More Springtime Photos

 

The big news in my life is that I am now the treasurer of our condo board. How did this happen? My neighbor told the board president that I am a financial person in my work life, so they figured I would be perfect for the job. We shall see...

Here are some photos Travalon took around our neighborhood. First are two crabapple trees - already blooming and it's not even May yet! The year we got married, they hadn't bloomed by May 10.

I thought this shot he got of the red-winged blackbird was really cool.

And here are some amazing shots he got of the pied-bill grebe, which isn't easy to photograph, since it keeps diving under the water.

More spring flowers in our neighborhood.

I took this photo of a really beautiful tulip.

And we saw this mourning dove playing peek-a-boo with us.

Their mournful cries are haunting from a distance, but they are VERY LOUD when they are right outside your porch when you are trying to work. There were at least two of them out there most of the day today - I believe they have built a nest - and I kept hearing their wings whistling and seeing them peer inside at me. That was maybe a little creepy. But now they seem to be gone. Will they be back tomorrow?

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Blacklight Cityscape Realized

 

Some years ago I painted a cityscape with the Monona Terrace at night, but I didn't remember that the windows are arches, so I made them square.

I gave that painting to Ma and Pa Hat. This evening I attempted to paint a replica with my paints that glow under blacklight, and it turned out kind of meh.

But under the blacklight? It's spectacular!

And then I used the little creatures I had made for my secret club homework to populate the cityscape. Here the two penguins are hanging out on the rooftop of the Monona Terrace with the bird loosely inspired by our neighborhood cranes.

But the beauty is that I can move them around and put them in different places.

I read an article the other day about how, with all the weirdness of the pandemic, a lot of people are not completely depressed, but they are not doing well, either - they are languishing. The author said the best way to break out of this state is to get into a state of "flow," which is something that takes all your attention. She suggested art, so here I was getting into a state of flow. Though I'd have to say the most flow I've ever felt is when I'm doing something physical, like canoeing, that takes effort but is fun. Then you're really living in the moment.

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Blacklight Cityscape

 

A couple of weeks ago I finally got the canvas to paint a picture using the blacklight paints... and then I never did anything with it. My procrastination paid off, because as I was thinking about my little shrunken creatures that glow under blacklight, it suddenly occurred to me that I could use the canvas to paint a landscape and then have the little creatures play around in it, and the whole thing would glow under blacklight. When I mentioned this idea to Jilly Moose and Anna Banana II, Jilly Moose said I should paint another depiction of the Monona Terrace. (We once went to a paint night on campus, and I painted a night scene painting of the Monona Terrace, which I gave to Ma and Pa Hat.) I said I'd been thinking more about mountains and rivers, but maybe I could also throw in the Monona Terrace. Then I started to think about it more, and a cityscape might be just as good. Why not put some mountains behind the skyline and create an idealized Madison? The little island with palm trees could float in Lake Monona as easily as in the hypothetical river that was going to flow through my hypothetical landscape. Tomorrow evening I may have some time to paint the picture, so possibly I will post photos of this adventure tomorrow.

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Incredible Shrinking Homework

 

Today when Travalon and I took a walk before work, we saw a male cardinal.

And down at the dock we saw a male teal.

It was a frustrating day at work for me, because I had to use not one but two new systems (one for paying invoices and one for awarding scholarships), and neither one worked as advertised. But Travalon came home early and we went to my garden plot and weeded, and that was very therapeutic. Then we came home, and I did my homework for the secret club I'm in. This month we were supposed to create art and then shrink it. Remember Shrinky Dinks? It was exactly that. The club provided a template for big and little Wonder Marty the Penguin, who is the club mascot. The other things are my own creations. First are the "before" pictures.

And here they are all shrunk down!

The importance thing is, they glow under blacklight.

I'm not 100% sure what to do with them. The club provided some gadgets to make them keychains or pins, but I always lose keychains, and would I really wear any of these things as a pin? If anyone has any ideas for my incredible shrinking homework, feel free to leave them in the comments.

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Pied-Billed Grebe

 

Today Anna Banana II and OK Cap came to Mass and brunch. Unfortunately, Anna Banana II is headed back to the wilds of North Dakota tomorrow, so that was the last I'll get to see of her for a while. We found some tulips with bulbs strewn on the sidewalk between our church and the restaurant, so I brought them home and planted them near some other tulips in front of our condo. We'll see if they survive... Travalon and I picked up Rich, and the three of us went to the Arboretum. The magnolias are past their prime, and of course the crabapples aren't blooming yet, so it wasn't that lovely in that part. We went into the woods, to the wetland boardwalk and the Teal Pond. Here are some photos.

