Spring Fling
Spring has sprung and the ducks have shown up at our pond. I call it a pond, but it’s really more of a reedy, mucky puddle. No matter, they like the early vegetation that sprouts from the bottom. Being a shallow pond, they can easily reach whatever grows and I suspect they like the water that warms so quickly in the early April sun.
I get a kick out of seeing them. This year they showed up as an attached pair, whereas in years prior I’ve watched the female get chased hither and yon across the water by several pursuing drakes intent on having her as a mate. Once they’re paired, they stick together like glue, but sometimes the drake has to spend a lot of time chasing off other suitors. Oddly, this year things seem very quiet and it’s been just the two of them.
His job is to keep tabs on her and protect his future progeny.
Her job is more complex, as usual. 😉
To my surprise, they hung around all day. Usually I only see these ducks once or twice before they leave to raise their young in a safer location, but then they showed up again a few days later and spent the better part of another day eating the black oil seed that has dropped from my feeders and snoozing on a small island of grass in the pond. At the end of the day they left, and I haven’t seen them since. A nearby neighbor has a beautiful, huge, clear pond, so I feel quite honored that this couple even chooses to visit my little puddle when they could have much nicer digs right down the road.
Eerie
Neena
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Neena was the first to hear it and let slip a warning growl; a low rumble that started softly and built quickly into a “back off” bark that meant business. In the still seconds before the other dogs sounded their alarm I heard it too: the distant shrill yip of dancing coyotes. Immediately Hazer followed Neena’s lead, leaping to his feet, moving toward my bed and barking ferociously while Gus howled an alarm from his crate in the living room. It’s an eerie sound to hear at 4 o’clock on a crisp fall morning. The pack must have been pretty close for humans to hear them through our closed windows. I lay there thinking about the horses. Coyotes aren’t a real threat to a small herd of healthy equines. But still. And while the sound of yipping coyotes can seem a bit creepy, I can’t help picturing them dancing and playing in the moonlight or running and cavorting through dewy fields and mossy woods. That’s not a frightening vision at all.
The coyotes and dogs carried on for the better part of twenty minutes. There was no stopping them. Neena didn’t seem to carry on very much, but the boys were thoroughly caught up in the vocal chorus. Gus was especially reluctant to quiet down and continued to bark and growl for some time after the interlopers had moved on. Our first fall serenade.
Moving On
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Psalm 77 by David Nevue
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I generally don’t make a fuss over New Year resolutions. I may reflect a bit on events that occurred over the last year and think a bit about some things that I might want to strive to change. But I don’t get too worked up about the stuff that didn’t live up to my expectations or make any grandiose announcements.
I made some good progress with Dharla this year. I’m very glad that I decided to bite the bullet and get some professional training for her. While I miss having her at home, she’s not far away and I still see (and often ride) her every day. It’s been a great experience being at a bigger barn. I’ve met some very nice people and I’m learning a lot of really good stuff. Sometimes I feel a bit pulled in different directions. I still have the responsibility of caring for the animals here at home, but so far I’ve been managing to divide my time and attention equally. And it’s not forever. I expect I’ll bring Dharla back home come early spring.
I fulfilled a year’s commitment with an online nutrition program. While it’s sad to see that come to a close, I’m anxious to get back to doing things on my own. I’ve never been much of a group joiner, though I made an exception for this program because I felt it was important to experience the program from the inside before I recommend it to others. I got some good ideas and tips on food prep and meal planning that I’ll probably continue to use on my own. I can’t say enough about Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating program. It’s not cheap to do, but I saw firsthand via my own group of 150 or so members that it’s a life-altering approach to exercise and nutrition. Now I need to get cracking and get my own Precision Nutrition certification done. This winter should be a good time to hit the books and do it!
This year was a (fairly) healthy one. No eye surgeries or other major health issues, which was certainly a welcome change. We started the year off with the loss of my father in-law, but as sad as that was we’ve managed to get through all the “firsts” without Pop and survive. In early spring I had a very dear friend lose his home and entire life belongings in the Colorado Black Forest fire, and I experienced the helplessness of not being able to offer much more than an ear to bend when the burden became too heavy.
The animals have stayed healthy and grown a year older. Gus continues to tickle my funny bone daily, and at age 9 the cow dogs are still as energetic as ever! I closed the year by adding another horse to our small herd of horses. Rascal continues to impress with his easy-going nature, and I’m eagerly looking forward to getting out on the trail with him this spring. After all, it IS the year of the Horse!
Word has it we’re supposed to get socked in with another snow storm tomorrow. Time to hunker down and knit!
I hope everyone has a healthy, safe New Year!
