Author: livingthedreamwithsallyandvic

First I got my hair done this morning.

Then flowers arrived from Holly Rider and Kelly Ball, my two awesome daughters. Woweee they are gorgeous!

And Vic gave me a beautiful tree of life necklace with a great card.

Sandhill Cranes mate for life. They begin their courtship as young adults by doing elaborate dances to attract a mate. They mate in early spring and lay 2 eggs. Colts will be up and about as soon as 8 hours after hatching. The colts remain with their parents about 10 months. We’ve recently had 2 sets of colts and now have 3 sets in different stages of development. Vic has been taking pictures of these birds for the past few months and has created a timeline. Dates are approximate. Nikon D850, Tamron 600 G2.

Adult

A nice juicy bug. Week old.

New colts, 4 weeks old.

11 weeks

14 weeks

18 weeks

Almost full grown, red is beginning to show on crown.

Vic doesn’t just grab a bouquet, he looks them all over and picks the freshest looking one. And the smell! So awesome to get flowers just because he’s glad I am with him. It’s not even my birthday! 😊

Made a spinach quiche yesterday. We normally have very little gluten but we enjoyed this meal. Our friend Donna joined us and took this photo.

My Zoe has the ponytail with pink tie. Lily is her friend, a Lhasa Apso. They love to have play dates.

This message came to Vic on his photography blog. Even though no name is attached, I think what he says is valid and I wanted to share it with you. Hope you all staying safe.

Let me introduce myself: I am a practicing ER doctor with a Bachelors degree in cell and molecular biology/genetics and a Masters degree in public health in addition to my doctorate.
COVID is not a flu. Not even a little. Here are reasons why:
1. It is a separate species. It is no more like influenza than you are like a hippo. DIFFERENT SPECIES.
2. It is an airborne virus. This means the tiny droplets can stay in the air for a full 2 hours. So if a person coughed in aisle 4 of Target 1.5 hours ago, they may be home now but their covid cloud is still hanging there just waiting for you to walk by and take a breath. Influenza is not an airborne virus. It is droplet spread- meaning someone has to directly crop dust you with their sneeze to get you sick. Covid is much more contagious.
3. Covid is more virulent. Virulence factor is a measure of how catchy something is. For example, the flu is like beer. It takes a bunch to get you drunk. Covid is more like tequila – A little goes a long way. You need to suck up a lot of flu particles to actually catch the flu; with covid, even a few particles is enough to infect you.
4. Covid has a longer incubation than the flu. When you catch the flu, you typically get sick in the next 1-2 days. This is awesome because it means you stay at home while contagious because you feel like a heap of fried garbage. Covid has a blissful 5-9 days of symptom free time during which you are well enough to head to the movies, gym or mar-a-lago while also being contagious enough to infect everyone you encounter.
5. Covid has a longer duration of illness than flu. With covid, you have a 5-9 days of blissful asymptomatic contagiousness. This then turns into about 1 week of cough and overall feeling like hell but still surviving. Week 2 is when things hit the fan and people end up unable to breathe and on a ventilator. Many stay on the vent for up to 15 days. 5 days incubating+7 kinda sick days + 15 days on a ventilator makes for 27 days of virus spreading illness, (assuming your don’t just die of massive asphyxiation and body-wide collapse from overwhelming infection somewhere in that last week).The flu has an average incubation of 1-2 days and sick time of 7 days for a total of 9 infectious days. In the world of deadly viruses, that 18 extra days might as well be a millennia.
6. Covid is more deadly. A LOT more deadly. The flu has about a 0.2% mortality rate, meaning 2 of every thousand people who get sick with flu will die. On the contrary, the death rate from covid is reportedly 2%, so 10 times more deadly than flu. Ten times more death seems like a lot more death to me. Whats more worrisome is that 2% is actually incorrect because it doesn’t kill kids so that skews the average. With covid, age is a major factor in survival. If we don’t include people under 30, the death rate for adults is on average 4.5%. 9 out of every 200 adults that get this will die from it. Do you know 200 adults? Do you think losing 9 of them is no big deal? Since mortality increases with age in covid, the risk gets worse as you get older so if we put 100 grannies in a room with covid, only 85 would make it out alive to make pies and tell great stories of the old days… and that just sucks.
I hope that helps to clarify why covid is in no way a flu, why you are in no way a hippo, and why staying home is the only way for non-essential people to do their part while I spend my days at work covered in a plastic poncho, sucking air through a stuffy respirator mask, leaving my scrubs in my driveway, showering the covid off at 4am when I get in, and thinking to myself “now do u still think it was just a flu?” as I risk my own life with my face 2 inches from their highly contagious, gasping mouth while I slide the plastic tube down their throat and start up the ventilator.

We caught up with the Sandhill Crane family – parents and 2 youngsters. I think these little guys are just adorable. When they run they flap their wings but can’t fly yet.

This flower is in my yard, planted by a previous owner. A couple of people have said it’s an amaryllis. (Thank you Dale). It sure is pretty right now.