I ran it through the google AI machine. (I’m sorry. I am part of the problem. But I swear I limit my AI use to minimize my role in total planetary annihilation.)

!!!!!GASP!!!!! AI informs me it is rust fungus. I fall to my knees, gnashing my teeth and shake my fists at the heavens, shouting, “RUST FUNGUS??? NOT RUST FUNGUS!!!!! Lord, why hath thou forsaken meeeeeeeee????”

I had to isolate the plant to try and prevent it from giving all the other 800 million plants any funny ideas about getting rust fungus themselves. I felt terrible isolating the plant because I have some secret worry that the plant’s feelings are probably hurt being cast aside like that. Do I hear it crying outside right now, as I type? The horror.

The problem, though, is if this spreads, I’m going to have a big issue on my hands. I will single handedly cause a copper shortage in the world having to buy enough copper fungicide to treat all the plants here if it spreads. World economies will crumble. Allison’s Jungle Garden will face significant setbacks. It will be bad because we all want to ride the Jungle Cruise! It’s no fun Fungus bad. So I settle for some hurt plant feelings, some fungicide, some pruning, and lots of plant-focused prayer. I don’t know about you, but this somehow seems worse than the spider mites I had on a plumeria. Send us anti-fungal thoughts and well wishes.

In other news at Chez Allison, I have decided to go on an aggressive “use my old postcards” campaign. You want a photo of a tiger from the time I went to the San Diego Zoo in 2001? Someone is getting that this week whether they want it or not. You want 75 postcards from my Everglades trip from several years ago? People are experiencing my Everglades trip again, for the first time, since I clearly never sent those postcards I bought when I was there. Big Sur? Got you covered. Snarky bird postcards? check. Gandhi? There’s a card for him. A photo of a vial claiming to contain the blood of Christ kept in a church in Brugge? Someone got that card. Do not doubt the breadth of subject matter you might receive, people.

It’s luck of the draw and vibes determining which cards I send on a given day and who gets a card. Maybe a card makes me think of you? Today I picked the turtle to send to my Aunt Mollie and Uncle Jay because they are moving to a house with a lake that might have turtles. Other times it’s just random. I see a card and see your name on my mailing list and now you’re the person getting a gorilla card from the Omaha Zoo I visited some time in the 2000’s. It was a fantastic zoo, for the record. You’re welcome.

If you want to be on the mailing list and you don’t normally get mail from me, email me your mailing address. I’ll put you in the rotation. Let’s just agree you’ll keep your expectations low. It’s a postcard, after all. Not a novella.

I will say that a couple of people got a full on card this week for various birthday or life-event reasons, so you could get a good prize from time to time in the form of an actual card. That just won’t be the norm. Also, I love receiving mail! You can see some of the cards I have received lately in the last two photos above. Thanks for the cards and letters!

I have had a few other fun adventures this last week. I went with some friends on a random Thursday evening to see fireflies at the Tumacacori Mission. Let me tell you, it was fun because you’re outside in the dark with friends and a few fireflies, but it sounds way more exciting in writing than in person. Also, there’s a high probability of chiggers and mosquitos to add a little spice to the evening.

I also had a dinner party at my house. Everyone brought food, so it was super easy. I don’t normally have dinner parties because I’m not really set up for dinner parties. There were 8 of us, which is approximately 4 more people that I have plates for, and 8 more people than I have fancy glasses for. My dear friend Kip came through and designed an amazing table-scape with his fancy china, silver, and crystal. We were very posh. He sets a beautiful table, folks. I’ve never typed those words before in my life, but I’m typing them now because it’s true.

I also had fun hanging out with my friends Ben and Abby. In addition to a little Nickel’s Diner for breakfast, we also crafted. Ben shared comments from the comfy rocking chair while Abby made her very own dangly thing out of beads, wire, and a bell. I have been making these for a while now to gift to people. It’s a very meditative process to pick your beads and string them on the wire. This is another area where it’s all about the vibes of the moment. It was fun to have someone make their own and see what they picked and why. You know what they say. “Friends that craft together must be really old friends because you can’t just go crafting with any random person you know.” I’m sure I saw that slogan on a t-shirt or embroidered on a pillow somewhere.

Last but not least I installed a hummingbird feeder that sticks to my window. I can now take terrible bird photos up close and not just from far away. It is pretty cool to be a foot away from a hummingbird, to be able to see all the details up close, and to really watch their behaviors. Have you ever seen a hummingbird drink something right before your eyes? Now you can. Well, now I can. You can’t because you don’t live in my house.

I mostly get Broad-billed Hummingbirds and Black-chinned Hummingbirds at the feeders. If you can’t tell from the photo, it’s because I shouldn’t be allowed to take bird photos on account of them being mostly terrible. We soldier on despite the deplorable photos, folks.

That’s the latest from Fungus Town USA. Do you have any fun plans or adventures to share? Have you gotten a postcard yet? Do you want some plant fungus?

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Apparently a lone Roseate Spoonbill ended up in Amado, Arizona last week. Like any sane person, I left work, changed out of my work pants, grabbed my binoculars, and made my way to find this bird that got so lost that it was in a cow pond in Amado. What I didn’t plan on was monsoon rain and mud.

When I got to the location, it was raining, but I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t sure where the bird was because this pond is not visible from the road. Thankfully, I saw one other car with two nice birders from Tucson and Phoenix also looking to find the Spoonbill. They explained we had to climb a fence, walk through a field, and head up a berm to find the pond. Would the bird still be there when we got there? My luck usually skews to “No way. Not a chance,” so I kept my expectations low.

We waited for a break in the rain, and as soon as I crested the hill, I looked down to this beautiful bird just sifting through the dirt and water, looking for food. Roseate Spoonbills are common in South Florida, South Caroline, and other warm coastal regions that are certainly not Amado, Arizona. I was taking photos and videos of the bird as the heavens opened up with pouring rain.

It was pretty thrilling to see the Spoonbill even as my clothes soaked through with rain. It would be thrilling to see them anywhere, but it was especially special to see one in Arizona. If birds could talk, what would it tell us about how it got to this very unlikely place?

The more I thought about this bird wading around in a temporary pond in the desert, the more sad I got for this bird. Will it find its way home again? Will it reunite with other Spoonbills to live its life in small flocks as it is wont to do? What happened that this bird go so far off course that it came to Arizona all by its lonesome?

In case you’re wondering, the Roseate Spoonbill has moved north towards Tucson by all accounts. I’m not sure where it is, but I hope it will hopscotch its way back to a more suitable location.

Not to be outdone by the rare birds, my local birds say they are special too. I saw a Vermillion Flycatcher and a young Northern Cardinal hanging out in the same tree a few days ago. They are both lovely red birds that are always fun to watch. The Vermillion Flycatcher is one of the first birds I learned to identify in Arizona.

I also saw a beautiful Hooded Oriole hanging out on a branch at my friend Morris’s house. When they aren’t hiding, I usually see them trying to raid my hummingbird feeders despite the fact that I have an Oriole feeder in the yard for them. Last in the photos below is a Northern Flicker, a type of woodpecker that has really cool feathers and markings.

I saw the Northern Flicker from the deck of a rental cabin in Flagstaff, Arizona. I went up there with my friends Joanna, Dan, and Morris, so we could get out of the Tubac heat for a couple of days. We also made a pilgrimage to the Grand Canyon, which I hadn’t seen in over 20 years when I went with my friend Michelle in an old Dodge Shadow with no seek button or tape deck on the radio.

Before that, I had been there camping with my friend Oldie 20+ years ago when she was living in Las Vegas. My brother Jerome and I also went there when I moved to Arizona from Virginia 27 years ago in that same Dodge Shadow that was stuffed full of all my worldly possessions.

Have you been to the Grand Canyon? It’s worth a visit. Truly. The Grand Canyon is good to visit in all kinds of seasons of life, and each visit is a little different. Photos don’t do it justice, but goodness knows I took a bunch of photos anyway. You think you understand the scale of how huge it is, and then you keep staring into this giant hole and notice another layer down, and another, and another. It really is exceedingly incomprehensible and awe inspiring and slightly terrifying all at the same time.

It was a lot of fun going back there with my friends. We laughed and sang along to Yacht Rock and generally had a good time together.

I have one rule at the Grand Canyon. Don’t touch me or stand near me on the edge of the Canyon, because I have an irrational fear that you’ll push me to my death…accidentally, most likely, but still, a push is a push, thank you very much, and I don’t want to die falling into the Grand Canyon because what if I’m not dead yet on the first bounce and then I keep falling and bouncing and falling until finally I die a painful, crumpled mess at the bottom? Just keep your distance, and we will be fine.

Really, though, the Grand Canyon is amazing. You should see it at least once in your life.

That’s the update this time around, folks. I’m wrapping up a trip to Indianapolis for work tomorrow and heading home for a month. A whole glorious month. If you need me, I’ll be swimming, driving the Javelina to and from the pool, sending postcards, birding, and painting water.

On a weird note, I sent this Roseate Spoonbill postcard you see above to some friends on August 7, and I SAW the actual Roseate Spoonbill a week later. I’m not saying I manifested the Spoonbill, but I’m not saying I didn’t manifest it either. Next, I’m going to try mailing postcards of big bags of money, cute cottages on the coast of Ireland, and other things I want to manifest in my life to see if I can summon those things like I did the Spoonbill. You never know what the world has in store!

