Since I consider 2020 to have been the worst year in my 71-year life, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.  In 2020, we underwent the worst government-imposed denial of individual liberty in living memory, when our state governments locked down entire states, preventing millions of citizens from earning their livings, and causing the demise of thousands of small businesses that will never return.  All to fight a new Wuhan Coronavirus from Communist China that tore through entire populations all over the world, bringing death and illness everywhere.  At the end of the year, the virus from Communist China has not been stopped, and the world still suffers from the rule by decree of governments everywhere. [as if a pathogen that is invisible could be stopped anyway, short of murdering all the people].  I lost my job at the end of August, after my aerospace employer went through multiple rounds of layoffs.  Here is a photo that evokes that time.

Each of those chairs represents a person who lost their job.

We hadn’t really planned any vacations for 2020, so we didn’t miss much.  I did vow to get out as much as possible in defiance of our Dictator’s stay-at-home orders.  My car was truly my Liberty in 2020.  We went to our favorite small town of LaConner a few times last year.

Talk about a fish out of water!  The waterfront on the Swinomish Slough was beautiful as always, this in July.

I made some small trips around our area with my camera and my phone.  Our local Narbeck Wetland is a favorite place to go for peace and quiet in nature.  Not many others were out and about this past summer.

January brought us snow last year, and I think I got some pretty fine pictures, even some taken out the window of my car, when stopped at a traffic light on the way home from work!  I give thanks for my phone and its camera.

The one above is the drive home.  Below is my backyard.

I think, though, that my very best pictures of 2020 were taken in September, on our driving vacation to and from South Dakota.  On that trip, we tasted Liberty for a week, with our Ricochet friends, before coming back to house arrest at home.

This photo of Roughlock Falls just says welcome, dip your feet in!  And the sound it makes is very soothing, too.  I have always said that running water is Nature’s original music.

The Needles, off the Custer State Highway, give a great geology lesson, sculpted by wind and water.

Our drive through Glacier National Park was literally breathtaking, with beautiful new vistas around every turn in the winding Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Closer to home, I have spent more time this year around Silver Lake, just south of our house.  Hubby and I took a walk a few weeks ago, in the late afternoon.  Sometimes, the light is just perfect, and the lake was very calm and reflective.

I have to say, I really think this picture is one of the best I’ve taken of 2020.

Finally, I spent a lot of time in 2020, in my own kitchen, watching all the birds visiting our seed feeder and two suet feeders.  Our exotic ones seemed to come earlier last year, and stuck around longer, to delight us with their antics.

This is our Red-shafted Flicker.

And our Townsend’s Warbler.  Below is some great video I got yesterday, with everybody fighting for the feeders.  Great fun!

I have to say, I hope 2021 will bring fewer restrictions on our liberty, so we can venture out further.  Wherever I go now, my phone camera goes too, just waiting to capture those unplanned moments of beauty that are still out there.

 

Link to Tina’s original post