MIkawa in Fall

And this is the joy of soft focus rather than sharp focus. When we returned from Iceland my tree leaves had crispy brown ends. They were fine, but unattractive. The color of my Mikawa recently changed and, with soft focus, you can see dramatic color without focus on the brown leaf edges. Funky thing about the tree is the leaves on the trunk. The bright green bark there is kind of nice too. 

Samuel got more acupuncture today. 

The big news of the day is that Brittney Griner is free. She was in US hands this morning. She was detained by Russia Februrary 17. Russia invaded Ukraine again and more aggressively on Feb 24. Her arrest was not announced until after Russia invaded Ukraine and it was clear that things were not going as planned. It sure felt that this was rougher than it would have been if not for the Ukraine war, is sure felt that she was being held hostage. 

In exchange, we have released an arms dealer. It is a complicated situation. Moving past the whole question of whether we've encouraged governments to take our citizens hostage, I hope no one ever travels to Russia again. 

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have been encouraging innovation in drones and have received seven samples of Ukrainian made drones in the past month. 

The government of Slovakia approved a new package of military aid to Ukraine including ammunition, warm clothes, and equipment. 

The EU Council decided not to accept Russian documents issued in occupied territories of Ukraine and Georgia.

Duolingo is a language learning app. They said over 1.3 million people began learning Ukrainian after this year's invasion in a show of solidarity. People studying Ukrainina in Germany and Poland rose over 1,600%.