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These are some recent watery attempts. The first two paintings are from this week, the start of my intensive water practice. The others are from weeks past. Meh. In the new paintings, I am trying a new technique that I don’t quite have the hang of yet. I think if I try a few more goes, I’ll feel better about it. Then I’ll move on to painting crashing waves and jagged rocks on a big, Pacific moody coastline.

Before we know it, I’ll start selling art and cards on the Pacific coast, become a quasi-famous artist with a cult following, and have to move there to be closer to my watery inspiration. You’ll find me most mornings walking the coastline, collecting bric-a-brac that decorates my small cottage overlooking the ocean, and befriending local birds along my wanderings.

One afternoon it will all become so sickeningly magical that everywhere I go, people break out into song and choreographed dances as the world erupts into my own real-life musical. I can’t help the trajecotry, folks. You can’t stop the musical-ification of life. Brush up on your singing and dance moves, because when you come to visit me, you’ll be in the musical too. Act 3, Scene7: “Friends Come to Visit”.

I digress.

In addition to painting water, I have been swimming my laps and enjoying life back in water. Lord knows I pay enough for that pool membership, so I better get my backside in that water and enjoy every second I can. Work? No time. Have to swim. Sleep? Who has time to sleep when I should be maximizing my pool cost per minute ratio.

I think those are my watery updates. In other news, I saw a new-to-me hummingbird in Madera Canyon last weekend. The Rivoli’s Hummingbird is a gigantic hummingbird compared to other hummingbirds. Thankfully, someone with more hummingbird knowledge than myself knew to look for it and point it out at the Santa Rita Lodge feeders. Here it is in all its giant hummingbird glory.

What? You expected good photos? I’m sorry, but you know that’s not why you read this substack. In addition to the new hummingbird, I have had visits from some of my old friends, including the Gila Woodpecker, the female Hooded Oriole, the Broad-Billed Hummingbird, the Mexican Jay, and the Cooper’s Hawk. You can also see some of the really fun monsoon skies we have had lately. We had a really good storm the other night, the kind of storm where we talk about it with each other and say, “wow…did you hear that really good storm last night?”. I’m hoping for several more rainy afternoons/evenings this monsoon season to get back to normal on our water here.

I am thankful tomorrow is Sunday, which means I have a whole other day to enjoying being at home. Yay for home. I have fun projects I want to do, laundry that needs doing, and other homebody things I have on the list.

If you need me the rest of this summer and into fall, here are some of the travel things I have to do between now and Thanksgiving for work and personal adventures: Indianapolis, Portland, Maine, and Calgary, Canada for work conferences; Las Cruces, New Mexico and Phoenix for weekend friend adventures; Tazewell, Virginia; Charlottesville, Virginia for a wedding; Madison, Wisconsin for Halloween; and Bonaire for snorkeling, birding, and watching someone wind-surf (because let’s be honest, I am not coordinated enough for wind-surfing). Who is packing all of these suitcases!?

In between, I’ll be here in Arizona, watching the birds, swimming the laps, and learning to paint waves. Any fun things on your schedules?

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I was recently reading the book, “Why We Swim,” and I was reminded how much I love swimming. That book was really inspiring and made me want to swim in the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t do it this last trip, but I want to get back into swim condition and do an open water swim there with a local Bay Area swim club I read about in the book. I also want to be in great swim condition when I go to Bonaire in November to snorkel and night snorkel with the bioluminescent plankton. You gotta be in good swim condition to snorkel at night and be able to escape the mysterious sea creatures waiting in the darkness.

I also started following Catherine Breed, the woman swimming the entire coast of California. Watching her videos and updates, I am reminded again how much I love swimming. I might not love swimming 9 miles a day, each and every single day, but I do love swimming.

After all that time in Monterey and Shelter Cove, watching the waves and thinking about the ocean, I am again and again reminded how much I love swimming.

Sometimes the universe hits you over the head with something. It has hit me over the head to remind to swim, and I am ready to start up again. Granted, pool swimming is not nearly as nice as ocean or lake swimming, but I don’t have an ocean or a lake 5 minutes away. I swim in the body of water I have, not the one I might want.

Are you swimmers? Have you ever experienced the way your mind calms down while swimming? There’s something transformative in the steady counting during a swim, the repeated “1, 2, breathe. 1, 2, breathe” going through my head and the way my mind starts to wander while simply focusing just on the swim at hand.

It was a nice, chill Day 1, easing back into the practice of swimming with 500 slow yards before heading to work. I have been so busy lately working, traveling, and doing all the things and and seeing all the people that the swim will be my quiet meditation time. This morning’s first swim back is also dedicated to my friend and amazing swim coach, Tom Manzi, may he rest in peace. I always think of Tom when I think of swimming, and I missed his encouraging presence at the pool today.

In other, “Why on earth am I doing this” news, I relocated the body of a dead possum from the middle of the road. As I was driving to work today, I saw a Turkey Vulture in the middle of the road eating the dead possum. You can see Mr. Vulture and his Turkey Vulture friend on the power lines in the photo below. Before you freak out, I did not include a photo of the dead possum.

When I drove up on the scene, it took some doing to get the Vulture to move out of the middle of this busy road. It looked at my car like, “Hold on a minute. I’m trying to dislodge this bit of intestine”, so I decided to move the possum from the middle of the road to the shoulder. That way I could help keep the Vulture from getting run over by someone driving too fast down the Frontage Road and the Vulture could continue to dine on the delicious dead possum. In order to complete this mission, I drove home to grab a box of nitrile gloves. I debated getting a shovel, but I didn’t want to scoop up the body, get possum guts on my shovel, and then have to put possum-gut-shovel back in my 4-runner. Gloves were the best solution. Double gloves, even.

Have you ever drug a dead possum carcass out of the road? I don’t recommend it, unless you’re trying to save a Turkey Vulture. The smell, the flies, the gore, the guts…it’s all there for your enjoyment. I grabbed it by the tip of the tail and moved it to somewhere safer for casual dining.

I remember reading years ago that scientists proved when you smell a smell, what is really happening is that bits of whatever you are smelling are going into your nose. Smelling cookies? Somehow, microscopic cookie essence is going into your nose. Smelling beautiful flowers? Here’s some flower bits up your nose. Smelling dead possum? Yeah, I don’t want to think about it. Unfortunately, I’m thinking about it.

Anyhoo, I am hopeful my good deed helped keep birds from getting killed on the road today. I actually come by my roadkill skills by way of one of my uncles. Many, many years ago, a Turkey Vulture with a broken wing moved into a fallen tree at my grandmother’s house. It couldn’t fly, so it would hop up the length of this fallen tree to roost. With no nearby animal rehabber and not wanting the Vulture to starve, my grandmother and uncle tried feeding it hotdogs, ground beef, and various other regular household meat items. But a Vulture wants what a vulture wants, and the household meats weren’t doing it. That’s when my uncle decided he would gather up the dead possums, groundhogs, raccoons, and whatever else he found on the side of the road and bring them to the Vulture.

No, your eyes weren’t deceiving you all those years ago. Yes, that was my uncle shoveling rotting roadkill bodies into his truck so he could bring them home to feed to Buzz. Yes, the Turkey Vulture got the name, Buzz. Despite the fact that they named him, my grandmother and uncle didn’t keep Buzz. He wasn’t a pet or anything. He was free to come and go as he pleased, a completely wild bird, but for a while my uncle spent his afternoons trying to find roadkill at the perfect level of rotten freshness for Buzz. He said Buzz wouldn’t eat just any roadkill. (That’s not a sentence you get to type every single day, is it? “Buzz wouldn’t eat just any roadkill.”) It had to be at peak deliciousness for a Vulture to want to eat it. If you ever need to know what that perfect level of doneness might be for roadkill, you can ask my uncle.

Eventually Buzz disappeared. I like to imagine his wing healed from all those hearty meals my uncle provided, but I think Buzz, like all living creates, took one last flight into the Great Beyond and left us with these magical stories to tell about a doting uncle and a beautiful, broken Vulture.

As I close this little note to you all, I want to send a shoutout to Uncle Jay and Aunt Mollie for mailing me some of the horseradish root that has been growing in my grandparents’ yard for decades. I planted it, and in days the leaves have grown like crazy. Now I’ll be able to harvest my own horseradish and fondly remember being at my grandparents’ house.

That’s all from Arizona for today. What exciting adventures have you been getting into?

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I am currently sitting in the San Francisco Airport because my flight is very delayed to Tucson. Some older gentleman just sat next to me and proceeded to loudly slurp noodles, blow his nose, and listen to questionable videos on YouTube between sending Talk to Text messages to someone he loves very much and who he hopes to see again soon. Ocean mode is officially over. We are now in “annoying people in the airport” mode.

SLUUURRRRRPPPPPPP, CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP, SLUUUPRRRRPPPP. Each slurp kills a small part of my soul. Friend slurping? Not a problem. Stranger slurping? Problem. Soul-crushing problem. Do you think he knows I am talking about him here or that the reason I sigh and say, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” is because he just double slurped then picked his nose and teeth? Do you think he thinks he is invisible and no one sees or hears him?

Nothing says, “Write a little update on your fun trip to the California coast” like weird Slurpy Sluperstein over here going to town on airport ramen, so here we go.

Let me just say I had the best time in California. I even had the best time during the work parts of being in California because are you really working when you can see the ocean and wake up to gulls cackling and making gull noises?

There were sunny days, foggy days, warm days, cool days, misty days, no blazing hot days, moody weather days, contemplative days, nap days, meet new people days. Basically, what I’m telling you is that the Universe conspired to unroll a red carpet of all the good days while I was there. I even got sunburned playing pickleball, and that was still a great day. How many of you played pickleball this week while looking out at the Pacific Ocean? I did, and let me tell you I always want to be playing pickleball looking out at the ocean.

