Call me Picasso

Below: A small group of Transient whales. These animals are what I've been seeing lately. I'm anxiously awaiting the return of J-Pod, my favorite group of whales.

Well hello again family. This week has been pretty hectic at work. I’ve had tours every day and I’m learning something new with each trip. Unfortunately J Pod, one of the resident groups of orca, hasn’t been in the area since early April. However, the transients have been saving me lately. We saw T-14, who we call “Pender,” and his friends hunting along the Canadian coast Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They aren’t near as playful as the resident groups, but they are just as beautiful and fascinating. This weekend was sunny, but that didn’t last long because it rained pretty well yesterday.

I’ve also spent more time learning how to paint. Although I’m not too sure how to make “happy trees” and especially “happy waves,” I’m working on it. I painted four more pieces since the last time I wrote… it gets a bit boring when my roomie is on the mainland so I spend lots of time painting. The new pieces are called: Kiss My Fluke, Part of Your World, Paint Me Free, and To Katherine by Moonlight.

Kiss My Fluke is the one of the whale partially submerged slapping its tail above the water. (A whale’s tail is called a fluke… which explains the title.) I gave this one to Bill and Colleen, my bosses. I chose to give them this one because the title’s humor is right up their alley. Part of Your World is the one of the whale jumping to the left corner of the canvas. I think I’m going to keep this one because the title comes from one of my favorite movies, The Little Mermaid. Paint Me Free was specifically done for Grandma and Grandpa. The whale in the painting has three spots on its “chin” just like Keiko from Free Willy. Grandma and Grandpa took me to the Oregon Coast Aquarium when I was nine to see Keiko and its one of my fondest memories. I wanted to paint him free, although he didn’t live long in the wild; he still lives in my memory as free as a bird. To Katherine by Moonlight was my first freehand attempt. I think it turned out ok, given the way I painted it. (This is the one with the whales and the tree in the foreground.) I named it this because it was for my landlord. Rob and his wife Katherine own our cottage and live right next door to us. Sadly, Katherine has cancer and isn’t able to get out too often because she’s so sick. I wanted to paint the whales coming to visit her in hopes of lifting their spirits a little bit. I’m really not an artist, but it’s a nice hobby and maybe one day I’ll be able to paint something more difficult than a black and white whale. LOL! I sent my mom a painting for Mother’s Day yesterday. She wanted the one called Horsin’ Around that I painted last week. I even sent a painting to Jo this morning. It’s one of my first paintings called Jump 4 Joy. That one is a favorite of mine and I’m hoping it will help cheer Jo up since she hasn’t been feeling well lately. If anybody would like a painting just shoot me a message and let me know. I plan on keeping Part of Your World, Ruffles’ Journey Home, and J-Pod’s Frolicking Grounds (the one with the mountains in the background). The local post office requested a painting when I sent mom and grandma’s out yesterday. They want to put one up on their wall in the office, so I’m going to work on one for them as well. Just let me know if you want one what you’re looking for and I’ll do my best under the following conditions: only orcas, not too much detail, and I can’t redo one I’ve already done. This isn’t because I really want them to be one-of-a-kind, but because I don’t think I could recreate one. So… if you get a painting it will be one-of-a-kind by default.

I miss you guys, but I’m actually really happy here. Everyone is nice and the whales are great. Hope everyone’s having a great week and I look forward to hearing from you all.

P.S. The flash makes some of the paint look like it is see-through. The white spots are actually where the paint is the thickest and the flash just picks up the shine and makes it seem white. In other words, the paintings look better in person. (There, now you can’t criticize them anymore. Hahaha.)

Above: The majority of my paintings on display on our kitchen table... I hope I'm improving.

Soul Searching

Word of wisdom on the day: We tend to become the decisions we make. What starts as your decision can eventually become your nature. If you choose a life of unforgiveness you will develop a bitter nature. The more we choose something, the more we become that something. Chew on this a while and let me know what you think.

