I Saw A Bird Fly Away (Dar Williams)

It may be in poor taste to use a song from my favorite female performer for such a drab subject but this is something that needs to be written about and well, I love Dar Williams. Unfortunately, this post is about H5N1 Bird Flu. It has "officially" hit Sweden. I have noticed a change. Not a lot of fresh chicken for sale at the local ICA these days. They don't eat much turkey here, but there is a local turkey farm outside of Östersund which is probably a little worried. The H5N1 strain first arrived in the EU last month, and has now been confirmed in 11 EU countries: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland. Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Denmark.
The H5N1 strain, in its most aggressive form, has killed nearly 100 people worldwide, mainly in Asia. There is more concern about how the virus will evolve once it has spread to other animals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Preservation (CDC) influenza viruses are constantly changing and evolving.
I keep thinking about the poor birds. Even the healthy ones on the farms must be killed once the virus is found. I imagine there will be some bird populations that will be wiped out, or become endangered or extinct. That is sad. It is also sad that I have to think about moving the bird suet we bought and have hanging off the porch to a tree far, far away so we or the dogs aren't subjected to potentially infected bird poo. I worry about using eggs. I also have to worry about one of the dogs finding a dead bird and my not getting to it first. The Centers for Disease Control and Preservation has some good info on their site about H5N1.
Does anyone other then me ever wonder if vegetarianism isn't such a bad idea? Between Mad Cow, Bird Flu and the fish tainted with mercury, it makes you wonder if any meat is going to be safe to eat. But then we would have to grow our own or buy organic so we wouldn't have to worry about the pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified plants.
OK, back to happy thoughts. Go listen to great music. Click on the Dar link!

Background Scenery (Nick Annis)

When I get up in the morning, I have learned to check the thermometer before I go out. Since anything below 65F/18.33C is still cold to me it really doesn’t make too much sense, but still I faithfully check every morning. This morning it was -14.8F/-25C. This is the coldest so far since I have lived here. I wasn’t very anxious to walk the dogs. In order to be warm I have to put on my “layers”. I wear thermals, pants, a turtleneck, a wool blend sweater, 2 pair of cotton socks and 1 pair wool socks, wool hat and scarf, snow mobile suit, boots and a pair of heavy cotton gloves covered with wool mittens. It is remarkable I can walk at all really, but I have embraced the warmth and try to forget that I look like Frankenstein when I am walking.
When it is this cold out, my eyes water when I first go out. Even Saga who loves this weather gets cold. Ky walks long enough to do her business then jumps up for me to perch up on my shoulder. We stop occasionally so I can massage Saga’s cold paw when she lifts it and hops around. This morning while we were walking it began to snow. It sparkled in the sunlight. It looked like someone was shaking fairy dust over us! It made me forget for just a few minutes that my eyelashes were half frozen together; I had lost all feeling in the left side of my face and the 20-pound dog on my shoulder.
After our walk, I was sitting at my PC drinking my morning tea. Saga started whining at the window. I got up to see several deer grazing in the pasture across the road. I remembered last nights beautiful sunset. It really is beautiful here. If you get a chance, give Nick Annis a listen.