Lake Wisconsin and Hauser Prairie

 

This morning Travalon still didn't feel too well, so we didn't head to the out-of-town funeral for his buddy's father-in-law. Instead, he watched Crystal Palace beat Bournemouth 3-0 with his posse.

We went to Stricker Pond, where we saw lots of scaups.

And a couple of buffleheads.

This is a really good photo of a male and a female scaup.

We stopped by the westside Willy Street Co-op and then, since it's right there, we had the buffet at Amber Indian Restaurant for lunch. After that we headed out to Sauk, and from the mountain bike path we could see pelicans gathered on a sandbar or just swimming around.

We also saw pelicans gathered around Sunset Island in Lake Wisconsin, and one swimming around.

At Whalen Grade we saw all sorts of waterfowl, like northern shovelers.

And more pelicans.

Also more scaups, but those photos were blurry because of the rain. (Did I mention that it rained all day?) And this male common merganser.

More northern shovelers.

And lots of coots too, which are not ducks but are actually more closely related to chickens.

Along Tipperary Road we saw a lot of red-breasted mergansers.

On the way home we stopped at Hauser Prairie to see if the pasqueflowers were blooming yet. It looked like they had just done a controlled burn, and all sorts of little green shoots were coming up, so we'll just have to check back later. I feel like this photo needs a trigger warning: what are these bones?? Did one of the volunteers at the burning not get out of the way of the flames fast enough??

I look like I'm surveying my realm.

It is a lovely view.

After that we came home and had a quiet evening. I had my leftovers from last night for dinner, and on Night Prayer we all had stuffies: Jilly Moose was hosting and she had Mr. Swanky, her most elegant moose; I had Jerry the Kraken; Anna Banana II had a bobcat; another woman had a lamb; and the one man on the Zoom meeting had Becky Badger, Bucky's girlfriend, who once had a cheerleading outfit but is now "naked." (She still has fur.) Meanwhile, Travalon relaxed. Hopefully he recovers quickly from this cold that he got from me. I'm almost back to normal but still can't sing, and I do have a lovely, nagging cough that sounds far worse than it is. Hopefully I'm done with viruses for a while.

Famous Hat 

Feliz Cinco de Mayo 2022

 

So it finally happened: I was exposed to COVID. Today Hardingfele sent the whole band an email letting us know that her husband tested positive, and he came to pick her up from band practice on Sunday and listened to us play one song while standing in the hall. My other bandmates figured we weren't exposed enough to him, but it seems likely he could have given it to Hardingfele, and she was sitting next to me for well over an hour. So far she has tested negative, and she said the home tests are useless because they said her husband was negative, but a "real" test said he was positive. Unless it was a false positive... I did order the four home tests you could get free from the government some time ago, so maybe tomorrow I will take one. It's hard to know if I would even notice symptoms right now anyway, with all the allergies I'm suffering from. I love the flowers this time of year, but not their pollen!

This morning Travalon and I went down to the dock before I started work, since that was the time of day when we saw all the teals and wood ducks last year. We still didn't see any ducks, just coots.

And the cranes on the neighbors' pier.

And lots of these little swallows flying over the water. This one stopped and posed for us.

Then we ran into Prairie Man, walking Michaela. She has a cute new haircut for summer.

She was so happy to see us!

As Josh Billings said, "Money can buy you a pretty good dog, but it can't buy the wag of his tail." 

This evening we went to the nearby fast food-style Mexican place for a quick dinner, because on Cinco de Mayo all the fancy Mexican restaurants are busy. The secret is to go in September, on real Mexican Independence Day, when they have parties with live music but not so many gringos. Then we came home and went out on the dock. Here are those same two cranes in the light of sunset.

Here is the sunset.

I am sitting out on the porch for the first time in forever, although there was one day earlier this spring I was able to do it. Travalon watched the original Star Wars movie because yesterday was May the Fourth (be with you). I think the first one is about as close to the perfect movie as you can get, but why they bothered to make so many more is beyond me. Milking that cow, I guess. Yesterday at work we were discussing Star Wars movies vs. Star Trek movies, and my coworker named after a Norse god said the Han Solo movie was truly atrocious, but I haven't seen it, and I think I'll keep it that way.

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More Stuff Under Blacklight

 

I am starting to get really fed up with these memes that anti-vaxxers are posting on social media. It's fascinating that they have the freedom to refuse the vaccine, but they don't think we have the freedom to be mad at them for it. Freedom for me and not thee much, anti-vaxxers? Particularly disingenuous are the chastisements of all the people who think anti-vaxxers deserve what they get - how rich to hear that people shouldn't wish others dead from the same people who had no problem with the pandemic when it was mostly killing minorities and people in more densely populated cities. Can we just admit once and for all that both sides suck and wish the other side would die off? And yes, I do in fact hold the right-wingers to a higher standard on this, since they are the ones always blathering about being such good Christians, and as Christians we are called to forgive our enemies, so they have less excuse for wishing their enemies dead than the leftist atheists they hate. Another meme they post: "Why is the government giving out free vaccines but not free chemotherapy?" Tell me you're illogical without saying you're illogical: these are the same people opposed to socialized medicine, which would in fact give people chemotherapy without charging them. And then they wonder why the rest of us are angry at them!

