I am drinking Barry’s Irish Breakfast Tea with a little milk. Aki is taking one of her post hike naps. I am trying to build up a tale to share from this morning’s beach walk. But I can’t stop thinking about the tea. 

Rather than use an insulated stainless steel mug for the brewing, I dropped the tea bag into an old steel pot given to us years ago by an Irish family. The resulting tea tastes much more complex than the brew I drink most mornings. Makes me wonder how many cups of hot tea from the old pot we’ve drunk over the past forty years.. 

Before the tea party, Aki and I had walked along Sandy Beach. The wind hadn’t risen yet so Gastineau Channel still reflected the mountains and avalanches. We saw the usual mallard gangs, and a Savannah sparrow. We heard gulls whine, robins sing, and after we left the beach, a very grumpy eagle screech out complaints. 

As we approached the complainer, another adult bald eagle dived toward a well-used eagles nest, which sits thirty feet off the ground in an old cottonwood tree. A gull, trying to snatch an egg or two, squawked and flew away. The eagle landed on a nearby limb. All night, rain and snow mix had soaked the eagle’s feathers. Now, after the rain stopped, it was spreading out its wings to dry. Another bald eagle poked its head above the nest’s edge to give her partner a disgusted stare.