Life and Times of Team Whisner

Monday, March 3, 2008

a spring day

After an emotional day today, I wanted to share some of our spring garden. This has brightened my day, I hope it brightens yours.

I find myself mystified at the news that I have received. A kind gentle soul has left the earth and I can't believe that he is gone.

I have a number of people in my life that I consider friends. Not every one of them do I speak to everyday or even every month. I still consider them friends. These are the people I don't see often, but when I do see them or speak with them, fall into a familiar comfort. We have history together, common interests, and enjoy each others company.

One of the group of people that I spend time with I consider my "dog show" friends. I only see these folks at dog shows and the only thing we have in common is our love of the sport. Kevin was one of those people. We met at a dog show in 2003. We were standing in line to get our dogs measured. I couldn't help notice the dog behind me. Kevins dog looked just like my dog. He and I started talking, and what we found out was that our dogs were brothers. Sam and Rocky were the basis of our friendship.

Kevin was a private person, he didn’t talk much about home, but what he did talk about was his dogs. Whenever I saw him he always had something nice to say. He was a joyous person, enthusiastic about the sport, and LOVED his dogs. Katie was his oldest and she left him just 2 weeks ago at 15 years old. Sam was next, he is 10 and Cooper is the youngest at 6 months. Kevin could be counted on to brighten the day with his latest stories about the dogs. Whether it was Sam’s latest agility accomplishments, Coopers funny antics, or Katie’s grace, he spoke with a full heart when he talked about his pups.

Kevin will be missed by me. Maybe I didn’t know him well. I certainly wouldn’t consider him a close friend. However, I am saddened by this loss.

I can’t help but think about my life and what I might do differently getting this news on top of the news of my friend yesterday. I think the bottom line is enjoy life, exercise, and eat the foods that you enjoy in moderation. One doesn’t know what the day, week, month, or year may bring. But bring it those days will.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Contemplation

Today I found out that a dear friend is being treated for lung cancer. It has also spread to her spine. This is the pitts. I can not express my deepest sorry at this tradegy.

Linda is a kind person with a beautiful voice. A detailed person with only good things to say. I love working with her and was sad when she decided to retire and move. We haven't kept in touch (mostly my fault for not making the effort), but when I see Linda it is like we haven't been apart at all.

Say a prayer for my friend. She needs our thoughts and healing powers to get through the battle that she is faced with.

Friday, February 29, 2008

It is Leap Day

Today only happens once in a while. It's like a spring present from the global universe. An extra day. Here are some interesting facts about today:

-You can eat anything you like. Calaries don't count.

-No work deadlines. Since it is an extra day, we really don't have to work cause the day doesn't really exist

-If you exercise today, it counts twice. It's like you exercised twice in the same day.

-Since this day doesn't exist, you don't have to wear cloths...nobody will remember.

-Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year; of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless, the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

-Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun.

-The Gregorian calendar has a 400-year cycle until it repeats the same weekdays for every year–February 29, 2008, is a Friday and February 29, 2408, is a Friday.

-The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years during those 400 years.

-The longest time between two leap years is eight years. The last time that occurred was between 1896 and 1904. The next time will be between 2096 and 2104.

-The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year

- A troptical year is 365.242190 days long. A regular year has 365 days and a leap year 366.

-February 2008 has 5 Fridays, the last time that happened was in 1980.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Sleep

Sleep is an interesting thing. Where you sleep is somewhat important and adds to to satisfaction of the exercise.

I have a friend who makes things. She is incredible. She made me a bed for Fin. Fin had out gown her bed so I took it to Lisa and she said, "I can make this." Next thing I know, I have a brand new larger version of the bed for Fin...or so I thought.

First in the bed was Tazz. "This is my new bed." he says. I notice that he is never quite comfortable. He fidgets a little, stares at me but doesn't want to move.

After a while Tazz does move to his regular bed and then Rocky seeing an opportunity rushes to get in the bed. "This is MY bed," Rocky says and he trys to get some sleep, but he also

moves on preferring his own bed over this new one.

Next to try it out is Maddie. She says, "If you don't mind I'd like to try out the bed now." She crawls in flops down and trys it out.

She seems comfortable, but never falls asleep, she leaves the bed only a few minutes after getting in preferring her little area that I made just for her.

Finally, Fin comes and checks it out. She says, "Does anyone want this bed?" Everyone looks board and she gently steps into the bed. As she lay down, I could just hear her say, "Ahhhhhhh, This is just perfect."

Sometimes ya just know when something was made for you!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Twilight Zone

Weird Haps at casa de Whisner. So...I put up these bird feeders. These feeders are for finches. They are filled with Nyjar seed. It is this small black seed that Finches think is like McDonalds fast food. It is fun to have the birds visit. The dogs chase them and I like to know that I'm making little birds fat.

Finches by nature are pretty skittish creatures. Sometimes they'll all be eatting (dozons of them on 3 feeders) and I'll walk out on the deck (more than 50 feet from where they are) and they will take to the air as if a bomb has just gone off. It probably doesn't help that the dogs go running and barking at the trees for the shear joy of watching the birds scatter, but what the heck, after all the McDonalds food, its good to get some exercise.

Today I'm refilling one of the feeders. I get the feeder about half full with the rest of the seed I have and am hanging it up (dogs are at my feet) and just as I get the feeder in place (my hand still fastening it to the tree), a finch comes down and lands not two inches from my nose. I yell and back up (as I don't know what is happening) and the darn bird stares at me and proceeds to eat seed. I'm astonished! Astounded! Delighted! Weirded out! Worried! then just Interested. The little creature stares at me, grabs a seed eats it, stares at me, eats another stares at me. All this time, my face is inches from this bird (where's a camera when you need one

for crying out loud!). So I put my hand up and the little finch pushes my hand with its head (I can see it thinking, "leave me alone duffus! I'm trying to eat something before the hoard comes back"). Finally after about 5 minutes, it flys to the apple tree and sits there. I went and grabbed the camera and took a pic of it napping in the apple tree.

I am afraid it was sick in some way. It certainly wasn't afraid of me...so maybe it just has good judgement :)

It is still in the apple tree sleeping as I write this. Tomorrow there will be dozens of birds again and I won't know which one was my special bird. I sure hope it is not injured and just a trusting bird.