many flags

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: language.

I spent three days with the Rotary President Elect Training this past weekend. I am part of District 5020, which stretches from the end of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada down the Olympic Peninsula, WA, United States. There were people from ten districts.

The Rotary’s Polio Plus program is working hard to eradicate polio. This year the match from the Gates Foundation will be 2 dollars for every dollar the Rotary brings to end polio.

The flags from all the different countries and people working together: that speaks the language of peace and hope to me.

winter bird

Our snow is gone, but I heard on bird note how the Anna’s hummingbirds survive. One morning the temperature here was 14 degrees F, and then the hummingbird was out as soon as it was light. Dive bombing me as I brought out the feeder after thawing it. Bird note says that they can slow their metabolism, like a mini hibernation, during the freezing temperatures. This helps them expand their range and get a jump on the humming birds that go south.

Mundane Monday #200: crop.

For Mundane Monday #200, my prompt is crop.

My subject, this hummingbird, has a crop. But I also cropped the photograph. And are we planning crops for the spring? There are other sorts of crops.

Tell us and show us a photograph that uses crop. I will list them next week.

____________________________

Last week’s prompt was portal.

A new contributor bushboy adds a beautiful portal.

The Photo Junkie also joins with a portal in stone.

KLAllendorfer has photographs that are an Edinburgh portal.

I wondered last week if I should end this version of Mundane Monday with number 200. But I had not given warning, nor asked if someone wants to take over and anyhow, I thought, it gives me joy on Monday. Maybe it does for others too and isn’t one enough? So many thanks to the people reading and the old and new entries.

PETS

Not pets, right? PETS here stands for President Elect Training Seminar. We are gathered to meet each other, exchange ideas and prepare for a year as president of our local club. Yesterday the president elect for Rotary International spoke to us, amazing. We also had a flag ceremony with the flags you see, from nearly 200 countries. How amazing!

places in the world

I am thinking of the phrase “Places in the world a woman would walk.” I know it’s by Grace Paley. A short story? A line in a story?

Do you feel safe walking in your neighborhood? Or on a beach near you or in a forest? If you are male, do you thinks it’s safe for a woman to walk alone in your neighborhood? Do you feel differently about a male? And the same questions to woman.

And is there an age limit? Is it safe for me to walk the beach alone because my hair is mostly white? What about my son and daughter, both in their 20s?

Safety is relative. One of the unsafe things about our beaches is the warnings about an earthquake and tsunami. We have sand cliffs that will most certainly collapse. I walk the beach and eye the cliffs. There is some luck involved and I accept that.