Today I had to work on campus because we had an orientation for the new grad students. I told them three times that I couldn't answer tax questions, and what office to contact with those questions. Afterwards one of them said, "I have a question for you," so I said, "Sure, what it is?" and it was a tax question. Sigh...
After work I took a walk while waiting for Travalon to pick me up, and I saw these cool flowers at the Allen Centennial Gardens. My phone says they are silver cock's combs. They look more lavender to me...
When we got home, we tried to get the boat off the lift... and we did for the first time this summer!! For some reason nobody on our side of the condo pier has a boat except us, and there are all sorts of lotus pads in the way, so getting out was interesting. A neighbor laughed at us and took some photos, and she promised to share them, but she hasn't. I'm sure I was so photogenic as I was battling the lotuses. We did get out into the clear water, so we were able to put down the paddles and fire up the motor. Here is my favorite captain at the helm!
And here is the sunset we saw from the boat.
We went around the lotuses on the way back, so we only had to battle them a little. I did say to Travalon how frustrating it is that the new iPhones are too big for a regular sandwich bag, like our old ones could fit into to protect them from the water, and now I have to use the big freezer bag size. Then I said, "That's a real First World problem," and he said, "Why do these things always happen to moi?" which really made me laugh. Astute readers will realize that is a Miss Piggy quote, perfectly timed.
As promised, here are photos from our trip to Horicon Marsh on Friday. I don't know what this first duck is that we saw off of the boardwalk, but I have asked the Hive Mind and hope to have an answer soon.
On Old Marsh Road, we saw lots of egrets.
There were three geese on the road, and as we approached them, they got up and walked ahead of us as if they were our tour guides.
Eventually they got tired of us and flew away. They landed in the water near this young pelican.
There were some pretty flowers blooming. This is choke weed, a kind of wild morning glory.
My phone says this is spotted knapweed. I don't see the spots.
My phone calls this chicory. Like they put in coffee in New Orleans?
My phone says this is flowering toadflax, or what we called it when I was a kid, butter-and-eggs. It's a type of wild snapdragon.
We saw a pair of swans hanging out with geese and sandhill cranes.
Here are some of the many cranes. The one mid-picture with an orange beak and no red on its head is a juvenile that hatched this year.
Here they are with an egret.
Another view of the bird party.
And lots of pelicans with cormorants and a mallard.
Here is the mother black-necked stilt with her baby in the nest.
See how many pelicans there were? And plenty of cormorants too. They always hang around together.
A swan swims in front of some cormorants. There were two swans, and they began trumpeting to each other, and then they flew away.
Another view of how many, many pelicans there were.
The sandhill cranes were all looking in the same direction, as if awaiting a signal...
... and then, as if they had received it, they flew away! But not all of them.
We saw plenty of pied-billed grebes too.
And of course lots of gulls.
We saw a swan as we were heading back out of the marsh.
Then we saw his wife and six teenage cygnets.
This picture makes me laugh: they're all preening, even the goose!
And here you can see Dad (maybe Mom?) in the background.
As we were leaving, a lone goose was sitting on the road, and it got up and led us like a tour guide.
Unlike the others, it didn't fly off. When we were almost out of the marsh, it turned to the left and wandered into the grass.
We went to the section where the white-headed goose is known to hang out, but we didn't see any birds there. Travalon took this scenic photo of it from the hill above.
I hope that these photos were worth the wait.
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