Layers
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Like most things in life, nature has many layers. Sometimes things seem straightforward and uncomplicated while at other times more like a mosaic of twists and turns. This fungus, with it’s many layers of color and texture, was quite an interesting discovery. It appeared soft and velvety, slightly fuzzy from a distance, but upon closer inspection I found it rather slimy, and not nearly as inviting to touch as it looked.
Balance
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Certainly not my best effort, but I get a kick out of the symmetry of the Great Blue Heron and it’s reflection in the pond.
Hanging Out
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This was quite possibly one of the largest webs I’ve ever shot, and it was a bonus that the architect happened to be home. The weather has switched back to hot and humid. That means some early morning fog, which can make for some interesting photos.
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Motherhood
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In nature, motherhood comes in all shapes and sizes. While not my favorite, this mom stuck around for hours after her brood hatched, watching over them. And it was quite a brood!
Get Down
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I’m inclined to want to search the trees for hawks to photograph, but occasionally it pays to look down. I found this little salamander making his way across the back yard one drizzly, humid day last week so I focused on him instead.
Twice As Nice
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Not only are the butterflies visiting in droves, the re-blooming lilac is living up to it’s name! That’s a win-win for them and me!
Channeling Mom
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Every couple of years we get a pair of hawks that mate and nest somewhere close to our property. Two years ago a striking pair of hawks raised their young in the woods across the street. This year, they picked a big old white pine out behind our new barn and built their nest in the crotch of the tree. There’s always lots of activity when the young are being raised, but it’s nothing compared to the racket once the chicks have fledged. Apparently, like teenagers today, the juvenile hawks stick around for the summer and harass their parents into feeding them. They chase their folks from tree to tree, calling out pathetically for morsels of food and parental attention. The result is four loud, frantic, very large birds flitting from tree to tree all day long. At first I thought it was pretty cool. No matter what time of day I stepped out I was likely to find one or more hawks perched on a low branch nearby, screeching back and forth to each other. But that was back when we were in the throes of a heat wave, when all my windows were closed, the air conditioning was on and I was spending as little time as possible outdoors. Now the heat and humidity have moved on and I’m trying like crazy to get caught up on the gardening and lawn projects that got shelved during the heat. To say the hawks are distracting is a mild understatement. I’m torn between throwing down my gardening tools and bolting for my camera or grabbing ear plugs. I thought it would be easy to capture a few photos of the family, but so far I’ve traipsed all over tarnation and I’ve had very little success. A few days ago we had a grey, misty morning and as luck would have it, I heard one of the youngsters calling plaintively from the willow tree out back. I grabbed my camera and tripod and holding my breath, crept out the basement door. Would the hawk sit still long enough for me to fire off a couple of frames? Barely, but this is one of three photos I got. I would have liked a few seconds more to really get the camera better focused, but it wasn’t to be. Young hawks are especially leery of people and it didn’t stick around long enough for me to make any corrections. Better luck next time I guess!
Note: I don’t know why, but you have to click on a photo now to see better resolution. Anyone know what’s up with that? Annoying …..
Amazing Graze
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Horses live for the green grass of summer. Unfortunately, it’s been so muggy and buggy that they haven’t spent much time in the pasture. They venture down between rain storms and graze for maybe an hour or so, then head for the shelter of the loafing shed. I feel a little sorry for them. I know they’d much rather be out grazing instead of hovering around the barn. But with bugs the size of a small dog I can’t blame them for giving up. I’d like to think it will get better soon, but the weather pattern has set the stage for a very buggy second half of the summer, and it will probably continue well into the fall. Oh well. Better luck next year!
Intruder Alert!
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I wasn’t trying to photograph a hummingbird, but one decided to show up anyway! My shutter speed wasn’t set to catch it very clearly, but it’s better than nothing. This little pollinator was pretty fearless and several times it hovered only a few feet away and stared right at my camera. I think it was trying to figure out if I was a friend or foe! I’m finding the longer I stand in one place at the garden’s edge the more nature just accepts me and carries on.
Hiding
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The only thing brave enough to be out in this heat and humidity are the insects. Well, and the birds. I spend most of my time gazing at my gardens from the picture window. That’s kind of sad. I work like a dog to maintain things only to be forced to hunker down in the house between 9 AM. and 6 PM. I can only hope this crazy weather pattern isn’t the new norm.
Fly Away
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It’s that time of year again when I drag out the macro lens and try to shoot stuff in and around the property. It’s so humid outdoors now that I have to give the camera and lens about fifteen minutes to de-fog before I can shoot anything. Meanwhile, the bugs attack like I’m fresh meat. It isn’t the best of conditions for taking macro shots today. There’s a pretty good breeze and the light isn’t the best. But I’m getting antsy waiting for the conditions to improve, so I decided to take some photos in spite of it being against my better judgement. The way things are going, the gardens will have gone by before the weather starts to cooperate. It’s been that kind of year so far. It’s been so miserable that I’d like to just up and fly away myself: some place where it’s cooler and a lot less humid. I simply don’t know how people live in the south during the summer. I’m thinking mid-seventies would be just about perfect for me right now.
