The redwoods pictured below were posted last eveing and I see that their images are still here on the blog today, so they survived overnight. Sometimes that does happen, sometimes not. It's a gamble, like many things in life. This time that gamble paid off.
Whenever we go out driving in the early morning, as we did today, taking our dog Willow out to a national park, we pass through miles of forests where the trees all seem to reach a maximum height and then to stop growing. Indeed, trees do all actually stop growing taller after reaching a certain height, different for different types of trees.
EarthSky says:
Trees stop growing in height when they reach a maximum height of roughly 120–130 meters, limited by the physical constraints of gravity and hydraulic resistance, which make it impossible to transport water to higher levels. While vertical growth stalls, trees continue to increase in width (trunk diameter).
Even Sequoias, the world's tallest trees, have not grown any taller than 130 meters, which is about 427 feet. New York City's Empire State building is actually much taller. But California's sequoias are really old and still pretty darn tall.
In fact, California is home as well to the world oldest tree, Methuselah, a bristlecone pine said to be 4,860 years old. It was just a seedling when early humans began developing language, culture, and writing.
Around 1900, an indigenous family was photographed living in a Brazilian forest much like our ancient ancestors did.
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I recommend this on-line commentary written by someone I have met, then would be happy to get any feedback now from my own readers. Do you agree or disagree?
No One Washes a Rental Car by Jose Azel, author of the Azel Perspective.
As a former Spanish-English interpreter myself in both courts and hospitals in the DC area, here is a news report that caught my eye:
A longtime Texas court interpreter who was detained on immigration charges in March was released from ICE custody on Thursday, her attorney told ABC News.
Meenu Batra, who has lived in the U.S. for about 35 years and has a "withholding of removal" order that prevents her from being deported to her home country of India due to fear of persecution, was arrested by authorities on March 17 at Texas' Valley International Airport while on her way to Milwaukee for a work trip. She was held at the nearby El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, where she told ABC News in a phone interview that she felt "humiliated and treated like a criminal."
I feel a real kinship with Meenu Batra, as I myself first took up Spanish medical and court interpreting as a part-time post-retirement profession after returning from the Peace Corps in Honduras when I was already in my 60's. The other Spanish-English interpreters I met were all much younger and were native Spanish speakers because very few native English speakers could pass the quite rigorous oral tests required. Interpreting was the only job that many other interpreters had ever held. As immigrants, they had trouble getting other jobs, so interpreting was their best option.
In fact, I was the only Spanish interpreter in the DC area who was a native English speaker, though that may be an incorrect characterization, as I had actually learned both Spanish and English at an early age when traveling with my family by house trailer and even on horseback throughout Central America. While the other interpreters I met in DC had been doing interpreting exclusively for their whole working life, I had worked in social work and in health-related positions during my earlier years. I also had helped propel my blind husband to success, as he had never held a job until after we married.
Despite looking like a typical Caucasian "little old lady" now at age 88, I've led a very interesting--sometimes scary, sometimes tragic--and also a rather adventurous life taking place in some 40 countries all over the globe, as recounted in my books (titles above right).
To begin with, at age 21, against my family's advice, I had married my husband, Tom Joe, who was blind and of Korean descent, the father of my 4 children, both born to me and adopted. With my help, he became very successful, which, if the story had stopped there, it would have been quite inspirational. But alas, after 24 years, he abandoned our family, when he and his office sweetheart went to Las Vegas, where he divorced me and married her all on the same day. That was on a Mother's Day and they took our daughter Melanie with them, but did not allow her to tell me why she wouldn't be spending that special day with me. Beforehand, they also had absolutely emptied our joint bank accounts, leaving not one single penny, so my checks all bounced. I was left in total shock. What had I done to deserve this? Does anyone deserve it? But readers already know that story both from my books and this blog.
Readers also know about the tragic deaths of my older son and Cuban foster son. I am living here now in rural West Virginia with my only surviving son, Jon, adopted from Colombia as a baby. I feel very fortunate to still have him in my life. And very fortunate to also have my daughters and grandchildren. They will carry my family's legacy on into the future