Here’s a lineup of all the birds for those of you following along on the bird sightings. I also saw a Heeermann’s Gull, Cormorants, and a Black Phoebe which aren’t pictured below. I only saw the Bald Eagle because a nice surfer walking with me on the beach was kind enough to point it out. Snaps to you, Surfer from Fort Bragg, CA. Thanks!

Several of these birds were first time sightings, like the Black Oystercatcher. Also, I’m sure in all the thousands of gulls I took photos and videos of that there are gulls I don’t know how to differentiate. My gull identification leaves much to be desired.

While we were in Shelter Cove we also saw Catherine Breed swimming by Shelter Cove on her mission to swim the entire California coastline to raise awareness about ocean conservation. You can follow along for her entire swim. Her next stop is Noyo Harbor, California.

We didn’t actually meet Catherine despite some light stalking attempts at finding her in town, but we saw the chase boat that travels beside her, and we saw the crew van. So we were definitely Catherine Breed adjacent.

Honestly, could you image swimming in 50ish degree water for 6 to 9 miles every single day to swim the entire coast of California? It’s the kind of great adventure that is inspiring. It calls to that place in you that wants to do really scary, exciting things.

I have been meditating on doing the scary, new, exciting thing for a while now. I’ll write more on that in the next installment, but for now I have to board my plane to Tucson!

What has been inspiring you lately?

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Let’s get started with a song, shall we? Sound up! And look at those glowing red feathers, would you?! (This was filmed a few days ago in Tumacacori, Arizona. )

July is a difficult month in Arizona. It’s humid, it’s very hot, and everyone is sitting around praying for the monsoon rains to start. Well, my friends, prayers were answered this weekend when we finally started getting some serious rain, Hallelujah, Amen.

I took this video on Friday night as I was driving my side by side, the Javelina Maria, back to my house. I was trying to beat the rain home, because a raging thunderstorm in an open-air vehicle didn’t sound like my best plan in life. That big column of rain on the right was just about over top of my house.

Last night we had two storms. It was desert decadence. The next ten days actually look really fantastic in Arizona, which tracks since that’s the week I’m in Monterey, missing the height of monsoon amazingness and missing the best Arizona July temperatures since they started tracking temperatures or even knew what a temperature was. “Isn’t this great, Allison. Oh…you’re missing it all? Well, too bad, so sad.”

In case this little Substack post hasn’t clued you in, we do spend a lot of time talking about the weather in Arizona. It’s the volatile relationship we all seem to find ourselves in. We all sit around commiserating, “Can you BELIEVE what the weather did to me this week? I mean, what does a girl have to do to be treated better than 105 degrees with wind and blowing dust storms? Rude.”

Despite the fact I’m missing such great weather back home, I’m glad to be in Monterey, where the temps hover in the upper 60’s, there’s an ocean out my front door and down the street a bit, and I can hear the sound of waves and seagulls.

Before we get carried away with Monterey, though, I’ll give you the AZ news. Things have been busy in my little Slice of Heaven, Arizona. You are officially hearing it here first that I have a new desk. I know. It’s exciting. A new-to-me, stand up, corner desk I got from my good friend Bruce out of the Woolworth’s Building in Nogales and that I moved with the help of my good friend Morris. I’ll be hosting home tours soon to show it off.

It’s a work in progress, but I will have all my art supplies out and visible, with a large work space to spread out when getting myself into shenanigans and projects. Moving from my previous storage spot, reorganizing, down sizing, and deciding where I want everything has been a process.

Change is not always easy for me. I’m not saying I said the words, “Oh my gawd, I can’t even with a new desk. What was I thinking? How can anyone handle this level of chaos?,” but I might have said that. I might have also said some other things I am not going to repeat here. I’m not proud of it. Thankfully, a wise friend talked me down from the ledge. Now things are shaping up, and I’m very excited about this new addition to the furniture family.

I also had to add some plants to the desk because I might have “rescued” a few too many plants from the Lowes and Home Depot clearance racks recently, necessitating a expansion of the original footprint of Allison’s Jungle Cruise. On a positive note, I did learn that I love Bromeliads. It is yet to be determined if Bromeliads love me back. We shall see.

Can you find the cute little penguin my friend Jennifer welded amidst all the plants? It’s there. Keep looking.

The fact that I am foolishly trying to grow a tropical tree in my house means I now own plant growing lights. When you get accessories for your plants, it’s a problem. Trust me, the woman who is experiencing this ridiculousness so you don’t have to. We shall see if I manage to wake up the Plumeria trees that went dormant in my house. It was either grow lights or putting them outside, but they would surely perish a hot, miserable death if I tried to put them in the Arizona sunshine.

With all the new plants, the grow lights, and my aggressive misting schedule to keep everyone humid and happy, I estimate you can start booking your Allison’s Jungle Cruise vacations starting in July of 2027. Check our website for details. Act fast. There’s limited availability. No discounts or refunds.

In keeping with the name of this Substack where we find ourselves, I’ll give you a little bird update from the backyard birds. This will be my last backyard bird update for a while because I found a House Finch with the Avian Pox this past week. The feeders had to come down, they will all be sanitized, and I won’t be putting out seeds for a couple of months. It will only be Birds in the Wild for a while, so the photos are guaranteed to be even more terrible than my normally terrible photos. All I can tell you is you get what you pay for.

This last backyard bird hoorah has been a doozy, though. I got to witness, firsthand, a Black-Throated Sparrow raising a baby Brown-Headed Cowbird. Cowbirds are a parasitic bird, meaning they lay their eggs in the nest of other birds so that other birds do all the hard work of hatching and feeding baby Cowbirds. The babies grow bigger and faster than the babies of the actual bird parents raising it, so those babies often die, leaving the baby Cowbird as King of the Castle being raised by some random bird couple that’s probably thinking, “Damn. This baby is going to eat us out of nest and home.” You can see below the baby Cowbird is actually larger than the adult Sparrow feeding it. Cray. Zee.

This is the kind of footage you aren’t going to get from the Nature Channel, folks. Behind the scenes, wild kingdom stuff. (don’t mind the sound of my British crime drama in the background of this video)

I have heard tell that if you try to remove a Cowbird egg from a nest, the Cowbird parents have been known to destroy the remaining eggs in the nest out of some Cowbird revenge situation. That’s right. Cowbird revenge. Let that sink in.

You might also be wondering, “How do we not see Cowbirds hanging out with the species of whatever bird raised it? Why aren’t there random Cowbirds mating with Black-Throated Sparrows?” for example. If you aren’t wondering that, you should have been! And I’ll tell you the insane reason we don’t see that. Because the Cowbird Parents have some sort of secret Cowbird call that they deploy after the baby is all raised and fledged and fed. That call does something to the baby Cowbird brain to switch on its innate Cowbirdness. Imagine just hearing a song, and you all of a sudden remember, “I’m actually a plumber from Brooklyn, and all this time I thought I was an art teacher from Des Moines.” That’s basically what happens to Cowbirds. Nature is coo coo bananas.

Aside from the Cowbird drama, I have had two kinds of orioles at my house, both the Hooden Oriole and the Bullock’s Oriole. I know. Amazing, right? We can’t all have two kinds of orioles.

You think the orioles are cool? Wait til you see the Blue Grosbeaks, the Varied Buntings, Lucy’s Warblers, Cardinals, the Verdin, the Cooper’s Hawk, and the Broad-Billed Hummingbird! It has been a good birding summer at Chez Allison.

The beautiful Varied Bunting. From a distance they look black. Once you see them up close, they are blue, purple, red, and black. So pretty.

I’ll close on a couple of good books I have read recently. One is a fun mystery with dogs in it called Social Animals. If you want to read it, send me a message, and I’ll mail it to you. The other is a non-fiction book, Why We Swim, that, surprise, surprise, talks about swimming. But it also talks about the human relationship with water, swimming, and life. I’m halfway though the swimming book, and it is really amazing. It gives me adventure ideas and makes me want to be brave and swim in the shark infested waters off Monterey Bay. (infested might be overselling the amount of sharks in the bay, but you catch my drift).

I hope to share more Shore Bird updates from my Monterey trip soon. I have also been doing some easy, low-key sketchbook paintings lately to get back in the watercolor groove. So, hopefully I share more painting projects that are a bit more involved in the coming weeks. Now that I survived transitioning to that new desk, I should be painting up a storm.

What are you doing this summer? Any fun projects you’re working on? Adventures you are planning? Birds you have seen? Books you have read and loved? I always love an email or a comment.

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That brings us to the end, friends. Pardon the typos and such. It’s late, I’m tired, and we soldier on despite the typos I don’t catch. Das Vadanya and good night. Have a great week.

What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a weekend where Allison does whatever she feels like doing in the comfort of her own company, sleeping in her own bed, making cinnamon toast for breakfast, showering haphazardly, and doing whatever it is I feel like doing when I feel like doing it in complete and total silence, unless I’m playing Allison’s Dance Jams and dancing around the house with careless abandon with maximum volume on the speaker. Dance jams is the only non-silent activity. That is “Allison’s Great Alone Time Weekend Extravaganza.” What does your indulgent recuperation weekend look like?

This is what I looked like alllllll weekend….like a kid chilling in her beanbag, not a care in the world, just drawing stuff, or dancing around the house.