I’ve been reading more in “Letters from a Skeptic” and I’m truly fascinated by the discussion between the father and son. One of the questions I read on Wednesday was: If God is so caring, why does he create earthquakes and famines when they aren’t the result of “evil” humans? Great question. Is it bad that I often wonder the same thing? When you hear of food riots in Haiti, earthquakes in Los Angeles, hurricanes in New Orleans, tornadoes on the Great Plains, and floods in Bangladesh; it’s difficult not to question, “Where was God?” Any time I watch specials in third world countries I can’t help but ask how God could allow it. The book does an excellent job at discussing these good questions that everyone has asked at one point or another. I totally recommend reading it and letting me know what you think. It’s by Dr. Gregory Boyd if you are looking for it.

Dr. Boyd answers this question with three main points. One of them really stuck out at me because I believe it’s an American problem. He said that many “natural” evils could be prevented if people simply loved their neighbors as themselves. He says:

Imagine how much ‘natural’ evil could be prevented if there were no political
wars, if there were no arms race, if there were an equal distribution of the
world’s resources, if humans who had the means cared enough to invest in the
safety and welfare of others? Take famines, for example. Do you think anyone
would starve if people loved their neighbors as themselves? I’m told by
specialists in the field that there is more than enough food in the world to
feed everyone. It’s just that it’s hoarded by a few who already have more than
they need, at the expense of those who have less than they need. Americans, to
be more specific, make up about 7% of the world’s population, but we consume
over half its resources!

Wow. I’m not taking a jab at America here, but come on people! I realize that we are one of the world’s leaders in monetary donations to charity and in foreign aid, but why stop there? Look at all the resources we are using. It doesn’t take rocket science to realize it’s doing more harm than good. Too much of anything is a bad thing. I’m really noticing the impacts of wasteful living out here because the whales (an indicator species of the health of the local ecosystem) are not doing well. It’s time for us to become conscious of our consumption of resources and make it a priority to use a fair percentage.

One of his other points is best summed up in another long quote. He talks of how creation is limited, which is basically the whole yin and yang approach to nature. With every positive aspect comes a negative one, depending on the circumstances.

Any created thing must, for example, possess a limited set of characteristics
which rules out the possibility of it possessing other characteristics
incompatible with these. But this can lead to some unfortunate consequences. The
rock which holds you up must also be hard enough for you to stub your toe on it.
The air which you breathe must also be thin enough to allow you to fall through
it when not supported by a hard surface. The water which quenches your thirst
must also be dense enough so you can’t breathe it in, and so on. The
dependability of the world which makes it possible for rational, morally
responsible creatures to live works against us in certain circumstances.

Indeed, every positive feature of any created entity is a potentially negative feature in certain circumstances.

And now on to the best quote so far in the book, “Love must start free – but its goal is to become ‘unfree.’ To be unable not to love is the highest form of freedom in love.’”

I’m really enjoying this book and the food for thought it’s giving me. I really hope you guys decide to read it because I think it’s an awesome way to evaluate your beliefs. A book that forces you to do a little soul searching is, in my opinion, the best kind of book.

I’ve continued my painting. I did two more on Thursday night. Mike isn’t here because he’s working for Beam Reach this weekend, so I needed something to do. We haven’t seen orcas lately, so I’ve really had to work hard. I needed some time to distress and didn’t want to sit around and watch TV, so I did two more 8 x 10s. The one of the whale on its back is called “Horsin’ Around” and the one of the lone whale with the wavy fin is called “Ruffles’ Journey Home.” I’m not too confident with how they look because they still seem cartoony, but at least it’s something to do. If you see one you really like and want, let me know. I’d be happy to send it to you. (I won’t even charge you for it!) Hahahaha. Mike and I were joking that I should die my hair black, change my name to Talks with Whales, and sell my paintings at the Native American Galleries for hundreds of dollars. LOL. So, if you would like one, I can give you a tribal deal… no charge! Hahahahahahaha.

Yesterday we saw a Minke Whale (below). They are the smallest of the baleen whales (about 30ft long) and eat krill. Minkes tend to be shy and this guy was just hanging out around Saturna Island in Canada. Although I’m sad we haven’t seen orca since last Saturday, it was nice to see the Minke and learn more about another type of whale. I’m still loving my job and it really gives me a “cause” to advocate for (good practice). I probably won’t have a day off until next Thursday so please feel free to call if you’re in the mood to chat.

My Turn

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isa. 40:31).

