First Thirsty Thursday of 2023

 

Today I worked on campus again, and on my afternoon walk I noticed the leaves of a Jack in the Pulpit under a bush I always pass. They were large, so it must have been several years old, but I had never noticed it before. Then I saw it was blooming, which made me very happy, because it's just not spring until I've seen a Jack in the Pulpit blooming. Its presence puzzled me, because the university landscapers are quite thorough, so it seems hard to imagine that they would have missed the plant if it was a weed, but it also seems odd to think that they planted it there on purpose. And if it's old enough to bloom, it must have been there for several years. Here is a picture of it.

When I came home, I joined some neighbors on our dock for Thirsty Thursday. When Travalon came home, he joined us too. Toward the end there were just five of us, and then we had a really great conversation about animals. Then I joined a Zoom meeting with the "secret" group; I haven't gotten to join one in a long time, because there's always something going on. We talked about using all our senses and grieving and all sorts of random stuff.

Here is a photo of irises in our neighborhood that the neighbor I walk with took.

She also took this video of the cranes eating out of another neighbor's bird feeder.

They only have one baby now. We all assumed that the other baby got eaten, since lots of creatures love to eat baby cranes, but our condo board president said one of the babies was sick, so he wasn't surprised that it disappeared. The cranes spend a lot of time in his yard, so I would believe him. He said it swelled up on one side and wouldn't eat when the parents offered it food. That sounds horrible. Poor baby crane!

I did find a story about the accident on Saturday: it was one of the motorcyclists we had seen passing by. She ran off the road, and unfortunately she died. In one of the videos Travalon made of our band playing, you can hear Med Flight overhead, and you can hear sirens passing by. Hardingfele and I glance over toward the sirens, but we just keep playing. After all, if the orchestra on the Titanic can keep playing as the ship is sinking, we can keep playing while an ambulance passes by.

Famous Hat