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Year Four, Day 318: Pandemic Times Day 67, "Stay Home - Stay Safe" Day 54: A European Starling and Memories of a Volcano





 Hi Friends!

I identified my first bird today! I am so excited! My birdwatching binoculars came in the mail today, so when it was time to do my vlogging in the park, I put them around my neck and brought a little notebook with me to record my findings!



Alas, the wind picked up while I was vlogging, and it suddenly got quite chilly, so I cut it short and started to head home.

Then I heard some chirping!  I looked up in the trees with my binoculars, but didn't see anything. I spied a flock  of crows in the middle of the baseball field, but crows are so common, I didn't think they were worth recording.

Wow! Most prejudice of me! I read somewhere that crows are highly intelligent. And emotional. And can carry a grudge against specific people. I don't blame them, with people like me calling them COMMON!

Next time I go to the park, I will apologize to the crows.

But what caught my eye, was a small bird at the foot of a tree ahead of me. He was pecking at the ground.  I was so excited! I fumbled with my binoculars, afraid he would fly off with all my commotion. But he kept pecking away.

He was small, with a yellow beak. He was mostly black, but with spots on his back.

I raced home and consulted my bird identification flashcards.

And....OUILA!

I spotted a European Starling!



I am beside myself!

Take that cornovirus! I didn't thank about you for at least one whole hour today!

It is so fun to have a new hobby!  Apparently, however the European Starling is quite common. Like the poor crow. I just had never identified one before.

Success on my first birdwatching outing!

If the weather is a tad bit warmer tomorrow, I plan on venturing out to the Burnt Bridge Creek trail. Less people there, more forestation. There are bound to be more birds - common and rare alike!

On news of the food kid, I made a killer cream of mushroom soup today! I had a bowl of it, topped with crumbled feta cheese, and a keto pita bread, topped with Za'atar, Kalamata olives and homemade tabouli.

Take that pandemic! I am living like a queen here!

Well, er, except for the paper plates, and plastic spoon, that is.  Our dishwasher is clogged and maintenance is unavailable on the weekend.

So - paper plates!

It still tasted delicious!

OK, and as for news of the pandemic kind, Remdesivir, an experimental drug is going to be used on covid-19 patients in Oregon.  It is not yet approved by the FDA, but it was used on other patients, including the man who was the first patient in Oregon to contact the coronavirus.  Here is the article.

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/health-authority-distributes-experimental-coronavirus-drug-remdesivir-to-oregon-hospitals.html

And we are on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Mt. St. Helen's eruption. I will never forget that day. I posted this article on my Facebook page earlier, and asked if anyone wanted to share their memories. I was a senior in high school, at Fort Vancouver, here in Vancouver, Washington. It was so awesome seeing that plume of smoke from our beloved Mt. St. Helen's. Frightening too when it blew. There were people who lost their lives. And the terrain was devasted - looked like the aftermath of a bomb!  Several of my friends and I heard the mountain had blown. So crazy teenagers that we were, we jumped in the back of my friend's truck (you could do that back then) and drove TOWARDS the mountain!  We didn't get far though. There were road blocks.

The next day, I awoke to 1 inch of ash on my car!

I was tickled to see many of my high school friends comment on Facebook about their experiences.

Here is the article in the Columbian newspaper:

https://www.columbian.com/news/2020/may/17/mount-st-helens-40-years-later-surprises-loss-still-reverberate/

And here we are 40 years later, in an explosive global pandemic.

What a crazy life!

I hope you have peace and joy this evening. You are all in my prayers, as is the whole world!

Talk to you tomorrow!

Love, Peace and Joy,

Zita


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