Above: Transient Male T-14 (previously known as O4). This is the whale we saw eating seals on Saturday. All of the pictures in this entry are of T-14 and were taken by the Center for Whale Research. The bottom two were taken on the 19th, the same day we saw him. So those bottom two pics give a pretty accurate portrayal of what we saw. The gulls really go nuts whenever the whales make a kill. Pretty wild!

No sooner had complained about my lack of Transient experiences did I have one of my own. Our Saturday (April 19) trip was quickly shaping up to be a nightmare. Of course it was frigid and snowing this weird, wet snow. I’m beginning to worry that I take terrible weather with me because my boss said it was unusually cold. Mom said it was in the 70s in Michigan… perfect. Just when I thought I’d escaped the poor Michigan climate, it gets warm there and cold where I’m at. I was worried the cold weather and lack of an orca sighting would give me a poor group dynamic. This was a particular fear for me because it was my first trip as the only Naturalist on the boat and I wanted a group that would be excited to talk to me. I decided it was up to me to create an upbeat group atmosphere and made it a point to be excited, despite the fact that I was dying for a whale sighting.

The guests returned my smiles and were pretty happy and excited despite the weather and me informing them that J-Pod hadn’t been sighted… yet. I let them know that the whales are wild animals and could appear at any moment. This time the prediction was true because, as we were observing Steller Sea Lions on Speiden Island, Captain Hobbes received calls saying there was a lone whale spotted near Sidney, Vancouver Island, British Colombia. We quickly moved across the strait in search of the lone dorsal fin. When I heard there was only one whale, I knew we had a Transient on our hands. These whales hunt for porpoises and seals in smaller family groups and can be observed traveling alone or with up to six members. The Transients, unlike the Residents (J, K, and L Pods), behave much more like hunters. They travel silently in small groups. We don’t even bother sticking the hydrophone in the water with the Transients because they don’t really make a noise, besides when they trash about after their prey. Orca calls can be heard, in good conditions, for over a mile underwater, and the Transients don’t want to give away their location.

The male we saw was an adult named T-14. All whales, including Transients, are given alpha-numeric names that designate their pod by the letter and personal identity by the number. All Transient whales are given the letter T before their individual number and certain number groups within the Ts are family members. T-14, who didn’t have a “street name” like the Residents, clearly got a hold of at least one Harbor Seal and was trashing about 100yds away from our starboard (right) side. You could tell he snagged a seal because of the oil in the water. Although there was no blood (that we could see), there was an oil slick in the water that came from ripping the seal’s blubber apart. (Sorry for the graphic details, but it’s true.) Seal blubber is quite oily and creates a small-scale oil slick when they are killed. Their blubber, as well as whale blubber, used to be used to light lamps back in the day. T-14 has a unique story because he was actually captured in the late 1970s with the intention of taking him and a female Transient, T-13, to an amusement park. The political tides of the time were changing and whale captures were becoming taboo, so researchers intervened in the capture and seized the opportunity to put radio tags on the animals. Both whales were released back to the water once they were tagged. T-13 went missing in the late 90s, but T-14 still frequents the Puget Sound. It was nice to see him hunting in the sea where he belongs as opposed to him becoming another story about a whale that didn’t make it in captivity.

Each day is a learning experience for me. The animals are always doing something different that reignites my interest in them. I’m in awe by the diversity of life here. It really reaffirms my belief in intelligent design. There’s no way such complexity could come out of chaos. I can’t imagine how some people could see all this without believing in God’s purpose his creation. I love the islands so much and believe in working to make a difference. Of course people are of higher value to me, but I really feel for the animals here. My favorite whale, Ruffles (J-1), displays toxin levels of 120parts PCB per million. People don’t even accumulate 1part per million. It’s a wonder he’s still alive because there was a whale in the same pod who died a few years ago due to high toxin levels (65parts per million), which made it impossible for him to fight off a common infection. Although the dead whale was of mature breeding age, he had zero sperm count ~ meaning he was sterile. With such a small population to begin with, sterile animals are a big concern. If you are interested in helping the whales in their fight for survival you can donate to the cause by adopting a whale through the Whale Museum. The whale I adopted is named Polaris (J-28) was the first calf I saw in the wild. She was only one year old when I came out in 1994 for my eighth birthday. I have my own personal concerns for Polaris because she’s 15 and hasn’t had a calf yet. I really hope she’s not sterile. Their gestation period is 16 months. Given this fact, she was seen spending a lot of time with an adult male from L Pod named Faith (they don’t inbreed within their own pod) in 2006. Unfortunately there are still no baby results. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a Polaris calf at the end of this summer. That would totally bring my orca experience full circle.