My recovery weekend was after I was in Washington, DC for a week, Tazewell for almost two weeks, Charlottesville for several days, and Poquoson, Virginia for a couple of days as well. I finished off my trip with another several days in DC before flying home late last Wednesday. I loved seeing so many family members and friends, and at the end, I was just plain tired (pronounced taurd), plum tuckered out, pert near exhausted.

The birds have been amazing. Never doubt the amazingness of the birds. Here are a few good ones I have seen, including a couple that were in my yard today.

Row 1: Of course I saw umpteen million Robins when I was in Virginia, but guess what? They are still cool. This one pictured below has a worm. Extra cool. Another really amazing experience was seeing the Black Headed Vultures at my Grandmother’s house. They have a nest above the carriage house, and there are baby vultures up there that I really wanted to go up and see but didn’t on account of the vultures hissing at people that came close. So….yeah. No baby vultures.

Row 2: In the middle row we have two Varied Buntings and a Blue Grosbeak, both beautiful birds I have in my Arizona backyard. This is also further photographic evidence of the fact that I am not a photographer. I’m a documenter. I take the photo to remember what I saw. I do not take award winning bird photos for people to say, “Oh, would you look at that amazing photo!” Clearly.

Row 3: We have a Northern Mockingbird in Virginia. They are a versatile bird. They make all the noises and then some. There’s also a White Winged Dove, pictured in my AZ yard to show you what the most annoying backyard bird looks like. These doves are incredible bullies, feeder hogs, and just weird. Also, when I see them, I immediately start singing, “Just like a white winged dove, sings a song sounds like she’s singing” from the Fleetwood Mac musical library. I don’t even know if those are the words. I just sing it over and over. Last, but not least we have the Gila Woodpecker. They are a bit screamy, so you always know when they are around.

While in Virginia, several family members and I spent time going through personal letters and photos at my grandmother’s house.

We found tons and tons of letters, photos, memories, family legends, and more. We saw countless letters from my great grandmother, her husband, and her siblings writing each other. My great grandmother, Granny Harman and her husband Litz affectionately called each other Jake and Peachie. She was Jake, and he was Peachie. We don’t know anyone alive still that can tell us why.

There were WW2 letters from my great uncle (my grandmother’s brother) and all his friends that were being called to war. I kept seeing these letters from a guy nicknamed Runt. He was funny and wrote often. After digging through papers for a while, I found the notice clipped out of the newspaper where he had been killed at war.

We found love letters from my great great grandmother, Granny Whitley, to her boyfriend, soon to be first husband. I also found these photos of Granny Whitley at the A.R. Beavers Dairy that she owned with her first husband.

I found photos of my grandmother as a little girl in the 1930’s and early 40’s.

When my grandparents built the log cabin behind their house, my grandmother mounted the head of a buffalo that her brother, Litz Junior, stuffed when he was 21 back in 1942. All we knew was her brother stuffed it. Little did we know it was a big to do back in the day. You can see the original photo from when he stuffed it. Even his friends knew about it. His friend Runt wrote a postcard from training camp: “Hello June (short for Junior): How is the buffalo.” Years later Charles Hankins wrote an article about it in the newspaper which provided more info that we had ever known about it before. My grandmother’s brother died of leukemia two years after the buffalo, at the age of 23.

I enjoyed a few last days with family sitting on the porch at my grandmother’s house, looking out at the view. Ruby the dog and I liked watching the deer and the birds. Uncle Jay and Aunt Mollie played great music. Uncle George hit golf balls. My nephew Aiden got to experience the joys of getting lost in your own world in my grandmother’s house. My brother Jeff and sister-in-law dug through the old barn to save an old, unused barn door. Aunt Marty, Uncle Wade, and Cousin Wade were there to share great stories and go through photos and old letters too.

It was big doings at the old homestead, and I’m glad I got to make another trip home. Now it’s late on this Sunday, and I have an early start tomorrow. Pardon the typos and nostalgia. Now I have to go find out what weird animal is making noise outside my window before I can go to sleep. Have a great week, everyone.

If you don’t get reminders about this randomly updated Substack, you can subscribe below, and it will just show up in your email the next time I have an update. Voila!

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I accidentally stumbled on this hotel more than 10 years ago, and I swore that if I had to go back to Toronto, I would stay here again. It’s even more delightful than I remembered. They even have a women’t spa, a pool, and other amenities which I haven’t used because work gets in the way. I’m sure all those things are nice, but really it’s about the bed of destiny.

We will pause here for a second while you go and book your next vacation to stay at the Ivy at Verity. I’ll wait. Go ahead. No sense in dawdling. (Pro tip: I booked through Expedia and got a screaming deal, but even if you’re paying whatever full price is, please just do this one things for your eternal happiness.)

Are you all booked? Great. You can thank me after you enjoy your heated floors when you step out of your fancy shower or after soaking in the giant tub with hand made bath salts. I look forward to stories of how you had a nice time on your lovely balcony eating your gourmet pastries, fruit, coffee, and yogurt for breakfast You could have had tea instead. This place is so nice they ask you what you prefer when you check in. Then they just keep delivering it to your room each day, like Continental Breakfast Angels of Mercy.

I’ll ask you how dinner was, and you’ll say, “It was so nice having a Michelin star dinner in the cozy speak easy that is 10 steps away from my front door.” That’s right. Your very own secret bar with delicious food.

Call me after your first full night’s sleep on your Hästens mattress, a bed so comfortable that sightseeing in Toronto won’t be necessary because you’ll be staying in bed all the livelong day. Were you so relaxed that even your dreams said you should just stay here forever?

I loved this bed the first time I stayed here, even having no idea that it was some special kind of bed. I found out after I got back home and emailed the property to ask about their mattresses. I was thinking once they told me the brand, I could pick one up at the mattress shack down the street from my house. Turns out mattress shack can’t help you now.

Here is a hard truth. If you have to ask how much the Hästens mattress costs, you probably can’t afford it. Trust me on this because I had to ask. My friend Cassie said, “It looks like a cloud, and you can’t put a price on your own sleeping cloud. That’s priceless.” So true. There aren’t enough zeros to convey the value of my personal sleeping cloud.

My mattress at home sleeps like a pile of sticks and moss with some pine boughs thrown in for good measure in comparison to this Hästens mattress. Third party experts can confirm that my mattress at home is a very comfy mattress. But they have never slept on the cloud of happiness and joy from whence I write to you today, so what do they even know anyway?

The only drawback of this whole trip is I am technically here working which puts a real damper on my ability to stay in bed every moment of the day. What do you mean I have to go to a trade show and a reception? Being out and about from 8 or 9 am until 10 or 11 pm really does cut down on the total hours of bed enjoyment. Granted I did have a fun dinner with a friend, but I had to stop and think about it for a minute. Fun dinner or feign sickness and stay here in bed? The sacrifices I make. haha.

This is my last morning of bedded bliss. Tonight I am going back to Arizona via a short weekend in Virginia. I do not exaggerate when I say that in the guest room where I sleep in Virginia, I will be faced with the most uncomfortable mattress of all mattress. It’s like someone encased all the world’s sorrows into the skin of slain unicorns and covered it with steel sheets, and then you try to sleep. I am literally going from the happiest mattress in all of the land to the sad mattress of misery and woe. How the mighty will fall.

On another note, since I arrived in Canada, I have been singing Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” over and over. The really fun part is I only sing one small part of the song where she says, “I drew a map of Canada, Oh Canada/ with your face sketched on it twice.” It just lives there in the jukebox of my mind, playing and playing and playing. You should really go listen to the whole song. I am partial to the live version on her Miles of Aisles album.

I also find my self wanting to speak French, but it turns out a 1,200 day streak on Duolingo studying French does not equal being able to speak French in Canada or really anywhere else for that matter. At least I’m not singing the Canadian National Anthem where I only know the words, “Oh Canada.” (uh oh. now that I mention it, I am just singing “Oh Canada” in my mind over and over.)

During a small break in my work day, I spent an hour in the Toronto Aquarium. It was a nice little mental reset and a good aquarium. It’s still not better than spending that time in the magical bed, but if you’re already out in the world because of work, and you have a bit of time, you should stop in.

Beds, hotels, and breakfast croissants. That’s all the fun from Canada that’s fit to print. What amazing things will you do this weekend?

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Half of me is super looking forward to it because I like my Canadian produce friends and because of the little hotel I’m staying in. The other half of me wants to stay home because the birds are pretty amazing right now. (Just for the record, that’s a sentence I could say just about any week of the year, and it would be true.)

Here’s a small preview of the bird haps from the last couple of weeks. I have had so many Lazuli Buntings in my backyard every single day that when I went to submit them on my EBird checklist today, the EBird Police made me verify it with photo documentation because those numbers were ridiculous. Eat your hearts out, EBird Police! I did have 25 Lazuli Buntings in my yard this morning. Also, the Nightjars at the end of this video….I just want to say that I really want to get out of my car at night and just go and hold one of them to get a really good look. Nightjars are a fascinating looking bird, and to see one up close would be amazing.

I have also been having a moment with the Black-Throated Sparrows. They have been coming to my feeders, which they NEVER do, and I see them out in the world on the regular. Here are my latest friendly Black-Throated Sparrow friends. They have one of the loveliest songs as you can hear in my video. Three cheers for the Black-Throated Sparrow.

They look sort of similar to a Five-striped Sparrow which I have never seen and which I need to go on a special car ride to find at a secret place close to me. That might be my Sunday shenanigan. Maybe I take The Javelina!!!!

