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As usual, we have included our traditional “Big Tree” pnoto. There is something different this year. Can you see it? That's right. We aren't in it. We also have some cartoons appropriate to the year.
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Our family has been lucky, again, to have weathered the year with good health and sanity mostly intact. Jim and I are fortunate to have close contact with Ron, Claire, Scarlet and Nico and infrequent, socially distant, contact with Charles, Amy, Kai and Kiera on the back deck of their house in El Cerrito. We are very thankful that school finally reopened for classes in person. The students in the family were delighted to see old friends again and enjoyed school. Scarlet and Nico were so happy to be back in class that they each earned Student of the Week awards early in the school year.
As Jim relates below, we went on three birding trips on 2021, all in the USA.
As I look back at the years we've reported on here, I am reminded of a birthday card I got some years ago. “ It's not not the end of the road…But you can see it from here.” I decided that I want a green burial with my body nourishing mushrooms and foliage. We've have been looking for a good location. Jim says he doesn't really care what happens to his remains, but thinks green burial is a good idea.
Hope you have a wonderful 2022. Drop us a line if you are so inclined.
Side note: The first of these reports went our as a Christmas Letter in 1977 or something like that. So we have documented about 44 years of 20th century history or a bit more than 16100 days, meaning that we have long ago eclipsed Pepys, whose diary covers only a decade. I don't know how many more of these reports I have in me. It's getting harder each year as the number of photos explodes and the software quits working in places. For example, The KDay calculator suddenly quit working, requiring several exchanges with tech support. (And you thought I was tech support.) But, we'll keep soldiering on for a few more years.
Remember how great it was when 2021 rolled around. Things looked better after a truly awful year. Trump was out, or almost. We had not one, but several vaccines for COVID. This year was bound to be better than the last one.
We know what happened. January 6! Delta! Omicron! Before it all fell apart we took to
traveling again, but only in the USA.
I broke up the report into convenient chunks covering the trips with some other essays.
Ever optimistic, we have signed up for several trips in for 2022. Basically trying to go where we were unable to go in 2020.
Here are short reports on our trips and some other topics. Comments and corrections appreciated as always.
Back in 2010, I wrote a novel (unpublished) about rebuilding civilization after a pandemic that wiped out most of the world's population. COVID forced a few revisions. Linda suggested that I spend my time during lockdown working on a sequel. That done, I had some further ideas and have most of a third book in the series as a draft. I have put PDF versions on the web in case you want to offer some critiques.
What can I say? We have used Yeat's Poem The Second Coming several times already. Then, we have a year when it really applies. Seemed too much to put it in yet again. Instead, we have used the final stanza from one of Jim's favorite poems, Dover Beach.