Happy Spring!

Spring is officially here on both the meteorological and astronomical calendars. Here's what it looks like in our yard this week.

Daffodils are blooming in two spots. 

These daffodils and the ones above came from a friend. 

Crocuses are popping up everywhere. Last fall, I replanted them around the yard without trying to remember where. Finding them here and there is like an Easter egg hunt.

Something has been snacking on them in a few places.

Last year, I planted a few bleeding hearts. I am happy that one of them is coming back up, and I still hope for the others.

Crocus

Crocus

Forsythia along our back fence. 

Until next time...

Therapy Animals

Ward and I had an interesting day last Saturday. We were volunteers helping with the certification of therapy animals. In case you aren't familiar, therapy animals visit with patients in recovery, people with intellectual disabilities, seniors living with Alzheimer's, students, veterans with PTSD, and those approaching the end of life, improving health and well-being through the human-animal bond. We had never done anything like this before and had no idea what to expect.

The testing organization was Pet Partners, and they have very strict behaviors expected from the animals before they can work as a therapy animal. Pet Partners wants to ensure the animal and handler have the proper temperament and control for a successful visit. And perhaps, even more importantly, Pet Partners provides insurance to the handler and animal when they go into facilities. Most facilities require insurance before they will let animals visit. 

The handler and animal had to go through 11 different skills with increasing difficulty. If the animal failed a skill, the test was over, and the handler and animal were advised on how to improve. They were also encouraged to come back and retest on another test day.

The first two tests simulated a greeting that would be given when entering a facility, including petting the dog and walking behind it. Next, the animal was given a "wellness check," including checking its ears, teeth, paws, and tail. During another test, the tester brushed the dog.

Theo is a therapy dog and was also
one of the neutral dogs during testing.

Additional tests had the animal walk a set path by themselves and then take a walk that passed by another dog (called the neutral dog). The dogs also had to be able to sit and lay down on cue and stay in place when the owner moved away and get up only when called.

There were also distraction tests, and that's where we came in. There were four other volunteers besides us providing the distractions. We walked back and forth, simulating a busy hallway, including someone on crutches and someone with a walker. The walker was Ward's job, including being a grumpy old man during another test.  Another time there, we did a loud argument, and I was one of the arguers for that one. We also all crowded around the dog, with everyone petting at once. These tests were designed to see how well the dog handled the distractions and the handler handled the dog. 

The first dog was a whippet, Siren, that was there for recertification because the animals have to be recertified every two years. Siren and her handler passed with flying colors.

The second dog, Radar*, was a golden retriever and was also there for a recertification. Radar got a rocky start by jumping up to greet the tester. That's a big no-no. Since the handler had successfully already had over 150 visits to a hospital in the last year, the tester let the handler calm his dog and start over. Radar then passed all of the tests and was recertified. The handler later explained that when they visited the hospital, Radar had been trained to put his paws up on the side of the bed so the patient could pet him. That may have been part of the reason for his jump-up. 

The third dog, Eva, was a Great Pyrenees and was there to be certified for the first time. Eva would not lay down for the handler, so the testing stopped there. After many helpful suggestions, the testers encouraged Eva to test again. 

One thing that was evident in all of the teams was that they were very nervous. I guess test-taking anxiety shows up in all forms of testing. Photos were not allowed during the testing, and afterward, there was a lot of paperwork going on, resulting in me not getting photos of the dogs. 

Cosmo and Megan

Besides the three dogs, we also saw a rat, Cosmo, undergo the certification process. I'm not a big fan of rodents, but this rat was very cute. Cosmo's handler was not nervous and was fun to watch as they went through most of the same paces as a dog. Cosmo passed with flying colors. Everyone was taken with Cosmo, so he posed for pictures. 

Ward and I enjoyed the day. The animals were friendly, and I loved watching the bond with their owners. It's not going to happen, but I left there wanting to get a dog and train it to be a therapy dog. I guess I'll have to settle for visiting with my sisters' dogs and volunteering for the next certification trials.

Until next time...

*We couldn't remember the golden's name. Maybe it was Radar? 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

From a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Washington, D.C., several years ago.

St. Patrick's Day seems to be the time when everyone claims to have some Irish in them. That makes the celebrations more fun. Well, I'm going to stake my Irish claim, too. According to Ancestry.com, I am at least 20% Irish. As there is more data to work with, Ancestry updates heritage percentages from time to time. My percentages bounce around among England, Scotland, and Ireland. In some of the past iterations, I was almost 1/2 Irish. 

When I was growing up, I would hear my aunts talk about how I looked like my great-grandmother, who was born in Ireland. I never met her, but I always liked the fact that I had a "somewhat" recent immigrant ancestor. I especially liked it because one year, she was the queen of the Ritchie County Fair. Decades later, we found out through Ancestry that my mother's birth father was not the same one who was on her birth certificate. So the beauty queen, whom I supposedly looked like, was not my relative genetically, after all. I think there's some irony in there somewhere. :)

St. Patrick's Day is not one that we celebrate much, at least not like in our younger days when green beer was a must (for Ward, anyway). Or when we attended St. Patrick's Day parades in New Orleans. At these parades, they threw vegetables to make an Irish stew instead of beads. (And someday, I will find the picture of the cabbages, potatoes, and carrots we came home with from the parade.)

My nod today to St. Paddy's day was wearing a green shirt to exercise class. It was a fun class because we did relay races with chocolate coins from a pot of gold. And yes, we did eat the chocolate at the end.

Did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year?

Until next time...

Exercise This Week

 Since retirement and more free time, I am focusing on getting more exercise. I give weekly updates here to make myself accountable and see my progress. 

