The Bird Paparazzi at Lake Wisconsin

 

Today after Mass and brunch, I was really craving chocolate, and it's Sunday so we could have it. We went to CocoVaa and they were open, so we tried several different things, and they were all delicious. Then we drove to Okee and saw lots of birds, but no loons. We had stopped at a gas station on the way up, where I found a ridiculous, bright blue monster hat that you could make the ears go up and down, so I was wearing that, and a bald eagle kept following us. Did it think the hat was something tasty? At one point it was sitting in a tree right above us, but when Travalon went to get his camera, it flew away. Here are some photos of pelicans, red-breasted mergansers, and other eagles.

Then we drove to the causeway on the way to Tipperary Road, and on one side we could see northern shovelers. They are very handsome ducks.

On the other side we could see lots of scaups and gulls.

We drove to Columbia Lake, but all we saw there were some Canada geese. Travalon took a photo of the power plant.

And here am I, in my silly monster hat, in front of the power plant. If you squeeze the paws that are hanging down, the ears go up.

We came back home, and I took a walk while praying the rosary I got yesterday, while Travalon took photos of buffleheads off our dock. Here is what it looks like when a bufflehead is flying towards you.

My phone is so weird. Last Sunday while I was in line at Trader Joe's, I kept trying to text Travalon, but it kept changing "line" to "lime," so Travalon probably wondered why he was getting messages like, "The lime is really long," "The lime," "Lime, darn it!" But today it outdid itself, because it changed the word "my" to "nut," which isn't even similar, but when I said something about "nut colleague" instead of "my colleague," it was actually fitting, considering the person. (Not my fun colleague that I walk with.) Then this evening the phone told me I had an important address to be at soon, and it was the address where I go for band practice. How scary that it knows I go there every Sunday evening. My bandmate says her phone even reminds her to go to church, but I go to the same church at the same time almost every week, and my phone has never once reminded me to go. Perhaps it's an atheist...

When I got to band practice, Bongo the chocolate Lab was a little rowdy because there was a dog walking on the other side of the street, but I got him calmed down... until my bandmate arrived, flailing around like a muppet and getting worked up about everything. I won't say which one, but her name just might rhyme with "guarding della." The E string on her violin broke when she dropped her music on it, so she tried to blame Bongo, but I said, "He was nowhere near your violin when it happened!" I think she just dislikes dogs because she's such an extreme cat person. So we had to wait until she changed her string, and then she left after forty minutes. We just kept practicing without her.

Sadly, the St. Peter's Peacocks lost, so who cares about the Final Four, since it's teams that go all the time. I was really hoping for a miracle there, but they were down 20 points when I left for band practice, so it would have had to have been a real miracle. We'll save those for the situation in Ukraine. I took a long lunch on Friday to attend the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I still have hope for a miraculous resolution to that issue. So far the Ukrainians are hanging tough.

Famous Hat