Back in November, Nathaniel (ever-searching Craigslist) sent me a Craigslist post about getting involved with pigeon racing in the area. It felt like it had my name on it. I’d always planned to try having pigeons someday when I owned my own house; I remember telling Casey about it one of our first conversations because I wanted to gauge my neighbors’ feelings about living next door to a bunch of outdoor birds (he did not mind). I responded to the ad and then I think it was the day after Thanksgiving that Mike (B) and I spoke for an hour all about keeping pigeons in a backyard loft and potentially racing them someday. It was really interesting and exciting! His advice was to start researching lofts and trying to see some in person.

In early January, Nathaniel and I went to our first meeting of the PNW Racing Pigeon Club (of which Mike B is president). We all had masks on and met in a club member’s garage. Everyone was so nice and really eager to help us get started. In February, we went to club member Mike S’s in Beaverton to check out his loft – that’s what the first half of these pictures are from (we went back later that month for another club meeting). In March, we went to Mike B’s in Canby to see his loft setup, the second half of these pictures.

We did also go to the summer picnic in July, but I think that’s the end of our involvement with pigeons for now. Having birds would be awesome when living in lockdown for the foreseeable future, but when things started opening back up this past spring and Nat and I started going back to work more and more (he is back at work full-time as of last month), it felt a lot less possible. I’m so glad we did it all, though. We learned a lot at the club meetings and seeing people’s lofts. Maybe we’ll try again if we ever live somewhere with more available land facing south (and not on a park with tall trees all around, and under telephone lines).