I am seeing gradual improvement in my fitness level as most classes seem to be getting a little easier. However, maybe I should make up a rubric to measure progress, like the number of pushups or such. I'll have to give that some thought. My knees continue to be bothered during all classes, with squats being the biggest offenders. However, which knee and kind of pain are inconsistent, so I'm hoping the problem will subside as the muscles get stronger around the joints. Here's what I did this week.

3/7 Friday: Strong and Balanced. This is a 45-minute class that works on strength training and balance, i.e., a lot of weight work and variations of balancing on one foot. It is a good workout for most muscle groups but is not too vigorous. I felt like I had had a workout when it was over, but I was not too tired.

3/8 Saturday: Free day.

3/9 Sunday: LIIT (Low-impact interval training). This class does 30 seconds of exercise with 10 seconds of rest. It works all major muscle groups with weights. Last week, I was totally worn out after this class for the rest of the day. I took it a little easier this week and was not quite as tired. This is the best class I take overall for my fitness goals, with a good combination of aerobic and strength training combined. It also makes me the most tired.

3/10 Monday: Ballroom dancing. This week, we worked on adding more steps to the Tango and Samba. Once again, I was confused about the position of my feet on the new steps, even with more individual attention than I wanted. However, Ward and I will practice this week, so I won't be so lost next week -- that is, until something else new is thrown at me. This session is like most sessions in that there are a lot of people in the beginning, and it slowly dwindles to a few of the regulars, including us. There is good comradery among our group, and I enjoy that. This class gave me a gentle aerobic workout.

3/11 Tuesday: Line dancing. This is a fun class that gives me a decent aerobic workout, but not to the point I want it to be over before halfway through like some other classes. I would say that I am getting the steps right about 3/4 of the time, so it also gives me a mental workout.

3/12 Wednesday: Free Day. I wasn't totally sedentary today as I worked in the yard. It was not aerobic, but I did get some stretching and arm workouts.

3/13 Thursday: Mat Pilates. I have taken two other Pilates classes that were good workouts, but this one really did me in. There was more core workout than any class I've done so far, and more of my joints seemed to be hurting, including my knees, shoulder, lower back, and hip. At one point, my hip was in so much pain from the pressure of laying on it that I had to stop the exercise. After class, I talked to the instructor about possible modifications to solve that problem. At the very least, the next time, I will use two mats. I am torn about not going back because of the above problems or going back again and hoping some of the issues would resolve themselves in time. 

So, I feel like I had another good effort this week. We'll see what next week brings. 

Until next time...

Book Reviews and A Case of Mistaken Identity

I said my next book reviews were going to be about children's books. Well, I changed my mind. First, I am going to discuss another adult book.

First up is Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death by M. C. Beaton, mystery, 1998

There are over 30 books in the Agatha Raisin series, with the first 24 written by M. C. Beaton. In case you aren't familiar with Agatha Raisin, she is a 50-something woman who sells her advertising business in London to move to a simpler life in the country. She brings her city ways with her and is often brash and impatient, but she gradually adapts to the slower way of life and eventually gains most of the locals' acceptance. She also has an obsession with James, her next-door neighbor, and they have an on-again-off-again relationship as they investigate murders together.

The Agatha Raisin books are cozy mysteries and easy reads. I enjoy them then and again, although I sometimes tire of Agatha's fixation on James. 

The Wellspring of Death is #7 in the Agatha Raisin series. In this book, there is a controversy over the use of a natural spring and the subsequent murder of the council head, who had the deciding vote on what happens. There is a long list of people who are upset for one reason or another, and one of them is the bad guy in the end. 

And now, for the rest of the story. Ward saw my Agatha Raisin book and asked if he would like it, especially since it was a mystery, which he reads a lot. I said maybe, but he wouldn't initially like Agatha, but she would grow on him. However, I suggested he should start with the first one, The Quiche of Death, so he could learn the characters. He likes to read e-books, so he checked it out and started reading on his phone. He was about a third of the way through before he figured out he had the wrong book. He was reading The Quiche of the Dead by Kirstin Weiss instead of The Quiche of Death by M.C. Beaton. He was wondering when the story was going to introduce Agatha, the main character. However, he finished and enjoyed Weiss's book, fortunately, the first in a series. He enjoyed it enough that he has read four of the series so far. 

In the meantime, I checked an Agatha Raisin DVD out of the library. British television made a series from the books, and we watched the Quiche of Death episode. I was right. Ward didn't like Agatha very much. The show was pretty true to the book, but I like reading the mysteries better than watching them. I am going to encourage Ward to give Agatha another chance and actually read one of the books.

But before that, Ward will review The Quiche of the Dead for You.

Ward says he doesn't remember agreeing to write a review of "The Quiche of the Dead", and he's going to be busy for a very long time, so I should just go ahead and publish this post.  😉

Until next time...

Note: Miss Landers has read all of the Agatha Raisin books and said that Ward and I should keep reading them and watch the characters develop.

Ward here: OK, I've been asked twice to do this. Here goes - The Quiche and the Dead by Kirsten Weiss is the first of a series of cozy mysteries centered around Valentine Harris, who runs the Pie Town bakery. She is accompanied by her seventy-something pie crust maker, Charlene, who has no filter and says what she thinks and who believes in crazy theories. Together, they work to solve a mystery - in this first book, a customer dies of poisoning in her pie shop after eating one of her quiches. Romantic tension arises from the attraction between Val and the (single, handsome) policeman Gordon, who cannot act on his feelings because Val is a suspect. It is sweet and silly, wrapped around a decent mystery. I think there are five or six books in the Pie Town series, and I'm on book number four.