop. Not to mention 2 GBs of RAM for $90.

So I take back whatever I said. This is still a better electronics company to deal with than that other one. While I feel like I received a $40 bum deal with the "quickstart" that was a bad decision on my part, really, and I take full responsibility.

Thanks CC for the good work!

Post 700

This is my 700th post, at least, according to the Blogger count, anyway.

I started blogging on August 5, 2006 - just a few days over two years ago, with a post entitled A New Beginning.

I had been blogging for about 18 months on AOL Journals. Then AOL decided to put ads all over everything. They were garish and annoying.

About that time I was interested in learning about Google Ads. Switching over to Blogger to see how that worked seemed like a good way to figure it out.

You do not get rich with ads on a blog, unless perhaps you're the Drudge Report or Huffington Post or something like that. People like me, and probably you, who are just posting and have about as much traffic in a week as a 7-11 convenience store sees in an hour likely aren't going to find ads on a blog very profitable.

I suppose if I wanted to spend time trying to leverage my product (i.e., this blog) so that more folks see it, it could be done, but my work and my interest in keeping my husband happy and my house clean and occasionally playing a video game - living life, you know - tends to preclude spending the hours it would take to "optimize" this thing and morph it into something, I don't know, spectacular, whatever that might be.

I actually began blogging on Blogger in 2003 under another name. My blog posts were unread rants about the war, which I opposed from the start. I am a pacifist at heart. War to me is simply a rich man's chess, a way to keep the proletariat at bay and the money in the proper pockets. Life is sacred and should be revered and honored and no one should die from a bullet in a gun fight even though I know people do all the time.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

So here's to two years of blogging. Thanks so much to my readers, those I know and those I don't, for sticking with me. I hope you've found something to smile at sometimes and something to think about at other times. If you're new here, I welcome you and am glad you dropped by. This is, for all intents and purposes, my front porch, where I put up my feet and offer you lemonade and conversation.

I do hope it has been and continues to be to your liking.

This is not a giraffe

I do not often see a doe on her hind legs, but the other morning as I sipped my tea and peered out the back door ...



she jumped up, apparently hungry for the leaves of a paradise. Or maybe she was after a switch for her young one:





The tree branches are about six feet from the ground. I can barely touch them with my arms outstretched and I am 5'2".




She hopped up on her hind legs several times, tugging at the branch each time she did so. She finally gave up and moseyed on after Junior there, who had long since headed for something less difficult to obtain - my rose bushes!

Swing Vote

Last weekend we saw the movie Swing Vote with Kevin Costner.

The movie basically is about a down-and-out divorced father who works in a egg factory (and gets fired during the movie). Through some twisted logic, he becomes the key vote during the presidential elections.

The presidential candidates then via for his vote.

That's the plot, but the movie is quite a commentary on our society. It is billed as a comedy but I cried throughout much of the show.

The movie highlighted the people that don't seem to matter in this country, at least not to the media and not to the government. Costner's character was one of those folks who have given up and lost hope of ever doing anything with his life. Why should he bother voting, much less trying to understand the issues, when so little of it pertains to his life?

He doesn't care about abortion or stem cell research or the War in Iraq, except that its taken some his drinking buddies away from town. He does care about high prices, gassing up his truck, feeding his daughter and making sure she gets to school.

The presidential candidates swoop into town to convince this uneducated bumpkin to vote for their side. It doesn't really matter what they stand for or if they are right or left in their politics; if Costner's character said he liked purple and the polka that is all that mattered.

Finally Costner's daughter forced him to understand the importance of his decision. He read letters that folks just like himself sent to him, hoping he would make a difference. He asked for a debate between the two candidates. One of the letters asked why, in a nation so rich, is there so little for those who have the least?

It is a good question and the movie did not answer it. That's because the answers are multiple and singular. I can name it in one word: greed.

The concept of the Greater Good has vanished. People do not care about one another. If I know you I might care about you but otherwise, I have no need or desire to see that you are safe and fed. That is how people think, with their eyes and hearts completely closed.

Politicians listen only to whiny self-inflated egoists who sit in their McMansions boo-hooing because they might have to pay another $100 a year in taxes. Those crybabies never think that their money might feed another person, or fix a road so that their best friend's cousin doesn't get killed in the bad curve, or pay for health care for an elderly mother who just had a stroke. All they think about is their tightly closed pocketbook.

The politicians (or the McMansion crowd) don't hear the cries of the waitress trying to raise her daughter on $18,000 a year. Or the sounds of a family of four trying to get back on $24,000 a year. They don't realize that there is no blame - not everyone can come out on top. Despite the rhetoric, we can't all be president or run corporations or make a million dollars. There just isn't enough time or space.

The politicians just hear Halliburton's cries for more cash and Exxon's demands for lower pollution controls. Big business rules. Hail the corporations!

This movie pointed out what is wrong and sad about this country and about the pitiful and sick election process that we undergo every four years.

It made some members of the audience uncomfortable and it made me cry. I wish everyone would watch this flick and understand, if only for a moment, the absolute unfairness of our capitalistic system and just how undemocratic our so-called democracy really is.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Last evening we went for a walk.

2. On a rock, I found a very large eggshell.

3. My husband surmised it was a turkey or duck egg. Definitely not a chicken or a little bird.

4. I thought maybe it was a buzzard or vulture egg.

5. A little later we found many feathers in lots of colors, mostly black and blue.

6. What happened here?

7. My husband surmised (he was surmising a lot) that it was a coyote, perhaps.

8. We did not find any dead birds.

9. We did not find any live ones, either.

10. We did see a few deer. One was across the road but her snort carried a long ways in the quiet evening hour. It startled us.

11. Deer don't seem to have voices but they do have large snorts and other sounds that I am sure have meaning to other deer.

12. I've run out of things to say.

13. Somehow this posted earlier before I even started it, so if you have a blank entry that was a mistake.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.