I’m becoming more pleased with my paintings. I put them up in our living room and they are adding some color to the plain white walls. Painting, in many ways, is a lot like growing up. You begin with a blank canvas; endless possibility. The purity of the canvas is quickly stained with sketching. The marks can be permanent or easy to get rid of depending on how hard you push. The harder you work towards something, the bigger impact it has on the canvas. As you get more experienced, the sketching turns to painting with bright colors. Some hues are happy, some dark and sad. Each brush stroke is a story, and opportunity for change. As you continue to paint, you may find that the overall picture would be better without some of the strokes. You can paint over them all you want, but the layers we try to mask them with don’t erase the fact that they happened. You can choose to keep covering them up, or you can accept that they happened and embrace them as part of your story… something that makes your picture unique. You can use these experiences to teach new painters what to do and what to avoid. As the painting nears completion, you scan over it with a critical eye. What is good? What needs to be fixed? You can choose to let the problems stay as they are, or you can choose to fix them. It’s never too late to pick up the brush and make a change… but it all begins with picking up the brush. It all begins with the desire to make something beautiful. We are flawed, but in the end so beautiful. Many people paint on their own, but the lucky ones are apprentices to the Master. Those artists get the benefit of the help of the greatest painter of all. Although he can’t change a foul stroke, he can make you feel as if it never happened. Will you fix the mistakes? Will you paint with the Master?

Blood in the Water

Below: A Transient Orca sends a Dall's flying through the air. See the rest of the pics at http://www.whaleresearch.com/thecenter/Encounters_2008_007.html

Well guys, I missed it. I missed the biggest excitement on the island since I got here. Apparently there were Transient Orcas hunting on the West side of the island while I was working in the office on Wednesday. Now, Transients hang out around the straits relatively frequently, but it was what they were doing that was so exciting. They found a Dall’s Porpoise and her calf and took advantage of the situation. They ate the calf first and then went after the mother. They launched her some 25ft in the air in attempt to stun her before they began feeding. This behavior is rarely caught by humans and I totally regret that I missed it. Mike and I were mourning the loss of opportunity last night at dinner when we began chatting about what would happen if we saw it and there were kids on the boat. He said he’d let me handle the questions about Willy eating Flipper. Haha. They also ate a Harbor Seal not far from the research boat. I wish I could have seen it. It was definitely a National Geographic moment.

This Tuesday night I met a guy who works for the Center for Whale Research. Of course I had to ask millions of stories about the whales and he mentioned the excitement about watching Transients feeding. (Little did we know he’d be witnessing it the next morning. Lame.) However, some good did come out of the evening. He shared information about volunteering opportunities with the Center. I really would like to volunteer for them and learn more about the whales. Not only would this make me a better Naturalist, but I think it’d be really fun. They catalog the individual whales in an annual census, monitor behaviors, and even examine their poo! (Don’t ask.)

In order to take my mind off missing the Transients, I began painting my small canvases. The underwater one turned out a little too dark… but I’m just saying that’s because it’s underwater. I really like how the jumping one turned out. I think it looks the best. Then I painted the large canvas this morning. I’m happy with it, other than the fact that the waves look like polka dots. I really need to work on how to make waves realistic. I guess that will come with more practice. (At least the whales look semi-decent.)

I hope all is well with everyone. I will be working for the next week straight because Nancy and Pete are out of town. This means I will be the only Naturalist on the trips, so wish me luck. I’ll be pretty busy so I don’t know how often I can be online. Stay in touch.

Below: The new living room set-up with all the driftwood and paintings. Hopefully it looks more like a home now!

Get Your Groove On

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good."