I am happy to report that I have been going on more walks lately. That is something I used to do every single day, twice a day when I had Taz. I am making the time and pushing myself to do it more regularly because it is the best meditation ever. I walk, look at birds, stare at the world, wave at people, and generally just relax out in the wilds of Tubac.

I’ll leave you with one last study of the Lazuli Buntings. They probably won’t be here for much longer on account of that whole migration thing happening right now. It has been a real treat having so many of them to watch and enjoy these last several weeks.

I don’t know why I love these birds so much. I think it’s the blue and buff colored combination. Plus, each bird has a slightly different blue intensity. I could watch them all day long, to be honest.

The giant lizards that live in my yard wanted me to remind you that they are also pretty darn cool. And gigantic. And terrifying. But mostly cool.

And last, but certainly not least, the plants are doing well, thanks for asking. All the green things are still green and growing larger each day. I also have three things flowering at the moment. The Plumeria Tree (yes. I have a giant tree in my house. Don’t judge). The Hibiscus. The Anthurium.

My Bird of Paradise is on a hiatus/quarantine outside at the moment. We had some sort of millipede eruption. There were millipedes everywhere, which is some special kind of hell that we never dreamed of. Drastic measures were called for. Also, diatomaceous earth was called for. Lots of it. I might do a total repotting of the Bird of Paradise just to make sure I don’t bring the millipedes or centipedes or whatever these creatures are back into my house.

That’s the update from here, gang. The birds are birding. The plants are planting. The lizards are lizarding. The human is sleepy and is ready for bed. Stay tuned for updates from Canada and my most favorite mattress in all of human existence.

Here’s my current view, just to show you I’m home. My table is a reflection of my current state of mind, best described as: I want to make ALL the creative things while burning candles, talking to plants, writing letters, and watching the birds. How is that not a full-time job with an executive pay package and full benefits? Rude, Universe. Rude.

If I’m not exciting enough to draw a crowd, the Lazuli Buntings are also in town. They are definitely crowd-worthy. It’s migration time, so all the birds are flying all the places, and all the birders are losing their minds.

Speaking of birds, I just recently started feeding the birds again after a long hiatus. My brain says it’s time to get back into my regular Bird TV programming, watching everyone out the back window of my house. Here are some of my recent visitors. In addition to the Lazulis, the American Goldfinch isn’t super common here, either. Don’t give people my address, because I definitely don’t want to wake up and find myself on the local birder tour.

In other fun news, I was in Sedona recently with some good friends. Two of them, Laura and Cassie, I have known since my dog rescue/Neapolitan Mastiff days. My friend Morris was a fun addition to the weekend and kept me laughing on the long drive to and from Sedona.

We went to have a friends’ getaway and to take an old dog friend to play in Oak Creek. I also had a fun side quest to see some very dear friends/neighbors who I haven’t seen in several months. (Thanks for the great company and all the good snacks on our quick stopover, Dory and Dana!)

Even though we went during an early heat wave, the weather in Oak Creek Canyon was pretty great. It was also less crowded than the rest of Sedona, which was chocked full of kookoo coconuts wearing nothing but halter tops and sunburns. I slept in a tent on our porch, listening to the sound of the river all night. I am happy to report that I never woke up to a raccoon staring at me through the netting, which I envisioned happening. Celebrate the small wins, people! Sleeping outside, listening to water is a huge treat for someone living in the desert! The absence of weird animals crawling into my tent was an added bonus.

We went on a beautiful longer hike along Oak Creek and some shorter walks in the forest near Flagstaff while we were there. Being in so many trees, with so much water, was really magical. Our 5 mile hike was my friend Laura’s first hike ever in all of her life. How many people can say they were on someone’s first hike ever? We had around 10 different river crossings on that one, which added a fun element of “will I fall, get soaked, and break something?” I was very glad I had on my waterproof shoes because relying on my ability to hopscotch across rocks and logs was not gonna go well without waterproof shoes.

That’s about all the fun I think people can handle in one Little Bird update. Now I’m off to play pickleball, help some friends with their television programming, wash the car, finish laundry, grocery shop, get a massage, and repot some plants, not all in that order. It’s big doings over here for Good Friday.

I also have a new friend that I’m calling “The Javelina Maria” or “The Javelina” for short. She comes to my house courtesy of a great friend who delivered her recently. Stay tuned for future, “I went out in the Javelina and got more than I bargained for” updates. I’m super excited about future shenanigans!

Enjoy your weekend, everyone. Hoppy Easter. What are your fun plans?

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Then I was in an alternate universe known as “Planning and Hosting a Work Convention” which burned up 99% of all my brain capacity through January. If we talked in January and it wasn’t about the convention, I’m so sorry. I have no recollection of it.

After emerging from the convention zone, I spent two weeks in Hawaii and took a whirlwind trip to Charleston, SC. Now I’m here with you all, sitting at my table at 4:00 am because apparently a gal can’t get any extra sleep around these parts anymore.

Where do you begin when there are so many things to recap? Well, we obviously begin with Hawaii, and we obviously have to talk about the birds. Let me tell you what…I have seen some amazing birds lately. I saw 7 new-to-me birds in Hawaii recently. “Wow. 7 new birds?” you might ask. Yes. 7 new birds.

First of all, it’s always a good day when you see a Ne Ne, the state bird of Hawaii. Whenever we were out exploring, I would try to get my regular dose of Ne Ne. I often said, “I haven’t seen my Ne Ne yet today.” Aren’t they pretty? We also said we should just walk up to people and shout, “Show me your Ne Ne!!!!!” Reasonable request, but I think the locals would have been disturbed.

One of the coolest birds we saw in Hawaii was the Laysan Albatross. They were in their nesting season in Kauai, so we got to see thousands of them. Also, there’s not much cuter than a little baby albatrosses. Fun fact, the oldest bird alive right now is a Laysan Albatross. She’s around 74 years old. When they aren’t nesting and raising a baby, these birds spend lots of time flying and can fly hundreds of miles a day just riding the winds. I wanted to pick one up and hug it. Apparently that’s not allowed.

This video is from the Kilauea Lighthouse where you can see thousands of albatrosses nesting on the hillside.

Here are some of the other highlights in bird adventures from the Hawaii trip. The Red-crested Cardinal, Pacific Golden Plover (I think), Common Myna (and boy are they common to see in Hawaii), Erckel’s Spurfowl, Kalij Pheasant, Zebra Dove, Western Cattle Egret, chickens, and a White-rumped Shama. Hawaii gives good bird.

This is the most perfect rooster video you’ll see today. If you come back here tomorrow, this will be the most perfect rooster video you’ll see tomorrow, too. Just look at those glowing golden feathers and that loooong neck stretch for the perfect cockadoodledoo. You’re welcome.

In addition to fun times with friends, beautiful humidity, rainbows, and clouds, Hawaii had amazing plants. In fact, I am patiently waiting for stores to open today so I can go and stock up on a bunch of house plants to turn this place into Allison’s Jungle Garden. Soon I’ll be selling tickets to my gondola ride through the jungle. As soon as my Monstera gets big, the Taro takes off, and all the other green things I’m going to plant effectively transform my house into something amazing, I’ll have lines out the door to join the adventure. You can get in on the ground floor of Allison’s Jungle Garden by becoming a season ticket holder or by volunteering to come and water my plants when I’m traveling. Call me for deets.

(I wish I could grow Giant Bamboo inside. Could I? Oh, so you’re saying I couldn’t, that it’s not done, and I’m crazy to think so? …… Are you sure?)

While I was in Hawaii, my mind was nonstop with all kinds of creative ideas. It was bananas. That was one of the most fun parts of the trip. I have been trying to act on that ever since I’ve been back. There are all kinds of things I want to make, to paint, and to bring into my post-Hawaii life. I just need more time in the day!

And that brings us to the end of our ride on Allison’s Jungle Adventure recap. Sorry I was silent for so long, but I was never very far away. I’m right here. Come on by, sit for a spell, and we can watch the backyard birds. I just started feeding them again. The birds are throwing a party in their excitement over all the food and water.

Happy Saturday. I’ll leave you with a couple of pretty Hawaii photos.

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There’s only one thing to do, and that is embrace it and celebrate the heck out of this Holiday Season. I started this week by delivering some toys for a couple of Angel Tree kids at the Boys & Girls’ Club of Santa Cruz County. It’s a great organization, and there are a lot of kids in need, especially now as the President chooses to tank the economy, make things more expensive with tariffs, and give tax cuts to billionaires, but I digress.

Let me tell you, it was a joy to go and buy toys and clothes for kids who might not have them otherwise. An added bonus is they can’t complain to me about what they got because they don’t know me and I don’t know them and I hope they all like pink.

While enjoying the spirit of giving, I’ve never complained so much about wrapping presents as I did on Sunday getting all my packages in order. You would think I went and martyred myself with all the hemming and hawing about it. “Don’t mind me. I’m just climbing up on this cross after so much gift wrapping.” It’s especially funny since I had three kids, and most of my friends take on 10, 20, 30 kids or more. How on this sweet precious earth are they able to handle that many logistics? Needless to say, I survived the wrapping, and my gifts are delivered.

I also mailed a big box of random things to a third grade class in Georgia as part of a Flat Stanley project. My nephew’s class mailed these Flat Stanley characters to friends or family members in other places. The person receiving the Stanley is supposed to send photos back of Flat Stanley going places, doing things, and learning stuff.

I had some atonement to seek since some friend’s kid sent me a Flat Stanley years ago, and I never returned it. I can’t remember who you were that I bailed on, but I’m sorry.

