Turning of the Seasons

Good evening friends,

I know I haven't typed anything for a while but believe me, I've been thinking of all kinds of things I could be adding here. Working for surgery sometimes I may disappear into the dark abyss for a while. Surgery pretty much OWNS me. Such is the price of learning....They beep, I hop. It seems most of my waking hours are spent at the hospital these days, especially now that I'm picking up on call time. The couple days I've had off these past couple of very busy weeks, I've spent vegetating and resting up because by the end of my long shifts---on my feet the whole time, I am exhausted. My legs and feet are tired, and then I wake a million times at night wondering if the pager is going off. When it does, I have to leap out of bed, throw on scrubs, and get there fast. I had Saturday off, and it felt strange to wear street clothes. I felt almost naked without my scrubs. I have to constantly remind myself that I like my job when the halls of the hospital seem endless.

It's when I'm tired I begin to wonder how I even ended up working in this environment. It's strange really. I'm a Forestry Science major, with an art degree also. If I had known how much I would like working for surgery, I would of skipped all the rest and headed strait for Surgery. Truly strange how the seasons of one's life changes.

Speaking of changing seasons, Fall is blasting in. It's shoving summer aside very rudely. I'm not sure I'm ready for it at all. I thought perhaps it would ease into fall, but not this year. Seemingly over night the trees have started changing. Golden Rod and Snake Root are changing the nature of open fields. Weeds are yellowing in those same open spaces. Trees look tired. And rain. we've had lots of rain. First we had a day long rain that gave us 3.5 inches (according to my rain gauge in the garden) the other day, I think that was Friday. Today its gotten down right chilled, and lots more rain. It's been in the 50's since about 2 pm or so. When I get off work tonight, I'm likely going to freeze since I didn't bring a jacket.

The Buckwheat I planted is loving the rain. It's very green and healthy looking but with the dropping temperature, I'm wondering if I planted it too late. Its only a few inches tall. I also worry about other things in the garden--the watermelons still haven't ripened. They are just sitting there. Not growing, not ripening, not doing anything but existing. I'm sure the bulbs I planted on my day off in Sasha's memorial garden are also enjoying the rain. I planted yellow tulips, yellow and orange cupped daffodils, and mixed crocus (I wanted yellow ones as my theme will be Yellow next year in the garden but all the store had were mixed colors.) Planting bulbs is about the only gardening I've done since I last posted.

My busy schedule is showing with my poor neglected animals. The poor bunnies need a good grooming. Especially the dutch bunny, who is shedding like mad and looks dreadful. I combed gobs of loose fur from her this morning. It's Brandi though, who is showing the most signs of missing me. When Brandi gets lonely, she gets destructive. She likes to tear things up and drag things around the house. When she's missing me, she gets into the dirty hamper and drags out clothes with my scent on them. Usually that's dirty socks. The other day, she'd dragged out some scrubs from the hamper to lay on them in the living room. I found another dirty scrub top on the bed. Silly dog. Her latest 'trick' is to open the refrigerator. This is trouble. When she's learned something once and been rewarded (in this case she learned there are lots of yummies in the fridge) then she remembers it and keeps doing it. The other night I came home to disaster....food pieces and containers all over the floor--refrigerator door wide open. Uh oh. This one, is way too smart for her own good. This one, learned how to let herself out of the crate a while back. Now how many dogs do you know can figure that out? Perhaps I can teach her now to fetch a beer for me since she knows how to open the fridge?...There has to be a silver lining in this somewhere!

Anyway, that's it for now...I've lingered far too long on the computer. I have to get hopping.

Have a good night all!

Nickie