2021 Highlights

2021 started for us as quiet as 2020 ended, with few person-to-person social interactions outside our extended household bubble. Fortunately, our immediate bubble included Yolanda's parents and 7yo Francis and 4yo Luca, as we'd been their family honourary grand people since August 2020.  January 30th we started outdoor walks with pals and family, which was super!

At year end 2020 and the first week of January 2021, Yolanda was a constant visitor with her mother, Anne B. Olivotto (nee Brigid Anna Lawlor), who slipped away on the evening of January 7th, a few weeks after her 93rd birthday. We miss her. Wrapping up someone's life is never an easy task, and especially with current restrictions. At some point in the future there will be a chance for a memorial. For now, her children's families, and her sibling's children's families, and her many friends and community co-workers, co-volunteers and neighbours share in small ways the great and generous life of an angel.

Image shared by permission of the artist

For Bob's 63rd birthday in February, we set out on a 63-bird-species, 24-hour local challenge and we saw 64 birds species. So, feeling thus encouraged, we set ourselves an extension to a 100-bird-species, 1-week local challenge and our 64 grew to 86 local bird species. Shortly thereafter, Bob's chest discomfort since mid-2020 was diagnosed, and hereditary, and on March 2nd a stent was placed in his left descending coronary artery. The recovery was fortunately quick, and the greatest discomfort was in his arm from the scope procedure.

For the month of March, we rented a quiet, self-contained seaside cabin at Cluxewe, as we have in the past. For the final two weeks, Francis and Luca were there too during their Spring Break, and their mom Andrea joined us for the final five days. We spent a lot of happy mornings and afternoons exploring at the seashore. We were fortunate to also be able to visit the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, Malcolm Island and the beaches at San Joseph Bay. On our drives up and back from Cluxewe, Yolanda stopped by niece Alex's place to finally meet and have a fun interaction with grand-nephew Mason (born November 2020).

In April, Yolanda again missed her 60th birthday celebration (postponed from April 2020). Good news is that she claims she's technically still 59yo! Maybe she'll catch up big in 2022! Or 2023? Of extracurricular note for Yolanda were three tapestry exhibitions in which she participated, and with two on the drawing pad for 2022.

Our 2021 camping with our teardrop trailer, Gr@y, commenced in later May at Miracle Beach. Our camp bookings for early May at Tofino and Miracle Beach were cancelled due to a Provincial COVID-19 circuit-breaker.

We eventually camped out at Tofino and enjoyed an evening with sister Janis in early June and returned again to Miracle Beach in mid-June with Francis and Luca. In spite of rain we all had a great time, especially as there were puddles for the boys to zoom through on their scooters.

After a couple of days to re-group, we headed June 18 to our beloved Yoho NP to camp and hike and see a few pals outside (Jim and Diane, Mabel Lake; Dave and Johanne, Yoho). On our way home we tried out our trailer AC for the first time and slept at 13C, while the outside temperature under BC's "heat dome" reached 47C during the day in our Kerameos camp and overnight dropped to 32C. Pals Yve and Morris in Cawston (farmersdotter organics) hosted us for a gazebo-distant visit and interesting entomology discussion.

July was busy with Francis and Luca's bike camps and mid-week sleep-overs; garden picnic visits with Yolanda's father and a few patio dinners with pals and family: nephew Carl on a few occasions; and nieces Theodora and Kathleen, with Jon and 5yo Andrew. We also were able to enjoy hosting Bob's brother Rick and sister in law Maureen for a long weekend in mid-July and in later August we drove to visit briefly with nephew Fisher's family for grand-niece Marley's 9th birthday.

 

By July 12th, we were both double-vaccinated against COVID-19.

August 5th, Yolanda flew to Ottawa to visit with sister Carmelita until September 13th and she used the between-sister-visits to visit Phelan cousins, reconnect with high-school pal Laurie, weave tapestry and attend some galleries.

Of note were the Ottawa Art Gallery in-person and on-line interactive installation of The Knitting Machine "The Life of a Building" by artists Greta Grip and Lee Jones; the National Gallery exhibition of a re-imagined Rembrandt collection to include the histories of the peoples stolen from Africa and the genocide of the First Nations peoples; and the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum exhibition by artist Murray Gibson with stories of cloth production woven into the text of mythologies.

Meanwhile, Bob did bee-ing, kept up the yards and gardens and planned out a two-month cross-Canada bird migration camping trip for mid-September to mid-November.

On August 14, 2021, a vibrant, healthy, respected African birder acquaintance and friend, Joe Grosel, died of COVID-19 complications at 56 years of age (memorial video). We were intending to spend time with him again, but now no one can and that saddens us.