Above: Me and Khalil are in the middle, pretending to be mobsters in NYC on New Year's 2006

I talked to my mom the other day and she said she was picking out songs for grandma and grandpa's 50th party. The song I picked is called the "Cupid Shuffle." I learned the shuffle the first time when I was visiting Khalil, Mackey, and Farrah over the summer in Detroit. It's a pretty popular dance back on the eastside of Michigan and I figured I'd bring it to the 50th celebration. I didn't know mom's side of the family enjoyed dancing so much (must be where I get it from), and I think you all will really love this dance. It's really easy to learn and I think it'd be great if people practiced a bit before we got together and then we could all dance together. I'm really excited for everyone to try it. Please let me know how the practice sessions go!

How to do the Cupid Shuffle (everything is on a four count beat so it's super easy ~ everyone young and old could really boogie to it):

Four steps right
Four steps left
Four kicks to the front (beginning with the right, then alternating)
Then "walk it out" for 1/4 turn

Here is a video on YouTube where the dancers are doing it to the song... good to practice to (like I totally know Jen and Jo will do) before we all get together and can have fun with it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExC1oGN5J28&feature=related

*** On a more serious note, I'm happy people enjoyed the sketches. I wanted to make them as elementary as possible because I'm not a skilled painter... yet. The more cartoonie the better! I'll be sure to post more pics as soon as I paint them. I'm glad Joelle enjoyed our phone call the other day. I've grown up without having much contact with my cousins, something I really wish would have been different. Many of my friends have family that lives much closer to them and their cousins are their best friends. I'm not bitter... I just have learned to appreciate the times that I'm able to talk with family and welcome all phone calls, preferably after 7pm Pacific Time so my phone bill isn't outrageous. I want all my family who's reading this to know that I love you all very much and appreciate your continued interest in and support of my dreams. I would like to dedicate the following quote by David Copperfield to my family, young and old alike: "I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren't a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future." I hope you all follow your dreams. It's never too late to start pursuing them!

Paint Me Local

"Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint you can on it!" ~ Danny Kaye

I was so excited about beginning to paint that I sketched on each piece of canvas I bought. I bought two 8x10s and a 24x10 piece of canvas. The large canvas has a scene of J-pod with the mountains in the background. As I said before, it’s not going to be super realistic, but hopefully it will be good enough to put up in our living room. The smaller canvases have individual whales on them. One whale is swimming through bull kelp and the other is jumping out of the water. I’m going to use the smaller ones for practice. I’ll probably find paint at the drug store after my mom deposits my check. I thought it was difficult to sketch on the canvas because erase marks show up and don’t fully get rid of the pencil lines. I will just have to paint over what I erased. For example, if you look at the kelp picture you can see the word “orca,” in the top left corner. I was going to paint animals and put their names in the top like in a kid’s room. However, I thought that looked too juvenile and got rid of it. The word is still a bit visible and I can’t wait to paint it away. Hopefully once I paint them they will look better, not worse. I haven’t taken an art class since my sophomore year of high school and I hope this project isn’t a waste of time.

I also have begun reading one of the books I brought. It's called Letters from a Skeptic by Dr. Gregory Boyd. It's a compilation of letters between a father and son in which they debate the ideas of God, Religion, and truth of the Bible. The father, a 70-year-old atheist, debates with his Christian son, Dr. Boyd, by asking the questions we all want to know. The questions I focused on in my last reading were about why Christianity has done so much harm (i.e. the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition) and how come a "loving God" allows so much suffering in the world. I was happy the father asked such good questions because I often find myself wondering the same things. How could a loving God who is "all powerful" allow such terrible things like wars, famine, and rape to occur? I was happy with how Dr. Boyd responded to his father's questions. He said, "If God is going to give free wills to His creatures, He has to allow the possibility of them misusing that freedom, even if it means hurting others. A freedom that is prevented from being exercised whenever it was going to be misused simply wouldn't be freedom." If you give someone five dollars, and stepped in every time they were going to spend the money unwisely, is it really their money? Did you really give them anything? The answer is quite simply, no. The next question is, "Is the risk of freedom worth all the suffering?" Of course to the people suffering, I'm sure it is not. However, with the ability to experience great pain comes the ability to experience great love. "To refuse to create a world where love was possible because the risk was too great seems beneath us. Love is really the only reason worth creating. It's not freedom for the sake of freedom - it's risked for love. " There are many more valid points in the book that I won't go into for the sake of time... I need to be back to work at noon for a tour, but I highly recommend this book so far and think it does a great job to capture the dialog between faith and its skeptics. No matter what you believe, it is an interesting read and worth looking into.