After we dropped Rich off, Travalon reminded me that I thought I had seen swans near the Union Terrace, so we parked right by there and took a short walk. The "swans" were just buoys (cut me some slack, I saw them quickly from a great distance), but Travalon did get photos of the clear water and the skyline.

Because of that second walk, I missed my family Zoom meeting. Then I had Irish class, and the rest of them are all gung-ho for an intensive Irish weekend coming up, but I can't stand the thought of sitting in front of my computer for two solid days when the weather is getting so nice. (I didn't tell them that.) Then we talked about whether we can play musical instruments, and they were all fascinated to learn that I am, in fact, a (very) semi-professional musician. One found our band's website, so we watched a video of my band playing a Norwegian waltz. Afterwards, Travalon and I went down to the dock, and we saw the pied-billed grebe. It's so cute! It's just teeny.

The catamaran I love is already out. Hopefully we can get our own boat out soon.

And here is a male cardinal.

We did see the wood ducks down at the dock, and they were really close. They didn't fly away immediately, so Travalon got ready to take a photo... and then they did fly away. I was hoping by now they realized that we humans can't go into the water, so there's no need for them to skedaddle.

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Horicon Marsh with the Rosary Ladies

 

Today I have felt achy and tired all day from getting my second Pfizer shot yesterday morning, but I did manage to go to Horicon Marsh with Travalon, Anna Banana II, OK Cap, and Luxuli. (Jilly Moose had a family birthday party to attend today.) First we went to the part with the boardwalk, and mostly what we saw were Canada geese on top of muskrat lodges, but we did see a few painted turtles as well.

And here is a shot of the boardwalk itself.

Then we continued along the three-mile driving loop, and we saw a swan with a very dirty neck.

On the other side of the road were these cute little birds, I think they're called avocets.

This picture isn't totally in focus, but you can see another type of sandpiper behind them.

In the big pond area where we have seen pelicans and egrets in the past, we saw a lot of blue-winged teals today. Those photos are all out of focus for some reason, but this one Travalon took off our dock made me laugh.

We stopped at the place where we saw the whooping crane last time, but there was hardly anything happening there. We could see some pelicans in the distance, but those photos are also not really in focus. Then we stopped for lunch at Subway before heading to the part where we always see the white-headed goose. Can you believe he let us down today?? His buddies were chilling in the field.

Finally, we went to the top of the hill from which you can see almost all of the marsh.

Suddenly, three pelicans flew toward us!

They flew around for quite a while, landed in the water briefly, and then took off again.

I think these are purple martins. They have a lovely liquid twittery song.

On the way home, we passed Patrick Marsh and I saw a bunch of pelicans making a conga line, so we decided to check it out. (OK Cap and Luxuli were in another car, so they didn't follow us.) In this photo, you can see a blue heron standing by the shore.

And here are the black-headed gulls, which I learned are called Bonaparte's gulls.

"Hey, what's that over there?"

"I don't think I like the looks of it!"

Some other pelicans were at the other end of the lake, and then they flew to join the ones on the far side.

Here you can see, besides the two pelicans, a Bonaparte's gull and what looks like a ruddy duck.

We drove to the other side of the lake to get a closer look at the pelicans. I'm not sure why some have the thing sticking up on their beaks and others don't. I thought I'd heard that was a breeding feature, so maybe one gender doesn't have it, or the ones that don't have it are still young.

To give you an idea of how huge the pelicans are, here they are with a female wood duck.

And here are both the male and female wood ducks.

I love how the pelicans swim in conga lines!

We did see an egret at Horicon, but we were on the main road and didn't have a chance to stop for a photo. We also saw a sandhill crane there, but we can see those right by our house - and we did, as we were getting ready to leave this morning.

They are totally dinosaurs. True story: they found a ten-million year old fossil of a sandhill crane in Nebraska, right around where they live there today, and it was exactly the same as today's sandhill cranes. Why mess with a winning design? For some reason Tiffy found that story creepy, although I don't know why. I like that they are still the same ten million years later.

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