Maria made pancakes for me this morning (peach) and we sat out in the backyard and were greeted by the ever-curious and affectionate donkeys, I was able to brace my camera and take this photo myself, it was a big step towards being normal. Of course I’m not sure what normal is.

I’ve become good friends with Julie, a nurse at my health insurance company who is extraordinarily helpful and supportive, she has answered so many questions for me. I told her I’m doing between two and four miles a day and she says I am a poster boy for open heart surgery. Today I go off of the antibiotics for my surgical incision infection. Perhaps this is normal.

I got an e-mail from Jane in Nebraska, she wrote “I know you are recovering from open heart surgery, but I think it’s time you put up a photo of the lambs, I miss them and it’s not fair that you are not taking photos of them.” Perhaps that is normal, I think I will not explain to Jane that I can’t haul a camera out to the pasture quite yet, and I perhaps will not apologize for any inconvenience.

Someone on Facebook saw my photo of Flo int the garden and wrote “I know you don’t like warnings, but I see has a flea collar and they can be dangerous for outdoor cats,  they can catch on things.” How sad, I thought, a sweet photo like that with the inevitable warning. My barn cats have always had flea collars and always will. I have an idea, I wrote, perhaps since you know I don’t like warnings you stop posting any on my site. She said I was grouchy. You bet.

The doctors say irritability and depression are staple side effects of heart surgery. Julie says I will tire easily for four to six months. That will be normal. But I will never be happy to see those phobic and fearful warnings on my site, I hope they will always irritate me, and I hope I will always say so.

I am ambitious for my walking today. I did 1.6 miles this morning and I might get to Merck Forest today to do some more hiking if Maria has time. I don’t think life is normal when you can’t wash a dish or open a door. Yet there is a sense of normalcy returning, I saw it with Maria and the donkeys this morning. A new kind of normal.