I don’t remember the last time I wrote (common way for me to start a blog post!)
It was a long time ago… when the things were blooming and I was sneezing much more. Now it is very green and the sun is actually shining today.
Working backwards: yesterday was the solstice and we BBQ’d to celebrate. On the fly I called everyone I could and invited them to share some outdoor time in Diablo. Good times. Then an evening paddle on Diablo Lake with Kate and Teresa… I was so good sitting in the princess seat… dead weight and conversation-making…
Finished two books, “The Naturalist,” Edward O. Wilson’s autobiography and Robert Murphy’s “The Peregrine Falcon.” Reading two books simultaneously was a bit of a challenge, but overall it was nice to go back and forth so as to stay fresh. When my eyes might start to close during Wilson’s theoretical analysis of island biogeography (interesting, but dense), I could turn to Murphy’s hypothetical situation of a female falcon’s tribulations and life-cycle during her first migration from the Barrens (arctic) to the Florida Keys.
I have had some time prepping and training for the Cascade Climate Challenge program that will be keeping me busy this summer. Short: we get 20 teens, get them canoeing and backpacking in and around Ross Lake (North Cascades National Park Complex), do service work, do some teaching and facilitate lessons with Park staff. The topics revolve around the background of climate science and the research being done to understand current species adaptations and struggles with changing climate patterns. This helps us “get” to the meat of the “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” debate… what does it mean and how can we tell?
Cousin Athena got married to Sudip two weekends ago!!! It was a great ceremony… they mixed Indian and Jewish customs nicely along with a little bit of American culture too. It was rough to go to New Jersey only for two days, but seeing family was great and spending time with folks was a treat… O-hisashi-buri, deshou!
Here are some pictures of that wonderful occasion.
It was a long time ago… when the things were blooming and I was sneezing much more. Now it is very green and the sun is actually shining today.
Working backwards: yesterday was the solstice and we BBQ’d to celebrate. On the fly I called everyone I could and invited them to share some outdoor time in Diablo. Good times. Then an evening paddle on Diablo Lake with Kate and Teresa… I was so good sitting in the princess seat… dead weight and conversation-making…
Finished two books, “The Naturalist,” Edward O. Wilson’s autobiography and Robert Murphy’s “The Peregrine Falcon.” Reading two books simultaneously was a bit of a challenge, but overall it was nice to go back and forth so as to stay fresh. When my eyes might start to close during Wilson’s theoretical analysis of island biogeography (interesting, but dense), I could turn to Murphy’s hypothetical situation of a female falcon’s tribulations and life-cycle during her first migration from the Barrens (arctic) to the Florida Keys.
I have had some time prepping and training for the Cascade Climate Challenge program that will be keeping me busy this summer. Short: we get 20 teens, get them canoeing and backpacking in and around Ross Lake (North Cascades National Park Complex), do service work, do some teaching and facilitate lessons with Park staff. The topics revolve around the background of climate science and the research being done to understand current species adaptations and struggles with changing climate patterns. This helps us “get” to the meat of the “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” debate… what does it mean and how can we tell?
Cousin Athena got married to Sudip two weekends ago!!! It was a great ceremony… they mixed Indian and Jewish customs nicely along with a little bit of American culture too. It was rough to go to New Jersey only for two days, but seeing family was great and spending time with folks was a treat… O-hisashi-buri, deshou!
Here are some pictures of that wonderful occasion.
Male cousins... first time in a long time... my brother is not pictured.
Centerpiece of one of the tables: Midsummer Night's Dream
The ceremony... fun mix of Jewish and Indian traditions
Athena reads vows to Sudip after he spoke to her. Fabulous!Final note on the peregrine falcons I was watching. Seven weeks after I started following them, we came to realize that this year’s eggs failed… and the parents took off. For over a week, the three eggs were sitting on the ledge… in the eyrie on a small “scrape,” the indentation of sub-straight dug by the falcon to contain the eggs and to prevent them from slipping off the ledge and down the cliff. Nothing. Nature is brutal. After migrating 1000’s of miles, mating, laying eggs, incubating… nothing. Was it too cold or too wet this year? What factors caused them to fail?
Leave, go eat, fly somewhere else, come back again next year and try again. I’ll write it again. Nature is brutal. Not the cuddly, fun stuff that we wish to see on all of our TV shows. But rather, REAL and not always successful. May it serve as a lesson for me. You can do everything right and factors beyond my control can influence the outcome. Just goes to show… And with that realistic and seemingly fatalistic approach that I now have, I also recognize the importance of every second. If we are fortunate enough to hatch, then we had better use every moment of breath to focus on living fully. Some eggs get infinitely close but don’t even hatch.
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