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December 19, 2024     HoHoHo- Happy Hobbling Holidays! 

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Three Young Coots, two Snapping Turtles and a Human Being with a sprained foot.

That was supposed to be sung to The Twelve Days of Christmas melody and is this morning’s effort at a silly song and a cute way to start my journal.

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I’ve never seen Coots in the Deleon Spring’s basin until this morning. As I hobbled over to the stairs which enter the water, I marveled at how much these Coots look like my friends, the Loons, in my Maine-pond. The white marking on their heads and their bobble-like bodies are so similar with one big exception; their size. Coots are smaller than a football, while Loons, at least the ones I see swimming about Little Etna Pond, are at least three times that size. Loons are so big and buoyant I often wonder how they are able to fly. Nature is like that sometimes; defying all sense of reason.

 

I smiled as I realized I was the only human in my swimming hole today.  I started down the stairs very carefully, my eyes focusing between the Coots and the surface upon which I was walking, when two turtles unexpectedly popped up about 20 feet away to my right. Seeing them did not surprise me as I see turtles each and every time I swim at Deleon Springs State Park. Last winter I even watched a turtle climb up onto the concrete walled side, make its way to a grassy area behind where I was sitting, dig a hole, lay its eggs and walk back to the concrete wall and dive back into the water. I don’t take my phone to the springs so I couldn’t capture that event on film but it will be forever etched in the memory bank of my mind. How incredibly-evolutionary that these resident turtles learned how to climb out of a concrete pool and then re-enter after accomplishing the task Mother Nature intended for it.

 

Why was I hobbling and watching the ground so closely, you ask. Well, I’d been walking a mile every day for the past couple of weeks as part of my Get My Good Groove On Detox program. I have been feeling so fantastic I decided to deliver some Christmas cards in the neighborhood before my GMGGOD walk through the lovely woods. While I was walking, or maybe I should say, while I was dancing, up a friend’s walkway day dreaming about my amazing life, I stumbled on a brick-high step. Actually, stumbled isn’t really the right word either. As I was gawking at the glorious trees and sky overhead I stepped on the edge of a brick-high step and my ankle twisted dramatically. When my once healthy foot landed at a 90 degree angle with the side of my foot planted flat on the walkway I screamed and worked my way to falling properly on the ground.

It brought back memories of the debilitating fall I had in Ireland a few months ago. There too, I fell in a proper manner; down to the ground as softly as possible with a roll at the end avoiding broken bones in my arms, wrists and hips with a gradual impact instead of a crash. Moral of that story; if you are going to fall frequently practice falling gracefully.

 

After my very loud scream I found myself on the brick walkway, flat on my back with my feet and arms above me. As I moved arms and legs admiring the blue sky between them and the fact that nothing seemed to be broken, I moved my left foot. Ouch. Not 100% certain that survived without a break but everything else was intact.

 

I gently rolled over and attempted to stand and screamed again. Got it. Not putting any weight on that foot. This should be fun I thought to myself. I was about half a mile from home and hopping that distance was not an option. The first friend I called said she would rescue me in a few minutes. Thank God.

 

I wanted to make it easy for her to find me so I got on my right foot and began hopping down the driveway in great discomfort. I made it to the road and crossed it so I would be easy to see and easy to pick up. As I hopped across crying from the pain and praying the white car driving past had a Good Samaritan at the wheel, I watched them make a U-turn in the middle of the road and pull up next to me.

 

My Good Samaritan was another friend of mine on her way to the springs to swim. She put her window down and said, “Can I give you a ride?” “Yes, that would be awesome,” I exclaimed between semi-sobs. I plopped onto her front passenger seat and called my first friend to let her know I had been rescued. I was delivered home and I have been pretty much homebound ever since. I travel from my TV recliner, to my bed, to my hot tub, and back to my TV recliner to Rest, Ice, Compress and Elevate my beautiful already healing ankle.

 

In order to make my TV time more enjoyable I opted into a few months with Starz so I could enjoy Season 7 of Outlander. After watching Season 7, I decided to begin at the beginning once again and binge watch this well-written, well executed epic love story from the start. During this morning’s episode Sir Lovat Fraser said something like, “…yah, just like the Camerons and the Campbells. They’d sell their grandmothers for a bit of land…”

 

I laughed out loud when I heard this statement. The first time I watched this episode I was not aware I had Campbells in my family tree. What this Outlander character said prior to 1745; the year of the Scottish Highlander Uprising, was proven to be true in 1746 during the Dunoon Massacre. The Campbells in my family tree massacred hundreds of Lamonts, also in my family tree, including some who’d married Campbells. They really would kill their own grandmothers, grandfathers, etc. for land.

 

Dunoon, Scotland was one of the places we visited during our Ancestral Journey through the British Isles. I will share more in my next journal entry if I can figure out how to use my TV-recliner as a Writing-recliner. In the meantime, I wish everyone a HoHoHo Happy Holliday, preferably without hobbling! Peace be with you, Diane