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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/finger-wound-b.jpg\")
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This is what the injury looked like 2 1\/2 days after the incident. I had removed the “boxing glove bandage” the doctor had put on it to replace it with a custom version of my own that I hoped would make typing a little easier so I took the opportunity to snap a few photos with my phone. This was the first time I’d seen the clean wound without\u00a0all the blood and I’ll admit to being shocked by how much of my finger was gone (I never did find the piece I cut off).<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/finger-healing.jpg\")
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And this is what it looked like yesterday afternoon, 16 days after the injury occurred. I’m truly amazed by how fast it’s healing.\u00a0At this point about\u00a0the only time I have to\u00a0keep a small bandage on it is when I’m typing (the bandage cushions it a little and prevents any pain at all).<\/p>\n
And guess what. I didn’t realize until last night when I was preparing this post that I cut my fingertip off on Friday the 13th! Maybe I should hang a lucky rabbit’s foot or horseshoe over my kitchen sink. Or both.<\/p>\n
Ok, on to something a little more pleasant.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/least-chipmunk-6845-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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I don’t take a lot of “chippie” shots but who could resist this little guy nibbling on berries from a Utah Serviceberry bush in the Wasatch Mountains three days ago. It’s a Least Chipmunk and you can see where it’s taken a small bite out of the berry in his little paws. ‘He’ was sampling them right and left, apparently looking for those with just the right amount of ripening and sweetness (one source describes their eventual sweetness as “insipid to delectably sweet”). He was way up high in the large\u00a0bush and for some reason that made the scene even more appealing to me.<\/p>\n
I can’t think of serviceberry without remembering something from my days growing up (birth to age 18) in and near Cut Bank, Montana. Many folks up there used to pronounce it “sarvis berry” instead of “serviceberry”. I’ve never understood why and I’ve never heard that pronunciation anywhere else. Perhaps (this is just a wild guess) it’s a cultural thing related to the influence of the nearby Blackfeet Nation. Native Americans used serviceberry in an almost endless number of ways and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation borders Cut Bank (literally a stone’s throw away) so there’s a lot of intercultural influences both ways.\u00a0Our family farm was actually on the reservation.<\/p>\n
It’s a little thing but it always piques my curiosity when I see serviceberry bushes or hear the word. Any thoughts Judy Gusick?<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
Note:<\/em><\/p>\n In a comment below a reader who goes by the name “shoreacres” has solved the mystery of that unusual pronunciation I mentioned. He provided a link that goes into more fascinating detail\u00a0than this but\u00a0here’s the gist of it – “”Sarvis\u201d is what the early mountain people called it. It was \u201cSarvis\u201d because it blooms about the time circuit riding ministers came into the mountains after each hard winter to perform whatever services (or in Old English, \u201csarvises\u201d) needed to be performed.”. <\/em><\/p>\n Here’s another\u00a0interesting tidbit in the article – “These berries are actually quite good in preserves but are rarely used because they are so quickly eaten by birds.” \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks very much for your sleuthing, shoreacres! Now I can sleep tonight… \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’ll get to the critter in a minute. Normally any more news on my finger injury isn’t something I’d cover on my blog but the healing process has been so unexpectedly fast on such a significant injury and because I reported it here when it happened I decided to share evidence of why I’m so surprised and pleased with it.<\/p>\n