It's a gorgeous day at the farmette and I'm struggling to stay positive.
I just heard Dr. Warner, a Toronto physician who told his story about a 40ish-year-old woman who he moved heaven and earth to save, only to lose her to the damn COVID-19 virus. Seventeen medical people were involved, including a surgical team that was transported from Toronto General to Michael Garron hospital because she was too sick to be transported!
All because there are no paid sick leave days in Ontario for most workers. They cannot afford to stay home, so they go to work, pick up the virus, spread it to others and die. And the current month-long "emergency brake" protocols will not fix the situation. Nice.
Okay. That's enough. I'm feeling very frustrated by the pandemic. Here's a turkey vulture that landed on the barn this morning. That's how I'm feeling.
To help fix the situation, here are some random but relatively recent photos that make me - and I hope you - happy.
Here's my goofy niece Erin acting up at a gathering at the Thorntons on Christmas Eve in 2018. Hard to believe this was only a few years ago.
Below is a picture of Rob and our dear friend from Toronto, Claire.
She came up in August, 2019 for a weekend getaway. We took her on a road trip up around Grey County. This is in the park by Georgian Bay right in the middle of Meaford. Happy people, eh?
The one on the right is of Dana standing, Rob and Jane. Every once in a while we used to go out to visit the folks on the wet coast to get an early shot of spring. This was taken on a visit to a park near Parksville, where they live on Vancouver Island in March, 2018. Good times. Here's to a some time in the not-too-distant future when we can do this again.
This is our wee Calvin the day we brought him home from the PetSmart in Guelph. The company puts Humane Society animals up so people can see and adopt them. His shelter name was Apollo, but we had Hobbes at home, and hoped that the two would get along like their cartoon counterparts. This was late 2018. He's still a big suck - and about 17 pounds heavier.
Speaking of gorgeous kittens, here's Fred. This is after we cleaned him up and got him de-wormed, de-fleaed and de-everythinged in December 2019. He and his litter-mate (we think) were dumped on our property in November. Life has changed - a lot, and for the better since he and Wilma came into the farmette house and out of the cold.
This is our girl's weekend in 2018. My sister Sandy (second from left), Leanne on the left, Karen in the middle and I went to Stratford to take in the shows, eat fantastic food, drink wine and laugh and laugh. I can hardly wait until we can resume our autumn ritual.
Finally, of course I had to put in a picture of our trip to Halifax. Rob and I were only there for a week in June, 2019, but it was a fantastic time - the weather co-operated and the sea air was soft and wonderful.
Okay. Feeling better. All of these pictures of people and pets were taken in the last three-ish years. It helps to hope that we'll be able to do all these things again - some day.
We are supposed to get to 14C today with sun, so I will be getting the rake out and into the farmette flower beds for cleanup. That, too, makes me happy. Until next week.