Haloranch

I had eye surgery this week. Nothing big, just a quick procedure to relieve pressure in my right eye and hopefully to prevent incipient glaucoma. It was completely painless. Thank God. Once the deadening eye drops were inserted and the Doctor placed a lens on my eye, I waited numb with fear. I've always been afraid of eye surgery. Every nerve in my body was focused on my right eye, straining, waiting to feel something. There was nothing. It was so great. Only little green lights flashed in my eye, like miniature flashbulbs going off. So that eye's done and everything appears to be as it should. If the eye pressure remains sufficiently low over the next month or so, I'll have the other eye done.

The geese are squabbling. I can see them out the window from my "chat room". Apparently the creek isn't big enough for two pair. A couple of years ago, the beavers built a formidable dam on the creek and ever since, during the spring melt, the creek ponds right in front of our house. It couldn't be more perfect if we had contracted them to do it. In fact, that year I went around to our country neighbours with a gift of flowers and begged them not to blow up the beavers' dam. They're a nuisance to the farmers but we like what they do. For the next 2-3 months we'll be treated to an variety of waterfowl that come to use the creek. Nesting Canada geese, ducks of all kinds, teal, the occasional kingfisher and the busy beavers who like to swim up and down the creek around twilight. They look so small in the water with only tiny noses and heads poking out. But when they land they are huge lumbering creatures. Our hillside is dotted with pointy stumps, evi...