THE SONGS OF A NIGHTINGAIL

  If you’re jumping out of an airplane, you’d better hope there’s air beneath you to fill your parachute.  More importantly, you’d better make sure you have a parachute!  1973 - my husband on the left.  Balloons need air. Twenty-two years ago during the time I was staying with my cousin in Reno, Nevada while my eldest daughter recovered from a serious boating accident in the hospital there,  the annual “Great Reno Balloon Race” was held and every morning for a couple of weeks as I drove down to the hospital, I saw fantastic sights like this.  What a way to start the day! J     Birds need air to fly, of course.  This is what my sweet Ella might have looked like as she flew around our house or when I took her to settle with a bird lady a few miles away who could take proper care of her, and she flew back to us instead.  What a bird. Y These are the young eagles, Sunny and Gizmo – Shadow and Jackie’s offspring of last year (’25) – who bec...

  Sights seen around a wildfire include fire trucks and their crews standing by, waiting for instructions. Helicopters loading up with water or special retardant to battle a wildfire from the air. And thank heaven for the pilots guided by spotter planes who maneuver their aircraft to drop retardant exactly where it’s needed. But it’s the gritty ground crews with picks, shovels, hoes, chainsaws, and whatever else needed heading into a wildfire on the ground who do the hardest work. We laughed at a fire crew spraying retardant foam all over this café in 1992 during the “Moccasin Fire”, but that’s where many of them were getting free meals!  Retardant foam is a way to save structures from a fire. Another way to save structures is to wrap them in ‘shake & bakes’ – personal protection when ground crews are caught In a fire.  This was an historic cabin in Yosemite wrapped up for protection from an advancing fire.  Wildfires can be a terrifying sight by day . . . . . . ...