You Have To Learn To Make Lemonade

When life hands you lemons, I mean.

When we moved into our house, over 30 years ago, the big maple on our front lawn was already starting to look a bit sad. It was a bit of a lemon, for sure.

I love trees, and I was determined to keep this one as long as we could. We hired a local tree service to trim up the dead stuff, and they told us we probably bought about 10 years for our maple. It stretched to 20, but then big branches began to fall off, and we knew the time had come.

The tree was actually on the town's share of our lot at the street, so we contacted them to look at it and they decided the time to take it down had indeed come. Iain asked them if we could keep the wood, and they agreed, so this became a big project for him in 2022. Of course a new chainsaw became necessary (we'd put off that purchase long enough). We were lucky that our good neighbours loaned us their wood splitter for a few months.

At times I thought we'd never get rid of all the bits of wood in our yard! I raked sawdust and picked up bits of bark for weeks.

I miss its shade when we're sitting on the porch; you can't be out there now until the sun is low in the sky. And I miss the robin's nests, and the black squirrel playing in the branches. Trees are such a blessing, and only time will replace them once they're gone. The saplings we have growing on the lawn will not provide shade for many years, yet.

But as sad as we were to lose our beautiful shade tree, we were happy to have a nice supply of good maple for our cottage stove. That's our lemonade.

The Story on Stitches

I love this picture of Stitches. She is often this unimpressed by the food offered, whether the amount is large or small. Here, she's probably questioning the miniscule size of the offering.

Stitches is in long-term kidney failure, and that we still have her now - it's almost two years since she was diagnosed - is more a testament to the stubborness of this cat than any great care she's had from us.

When she was first diagnosed, the vet suggested a pill to help extend her life. I cannot now remember the drug's name, but I remember that she would not willingly take the pills, and we decided quickly that we didn't want her last months to be full of the stress of her being forced pills she didn't want to take. In our case, this was a good decision, because she has done quite well on her renal-assistance diet (Royal Canin).

She used to be fairly plump, but now weighs next to nothing. I would be surprised if she weighs three pounds.

Still adorable though.