200807 hawks bee roadkill fridges

august 7  Correction: follows first paragraph to correct misinformation contained therein.

   The baby hawk(s) have fledged. I can't tell one from another except for the sex if they are close enough so I don't know how many there are now, but they are much more active, talking and flying back and forth from the nest. Sometimes one streaks by like a little fighter plane to attack its prey. 
[Those little fighter planes were the parents calling back and forth "they're still hungry!". Now, there are at least two baby planes, and the distinction became evident when I heard their own juvenile calls like a cry or a whistle. They are flying about now and practicing sitting on branches (they keep tipping over!).]
  The baby apple trees didn't make it. They made a brave go if it. Meanwhile Indre and I are enjoying all the wildflowers and the gardens. She is showing a good deal of interest in plants. 
  Bee on a flower, so little! Insects seem so prolific this year, 
perhaps because we are out every day in the field I see more. Bees of every size, grasshoppers that fly - badly I might add: they continue to bump into my head. They probably say I continue to cross their path just as they take off.

If the pandemic ends, (which they usually did, before there was air travel and global trading), all the cars parked in all the driveways will get back on the street. The creatures of the road and pedestrians old and young will have forgotten how to cross the street, this year's animal and human offspring will not even have learned about cars!! When I cross roads with the children on our walk, we stop, "link on" and look all ways, cross straight over - the game stops, no talking. And there isn't a car in sight. Road accidents of all kinds will be part of the collateral damage from covid-19. One sees speeding and careless driving because there is so much space on the roads. I feel out of practice behind the wheel myself, after 49 years on Toronto streets and highways - a foreign feeling in this foreign covid country. 

Reporter Amanda Rosa brought "friendly fridges" to my attention in last weekend's New York Times Weekly - this is another amazing instance of generosity and caring that the pandemic has brought to the world. People in New York City have been finding fridges to put out on the sidewalks filled with free food for those who need: take what you need and leave what you don't. Stores and restaurants donate food so the hungry can find healthy food, with reducing food waste being a part of the plan. This article is an encouraging story about kindness, community connection, even economics; about the sort of forward-thinking people who may just help make the sea-change to a whole new humanity. (see 200606 Sea Change, this blog.)
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