I consider myself becoming more "local" everyday. I'm starting to paint, I read, I'm going to be riding my bike to work, and I love discussing environmental issues. What's gotten into me? hahaha. It must be the whales...

Driftwood

"What is life? Is it the flash of a firefly at night? Is it the breath of a buffalo in the winter time? Is it the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset?"

~ Crowfoot Indians ~

I know I said I wasn’t going to talk too much about the trips on this blog, but I can’t help but talk about what we saw yesterday. Although we didn’t see orca, we had an amazing encounter with the Dall’s Porpoises in Haro Strait. The Dall’s are pretty playful and love to approach the boats and ride in the bow wave. Although it doesn’t happen often, they swam right up to us and rode in our wake. It was so incredible to see them up close. From a distance, they look pretty small (especially compared to the orca), but when you see them up close, you realize just how big they truly are. They were about 6.5 feet long and weigh a few hundred pounds. They’re a pretty stocky porpoise with a blunt face and great coloring. Many people first thought they were baby orca because their black and white markings. However, to a seasoned eye, which I consider myself to be becoming, the difference is obvious. Dall’s have short little dorsals and their color pattern is completely different.

I wish there was a way to thank the porpoises because they saved the day. People really get let down when we don’t see orca, so their close encounter took our guests’ minds off our lack of whales. One of the porpoises who came close was a hybrid between the Dall’s and the Harbor Porpoises, which was easy to tell due to its dull and mottled coloring. As I said in the previous post, this is due to the male Harbor Porpoises’ strong sex drive. They’ll mate with not only their own females, but porpoises of other species. We also got to see a male Steller Sea Lion tearing a salmon apart in the water. In order to eat the fish, Stellers grab it in their mouths and bash it against the top of the water. This makes pieces of fish fly and the gulls go nuts, which put on a really great show. The Stellers are so big that when they take a breath after a dive, it sounds just like a whale surfacing. I’m really pleased with this job. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Every day we’re on the water is different. Each new animal behavior I see rekindles my excitement for wildlife. I can’t wait until our next trip!

I decided that I’m going to take on painting while I’m on the island. They sell canvas here for pretty cheap and I picked some up earlier today. I’ve been sketching out orca scenes and I’d like to paint them in a more whimsical manner, mostly because I’m not skilled enough to make them look real. We’ll see how it turns out and I’ll take pics and post them when I’m done. But I really want to take my time and make it look decent, so it might be awhile before you see it. I’ve also been writing parts of a story, we’ll see if I remain interested in it or if it perpetually remains a work in progress. I want to develop some hobbies while I’m here so I’m not just watching TV until it warms up.

I went to Jackson Beach last night, which is just a mile from our cottage. All the beaches here are pretty rocky and have tons of driftwood on them. They’re not good for getting a tan, but great for getting good pictures. I initially went to the beach to take home some driftwood for decorating purposes. I hate that our walls and mantle seem so bare, so I thought driftwood would suffice for some new décor. Thankfully I brought my camera, and I was able to take some pretty cool shots of the shoreline and sunset. If you look closely in the background of some of the pics, you can see the Olympic Peninsula Mountain Range in the background. The island that you see in the distance is part of Orcas Island, another member of the San Juan chain. There was a dog running around with its owner and I thought it looked like a wolf, so I took some pictures making it appear wild. I think they turned out quite nicely. My favorite is the one of the sunlight behind the charred piece of driftwood at the top of the blog. You can click on the smaller pictures to make them larger to see all the great detail.

Well, that’s all for now. I have to wake up early tomorrow to be at a Captain’s meeting by 8 a.m. so we can all go over the “Be Whale Wise” guidelines that lay out the rules for whale watch vessels. We have to be super cautious around the whales now that they are an Endangered Species and protected by the Federal Government. They want me to participate in the meeting so I can explain why the boat cannot approach the whales too closely. Remember that all of you can call me anytime. I’d love to chat and share info about what I’m up to. Hopefully I’ll have service if you call because I don’t get great reception while at home. I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather that comes with spring. Thanks for your wonderful comments and continued interest with what’s going on in my life.