So, while Roger was talking to the good people at Apple about why my two-year old computer would not reliably start up after a system upgrade, I went for a short walk down our little dirt road. I was looking for distraction and nothing in particular. This feather with an orange quill caught my eye. Have you ever seen an orange quill like this before? I had not. When, after several long hours, my computer finally started back up, the first thing I did was google orange quill, then orange calumus, then orange quill bird feather... Nothing meaningful emerged. What to do next? I love answers. So, I emailed the very wonderful and knowledgeable Julie Zickefoose. I hadn't even photographed the feather yet, just sent her a brief description and within an hour I had this response: You found a flicker feather--probably a tail feather--from the intermediate morph called the "gilded" flicker. There's red-shafted in the West and yellow-shafted in the East and in between there's a gilded flicker. It could also be a red-shafted flicker feather. You can check the ranges against where you are.Now you know why we love feathers and JZ, because the world is simply a more beautiful place for their presence in our lives.
Roger is on Day Nine of Chemo. So far no side effects, as his excellent oncologist predicted. We'll know more next Monday, when he'll have completed two weeks and will have blood tests and an appointment with the doc. In the meantime, we've planted kale, chard, and onions. We're waiting for cooler temps to plant the garlic. We're planning for a delicious future.