To make up for it, my Flat Stanley went on all kinds of crazy trips. He was in Morelia, Mexico. From that trip he told the class all about Monarch butterflies and also the Trinational Agricultural Accord between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico (complete with photos of Stanley with several State Agriculture Directors). He even brought them all back cute magnetic Monarch butterflies and a book about this strange and beautiful butterfly.

He went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC and told the kids all about fossils, gems, and dinosaurs. He even took back some pyrite and some fossils to show the class.

While in DC, Flat Stanley also visited the National Portrait Gallery where he loved the Presidential Portrait of President Obama and loathed the angry, snarling portrait of the current guy, but we left that part out of the letter. Stanley knows better than to talk politics with third graders.

Flat Stanley told the class all about Silver City, New Mexico and visiting our cousin Kyle and a Monastery where the monks make coffee. He also saw a bear on that trip and shared a photo of it with the class. I told Stanley not to get too close to that bear, but he just wouldn’t listen and hopped out of the car anyway. (kidding. Only kidding. I actually told Stanley to get as close as he wanted to that bear because Stanley was eating me out of house and home at this point, and it was really time for him to be moving on.)

Stanley loved the Tucson Botanical Garden for the Christmas Lights and brought the class some luminaria bags and tea lights to make their classroom glow. The class got cute cactus-shaped pens to remind Stanley of all the cacti in the desert around Tubac, Arizona. I also gave them a quiz to identify 10 of the most common birds in this area because it is an important birding area. Nothing says, “My aunt is a nerdy lunatic” like sending a third grade class a quiz on birds.

I feel like I’m forgetting some places Stanley went. I mean Flat Stanley was basically here so long I was about to start charging him rent. We saw a lot of the world together. Now he’s gone. Bon voyage, Flat Stanley. Hopefully this Flat Stanley effort made up for my previous Flat Stanley failure. Note to my friends: Do NOT suggest that your kids send me their Flat Stanleys. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

One of the funny things about writing a letter to this third grade class about Flat Stanley’s adventures is how LITTLE I know about talking to third graders and what they might understand. My sister-in-law had mentioned to my nephew early on that Flat Stanley went to a meeting with all these Agriculture Directors, and then she discovered that third graders don’t really know what the word agriculture means.

Thankfully her early mention helped clue me in that I needed to explain some things really well, like agriculture, Monarch butterfly migration, migratory bird flyways, fossils, Natural History Museum, what a monastery is, why monks might make coffee, and you know, stuff that 3rd graders might not have been exposed to yet or might find boring unless I explain it in a really relatable way. Let’s be honest. Most things I do are probably the ultimate in boring for 3rd graders, so there’s that to be proud of. There’s always that.

What fun things are you doing in your early December phase of the holidays? Let me know if you want me to post the bird quiz for you to try at home.

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My most recent trip was a week in Tazewell, Virginia with a whole bunch of family members. Were there a hundred of us in town? Close to it, probably. We were saying goodbye to my grandmother, Bettye Van Dyke, and we were also celebrating one of the last times we will all probably be together as a family for a long while. People came from all over the country to be there for both my grandmother and for all of us.

For the party, some of us spent a lot of time going through old photos to add to a shared photo album of my grandmother. We found some really great pictures, including these old photos of my grandparents, my Great Aunt Sis, and many others. In one photo my grandmother is pregnant with my mom. Wow.

I have to say, if you are going to celebrate the life of your grandmother, having all your family throw a big party and be together is a pretty great way to do it. It’s exactly the kind of party she would have loved.

We laughed and told stories and had one last big hoorah in my grandparents’ house. This is the place where we had so many Thanksgivings, Christmases, dinners, visitors, summers playing in the yard, breakfasts of egg on salt risen toast and my grandmother’s gravy and biscuits, weddings, sleep overs, and more. I have 50 years of memories in that house.

This is the Bluegrass Kinsmen singing at my grandmother’s party. They were a great band and a lot of fun. This is the jam session after the official singing. Now I can’t get this song out of my head.

I was reading this article the other day by a woman named Patti Digh titled Letting Go of Magic is Hard. She writes:

Sometimes, we have to let go, even of magic.

The kind that once shimmered at the edges of our days—the spark in a conversation that made the air feel alive, the project that pulsed with purpose, the community that felt like home. It all glowed. You could feel the hum of something larger than yourself moving through you.

Letting go of magic isn’t the same as losing it. Magic leaves residue, traces in the soul, reminders that we are capable of connection, creation, wonder. The fact that something felt alive in our hands means it was real. It meant something. It still means something. And maybe the letting go is part of the spell—the final act that completes it.

When the light fades, it doesn’t mean it was false. It means it has done its work.

After so many years and so many times hanging out together, things will change moving forward for our family. Aunts and uncles have their grandkids now. Cousins are busy with life, jobs, and kids. People do what they are supposed to do….go off and create lives, like my grandparents created a life. My grandparents’ legacy has been realized on this earth, their spell has done its work, and Grandmama’s passing marked the completion of that era. Who would have guessed that these two kids getting married in 1947 would result in all of us being where we are today?

The ending of an era also marks the beginning of new eras. I’m excited to see what new magic come up in the space left behind from my grandmother’s passing. What amazing things will all the parts of my family go off and do now? What new traditions will people have? What will living look like for everyone? What new things will I do, and what new adventures will I encounter? And how will we carry forward the magic imparted to us from Claude and Bettye Van Dyke? That’s the rest of the story….

I think Uncle George dancing us into the future is a good way to usher in the next chapter.

Dedicated to the memory of my amazing grandparents, Bettye and Claude Van Dyke.

If you want to see all the photos we uploaded, you can watch the video below. I’ll warn you now that it’s 14 minutes long, so you have to have a real commitment to seeing photos of Bettye Van Dyke and family to sit through it. I know I’m glad we have this to remember not just my grandmother but the family and friends in these photos.

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Also, the bed couldn’t be harder if I took a blanket and decided to sleep on the sidewalk outside. Princess Allison is used to her adjustable, cushiony, vibrating bed at home. Of all the times you’ve burned me, American Airlines, don’t let it be today.

Before I came to Mexico, I was at Emerald Isle, NC for a week where I got to have some quality time with some fantastic aunts, uncles, and cousins. Happy 50th Birthday to me! I also got to hang out with some lovely shore birds. These little Ruddy Turnstones were not afraid to get pretty close to people. Believe me when I tell you it was hard not to try and reach out to pick one up.

Next up, if American Airlines gets it together to get me to Arizona, I’ll turn around and pack for a week in Virginia so our family can celebrate the amazing life of my grandmother, Bettye Van Dyke, who passed away just a couple of weeks shy of her 95th birthday. My family loves music, and this celebration will be full of family, friends, music, and good food. Look out, Tazewell, Virginia. The Van Dykes are fixing to have the send off of all send offs.

The combination of my grandmother passing away, my great aunt Sis passing away, me turning 50, and other things going on, I have been….something. I’m not quite sure what I’m feeling at this point. I haven’t really had a moment to be still and think about it either. It’s on the list…self-reflection…once I take care of a million other things I have to do.

Despite feeling very discombobulated, I have been pretty good about writing cards lately. Some of you have received or will receive a little note soon. Here are a few of my favorite cards of late that I mailed to people. I share them here so I can also come back and remember these little bits of art as well.

For those card lovers like me out there, here’s a list of where to find these cards makers. Most of these I bought on random trips somewhere. Cards are my souvenirs because how many keychains does a person need? Also, I buy them for art inspiration. I like thinking about how someone made something. Anyhoo, here’s the list.

• Let the Good Times Roll: Hello Lucky Cards in San Francisco

• Caribou Moons: Barbara Mary Podrazik. I find her cards is some of the shops in Tubac

• Love (Cute Dogs): ilee paper goods

• Let Us Eat Cake: I Loot Paperie

• Make A Wish: Blank Slate Greetings

• Party at the Feeder: Sold by Hester and Cook Art by Vicki Sawyer

I also received a beautiful card from my friend Jennifer following her trip to Maine. How did she know I LOVE Puffins and have a life goal of going to see Puffins up close and personal? She’s great about sending me a card with a typed note inside, leaving the card blank in case I want to reuse it and ensuring that I can read the writing. I am sorry to all of you that receive my cards and are unable to read my handwriting. I did get C’s all through elementary school in my penmanship. Nobody’s perfect.

This card I will NOT be reusing as it will stay at my house in a lovely little frame. The artist is Angela Harding, and she has some really nice cards and prints on her website. Now I also want to get into print making. I can’t even imagine where to begin on making something like this.

Speaking of printmakers, there’s also another British printmaker and painter that I have been enjoying lately. Janis Goodman. She does etchings and paintings. The paintings she has been posting on Facebook lately are really beautiful. She has a fireweed painting and a nasturtium painting that I love. How on earth did she create such a rich, beautiful background in those paintings?

Also, as a challenge, I want to try and use watercolor paint to see if I can make something using one color of paint and have the level of detail she has in her print made from an etching, Heronry.

That’s all the news and inspiration from here, folks. Wish me luck getting home today. If you’re in a sharing mood, what fun things have been inspiring you lately?

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Wasn’t she beautiful? She just had a presence about her. A strength and radiance.

When I think of her, I remember her laugh. She was quick to laugh and often found humor and delight in any situation. She would get tickled at something and start laughing until tears ran down her cheeks. I still say “Oh, law,” a phrase she often said when she was amused or shocked about something.

