GRAMMA CAMP – Week 4.1

Last week, I gave the girls the Bear Talk. I reminded them about protecting themselves: don't run, stand as tall as you can, yell and be fierce.

This week it's the Tick Talk! Josephine thought that funny.

We'll check ourselves. The kittens had one each, and have been given Bravecto, the one for cats. All will be good.

9:52 a.m. I heard voices.

     I called downstairs, "Anyone awake?"
     "Yeah!" said one voice.
     "No!" replied another. Josie is such a card! They were both reading.

They roused themselves enough to make breakfast. Bagels. They waited on the back deck for them to toast.


Isabelle, about to butter her bagel, "Come here, butter. Come hither!"

     "10 o'clock, that an early breakfast for us!" Izzy

Grampa went out to feed the last bucket of winter food to Maggie. You can see her wonky ankle here.



She, and her twins, continue to hang around. I got her on both trailcams!

maggie from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Grampa and I tried to do a Zoom f2f for physiotherapy. It failed miserably. I don't know what went wrong. He ended up having his appointment over the phone. They emailed a link to watch video on how to do his newly assigned exercises for his rotator cuff injury. They phoned later for payment.

Josephine asked if she could go down to switch out the trailcam cards. She was bored. I went with her. There was a red fox on one, but that was all, besides Maggie.

fox from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Josephine's adding to her birding list. Isabelle isn't as interested. No matter!


Isabelle continues to feed the fire. She is great!
Then, the girls went tree climbing...

They'd been reading for awhile, and I suggested they should do some schoolwork. I asked if Jos had been on to the Phase 2 part of OCDSB's program. She said, "Yes, I had an email at 8:30 saying something was posted. That was too early to do schoolwork!"

Isabelle did a page of math. Jos did a brief project, a science project, and Isabelle did something in English.
I asked how I knew if she'd done something and Iz said that she handed it in to her teacher. She said that she didn't "have the resources to do what my French teacher assigned." I wondered if she could get help on the weekend from Momma or Papa (both bilingual) and she said that wouldn't work, as she didn't have to work on the weekend! "It's the WEEKEND!"

I looked outdoors. There was a yearling. If you look closely, on the left near the sidewalk, was Maggie eating tulips or something.



JB offered to go out and chase her off. As if! She just stared at him.



Out I went. Her one leg is in the middle of the daffodils (deer don't typically like daffies) and she stepped over them to get to the tulips. I caught her just in time.



Yes? What?



I don't think these are tulips, but Maggie liked them. GONE!



She left me the crocus!



JB went out for a sit and a walk. Maggie came over. He explained to her that she'd have to leave my garden alone. She wandered off into the forest.

We negotiated dinner. We have chicken legs, leftover meatloaf, and spaghetti planned. Josephine wanted to leave the spaghetti until Thursday, our last dinner for the week, and said it's special.

We had both chicken legs and meatloaf. Grampa and Jos don't like chicken legs. So we're going to have it two days in a row. We had roast potatoes, cooked with the chicken legs, peas and niblets for all. See, we're eating well, Momma!

The girls are getting along really well. They understand the seriousness of our situation, but aren't letting it get to them. They have adjusted really well. We've run Gramma Camps since 2010, and that's a certain amount of normal. Grampa and I have a certain amount of stress with health issues, but they are assuaged as we focus on the girls.