Overwhelmed...

I don't have a lot more to say about it because I haven't got any real information, but I did go back and check on the incarcerated crow yesterday afternoon (see yesterday's post). I found only one bird in the cage. At least only one live bird. I also saw what appeared to be a bird carcass, an egg, and some dog kibble in a separate compartment of the cage.

I also noticed that the imprisoned crow has food and water in his compartment, so he is being well looked after. There are compartments in the cage structure that are open such that an animal or bird could go in. I don't know if the doors would be triggered to fall shut at that point, but I suppose they would. I really wish I had seen somebody out there that I could ask about the whole business. Maybe I will this morning.

Meanwhile, our fine weather has returned and is predicted to last all week. There are trees in flower and wildflowers on the ground everywhere. The grapevines are starting to put out leaves, as are many of the trees all around us. And I'm suffering miserably with a very sore throat, which might be some kind of allergic and sinus thing, or might be a bug.

I'm taking so many photos that I don't know what to do with them all. I guess I'll just post a few below, and complain about my pollen allergies.

Allergies are all the news in France right now. Pollen levels are extremely high (especially birch pollen, they say) and, according to this morning's news reports, one-third of French adults suffer from pollen allergies, along with one-fifth of all children.

Pollution is said to be a contributing factor, and the number of people with pollen allergies is on the rise — it won't be too many more years, at this rate, before fully half of all adults in France will be allergic to pollen, and the season for pollen allergies just keeps getting longer.

My own pollen allergies started suddenly. It was April 1, 1992, and Walt and I had just moved from San Francisco down to Sunnyvale in the Santa Clara Valley (that's Silicon Valley) in California. For 10 years starting that day, I was miserable from about the end of January to the first of June every year. Sneezing, burning eyes, a runny nose, fatigue — it was debilitating. I had to give up springtime gardening entirely, and I took a lot of sick days off from work.

Moving to France was good for me, and I've had allergy attacks here infrequently. It's been 12 years already. This spring I'm getting nervous about what's happening. Maybe I need to move to the North Pole, where there are no cypress trees or Scotch broom (a.k.a. "common broom"). Broom (or genêt à balais) has aggressively invaded this area over the past 12 years, and I'm sure it's one of the main offenders in my case.