My neighbor joined the secret society I'm in, since she saw how much I enjoy it, and she was at a summit where they got Wonder Marty ornaments to paint. I apologize for not taking a picture of Wooden Wonder Marty pre-paint job, but she said I should give him a tie-dyed stomach, so I did.

And since these were my blacklight paints, he glows under blacklight!

Today I worked from home, and it was autumnal out, so I wore my Galena hoodie. It also glows under blacklight. Apologies for the lousy photo - I may try it again with the light at a better angle.

And yet another rosary that I got at the Willy Street Fair partially glows under blacklight.

And guess what else kind of glows under blacklight? Jer-Bear!

It seems fitting that something named after Jerry Garcia would glow under blacklight. Travalon bought some psychedelic art prints at the Willy Street Fair, and I should at least take photos of them in sunlight, but maybe they glow under blacklight too. That's a post for another time.

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Eschatological Musings

I have never been one for speculating about the end times. They will come when they come, and I wasn't particularly expecting to see them in my lifetime. However, I have to admit that when I read about the arrogant horn in the Book of Daniel many years ago, I immediately thought of our current president but then dismissed the idea, since he was not a political leader. Now, decades later, he is the leader, and I am curious to see if he really is the arrogant horn. If so, he will somehow be deposed by July, because he only rules for forty months. (This is also mentioned in Revelations, but they could have just been copying Daniel.)

I don't think the pandemic signals the end of the world. They happen with some regularity; in fact, some people say about once a century, so we were due for one since the last bad one was the flu pandemic in 1918-19. However, something coming out of the pandemic has caught my attention, because they say at the end times the thoughts of all hearts will be laid bare, and this situation has certainly laid bare for everyone to see how much greed those in control suffer from! While the virus does not discriminate, opportunity does, and even in hospitals those with more power and money (the doctors) get more protective equipment than the equally likely to be exposed workers like the janitors, who are poor, much more likely to be people of color, and who are dying of the virus at alarming rates. I feel a bit guilty to be in my current position, able to work from home and pray a lot but in a relaxed, meditative way, when I think of people who are probably praying frantically not to catch the virus every time they go to work. I am only having my pay cut a little, but some people have no livelihoods at all right now. And yet, some of the richest people in this country are getting richer because of the pandemic. If this isn't the end times of the world, it may well be the end times of the republic, as the states who have always paid into the federal system are resentful that senators from states that have always gotten money from the federal system suddenly won't help them in their hour of need. I can imagine people rising up in anger against the wealthy who are locked down themselves but say the rest of us need to get back to work. I don't know how this ends, but there are a lot of people right now who look very bad to me, and I can only imagine what Jesus would say to them if He did suddenly return to earth.

Famous Hat

Easter in Isolation

I hope my readers had a good Easter in isolation. Travalon and I watched the Mass from our parish. Ma Hat was obviously busy decorating Easter eggs. I love the colors!

Success! I made the Vietnamese egg coffee, and it seemed to turn out right. Travalon loved it, but I thought it was way too sweet. However, afterwards I felt very content, probably because of all the protein in it. It's not so hard to make: you take two egg yolks and half a cup of sweetened condensed milk and beat until fluffy, then you spoon it onto the tops of two strong cups of coffee. It was kind of pretty, but I didn't take a picture of it. Then after lunch I took the egg whites and beat them with macha powder and sugar. They turned out beautifully, but they weren't quite sweet enough until we added some honey. I thought of that because the sadly defunct rolled ice cream store in town made macha-flavored ice cream, and I had it drizzled with honey, and oh my was that delicious! Here is a photo of the whipped macha.

In Rich's garden, the dark blue hyacinths I rescued from the Lutheran church years ago are blooming.

So are the squills, or whatever these are. I think they came in a set of "blue" bulbs that I bought from Hardingfele's kid for a school fundraiser years ago. There was a beautiful blue iris, some crocuses that are done blooming, and grape hyacinths that aren't blooming yet. The iris disappeared years ago. Who knows what zone it was actually for? I think Hardingfele's kid was in third grade when I bought this, and she's now a freshman in college.

Here is the other thing I worked on today - a rosary sun catcher! Why didn't I think of this years ago? My neighbor will bring kits to people so that they can make things at home, and then she will fire them. This hasn't been fired yet, so I'll post a photo once it is.

Can I make a confession? Everyone is complaining online about what a horrible year 2020 is, but I am enjoying it. I feel deeply for the people who have lost their jobs, and the small businesses that may not survive, and of course all the people sick with the virus, but I love the slower pace of life right now. I can still do my job, in some ways more efficiently with no interruptions, and then I can take breaks to pray and to walk outside, where Nature is waking back up after the long winter, the cranes are calling, and the flowers are blooming. I feel strangely hopeful for this year, that maybe after we all get through this, we will emerge kinder and more focused on what is really important. Then this won't all have been in vain.

Famous Hat