Pine siskins and hummingbirds

Our friends Kristina and Justin (and their nugget Zach) just gave us a lovely wedding present - a gift certificate to the local birding store in town. The results? Bird wonderland! We now are proud backyard birders! We have a squirrel-proof feeder, a thistle feeder, a hummingbird feeder, and our old suet feeder. What birds we have managed to attract already!!

Here is a pine siskin on our thistle feeder. We are hoping for some goldfinches too, but we don't have them yet.

This is (we think, please correct us if we are wrong) an Anna's hummingbird at our feeder

Dark-eyed junco

In addition to all of these birds - we have had hairy woodpeckers, red-breasted nuthatches, towhees, chestnut-backed chickadees, black-capped chickadees, starlings (ergh, hate them), and purple finches. A bald eagle flew over but decided our seeds were not good enough...and we spotted a Cooper's Hawk - are we providing for predators and prey now? Neat!

Can you tell I'm done with the winter quarter? We had time to play! So we headed over to Baker Lake and walked out in the amazing forest to get some big views of a big volcano.

Baker Lake and Mt. Baker

Retirement for the Barbers!

It's official! My parents finally sold their business after years and years of having it on the market. Bye bye business and hello retirement! Here they are doing what they do best, exploring (New Zealand in this case). I like to think there will be a lot more time for fun stuff and a lot less stress in their lives now. Yipee!!

Health care support!

If you read this blog - now is the time to write (if you haven't already) and give our politicians a nudge to continue to support health care reform. I just wrote to our senators and representatives in WA to tell them I support them 100%. Do the same!! I even reminded my representatives that I believe in paying taxes to help others less lucky than me.

Don't know who your representative is? Check out this Web site: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Not sure who your senator is? Now is the time to learn...
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

If only this was a climate change bill. *sigh*