This summer saw the falling off of bird activity at the feeder. I tried everything to get them back from clearing debris from the feeders to making several feeders accessible. Nothing helped. I changed their food and added suet front and back. Lately we had more activity from the stellers jay and we’re so glad to see these big screeching birds. But the smaller birds, finches, nunhatches, and chickadees, were missing. In back we did get some activity from robins but these birds forage; they aren’t the type to hang out at the feeders.

Change came a few days ago when I noticed a familiar bird that has been absent. The dark eyed junco. They love the feeder and often battle for a place at the feeder. They become so common that you start to wish for more variety. In any case I’m glad they’re back. The feeders are abuzz again. It wasn’t the food, which has been different lately, it was the type of bird.

We did an admission in the town of Federal Way which is south of Seattle. Afterwards we drove north for home. I made the bad choice of moving from Interstate 5 to Interstate 405. Unfortunately, I405 was shut down at a certain point and we got directed to frontage roads. We spent about two hours managing the lefts, rights, and roundabouts. Traffic was backed up for miles on these streets. I should have stayed on I5 since we knew that I405 was going to be shut down. I thought I passed the closed part but I didn’t and the closed part extended much farther than expected.

Admittedly, I got frustrated being stuck in traffic with nothing but more traffic ahead. what made things worse was I was running out of gas. Once the light comes on I have very little time to get to a gas station. The light never came on but we got close. I asked michele to direct me to a gas station which she did. While the mass humanity of back-upped traffic went straight, I hung a right to a chevron station about 1.5 miles down the road. Michele had credit so we got each gallon pumped for a dollar off. We put just over 17 gallons into the 20.4 gallon tank. running out of gas in a traffic jam was something I needed to avoid and by taking that right we gained space from the logjam. From the station we found I90 and took it east to get far away. Then we changed our mind and headed west toward I405 where we entered the interstate and made it home within minutes. Lesson learned; stay cool. I didn’t. I haven’t been so stressed since my working days.