The dreaded Christmas letter!

 

Since I am too anal and lazy to send Christmas cards, this is my contribution to the season.

While the year has been challenging, it has all been worth it and positive in the extreme. The end of last year began with Cataract surgery, followed by more eye surgery in the spring to remove a long string of junk floating in my left eye. That had me scared. My right eye is improved to 20/50 vision following the cataract surgery, but the left eye developed a lot of floaters that insisted on being to the forefront of all my vision. I am amazed that someone could actually go into the eye and suck out all the garbage, and still give my 20/20 vision back. I am now able to function without glasses except of course for reading. Grocery store cheaters manages that quite nicely.

During that period, Brenda contacted me. Our parents had been friends, and Brends and I have known each other since the 50's. Imagine that! I left WVa in 1963 right after graduation from High School. We didn't meet again until 1968 at my fathers funeral. We were both married by then. We had corresponded several times through the years,  but I had lost track of her in the 80's. I had attempted to find her again after Karen died, but had no luck. She had divorced her first husband, eventually marrying her second who had died about 13 years ago.

To say that I was very surprised would be an understatement. I had found that I didn't want to live alone. I had had a good marriage, and wanted to regain what ever of that feeling that I could. After a year of searching dating sites I met Connie. While she wasn't interested in melding our lifestyles, she was a lovely lady, and lots of fun to be around.

Brenda expressed interest in renewing our acquaintance, so I invited her to visit for a couple of weeks to see just how bad her memory was and if it matched reality. When she got on the plane to go back to her home, I asked her if she would like to come back. She did, finally arriving at the end of August with a trailer full of stuff. We have been sorting ever since.

There is no doubt that if she had not been so young when I left, (15 ) I would have never left WVa. We are doing our best to enjoy the rest of the lives allotted to us. I am extremely pleased that we have this time together. 

Falconry was a total bust this year. The Rabbits are so scarce that I really never started hunting this year. We did put in a couple of weeks, but have given it up as a waste of time, and possible breeding stock for next year.

The Ducks are infected with a "Bird Flu" this year that is fatal to Raptors, so Bud only had "bagged" birds to fly and other than being alive still, has gained nothing towards to being a falconry bird.

While it has been a challenging year, I am glad to be alive, and looking forward to the coming year. I wish you all a Merry Christmas , and a Happy New year!