Because of a forecast of nasty weather, the Thursday pétanque event was canceled. I went to EBRG instead. That takes a gallon of gas.
Scheduled was a presentation at the Audubon group about Nightjars and Common Poorwills: https://ebird.org/species/compoo
… and similar birds. Spend 5 minutes on the linked-to page and you will have a better experience than at the meeting.
As usual the audio-visual hookup didn’t work. This time “because he used a Mac and the Hal Holmes system was Microsoft“. In a dozen tries, I have never attended one of these when it did work.
The presenter — a man about 65 — was told to use a microphone which he held everywhere except in front of his vocal apparatus. The voice and loudness might have worked for a child sitting in his lap. The room, big enough for at least 60 people, had about 30. I was in the middle. Had he stood close to the front row and talked straight at us, we could have heard him. Instead, he wondered around, frequently looking at the screen. I estimate I caught about 50% of his words.
The AV-system could only show images of text and a couple of photos. When they tried to show a video, the whole thing went blank. They made no progress in the next 5 minutes. Over the next 5 minutes or so, people left one or two at a time. I was the 5th.
The text was about half-a-page in small print and poorly formatted. He used it as speaking notes — while looking at it and away from the audience. This was a complete disaster. We trained college students about how to do these things because it was assumed they would take jobs that required them to do such presentations. The technology changes but the basic skills do not.
The mentioned nasty weather did materialize — all east of me, although I could hear thunder. Acquaintances in the Quincy area are getting the entire mix of rain, wind, and lightning.
The area had full sun and 90 degree temperature. That heated the ground, produced rising air, with moisture coming up from the Pacific Ocean across eastern Oregon. The combination produced the atmospheric activity. It was predicted well in advance. The high Friday is expected to be 30 degrees cooler.
{posted late Thursday evening}
Keeping Track
My friends were impressed {Yeah Right?} that I knew something about this. Mostly grass and sage on the mounds, but otherwise flowers were everywhere. Along with a dozen types, the Bitterroots Roots were plentiful and in full bloom. The flowers are about 2.5 to 3 inches across. {Note to self: next time use something for scale.} The Wiki page is informative.
Flowers are looking nice and the region’s millions of apple trees are now blooming. WA produces too many. Buy apples!
Us old folks have completed about 3 acres and son Dylan has been at it too. He works in the Pinot Noir section while we do all the rest. He has pruned about 4 acres to our 3.5. There is another 10 acres that we will do over the next four weeks. This week a small ground-hugging white flower bloomed. The vines are still dormant. A few early blossoming trees are about to break buds. There is much activity on the farming, orchards, and ranch lands. That’s March in Central Washington State.
The first winter of using the wood stove I didn’t realize the consequence of keeping the screen clean. The house filled with smoke and gases. Now I take a wire brush to it about once a month. Mine looks something like this, except after 7 years of use, it is blackened. 
Those of mine that still require a personal touch have already jumped. Now it is ice cream time.