Getting over Winter

Palouse Falls - April 2019

It's bright and sunny here this morning. It's a big change beginning with Easter. Up until then we've been swamped with water.  Some flooding and landslides.  Several of the surrounding farms are planting late hoping the deep mud dries and sadly some farmers lost their first plantings.

My daughter-in-law, several grandkids and myself made the trek from Walla Walla to Palouse Falls, a little over an hour North-ish with a picnic lunch. It actually stopped raining and the falls were spectacular. It still gives me whammies to be there with little kids as the drop is precipitous and unrecoverable. Maybe I'm just getting old but I want to rope them to a tree while we're there.  It's fenced off but not kid proof. Or fool proof either as in 2009 Tyler Bradt took his kayak over it and managed not to kill or mangle himself. It's on online.

We had a great time though and wandered through a couple small communities on the way home planning another outing to do another kind of trek.

Rain or shine, I am so grateful the dratted snow is gone.  With a driveway that dips down and up again coming and going a lot of our cars were stuck here.  Walking wasn't much better, with a foot of snow that was ice below and ice above. Half way through these weeks my son took me to grocery shop and though he had me by the arm I managed slip and sit hard on the ground.  It gave me a slight concussion and a headache for a couple of days. I learned from the ER you don't have to hit your head for a concussion jarring your spine hard enough will do it. Then the very last day of this crap, middle March, it melted, the streets were dry and I drove to pick up my 2-7 year-old and 2-12 year-old grandkids to go to the library.

While we were in the house it rained and unbeknownst to me the porch stairs had frozen. I took a flyer, landed flat on my back and bounced my head off the brick. I just laid there for a bit and got the kids back into the house. Adrenalin is a wonderful thing. A bag of frozen peas to my head for awhile and then we went to the library and to lunch. The the kids' older sister came and got the moppets. Still buzzed and wide awake I went ER that morning worrying about my 77 year-old brain getting knocked around. I had a baked potato sized lump on the back of my head the width of my palm. Got x-rayed and cat-scanned. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding but everything hurt. That was March 14 and there's still a couple sore spots on the back of my head. My back seems fine, better actually as though I gave myself a rough version of a chiropractic adjustment. I don't recommend it though.

Hope all of you had a good Easter.  We did, church and big family gathering with candy fueled kiddies everywhere. It was sunny, warm and truly felt like a brand new day.