International Wind Day?

     You've never heard of International wind day? Don't feel bad . Neither have I.

     I had the radio on this morning and I heard the term International Wind Day. It caught my attention. I have a curiosity about special days. If you look,  most days are special for something.

    Now I know Father's Day is for honoring dads. That makes sense. But honoring wind? That's a stretch.



    So I had to look it up. Yes, the day is to celebrate wind and all the ways it is used to produce power. Right now we are particularly interested in using wind to produce electricity. Back on the farm , in the 1940's Dad had a wind charger that charged batteries and that gave us power for electric lights only. Today windmills are used to produce large amounts of electricity. The first windmills that were installed in the modern age are being replaced because they now have windmills that are much more efficient.

     Wind power is used to power ships. John's Island has a post on sail boats today. Before steam the main source of power for moving ships was the wind. Windmills were also used to provide power for flour mills.

     We have lots of wind in the spring. As a kid, I can remember making kites (not buying kites) in the spring. We made kites with brown paper and small slats for cross pieces. These kites worked well. We used binder twine for string. We'd get  tired of flying the kite and tie the twine to a fence post. You could come back several hours later and usually your kite was still flying.

     So today is set aside to mark all the new technology and modern uses of wind power.

    We've had windy days all week so it was easy for me to think about wind.

     So do we say "Happy wind day to you?"

Cleanup

    I have a couple of small topics to take care of. They are too small for a post by themselves.

    So here's a cleanup. I posted some photos of goslings a while ago and somebody asked for ducklings. Usually I see lots of ducklings but not this year. I got one very poor photo of ducklings. I was shooting into bright sun and could not see the image so could not bring it in closer. These are mallard ducklings and they are about half grown.

   I like native flowers. I have areas I visit each year to get my fix. Saturday morning when we were on the bird walk we found many yellow lady slippers. Right beside the lady slippers was some striped coral  root orchid. I did not get a good photo of the coral root orchid.

I've Got Flowers

      I've been watching posts of flowers for months now. My flowers have finally come into bloom. Now I know you've seen these flowers before. I know you know what they look like. But I just wanted to show you that it finally happened here. We are late but at this time of the year we have long days so plants advance rapidly.

I've Been a Busy Boy

      For the last three months I've had to struggle with my blog. I've posted less and had to work hard to keep up with reading posts. And at times it was a struggle to make comments.

     However, I have a brand new roof. No I didn't do it myself. I had a very able contractor redo my house roof.

    So why has this taken so much time?  I have a micro manager. Grocery shopping takes a long time. If there are 100 tomatoes in the bin, the micro manager has to look at all of them. If there are 100 apples in a bin...yes you guessed it. The micro manager has to look at all 100 apples.

    So when reroofing came up, it was a field day for the micro manager. So first of all you have fun with the shingles. You have to get every last detail about all available shingles. Then if people from the same company say something different you're on a crusade to find out what the shingle spec actually is. There is also a product called ice and water shield. You guessed it, Each product has to be researched and compared. Choices take a long time.

    If there are five shingle outlets in town you have to go to all outlets and some of them twice. This is after numerous phone calls have been made to each outlet. These outlets know the micro manager very well.

    Then you have to get estimates from contractors. Each contractor is give specifications over and over again. There are questions about each contractor's bid and you phone them back.

    We had intended to get this job done in April. We've been working at it since March. It was finally finished Mar 7. 

    So I've been very busy with this project and many other aspects of my life have been getting second place. 

    Now I haven't got any photos of this project. I'm not supposed to go on the roof. Now I have been up on the roof, but don't tell anybody. 

   So the project took almost 4 months. Most people would get a couple of quotes and chose one and a few weeks later the project would be finished.

    Maybe some day the micro manager will buy three tomatoes and only have to look at six of them!

Ducks But No ducklings

      Last Saturday morning I visited the Michael Obrien Wetlands in town. This is a series of man made ponds. Some pond are about 7 acres and some are smaller and very irregular shapes. It's a great habitat for ducks as the pond edges have a heavy willow and grass edge.

     I was able to get some distant shots of ducks.

A lesser scaup that's trying to ignore me

A couple of mallards putting in time around their nest sites.

  Soon there should be ducklings following parents as the goslings were 

Curious Geese

       On Saturday I went to a wetlands with my Saturday morning bird group.
  
       We decided to try something we often talk about but never do. We would sit on a bench and look at went by us. The pond we chose was about 3 hectares( 6 or 7 acres). When we sat down there was a pair of geese with some goslings on the far side of the pond. There was some goose chattering. the pair slowly moved , all the while being very alert. We didn't know it but they were deciding whether they should come and visit us. After about 15 min the geese and their goslings were right in front of us. I think they were looking for  handout but we had to disappoint them.

      There were a number of ducks on the pond and some sparrows were in the brush along the pond. we got glimpses of the sparrows but not enough to make an identification. they did have a beautiful song.

Congratulations Miss Courtney

      One of my hard working neighbors across the street has reached a  very important milestone. Courtney has just finished her nursing degree after four years of hard work.

     So congratulations Courtney. Have a great career.  I'm sure you'll make a fine nurse.

     Now years of hard work have to go into succeeding at a nursing program. Courtney was a hard working and competitive student all through her public school experience. Courtney had to get "A" and she did.

    Many people who succeed in degree programs have special challenges. Courtney has her special challenge that made it harder to achieve her goal but also gave her a big incentive.

     Courtney has neurofibromatosis (NF). What's that you say? I've never heard of it. I had never heard of neurofibromatosis either  until Courtney decided to go public with her condition.  Courtney decided that she would publicize the condition so that people would be aware of it and that there would be support for people with NF.

     NF is a nasty condition of many faces. Courtney writes a blog on NF. I will let you read about NF from Courtney's blog. She's excellent at explaining NF. Many doctors are like the general public and have never heard of NF so Courtney has had to do a lot of research on the condition and educate many a doctor.

    So as well as getting a nursing degree, Courtney has had a life altering condition that she's had to face. So along with headaches, constant worry about what NF will do next she's met with success.

    Take a look at her blog and find out what NF is. By the way , she's an excellent writer.