Of Illness, Facebook, and a Dog: Announcements

First: readers have doubtless noticed a falling off in the number of posts this last six months, and in the number of adventures that leads to them. For all this time I have been having difficulty walking (which I initially put down to arthritis) and also sitting in the hard chair I had here.

It turns out it is all down to Parkinson's, which was "formally" diagnosed last week, as some of you know. I have a great neurologist in Albuquerque and he has every hope that new medicines will make a lot of difference. Meanwhile I will be making some changes. I will sell some shotguns and most of my fly rods, though not my spinning rods (has to do with dexterity)-- details provided to those interested. My pursuit falcon BB must go to a new home-- two mile chases seem problematical. The little waiting on falcon, the dogs who will work close as well as far and retrieve, will stay. I am cutting back on pigeons slightly and going commercial on Thief Pouters for falconers. I am going to expand my collecting of native bees. In general I am looking for things to do that are interesting and don't require as much physical effort-- and maybe pay a little too.

One other thing to go must be Facebook-- IMAO a time- waster par exellance. It collected a few old friends but also a lot of people who WOULD NOT understand my blog feed was from four people, and I got tired answering them. Also it lacked intimacy and I felt it was full of strangers-- I did NOT want to announce my medical news there. While this is a site that is open to the public I feel that it is also a sort of community of common interests-- I did not feel that at Facebook at all. I hope some of my Facebook readers move over here but if they don't I can't help them.

Finally some good news-- Irbis has been given a clean bill of health and is racing around the yard. Interestingly Ray intends to take the plate out in a month, apparently a minor deal-- he does this in hard- hunting field dogs lest the steel provide a lever for breakage. Pix soon!

Dear Facebook

Regular readers please forgive-- but all posts come up on Facebook under my name, which seems to be causing some confusion...

I do not have a ranch or sheep herd in Wyoming, a grandchild in California, a wife named Connie, or for that matter a husband. Nor do I live in Louisiana and cook gumbo. I am not an archaeologist, and know little about airplanes. If the writing refers to any of these things you are probably reading Cat, Reid, or Matt.

I am Steve Bodio, long of Magdalena NM, born in Boston, writer, married to Libby, (step)father of Jackson (the blogger Peculiar) and his wife Niki of Santa Fe, "owner" of six sighthounds, a senile dachshund, two falcons, and an unknown number of pigeons. I write books, travel in Central Asia, and blog at Stephen Bodio's Querencia, last word title of my best known book. You can Google them.

I will repeat as needed...