Craig Craker
@craigcraker
No.
This Merlin posed so nicely for me as the sun rises behind it. An incredible bird. 🪶
Saw a weasel for the first time yesterday. It only stayed still for about 10 seconds, while I frantically tried to take a bunch of photos. 🦊
This Merlin was enjoying some fine dining yesterday, gorging on plentiful dragonflies. 🪶
10. Crossings by Ben Goldfarb (July 25) - a very interesting, well-researched and easy to read book that explores “how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet.” We have a lot of work to do as humans to help the flora and fauna around us. Great read.
This is the funniest porch decoration I've seen in my eight months of being a delivery driver.
9. Kindred by Octavia Butler (July 10) - this novel is hardcore because it makes you confront the realities of the antebellum South in a modern way. This is such a unique story and one that has left me with a lot to think about when it comes to race relations, ancestors and what we owe the past.
The mini heatwave in Tacoma just broke and this breeze feels glorious on my back deck.
Bald eagle eyeballing something at low tide. And a bald eagle eating an octopus. 🪶
8. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (May 30) - a page turner that melds climate change with a fascinating story about love, parenting, trauma and death. Learning about trees while also reading a very interesting story is about as good as it gets.
7. Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green (May 25) - This book is even better than advertised. An insanely quick and easy to digest read about a complex and awful disease that I wasn’t really aware of as still being super dangerous. The book for me can be summed up by the passage in the photo.
In case anyone was wondering, it is officially Stoop Season in Tacoma. No better place to sit and watch the day go by.
Big low tides in Tacoma this weekend made it so some very colorful and translucent nudibranches were showing out. Grabbed these photos this morning at the Point Defiance Marina. 🦑
I spy with my red eye ... Spotted Towhees have incredible red eyes that really pop in certain light. 🪶
6. 1984 by George Orwell (May 14) - I hadn’t read this book in a long time and it is way more messed up than I remembered. With the rise of AI and our current tech oligarch overlords, this book is even more important and feels predictive of where we are possibly headed.
Apparently, if you are a City of Tacoma worker, you can go 30 in a school zone while staring at your phone in your hand. Cool cool cool.
Sometimes, you have to stand out back with a doobie and enjoy some absolutely glorious PNW spring weather.
I saw this fun pup while on my delivery route recently. Cracked me up.
5. James Madison by Ralph Ketcham (April 20) - comprehensive look at our 4th president, including his vast role in creating the U.S. Madison was a great man with plenty of flaws (notably his refusal to show the courage to abolish slavery), who was likely only second in impact on the young country.
4. The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez (March 29) - an interesting look at life in Panama when the Canal was built, from the perspective of a Panamanian, his father, an American scientist and a young woman from Barbados. A slice of lives disrupted by American imperialism.
If y'all looking for decent beer prices plus really, really good tacos, well, this dive bar in Tacoma is where it's at.