The Country Mice

Arts Night at school yesterday.

Homeboy *loves* his music teacher.

We all do.

Early Friday morning I took one final fuzzy look at my two beautiful babes, then crossed my fingers, looked heavenward and submitted to a sharp object pressed deep and accurately into my right eye.

Twenty-four hours later my eyes opened to a brand new world.

First thing I noticed was the dark blue line encircling the pale blue of the eyes of the Princess. Pretty blue eyes rimmed with dark blue. I hadn’t remembered.

To be honest, her eyes were the second thing I noticed Saturday morning. The first was my own startled visage staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. I met every line, every change, every element of my face that I’ve not really seen the last couple of years.

And that’s all we need to say on that particular subject.

My next observation was a pair of geese honking at me from the peak of my neighbour’s house. I hadn’t ever realised there was a chimney sticking out of his roof. Sheesh.

En route to the chicken coop I passed apple and pear trees in bloom, along with a zillion dandelions blossoms sparkling yellow on the lawn.

So much growth and renewal on a weekend morning, all before seven o’clock!

Old Rooty-Toot here was as entertaining as always, desperately attacking my leg, determined to be remembered with respect and ferocity.

Beauty everywhere, even in the fallen forsythia blossoms, all so remarkably clear, crisp and wordlessly new and fresh.

After 48 hours I’m still bumbling around in dark shades, desperately trying to register as ‘cool’ rather than ‘middle-aged loser.’

And do you see how excited I am with one new cataract-less eye?

I promise to be perfectly obnoxious when my second bionic eye arrives at the end of this month.

We hosted a big emerging-on-adolescence party here last weekend.

Jeff Salem, a drummer we’ve met through our Suzuki excursions, hauled tubs and tubs of drums, shakers, rattles, tambourines and assorted noise makers into our home, handing them out to every man, woman and child and invited all to MAKE NOISE!

And so they did — rhythmically pounding out names, favourite foods, colours — anything to make a rhythm repeatable.

LI-ver and ON-ions sound a lot better than HAP-py BIRTH-day, for example.

The afternoon was a joyous, raucous, rambunctious event.

And our boy was thrilled.

It was also one of those moments where country living paid off. All that noise — and no neighbours.

Surrounded by his friends.

A perfect end to a very happy day.

Walking back from the car this morning I heard a soft “mmmwuuuump.”

Flocks of Canada geese currently own every pond and watering hole for miles around.

One tough leather-and-chains pair checks out our pond every year, swimming elaborate circles and inspecting grassy banks.

This year three of our ducks sauntered down to the pond and tried to play nice with the wild gander and his gal.

Only a few minutes passed before our ducks rapidly waddled and flapped their way back to the cloistered safety of the chicken coop, quacking something about their inability to keep a conversation going with the new guy.

Hey! You two hens! Cut out that cacklin’ in there.

You can hear me. Now knock it off!

Stella! Come on, Stella!

Hey, Stella! Hey! Stel-laaaaa!