My crush

He's tall and distinguished looking. Elegant. Graceful. The curve of his neck nearly makes me swoon. When he approches the house, my eyes are immediately drawn his direction as I leer at him out the window. My husband can't even hate him, he's just that gorgeous.  Ok, it's a blue heron, and he's hot!

I'm merely a scheduled stop on his daily route and that's alright with me. I don't care where he goes after my place as long as I get to watch him coast in on those enormous wings. He's my avian gigolo.

The frogs on the pond are less happy than I am to see his arrival. Luckily there are millions of them! It's truly a smorgasboard. In fact, I wonder how he flies away with such a full belly? But then, he is the pro.

I know that when he leaves my little pond he will go on to someone else's. But in the morning, or maybe for a two-fer in the evening, he will return. I have something he truly loves...frogs!

Easter logistics

Easter Sunday was my eldest son's 14th birthday. It was also my first Easter with my hubby in our new home, so I offered to host the family gathering here at the cabin. The first issue was where to seat everyone. Our family isn't too numerous, only about 20 coming. I vividly recall being 12ish and having to sit with the little table with my knees hitting the underside of the wee card table on a chair made for a gnome. I wanted us all at one table. Everyone contributed and it was a breeze to heat a ham! Food was served off the island. I had the table scaped with flowers in aqua mason jars, fabric, primitive bunnies and giant aqua ceramic eggs I had from Ikea awhile back. We ate around 1:30 pm and it was de-lish! Cross off one success for the day.

The next event was the egg hunt. It's a fine line when your kiddos are older and little cousins come along. Do you cater to the littles or the bigs? I decided to make the egg hunt more of a challenge for the big guys. I wrote what I thought were hilarious clues and they went into the little eggs with some candy. They were hunting a big pantyhose-style golden plastic egg with a twenty dollar bill in it. Now THAT will get the big kids motivated to hunt eggs, right? The big egg was hid in a former fence post hole in a far corner of the property. They had to find all the little eggs, which the little kids could do, then open them up to read all of the clues to find the money in the hidey hole. Well, it only took a few clues for the 6 year old niece to find the golden egg!

It's ok, we still have birthday cake. My Mom made two cakes for the crowd who only ate one of them. The other was gone by tuesday morning! My son got a lot of money for gifts since he didn't ask for anything special. He also got a bike from his step-grandparents, lucky duck! This will be great once his cast is off in a few weeks. (He broke his tibia in P.E. a few days prior.) My hubby says he can ride it to go fishing this summer whenever he likes. This was a really memorable birthday for the big guy: Easter Sunday, a broken leg, living in the country, lots of fishing ahead and money in his pocket!

When they all left, I sat for the first time that day with a nice glass of Sancerre. I see now why Grama surrendered so quickly the hosting of Easter Sunday! I wonder if she did the same thing I did when we left her house at Christmas?

Weather or Not

Oh those whiney farmers! It's always too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold, whah, whah, whah. Or at least that's what I used to think. Living in the country has changed how I see the weather. It's no longer just an annoyance to keep me from running to the grocery store.  The weather has a serious effect on everything around here.

This last winter, well, it just sucked. Not only were we at the mercy of the forecast, but then it was a matter of getting out of the driveway, then out of the gravel road, then to the main hard road without ending up in the ditch. It got to where I just hibernated...and pouted...and drank wine.

So now that it's spring, the weather is no longer below freezing and all is well right? Sigh, nope. Now it is about the rain, and this year, flooding. It isn't flooding where I live, but the rain and cold this spring have affected the fishing, which is kinda a big deal here. Apparently the first warm day of spring is the primo day to fish. We haven't really had it yet, which is not normal, and has my fishermen in a tizzy.

You can see the farmers on a day before a predicted rainy, cold spell, out in the fields near our house until way past dark. There is a lot of standing water as you drive around, even in the flattest of fields. I care now how this affects my neighbors. Maybe it's my inner virgo making its connection to the earth come to the surface. I want to plant something, but the weather is preventing this and it pisses me off. Perhaps I should have another cup of coffee and whine about how I can't get my flower pots planted before Easter Sunday.

It's a small world afterall

Sigh. It looks like I am the only one interested in the royal wedding of Will and Kate. Seriously? How is that possible? Do people out here not remember the Charles and Diana wedding? It was a major event in my junior high universe. I still have the Princess Di bride doll my mom let me order from the Danbury mint. So when I asked some ladies if they were following the royal wedding updates and they told me that they "really don't pay attention to that stuff" I was gobsmacked! Flabbergasted! Almost insulted that they did not think it was an important event in the world.
I forget what a small world it is when you live in a small town. You can get all the news you need to know from the coffee shop or post office. So-and-so had a baby boy, thus-and-thus is being sold, yadda yadda blah blah blah. News about people I have never met, let alone three generations of family scandal and gossip, pass hands faster than internet.
I love to listen to their stories about who is getting married and who sold their house or is looking to change jobs. As a teacher, I am no stranger to gossip and I love to share good news about folks. I am even eager to hear who is getting divorced because they got caught doing this or that. It's just a natural human curiosity to want to know what people are up to.
So with all this curiosity, how can these folks NOT be following the glamour of a royal family wedding??? It's so filled with tradition and grandeur. Perhaps it's because we do not have royalty here in the U.S. that people could care less what is going on in other countries. Well I am following it. I love seeing this beautiful young couple start their life together. It's hopeful. I like it. It's sweet. It's real and better than any American reality TV I can think of watching. Who gives a hoot what a teenage mom or some rich bitties in New Jersey are up to.