Peeking
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As of yesterday I still had small mounds of dirty snow tucked in spots around my yard. But a sudden spring shower came barreling through in the late afternoon and melted the last remaining signs of winter. And in it’s place, spring has sprung. Every April I’m amazed and impressed by the resiliency of perennials. The ground slowly softens, heaves, and coughs up the first threads of green. Everywhere I look I see signs of new life. It’s like being five years old, waking up on Christmas morning and excitedly anticipating a plethora of new presents! I love spring; so full of hope and possibility.
I got out on my horse yesterday for the first time since last fall. I was literally craving an opportunity to ride. I got a late start and didn’t go as far as I’d hoped, but that turned out to be a good thing because I nearly got caught in our first thunder storm of the season! Yee-ha! Life is never dull!
New Point of View
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It’s been a long time since I’ve taken any pictures. Life has been …. complicated. My Father-in-law died in February. As sad as it is to have to say this, his death was a blessing. That’s really just another way of saying he lingered too long and suffered too much. In spite of knowing Pop would never recover, getting him and my poor mother-in-law to the point where they were able to let go was difficult. So while most of the family was feeling relief at his passing, it’s been anti-climatic and an enormous adjustment for Mom. My sister-in-law stayed with Mom for about three weeks beyond the funeral, but now that all the fanfare has ended the dust is starting to settle. There isn’t much I can do but call and visit often. Only time will ease the sorrow of Mom’s loss. It’s been very hard to weather this storm with her. In many ways, much harder than losing my own parents more than a decade ago.
Directly on the heels of our family crisis I went in for my seventh (and hopefully last) eye surgery. This procedure was totally painless and easy except for the requirement to be at the surgical center at the crack of dawn. Apparently they don’t make allowances for animal care or distance. No, you must be there to “register” and then sit, sit, sit and wait for an hour or more until it’s your turn. The whole procedure took about ten minutes from start to finish, but for that I had to get up before dark and drive on ice slicked roads. Yeah. I’m pretty done dealing with eye specialists.
From a medical standpoint the surgery was a “success.” Apparently that means they haven’t caused further damage and they’ve managed to correct some of the damage done previously. However, I’m still struggling to see 20/20 and upon my last followup appointment I was informed that I’ll need a new (another) prescription change. Ahem. I just HAD a prescription change two months ago ….. to the tune of $700+ … and at that time I was under the impression it was going to be the last change for awhile. Apparently not. Cha-ching! It never ends! Let’s hope that I can get this prescription filled for less than the previous one (going elsewhere for sure) and it greatly improves my acuity.
Spring has been rainy, windy and quite cold. I’ve been looking for that perfect day to get back out and ride my horse, but it hasn’t presented until last week. Naturally, my response was to immediately develop a whopper of a cold … as in flat-out, can’t-do-squat-for-three-days kind of cold. To make matters worse, my husband took Good Friday off, which he NEVER does, but I was unable to partake in any of the weekend activities. I was not a happy camper.
That said, today my cold is getting better and the weather is still nice. Things are looking up!
Hibernate
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Another day of sleet and rain. How many does that make in the last two months? No photo ops today! In fact, none in weeks. Depressing. I feel like crawling into a cave and hibernating until spring.
On Alert
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I’ll risk being repetitious and post another picture of this beautiful hawk. Here, it’s watching the walkers who are about to ask me what I’m shooting. I knew someone or something was approaching before I heard them because the bird’s head swiveled abruptly in a different direction. While the hawk seemed to pay very little attention to me, it’s gaze stayed fixed on the pair until they walked out of sight.
I think one of the reasons I was able to drive home, get my gear and return to find this hawk still roosting was because it looks to me like it had recently fed. In some photos I can see a slight tinge of blood at the base of it’s beak and in other photos it looks like there’s a bit of blood on it’s feet. Which could explain why the hawk was so complacent. Many times I’ve tried to get close enough to photograph a hawk, but unless they’re settled in for a good roost they’re usually too wary to let people approach. Of all the pictures I’ve taken, the ones that have been the most successful have shown signs of a recent kill. (One other time I got some great shots of a one-eyed hawk that was perched on a limb that overlooks our pond. At the time I thought the hawk might actually have been hunting the pond, but it was impossible to tell.)
Either way, I’m very thankful that I had the opportunity to take so many good pictures of this hawk. Truly, this was a really big thrill for me!
