Tag Archives: great blue heron

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Covid Morph

So far I have gotten positive Covid tests on one patient a week, all with really different symptoms.

One older person who was short of breath walking, tired, coughing and loose at the other end.

One young one whose only symptom was profuse throwing up.

One with a sore throat, nasal congestion, cough and feeling fairly awful and about to go on a trip, darn it.

There isn’t a nice pattern to tell me what the local strain is doing. It can do any darn old thing. I have also seen someone with strep throat and another couple who had similar symptoms to the others but did not have Covid. It’s morphing like an AI, I swear. I am masking in clinic but so far so good.

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is essential. I think it’s pretty essential for me to wear a mask in clinic, in crowds and on airplanes, since I am quite tired of pneumonias.

I have been the only “provider”, that is, doctor, in the clinic for the last two days. The medical assistants and front desk and I are starting to work as a team. I ask the front desk person how to communicate with her from the clinic room most efficiently. Something was weird about the refill system and it kept refusing refills. On Tuesday I had over 100 “documents” in the computer “box”. Lab work, specialist reports, refill requests, x-ray reports, nursing home things, surgery reports, wound clinic, emergency room, and so forth. I am trying to skim them, but I can’t say that I will remember person A’s dermatology report after skimming 60 others. If you go to your primary care provider and have had some major medical thing recently, remind them. They may have gotten and read the note, but gosh, it’s hard to remember at 100+ per day. Right now I have not met most of the people, so it is even harder.

The photograph is just for fun, taken a few weeks ago on the trail that runs by the Colorado River. Lovely!

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Morning ablutions

I took this with my Panasonic F150, zooming in, walking part of the Blue Heron loop along the Colorado River. Wow! Not truly ragged, but think if instead of combing our hair, we had to clean and arrange all of these fantastic feathers! The heron demonstrated many spectacular neck positions and can fan out the feathers in amazing ways. I tried not to disturb her too much.

Done for now.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ragged.

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Sunrise

I was at an AirBnB for a few days last week. The great blue heron landed in the top of the tree in the next yard before sunrise. Then she stayed there waiting and enjoying the warmth when the sun was up. Eventually an eagle headed for the tree. The heron took off and the eagle landed.

The next two mornings I did not see an eagle or a great blue heron in the tree, perhaps because it was gray and cold and overcast both mornings.

That is why we have such big trees in the Pacific Northwest, so that eagles and great blue herons can build massive nests.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: landing.

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Slack tide

Slack tide is the time when the tide is not going out nor coming in. When it stops. It doesn’t mean the water is quiet because there is still wind and weather. But sometimes it is quiet, as if the ocean is holding its breath.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: slack.

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Littoral zone

I walked on Marrowstone Island yesterday, south from East Beach. There was a super low tide, to -3.38 at 1:07 pm. When the tide came in, it was at +8.76, so that is a huge difference.

There were almost no people, but the group enjoying the low tide were the great blue herons! I counted 14. At one point they all alerted, and a bald eagle came down and perched on the rock that a heron had been on. There must be some very delicious food for the herons with the low tide. The eagle seemed to be considering heron to be a delicacy.

Here is the eagle (and the great blue herons moved!)

I came home with one very lovely agate.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: littoral.

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Beach finds

I picked this agate up. See how it looks like a Gummi Bear, a different texture than the other rocks? The clear ones light up when the sun is polarized. It is harder to find them when it is not sunny.

This is not an agate, but some agates are this color. I try not to bring occupied houses home.

This is an agate too, not clear, but lovely color and striping.

Here is another clear one:

I am not the only creature searching the beach.

These were taken on Marrowstone Island and on the beach below Chetzemoka Park in Port Townsend.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: find.