Joe Grosel (1966-2021), Moringa Waterhole Viewpoint, Halali, Namibia, 2019-09-17

We recalled Francis and Luca losing a great aunt to COVID-19 complications in Switzerland in early 2021. It's tough to take. It's real, and relatively few people have died of COVID-19 compared to how many would be dead if, globally, people weren't pitching in to do their part. It's currently a public health issue and we look to personally lighten the difficult times of others.

Yolanda harvested and processed our vegetables in the few days in mid-September between when she arrived home from Ottawa and when we left for our bird migration camp trip. While we were away, honourary niece Frances continued our tomato harvest, fed our fish and brought in our mail - that was a great help!

We departed on our for-the-most-part self-contained bird migration camp trip September 20th and were home November 11th, just before BC's catastrophic rainfall, washouts and slides. On our drive home we also skirted under two snow storms.

Dave at Malars' Maple Sweets St. Joseph Island, Ontario, showing their Evaporator

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

We saw ~115 bird species, mostly unique from our 86 February bird species observations, and including 15 new-to-us species: Whooping Crane, SK; Black-throated Green Warbler, Palm Warbler, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Snow Bunting, ON; Razorbill and Common Eider, NB; Northern Gannet, Black Guillemot, Boreal Chickadee, Black-legged Kittiwake, American Tree Sparrow, and Great Cormorant, QC; and Harris's Sparrow and Common Redpoll, MN. We also saw target species we were hoping for, including Burrowing Owl in Grasslands National Park. On the St. Lawrence Seaway we were treated to four species of Whales (Fin, Minke, Humpback and Beluga), and including sightings of Humpback Whales breaching while we stood on cliffs above. Other exciting sightings were Red Fox, Badger, Pronghorn and Bison.

Link to YouTube Video of the sighting

We finally met our newest grand nephew Levi (parents Lia and Aaron, NB) and our newest grand niece Lennie (parents Matt and Kari, BC).

On our camp trip east, we did a hike & catch-up visit with niece Christine, who is at Concordia in Montreal.

 

We had a surprise outdoor picnic with Fredericton pals Jill and Tom (they brought delicious fiddle-head soup).

We missed our grand nephew Mason's first birthday party back home in early November and look forward to the May 2022 arrival of his sibling (parents Alex and Evan, V.I), our 16th grand person! It was great to get caught up with people when we arrived home, including Yolanda's tea outing with niece Katy, who graduated from UVic this fall and spending a day with grand nephews Alexandros and Nikolas, as they and their mom, niece Theodora, have moved into their new house in December a block away from ours - we helped with painting and shared some seasonal lights with them in late November and imagine times together in the future. We hope to see other grand nieces and nephews (and their parents) in the not-too-distant future.

We had a busy, now in retrospect, somewhat cavalier, family-friendship-tour scheduled for early December and a week stay at the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay. Mid-way we developed some unwellness, so headed back to the Island for pre-emptive PCR tests. Happily the tests came back negative, and things subsided quickly. We were sorry to have missed out on five of our eight planned visits.

We respect those who are refraining from traveling - we knew we'd be with sister Carmelita and family at Thanksgiving, as well as be for after-Thanksgiving visits with nieces Christine and Lia, and visit pals Laurie & Dave on one of their final days in Ottawa before heading West to the Island, so our interactions prior were masked grocery shopping and masked gas fills.

As it was off-season, in many campsites we were the only ones, and in some cases we ended up parking as the campsite that on-line was open turned out to be closed. While this trip required on going research and verification we were prepared for last minute changes we needed to be compliant with such as provincial closures and restrictions.

In mid-December we were in the midst of considering cancelled plans and sending regrets to end-of-year invitations due to a new viral variant. The pandemic continues and our need to keep that in focus outweighs our natural tendencies. Camping off-season, local nature outings and socially-distant visits are back on the agenda for the seasonal wave. A pair of highlights at that time were the graduation of godson Michael from his Master of Physiotherapy program, and hearing from niece Yvonne that she was starting her new graphic design job - we're so proud of their accomplishments!

 

In spite of thinking we'd be alone most of the year end time, and were from December 21-27, we happily did host family in December: Christine, David, Wyn and Aimes in the week before Christmas week; Rick, Maureen and Sean Dec 27-31 (including a -5C walk at Butchart Gardens, buuuurrr); and Francis & Luca for year-end snow adventures Dec 31 - Jan 2.

 

We completed the year with a snowy, from-the-kitchen-window bird count: 18 species (mostly within the first hour of watching) including Dark-eyed Junco, Downy Woodpecker, Bewick's Wren, Fox Sparrow, Northern Flicker, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, House Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Gold-Crown Sparrow, Robin, Towhee, Gull, Crow, House Finch, Purple Finch, European Starling, Chestnut-backed Chickadee and groups of Bush Tits.