Awake at 5:19 a.m. because Kim’s phone rang. He
didn’t even wake up despite me nudging him, and I thought about answering it
but it didn’t ring for long. Can’t say that I went back to sleep though. I did
notice, however, that the birds hadn’t started chirping yet.
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At one particular feeder, the hummers would
eat, flit back to hover, then flit forward again to the feeder. They would do
this with the truck windshield as a backdrop. I was attempting to get them in
hover mode, away from the feeder. Obviously I wanted them to be in focus. Not
easy to get good, focused pictures at that time of morning with a fast-moving
target…light isn’t exactly favorable. But I kept at it and eventually had over
210 pictures to sort through. I narrowed those down to two.
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I watched this
little grouping for a few seconds and realized that school was in session; Momma Sparrow was trying to teach the young’uns how to forage for seeds on their own.
She started out by showing them how to peck the ground and then put seeds in
their wide open, squawking mouths…maybe so they’d get a taste of what meals
were going to be like from this point forward.
Then Momma fly-hopped a few feet away. A couple of them seemed to figure
it out quickly because they found seeds to eat. But there was one that looked
totally devastated at this turn of events. If it’s possible for a bird to pout,
this one was doing it. It looked around and as it found its mother and made to
go toward her, she hopped away again. It was tough love in action.
This scene
replayed twice while I was watching this morning, and whether it was the same family
twice or different families each time, I don’t know. So much fun stuff to be
seen when I take the time to look.
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We took a short
e-bike ride this morning, only to Harmon Rd and back…a bit over 5 miles. Kim rode my mom’s bike since his was waiting to
be fixed. We didn’t want to be dilly dallying because Adam arrives today for a
quick visit; he’ll be here until the 20th or the 21st. He has some free time on his hands, so he came
out to spend time with us.
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Adam got here
about 12:30…he hadn’t had lunch yet, so Kim took him to Hot Dogs Alvarado. He
gave it a better review than Gabe did. We’re going to have to get creative on
what to do because the temperature is supposed to be 99o tomorrow
and jump into triple digits on Thursday.
There’s only so much being outside that one can tolerate under
those conditions. But as we’ve learned, activity is best done early in the
morning or later in the afternoon. And there’s always the possibility of
hanging around the air-conditioned clubhouse playing guitar.
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Earlier in the
day, Kim disassembled the back of his bike in preparation for the bike tube’s
arrival. As soon as it was delivered, he
got to work putting it all back together. The entire repair job wasn’t as
horrible as he’d originally thought it would be, thanks to the YouTube video he
watched. I don’t know if it’s had a test drive, though.
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Today was the
day to water the bushes. There are bubblers, for lack of a better word to call
them, installed between the fence and a dirt berm in front of the bushes. The water
is turned on long enough to flood the area behind the berm. However, across the
yard from our camper, the water overflowed and formed a puddle, which the birds
treated like a gigantic bird bath. To quote a song from the late 50’s:
There sure was
a party goin’ on!
When I got up this morning, first thing I
saw in the main room was Kim’s open computer with the Dolphin Head Nebula on
the screen. What a clear, sharp picture!! All those hours of imaging paid off! He
said it took the computer about 2 hours to chew through the 10 hours of data
that he’d accumulated. It is so much better than last year’s results.
I think he’s imaging
the Rosette Nebula tonight, a tried-and-true target.
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Something
happened back in Traverse City last week that saddens my heart. Darnell Wilson, the person I’d always hoped
was working when we went to Costco, was killed last Friday when police
responded to a domestic violence call in which he was involved. He was the
go-to guy for the self-checkout lanes…always upbeat, known to joke around and
sing, helpful…and a Lions fan. He was the kind of employee that made the long
checkout lines a little brighter because you knew you’d eventually get to talk
to him.
The media reported on the situation as details were made known by the police. However, as it’s gotten chewed over on Facebook, it seems that some people are choosing sides between Darnell and the unidentified stabbing victim and expect others to do the same. For instance, sympathetic comments about how Darnell will be missed at Costco prompted aggressive sounding responses from others about why people cared about him and not the victim. That comes across as an ‘either/or’ scenario…a person can either feel bad about Darnell or the victim, but not both. I want to believe that the fact that I’ll miss Darnell’s smiling face when I go to Costco doesn’t for one moment diminish the seriousness of his actions. That both of those truths can be held at the same time.
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