Many times when I would go out in the world with Aunt Sis, we would find ourselves in these odd situations where someone needed help. Strangers just seemed to sense that she was kind and helpful, and they were drawn to her. We jimmied car doors, helped a guy buy pantyhose for his girlfriend, and other random things because people somehow knew Sis could help.

Aunt Sis always wanted to feed you when you went to visit. She also wanted to make sure you ate your green vegetables. Aunt Sis didn’t cook, but if you went out to eat with her at the K&W or Hayble’s Hearth, she made sure you got some green vegetables. Her biggest worries were that you weren’t comfortable, well fed, or that you needed something she hadn’t thought to offer you yet.

It didn’t matter the time of year, Aunt Sis was always working on her taxes. How many times did she say, “Oh, well I better go and work on my taxes”?

Aunt Sis was always there for family holidays or just random visits to Tazewell, especially when her sister, Aunt Ginny, was in town. How do you convey to the world how much of a presence she was in your life? And how on earth did she manage to be such a huge presence in the lives of so many people in our gigantic family? She was amazing.

Aunt Sis never had kids of her own, but she helped raise all of us in thousands of ways big and small. She was probably one of the most selfless human beings I’ll know in my lifetime. There are a lot of people in this world who are where they are now because of my Aunt Sis. I can’t tell you how many people have lived with Sis for a summer, stayed with her on trips to Greensboro, borrowed money from Aunt Sis, or who have been the beneficiary of one of her many other countless acts of generosity. Everyone has a story or two or twenty about Aunt Sis’s kindness.

She was a smart, independent woman who built a successful business, volunteered on various boards, and made a rich, full life for herself all while taking care of all of us.

In an informal family poll, the common descriptors of Aunt Sis were: Kindness. She was so sincere and truly the kindest soul you would meet. She laughed a lot and her eyes lit up when she was happy. She always remembered all your family members’ names and asked about them. She loved people, and she always made time for you. She loved her brothers and sisters. If she offered you something and you said no, she would offer it again just to be sure. And then, maybe she would offer it a third time just to make extra sure. She was intelligent and wise, and she will be missed.

I took this picture in 2019 when I convinced my grandmother to go on a road trip with me across Virginia to see various family members. We stopped in Lynchburg to see Aunt Sis, who is my grandmother’s sister-in-law. This was the last time they saw each other until Tuesday, September 23, when Aunt Sis joined Grandmama in the place we go after our work on this earth is finished. They were two of the last great people of their generation still alive in my family. It is hard to believe they are both gone.

The 6 siblings are all together again. I hope they are having a great time welcoming Sis to the reunion. We are all better because of Sis.

Also, Happy Heavenly Birthday to Grandmama. She would have been 95 today. Our birthdays are two days apart, so I never celebrated a birthday without thinking of Grandmama and her birthday.

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You’re welcome. That song was stuck in my head, and now it can be stuck in your head, too. We will be “annoying song stuck in our head” buddies. I’m here for you, always and forever, with annoying earworm songs.

Where has the time gone since my last post? Mostly it has gone to the dogs.

No, really. I spent a lot of time with dogs recently when I went to Virginia. While it is always delightful to see my family members on the Great Virginia Roadtrip Adventure, this year I took more photos of the dogs. Go figure.

Hanging out with Twinkie was especially magical because she is afraid of lots of people, including me. For some reason on this trip, she decided to spend some time hanging out with me on the couch, though, which made my whole day 1,000 times better. Thanks to Cousin Jack for hanging with me so Twinkie would be my buddy. Also, thanks to Cousin Erin for getting a puppy so I could play with Max. Thanks also to Uncle Paul for taking the bee sting for the team so Max and I could escape being covered in bees during Poody’s bee-keeping demo. Pro trip…never stand too close to a bee-keeping demo, and when the bees start flying around in an agitated manner, turn and walk quickly away.

Continuing my dog-themed vacation, I also had lots of great couch time with Tux who I wanted to sneak into my pocket and secretly bring home with me. I believe Uncle Litz and Aunt Jackie would have hunted me down, though, and taken their dog back. I can’t say that I blame them. He’s that perfect, and they are pretty fantastic themselves.

Shoutouts to Ruby, Max, Thelma and Louise, too. Great doggy adventures were had by all, and they made the trip complete.

While in my home state, my Aunt Marty, Cousin Wade, and I made a little trip to see my Great Aunt Sis who is 98? 99? 1,000? Let’s just say she’s older than us. My Great Aunt Sis is the kindest, most generous person you’ll meet, and it’s always great to make the pilgrimage to see her.

I also had the fun adventure of going with my aunts Poody, Marty, and Mollie to see my Great Grandmother Hattie Harmon’s house in Dry Fork. Talk about memories! Granny once told me not to play with any snapping turtles I might find in the yard because they would “bite your fingers and wouldn’t let go until it thundered.” I remember thinking, “Well, what if one bites me, and it doesn’t thunder for months and months? Do I have to walk around with a turtle stuck to my hand?” That caused me more hours of worry and anguish than you might image.

It was always big doings to drive to Granny’s house because you had to go over The Jumps. DUM, Dum, dum. (cue the dreaded screams…”oh no! Not the jumps! How will we ever survive?!”)

Even though I was only in Tazewell for a couple of days, it was nice seeing everyone and spending time with my grandmother who is just 2 months shy of being 95. I also loved seeing my Uncles Jay and George and obviously my dad and Becky.

This is my grandmother’s house also known as the sight of many fantastic memories throughout my life. We have had weddings, family reunions, countless Thanksgivings and Christmases, rocking on the porch listening to music, sleepovers with cousins when we were young, games of hide and seek, hours in the attic playing with all the mysteries contained in the attic, weeknight dinners with my dad and my grandparents when I was in high school, baseball games in the yard, and more. I have been really lucky.

While Virginia was a lot of fun, it was good to get home. I’m sure you’re all wondering what’s going on in the hood with all my Arizona birds. We have an exciting, new update….the Oriole feeder! I was watching the Hooded Orioles jostle the hummingbird feeders trying to force nectar to splash out so they could eat it.

This necessitated the addition of an Oriole feeder in the backyard. Now that they have it, most of them use it though there is still the occasional Oriole that prefers the struggle of the traditional hummingbird feeder. Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want.

All of the hummingbirds called each other recently, and they decided to come and hang out at my house. I’m burning through nectar like a crazy person, and it’s only a matter of time before some fast-flying hummingbird impales itself on my arm and that will be awkward.

Lest we forget, I also have lovely Blue Grosbeaks still hanging around, and the Summer Tanagers are always a treat to see.

That’s a quick update from half of my trip East. Next time I’ll fill you in on the beach trip with the Moores and the Dessertmageddon competition!!! Who took top prize? The cheesecake? The whoopie pie with peanut butter ice cream? banana splits? Tune in to find out next time.

The last of the Ireland posts finds us all hanging out on the Dingle Peninsula. The drive around the peninsula is so incredibly beautiful and harrowing in the best of ways, providing you survive it and take some video to remember it. I could spend weeks there just enjoying the scenery.

Off the coast of Dingle are the Blasket Islands. Great Blasket Island was last inhabited in the 1950’s, and there are a lot of writers from there who talk about what it was like to live there doing things the old fashioned way. There’s a whole museum dedicated to the Blasket Islands which was really interesting and made me want to pack up my stuff and move to the Blasket Islands. I’m sure winter would help me change my mind, but spring and summer are probably perfection.

Pro tip for those who might visit the Dingle Peninsula….don’t stop at the Hold a Baby Lamb place. We were convinced the guy who took our money for the experience didn’t actually live there, he was just making some cash for a few days while the real family was locked in the basement. Also, baby lambs are cute but covered in pooh, so don’t pick them up for a cuddle. One of the baby lambs had singed hair from sticking its head in the heat lamp. Something wasn’t right about that place.

If you do want an up close and personal encounter with animals in Dingle, try the really crazy and fascinating bird encounter with Kingdom Falconry. We got to have a Harris Hawk, a Eurasian Eagle Owl, and a Barn Owl fly to our gloves and eat raw meat off the glove. We also got to see a baby owl and hold a Golden Eagle which was ginormous and also closer to my eyeballs than I might have preferred.

It’s crazy to think there’s a place you can go where they let you interact with all these birds. We did have one of the Barn Owls get spooked by some construction work nearby, and she flew off into the trees. They seemed 1,000 percent less concerned than I would have been, and I still don’t know if they got their owl back after we left. Here’s hoping she flew home.

We were lucky in Ireland. We really only had dodgy weather one day. The rest of the time, the weather was perfect. The town of Dingle was lots of fun for spending a few days. There were good restaurants, some shops with really interesting local art and pottery, and some good pubs. Where else will you hear your traditional Irish musicians break into their rendition of Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes while playing in the local pub/hardware store? Not in your town, I bet.

If you ever want to go to Ireland and need a driver, I’m your gal. I have lots of practice now, and I’m happy to help you plan your adventure as long as you let me tag along. It really is a beautiful country full of wonderful people. If they had a displaced Americans visa and I also won the lottery, I would find myself a nice little place along the coast to paint and go for walks and make friends with all the local birds, and you could come and visit me and we would drive around the island enjoying all the magical places to see.

Bonus Content:

I did manage to come back from Ireland with a whole slew of cards, which I consider shareable art for all my friends. Although, judging by the number of cards I bought, I would have to make a lot more friends to use them this year. Don’t be surprised if you get a card from me.

So long, Irelend. I’ll miss you!

