August 15: Bobby Russ
Today, I took care of some of the household chores and went to her store to pick up the book that has the
writings and thoughts of customers and associates in it. I have yet to read it, but hope to scan in the pages
so that the girls and I can read it some time. Afterwards, I took some time to stop by the crash site. I was
happy to see some people have left some flowers there. I know she would have appreciated that. While I was
there, a swallowtail butterfly flew by. Some say that may be a sign of her looking over me. I feel her still
in my heart and nearby even if I know she's physically gone. It reminds me of memories with her. Over the
years, we have almost always had an area where we could look outside. In the first trailer, we were in that was
out the kitchen window. In the second trailer, that was out the living room window or the middle room. In the
house, it's our lanai. During the various years, Renee and I have loved to watch nature.
Outside the trailer, we often tried to grow various things. At one point, we had peppers and tomatoes growing. We found that rabbits were nibbling and stealing the jalapenos. She got quite frustrated with the squirrels as they were attacking her tomatoes. It ended up being that she bought an upside down device for growing tomatoes to try to thwart them. Obviously, this failed as well. From that point forward, she gave up on growing it.
When we moved into the house, we got ourselves a bird feeder. Renee and I would sit outside the lanai and watch the birds that would come by. We saw Cardinals, Finches, Blue Jays, etc. But the squirrels started realizing there was food out there. Renee got frustrated by them and kept trying to find another solution. Part of that was going to Rural King and buying corn for the squirrels by the large bag. It seemed to keep them away for a bit so she could enjoy bird watching. I can still see her in my mind standing in our kitchen watchinging the bird feeder. She'd call me over and say... "look, look, it's a cardinal" I could see her happiness in bird watching even from inside.
This led to us buying a nature camera to be able to take pictures of the birds while we were gone. She loved it. I remember when I was going through the pictures, we also found that a deer had been sneaking into the back yard to eat the corn. This brought her even more joy. She was telling everyone about the deer and showing some of the pictures that I had captured with the nature camera. I loved watching nature with her and seeing how she lit up enjoying the simple things like bird watching. Even now, I occasionally see the family of Cardinals show up to our bird bath and I think of how much Renee would love to see them. I hope somewhere that she is she can see nature and still enjoy it. I love to see her happy. I'd do almost anything to make her smile.