To shoot or not to shoot...

That is my question. There is a very different perspective out here in the country when it comes to arming oneself. It would never have occurred to me to own a gun while living in town, not even as a woman home alone did I want one. All I thought of was the kids getting it and shooting each other accidentally. Their dad was a hunter while we were married and I had insisted the guns be kept locked away somewhere the boys would never go exploring.

Fast forward ten years. My sons are nearly 12 and 14. My new husband is charming combination of Grizzly Adams,Crocodile Dundee and Rambo. There is a handgun in the nightstand - sometimes ON the nightstand. My eldest actually has the gun "safe" in his bedroom...but it's ok because the ammo is kept in the drawer of the cabinet and not actually touching the guns themselves.

I have taken a stand of "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" when it comes to fishing. But can I actually learn to embrace what I fear? Can I learn to use and respect the gun? In town, guns are used to kill people, steal from people, and intimidate people. Out here, however, children take gun safety classes when they are 9. The never point a gun at a person, ever. They carry a gun in a way that shows they know it can kill someone even on accident. They respect the power and don't seem to forget it. They know a gun can kill the shooter too if you do not handle it properly.

I'm thinking of learning to shoot. I don't want to hunt deer or anything like that, but I do have a reason. The pair of Canadian geese are nesting on the lake, so are the wood ducks. I want to be able to shoot at a big ol' snapping turtle if  I see it around the babies. And what if I ever see the elusive, but nearby, mountain lion? I don't want to shoot it, but I would scare it away from my kids and dogs. I don't really want to kill anything, well, maybe the snappers. I have the best teacher one could ask for in my hubby. Besides, all the other country girls can do it - and I do like to collect credentials!

Duckudrama

Every morning when I sit up in bed, the first thing I see is our lake. When we decided to put a master suite in the basement of this cabin, I knew just where I wanted our bed. I could envision waking up just like I did this day. It's beautiful, really. Especially now as it gets a litttle greener out by the minute. But what really gets me going, besides my morning cafe, are the waterfowl.

I grew up near the Mississippi river and the only ducks I knew of really were the mallards. Pretty green heads on the males, drakes, made them easy to remember. There were lots of Canadian geese around the fields where I lived as kid too. I really had no idea there were so many different types of ducks around, either passing through on their migrations or staying a bit longer to nest and then move on.

I can proudly tell the difference now between the shovelers, wood ducks, blue-winged teals, merganzers and greebs. Remember the story about how I like to learn about one subject very thoroughly? I want to learn more about the ducks. Lucky girl that I am, my very own crocodile-hunter husband also knows all about the birds and answers my copious questions on the subject. First of all, they are cute. They swim super fast too! In their cute little pairs or harems, it's charming, really, or so I thought.

Apparently there is a more cut-throat side to these cute little critters. This morning as I was making coffee, I saw a few blue-winged teals on the lake out the window. The sides of the house have what we call the "dog-legs" of the lake. You can see it a little bit in the photo. It's narrow and shallow and the birds love to hang out here when there is no threat to be found, like me trying to take their picture! So the drake, who had his own hen, goes after this outsider drake and they fight! On the water! Dang! The invader was chased away and the winner now had three hens following him around! I watched as the winner chased the other drake around just to make sure he didn't try any funny stuff. The three hens tailed their boss like stink on doo-doo.

It's obviously time to nest for these birdies. I hope they stay here and we have wee teals and merganzers about. I know the nesting pair of Canadian geese are staying, but as yet I cannot determine where they are nesting exactly. The kingfisher is back too, he's a neat one to watch. So is the snowy egret, who is thus far alone, but had a partner last year, hmmm, I wonder what happened there. They eat the minnows and the frogs in the lake. The blue heron is always cool to see land so close to the house an hang out for awhile. I love to wake up early and see what new episode Mother Nature has for me. It's better than the Kennedy mini-series, my very own duck-u-drama.

I need a hitman

It might be a pterodactyl, sure looks like one to me. It is actually called a turkey vulture, a.k.a. a buzzard, and there is one 'buzzing' my house. Remember in the movie 'Top Gun' when Maverick and Goose buzzed the control tower? Yea...well, my living room is the tower and that behemoth is the F15. It flies sideways past my big windows, all 6' of its bedraggled feathers visible. It's showing off.

I want it to go away, so I asked my great hunter hubby to shoot it. Afterall, he shoots beavers and muskrats at a moments notice because they mess up the drainage on the lake. He shoots the giant snapping turtles too because they eat the baby ducks. He won't shoot my buzzard. That's right, I said MY buzzard. It's playing mind games with me.

Apparently one cannot shoot a buzzard. WTH? A coyote can be shot any time during the year, but not an ugly, bare-headed, giant flying rat? I don't understand this logic. They eat carion these birds, so they are not going to eat me or my little dogs. I have a bad feeling we are dealing with a mutant. I don't think this one knows that he should be circling the interstates for roadkill.

I know he can see me in here blogging about him. His beady eyes were probably watching me clean the house earlier today too...waiting for me to go outside. I even asked what the consequences would be if one were to, say, meet an accidental demise. It's a federal offense! Seriously?! The feds should not concern themselves with my petty bird scuffle and just look the other way. I have some 'foreign relations' to keep up.