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As you can see below, the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car, and when you drive, it’s on the opposite side of the road. You enter a roundabout in a clockwise direction. It’s all very disorientating. That is why you always get the full coverage insurance. Always.

I won’t say I bumped the curb a lot on the left side that first day of driving, but I will say there might have been a few curb bumps. For this trip, I was the driver and my friend Deirdre was the navigator. It made it easier than both of us learning all the things. Just be good at the one thing and go about your day.

First stop: Midleton Distillery to learn about how they make Irish Whiskey.

Before this stop, I would have told you I didn’t care for Irish Whiskey or really any whiskey. At Midleton, when you buy a ticket to tour the place, it includes a tasting of their standard whiskey varieties, which taste remarkably like gasoline with a dash of kerosine and rage. I wasn’t a huge fan.

However, there is a special ticket you can add to your tour to go to the premium tasting room, and that is where your narrator found herself and found her love of whiskey. When I’m on a trip to Ireland and have afternoon travel breaks in a nice, cozy pub, some whiskeys are good to have on hand. In the premium tasting room they teach you about things like the Redbreast 12 Year and the Midleton Very Rare. The Redbreast 12 Year is my favorite Irish Whiskey because it is good, and it is also affordable. I also tried the Redbreast 18 Year on the trip, and that was also really delightful but less affordable.

The whiskey to rule all whiskeys, though, is the Midleton Very Rare. It is like a song on your tongue. Joy burning its way down your esophagus. A treasure and a delight and also more expensive than I was willing to pay for a bottle of whiskey. If you’re ever out and this is on the menu, you should try it. It has notes of magical things that dance across the tastebuds. If you know me, you know I don’t drink all that often. I did make an exception in Ireland and only for Irish whiskey, especially the Midleton and the Redbreast.

Our next stop was Kinsale where we would spend two nights in a quaint little hotel in the town. We walked around the town, and one day we walked a couple of miles along the coast to Charles Fort, built in 1677.

There was a lot of art to see in Kinsale. There’s also a fun bookstore where I bought too many books. You can also find the best brown bread in all of Ireland at the restaurant Fishy Fish. I bought the cookbook and will attempt to make the bread one of these days.

At night, we would sit in the hotel lobby bar and listen to local musicians play music and enjoy an Irish Whiskey or two. By the way, if you love the 80’s and wish to revisit all the hits of the 80’s, Ireland is your place. Everywhere you go it’s all 80’s all the time.

Before we left Kinsale, we drove out to the end of Old Head to see the lighthouse and the famous Old Head Golf Links. If I showed you a thousand photos of this place, it wouldn’t do it justice. It was just so beautiful with the clouds floating across the sky, making shadows on all the green rolling hills. There’s also a museum dedicated to the sinking of the Lusitania, and it is worth paying them a bit of money to climb their tower to look out at the views. I was talking to my Uncle Wayne after this trip, and I wasn’t surprised to learn he had been there too because the Old Head Golf Links are supposed to be amazing to play.

I’ll end with some photos of the birds I saw in this part of Ireland, and also a little bee video of the cutest bee ever. I couldn’t resist the colorful pigeons! I also saw a Great Blue Heron, a European Robin, a Song Thrush, and a While Wagtail, to name a few.

Next Stop: The Dingle Peninsula

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I have been painting again. I am trying fun things in my practice book. There are lots of repeating object paintings where I can just ease into a flow state and paint away a few hours just making the same thing over and over without even noticing the time go by. Bugs, mushrooms, sea creatures, buoys…who knew it would be so much fun to paint these silly little pages?

This last week I had two sets of aunts and uncles celebrating their wedding anniversaries. I have lots of aunts and uncles, and my friends are often like, “wait, which aunt or uncle is this again?”

Poody & Paul and Mollie & Jay where the ones celebrating years and years of wedded bliss. I like to think that the fact I was in both weddings has something to do with their longevity. It’s my job as a niece, after all…share fabulousness with the aunts and uncles.

My Aunt Poody and Uncle Paul celebrated an anniversary on Friday. My Aunt Poody is fearless in taking on new adventures, and I want to be more like her in that regard. She makes a plan and goes for it. She just jumps right in, never fearing hard work or learning new skills. My Uncle Paul is secretly hilarious and also very kind even though he presents as very serious. Don’t let him fool you. Paul loves to say “Poody” in his exasperated voice before finally deciding why the heck not do the adventurous thing my aunt wants to do.

My Aunt Mollie and Uncle Jay had an anniversary on Wednesday of last week. I was a junior maid of honor in their wedding, and thankfully those dresses don’t still exist anywhere I’m aware of. My Aunt Mollie brought my Uncle Jay home to meet everyone one year when I was maybe in middle school, and Jay just fit right in. My Aunt Mollie is my favorite partner in crime when I go home to visit. We get into projects at my grandmother’s house or try to recreate old recipes from our youth. When I think of Mollie, I often think of her laughing or smiling at something. That’s how she is. My Uncle Jay is the one in the background of family functions making sure things are going smoothly and taking care of tasks that need taking care of. We watched an entire season of The Great British Baking Show together one summer, which is a treasure to find in any uncle. We all like to do a lot of porch sitting and watching the world go by when I’m visiting.

Poody and Mollie are sisters, and both love music, like so many in our family. I’ve written before about how some of my earliest memories are sitting on my aunts’ laps, rocking in rocking chairs on the front porch at my grandparents’ house, listening to music and singing. I’m sure it was super annoying for them having to watch after their niece as she begged to sit with them and sing at the top of her longs to the records they were playing. “Can we hear Karla Bonoff again!!!!????” 4 and 5 year old me could really sing. haha.

Poody and Mollie love animals, which is a very common trait in our family. They are also frequently busy taking on some new project or doing something. There’s not a lot of idle-hands for the devil’s handiwork going on with those two.

I don’t think they realize how similar they are to each other in these ways, but I see it. Interestingly, my grandfather also loved music. He listened to the radio a lot, sang songs to me when I was little, and was in the church choir. Granddaddy was also the one that spoiled the dogs, ET and Pancake. Grandmama was always the busy one, doing chores or projects. How many times would I go to visit and end up doing some project in the yard with her? Countless times.

Jay and Paul took over where my grandfather left off in planting gardens. They are good additions to the family. Their love of gardening is just one of the many reasons they make our family better.

I wasn’t sure where we would end up when I started this post today, but we have come close to the end. I will leave you with some of the amazing birds I have been seeing lately. I have been putting out orange halves in the yard, and it has been a big hit. We are also having an irruption of Western Tanagers this year, so I have been seeing dozens of them in backyard each day. They are magical, with flaming orange heads and their yellow bodies. The Blue Grosbeaks and Varied Buntings just got back to town in the last two weeks as well. Hooray for summer birds, making every day a little more miraculous.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Tomorrow is a full day or yoga, meditation, and pickleball. What fun things do you guys have in store?

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Also, in case you didn’t know it, you can subscribe to get email updates of A Little Bird Told Me. I am not on social media so much anymore, so this is a good way to find me if you’re interested in keeping up with the goings ons.

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I have been on the road for work for a couple of weeks, and before that I was in Ireland (I know….poor, pitiful me on vacation in Ireland). I’m really looking forward to some time at home. I took myself on an Allison Date last night, and today I’m going to do some grocery shopping and staying home laundry. Look out, World! Allison’s gone wild.

Speaking of going wild and of birds, I have some really great birds in the yard at the moment.

First off, I saw a new lifer bird, the Lincoln’s Sparrow. Not the bet photo, but it’ll do.

Now onto the current stars of the backyard. Are you ready to fall in love with the Black Headed Grosbeaks? There’s a lot to love, and not just because they are a chonky backyard bird. For being big and heavy-looking, they have these sweet, delicate songs and calls. I love sitting with my coffee in the morning, doors open, listening to the Grosbeaks. Also, they have tons of details in their feather patterns, like these bright yellow streaks in the middle of their chest and just before their wings.

I also love how the top of their bill lines up with the curvature of the top of their head, so they look kind of streamlined. The females are the ones with lighter heads and the white streaks over the eyes, and the males have the black heads and darker wing color.

It’s always a magical time when the Black Headed Grosbeaks are back. Now that you are sufficiently in love with the wonder that is the Black Headed Grosbeak, I’m going to break your heart into a thousand tiny pieces.

Did you watch until the end? If so, I’ll give you a minute to collect yourself.

All better?

Now you’ve met my friend, the Cooper’s Hawk. As sad as I was to see the Grosbeaks die, the hawk has to eat too. He didn’t come back for the second Grosbeak, so I took it into the yard for another creature to eat.

I always know when the hawk is in the yard because there’s this immediate WHOOSH sound as all the birds fly off, and then everything is still and quiet as the hawk looks around for food. See those talons? They are all the better for gripping you and ripping you into bite sized pieces, I suppose, along with that beak. Ooooo, buddy. That beak. That’ll getcha. The Cooper’ Hawk is a magnificent bird.

In memory of our amazing irruption in April of Lazuli Buntings, here are some favorites from when they turned my backyard lovely shades of blue. Bon voyage, Lazulis.

Here’s a little roundup of the other birds I have been seeing.

1, 6: Gila Woodpecker; 2, 9 Bewick’s Wren (for a small bird, you can hear them belting out their distinct call from forever away); 3,4,5: Lark Sparrow, one of the prettiest sparrows with their distinct head stripes; 7: Yellow-rumped warbler; 8: Young White-crowned Sparrow.

Have a great weekend. Do you have any fun plans?

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