My eBird species count for the year remains down at 90 species in Collin County, 10 less than in past years. My count for the month is at 32, and likely to climb to 34 when I log in a Belted Kingfisher and a Pied-Billed Grebe I saw yesterday at Bethany Lakes Park. That is my highest count September since I began keeping eBird statistics. Though the second half of September is prime migration time, I rarely do well with spotting the migrating warblers. This year I have seen lots of migrating Olive-Sided Flycatchers, though, and a couple of Least Flycatchers.
Last Sunday I walked in Russell Creek Park while listening to Universalist sermons by a man in England.
This past work week I had a court matter via Zoom. I do not mind this sort of video hearing, though I prefer in-person hearings. I suspect video hearings will become the norm for routine appearances such as docket calls.
Beatrice is doing very well now. Her very old age is apparent, but she has a spring in her step. Rather than kibble, she now gets 3 meals of 1/3 of a can of wet food. She had had some fur loss during the shutdown. We got that under control, though the grow-back has been patchy and imperfect. Still, she looks good and feels happy.
I found my old grade-school friend Russ on social media. Russ was a minister's son who lived in Gurdon from the time I was in kindergarten through one of the lower grades in elementary school. Then, as is the way of Methodist ministers, his father got transferred. I found that Russ is a blogger devoted to attacking the Little Rock political establishment, somewhere, perhaps in the borderland region between a gadfly and an investigative journalist. I think it is usually a good thing when people use freedom of information act requests to open government up a bit.
I tweeted a "hello" to Russ, who tweeted back a picture of our kindergarten class standing with our teacher Ms. Nelson in front of the little red kindergarten schoolhouse. A couple of dozen of us took kindergarten class, in what, I suppose, must have been a private-tuition kindergarten.
I liked Ms. Nelson very much. She and her husband were interested in science and nature and all things worthwhile. My parent had been friends with Russ' s parents, and I thought his dad was, despite a few personal challenges, a good fellow.
My wife and I wanted to meet at the Heard Natural Science Center on Saturday to walk the trails. We had been out doing different things, so we resolved to drive there in separate cars. She got there first to find the parking lot crowded. We avoid crowds in these days of social distancing. So we went to Brockdale Park in Lucas to walk on Trinity Trail and walked to Hiker's Point and back. We saw lots of things in bloom--Snow on the Prairie, sunflowers and in particular Leavenworth's Eryngo, one of my favorite Autumn plants, I have been taking walks on Trinity Trail for at least 18 years.
We are re-watching episodes of Foyle's War and watching the Marvellous Mrs. Maisel.
It is unfortunate but not surprising that the Republicans who pledged never to confirm candidates in an election year promise to break their pledges to confirm whichever arch-conservative the current presidential officeholder selects. I hope that this motivates voters to defeat the current officeholder.
from Dreamwidth, because two posts of the same text are twice as nice