Adventures and New Things

Over the past week, I've done quite a lot of new things. I went out to the lake and grabbed a few new birds, tried new foods, and played with my new camera lens.
My adventures started out on Friday morning at 10:38. It was a balmy 3 degrees out, but I wasn't going to let that stop me, so I walked out the door wearing extra layers and headed towards the lake. Once I reached the lake and I saw that it was frozen over and covered in a thick layer of snow, I wondered how stupid I was. What birds would be out in this kind of weather? As it turns out, woodpeckers. I found a Hairy (new!) and 2 Red-Shafted Northern Flickers (also new, but I've gotten a yellow-shafted before). I also got some Oregon variety Juncos, Eurasian Collared-Doves (super common in our area), house finches, 2 house sparrows, a handful of Rock Pigeons, and a robin. (That last one was a little surprising, but apparently they are common year round. You learn something new everyday!) I was so caught up with my finds that I was almost late for class, but luckily I got in there just in time. That was my excursion of the week. Oh, and here are a few photos, too.

Red-Shafted Northern Flicker

This is from a different day, but tucked in between the branches in a Eurasian Collared-Dove

With my 200mm lens this is as close as I could get on the first blue jay that I've seen this winter.

And onto the next part of my post: New foods.
For the past 3 weeks I've been keeping an extensive food diary because I haven't been feeling up to par. Upon analyzing the results, it appears as if I'm gluten intolerant. Great. I'm not exactly pleased with this, but if eliminating gluten makes me feel better, then I'll do it. I'm already dairy, egg, and meat free, so adding another restriction shouldn't be terribly difficult because I've become proficient at reading labels, but it means that I can't eat all the things my family eats. Today I ventured into making GF pancakes, which were a wild success among... me. I ate all but two, which were eaten by curious family members.

The batter cooking

Stacked. Not eating them as soon as they came off the griddle was tough.

I'm excited about trying new recipes now that I'm gluten free. Or at least on a gluten free trial. Tomorrow I'll be making a breakfast smoothie and some rice crackers for a post-workout snack. And that's a wrap for tonight! Be happy and be kind to the earth.