Eight Wonderful Years!

 

I forgot to mention something that happened at work on Monday: I saw something in my mailbox, so I went into the mailroom and saw it was more cookies like the one featured on this blog last week:

It looked like there was a similar package in my coworker's mailbox, so I told him the faculty member had given us all cookies, and he should go get his. Of course, his package was full of magnets, and it wasn't even for him but for another coworker - someone put it in his mailbox by accident. Boy, did I feel bad for giving him false hope!

DuoLingo keeps giving me these stickers. Here is the May challenge one:

Yesterday Travalon and I took the day off of work, and we went to Horicon Marsh. We started at the spot where we often see the white-headed goose, but a person working there said nobody has seen him for weeks. Did he go to another part of the marsh? Has he come to the end of his life? He wasn't a young goose, since he has been around for years. We did see this pelican that was chased by a goose.

Under the eaves of the building, there were nests with baby swallows in them.

Here is an adult swallow.

Travalon tried to take a photo of a goldfinch, but then this goldfinch chased it away and posed for him.

This catbird had a beautiful song, and the way it's peeking around the branch just made me laugh.

We saw more pelicans when we went down the path by the marsh. I love their bright orange feet.

These swallows are called martins.

Here is a tree swallow, which is the kind nesting under the eaves. They were flying over the water at Horicon Marsh. At our dock we have barn swallows, which have cinnamon breasts instead of white ones.

Then we went to the part of Horicon Marsh on Dike Road, where we saw blue-winged teals.

We also saw terns hovering over the water and then diving into it.

More tree swallows. They are such a pretty metallic blue.

There were sandpipers there too.

And another shot of a tern hovering.

This egret is surrounded by other birds, maybe black-necked sandpipers.

And we saw more pelicans further along the road.

We tried to go to the path where we saw lots of egrets before, but it's closed "due to migration." So we went to Theresa Marsh and saw lots of sandpipers.

We saw the little turtles sitting on the rocks that we always see there, but we also saw these two very large turtles who are, shall we say, sharing an intimate embrace.

I had hoped to see baby coots, and the woman who said the white-headed goose is now missing also told me that the best place to see coots was along Highway 49. We did see coots, but no babies. We saw a swan, so we saw three of the four big white birds. (No whooping cranes.)

Then we went to the boardwalk and saw blue-winged teals.

Here is the female blue-winged teal, dabbling along.

And of course more tree swallows.

This teal is posing so you can see the patch on his wing that is the color named after him. ("Teal" comes from an Old English word for a small duck.) 

These ducks were larger than the teals. They look very much like female mallards, but the darker one on the left leads me to believe this is a pair of black ducks. Update: apparently these are a male and female gadwall duck.

The male teal is preening again, and you can see a little of the blue patch on his wing.

We also saw a muskrat swimming rapidly away from us.

In this photo, you can see that the male teal's head is actually iridescent like a male mallard's.

We came back and changed into fancier clothes, then I went to my adoration hour while Travalon hung out on State Street. I had thought we would go to dinner on State Street, but he suggested that we go to Liliana's, since they are closing. Actually, the story is more complicated than that: they are splitting into two new restaurants. Liliana was the name of the owner's daughter, but the kid is nonbinary now and goes by Ollie, so part of the restaurant will be renamed Ollie's and will be a casual, family restaurant. The other half will be called St. Charles and will be even fancier than Liliana's. The Tuesday Night special last night was a three-course dinner on the theme of "shrimp," but they sold out right before we got there. We still had shrimp; Travalon had shrimp and grits, and I had shrimp and crawfish étouffée. So delicious! Then we came home and tried to watch the video of our wedding, as we always do, but the DVR is not working that well, so some parts of it played well, and other parts (of course our vows and the duet sung by Kathbert and Miss Heartsong, my two favorite parts) got hung up and were all choppy and weird. That was a slight disappointment, but it doesn't really matter - the point is that we've had eight wonderful years together.

Tonight the Bucks were down 14 points at the start of the fourth quarter, and they came back to beat the Celtics! Between that and the stunning Kentucky Derby win, I'm beginning to feel like anything is possible!

Famous Hat