Necessities
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It wasn’t a spectacular fall this year. That makes two years in a row that we’ve had a less than stunning seasonal display of color. And I have to admit, I’m not exactly grieving over it since I’m still not back to normal vision yet. If anyone told me back in March that it might take eight months to get my vision straightened out I probably would have postponed the surgery. But they didn’t. In fact, when I specifically asked about side effects and complications they more or less pooh-poohed my asking. “We do this all the time with great success. We’ll cross that bridge when … no, IF we get to it.” Well that bridge came up awful damn fast.
Most people don’t understand what it’s like to have screwed up vision. We’ve had major advancements in glasses and contacts so those who suffer from myopia seldom have to struggle for very long after a problem has been detected. When I was in grade school every child received a vision and hearing test at school, as well as a dental cleaning and exam. In addition, we were marched off to the nurses office every spring for a remedial physical exam.
The eye test was pretty basic: the students were asked to read an eye chart using first one eye, then the other. Next, the tester would give the child a red, green, white and black marble, and they would hold a picture card in front of you and ask you to place a specific color marble at different spots on the picture. This tested for depth perception and color blindness. I usually nailed the color and depth perception of this test, but after second grade I struggled to read the eye chart.
After the eye test was finished the student was ushered to another room where an audio tester waited with a big black or blue square box. The box had lots of dials on it and a chord with large, clunky headphone attached. The tester adjusted the headset to fit your head, then had you sit on a stool with your back to them as they worked the different dials that made the tone sounds. You were supposed to raise the hand that correlated with the ear that heard the tone. The pitch and intensity of the tone jumped all over the scale from very high to low and super soft or moderately loud. There never seemed to be a pattern for the tones, though like my father I always tried to find one. I was never very good with this test either, but my mother said that was because I had inherited her tiny ear canals and I was prone to inner ear infections.
I hated the dental cleaning and never understood why I had to have it done since our family saw our regular dentist every six months like clockwork. The dental hygiene chair was big and uncomfortable and the water that swirled continuously in the cuspidor made me have to pee. The hygienist would start by asking us to chew a chalky, bright red disclosing tablet, then she would hand us a hand-held mirror so we could see all the “dirty places” the pink stain revealed. I always thought this was kind of unfair since it had either been hours since I’d brushed my teeth or my visit came after lunch. What did she expect? Anyhow, she’d get out her big set of plastic teeth and gums, an over-sized demo toothbrush and would patiently explain how I was supposed to brush my teeth, after which she’d polish my teeth with her oily, belt driven prophy brush. I knew I was almost done when the hygienist shoved a gooey, overflowing tray of orange flavored fluoride in my mouth. The only good thing about visiting the school hygienist was that we got a kit that had a new toothbrush, a slim tube of Pepsident (Mom only bought Crest) and a strip of a dozen or so disclosing tablets.
In the spring our teacher divided us into two groups (one boys, one girls) and escorted us up to the nurses office for our annual physical exam. During my grade school years we had a delightful school nurse who looked just like Meryl Streep and had Meryl’s compassion and witty sense of humor. Sometimes I faked feeling sick just so I could be fussed over by Mrs. Hatfield. I adored her. I think all the children did. Anyhow, Mrs. Hatfield didn’t do the exam, a real doctor did it. I felt kind of cheated by that. I mean, I went willingly because I like Mrs. Hatfield, but I wasn’t crazy about having some old man I didn’t know see me in my underpants and undershirt. He looked a little like Harry Morgan, who played Col. Sherman T. Potter in the TV. show MASH. The doctor tried to make small talk as he placed a cold stethoscope on my scrawny chest and back. Then they weighed us and measured our height, before checking each child for something called scoliosis. Last, but not least, they handed us a little paper cup that held a clear, sweet tasting liquid that was going to protect us from something called Polio.
Back when I was in grade school there were lots of kids who relied on school health services such as these. For many, it was probably the only time they ever saw a doctor or a dental hygienist and for others, it may have been the only time they had toothpaste or a toothbrush. Not that I lived in an overly poor neighborhood. I didn’t. But you always knew there were one or two kids in every class who just didn’t get the simple basic necessities we took for granted.
Neighbors
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The Nearness of You by Nora Jones from Come Away With Me
I thought The Nearness of You would be kind of appropriate given the photo. Funny how two spiders can park themselves right next to one another and be fine, but humans? Not so much.
Suspended
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I’m temporarily suspended from riding until I get the Doctor’s OK. Hopefully that will only be a week or so, but I’m pretty sure my horse is fine with that!
Dreamcatcher
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The architect of this beautiful dreamcatcher wasn’t home. She was probably watching me from a safe distance.
Nature’s Pearls
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It never ceases to amaze me how much work goes into making a web. I may not be all that fond of the engineers, but their handiwork is impressive. Especially when you consider that each web either has to be remade every day or undergo extensive repairs. Some webs are small, but this web was quite large. I’ll have to check and see if it’s still up and in good working condition tomorrow morning.
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CurTales 
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