Our First Post-Pandemic Mallards Game

 

Yesterday the weather said it was going to be overcast, so I took two hours off in the afternoon to garden. As soon as I got to my plot, I saw a huge storm cloud coming toward me with lightning flickering in it. I planted my five pepper plants very quickly and then was too scared to even water them in, but it looked like they would get rained on any moment. I ran to my car, and it did sprinkle a tiny bit on the way home... but the storm never arrived. My phone then said there would be thunderstorms until six, but Travalon wasn't getting home until seven, so I figured I could plant my seeds quickly before he got home... and then not long after four he sent a message that he was on his way home. We did stop to water my garden before the Mallards game, and the weather was perfect all evening, but the Mallards sure weren't. They lost to the Traverse City Pit Spitters, 13-4, and all four of those runs were in the third inning. (The Pit Spitters got five runs in the first inning alone!) At one point a foul ball hit a guy behind us on the head and bounced off, and someone else caught it, but instead of giving it to that poor guy, they threw it to some random kid. I give up on humanity. At least there was a beautiful sunset, and interestingly it was more beautiful in the east, where it was reflecting off the clouds.

It kept getting more intense.

We had a good time anyway!

Here is the Pit Spitters' bus.

And here is the newly unveiled version of Maynard the Mallard.

Travalon went to the gift shop and said there was a tie-dyed shirt there, so I got it. Here's a selfie of me wearing it and just being a total hippie chick, which Travalon likes better than my other summer aesthetic, Coconut Girl.

Bob Crane and Hitachi Crane are now down to one little one.

Yesterday as my neighbor and I were out walking, we saw Bob and Hitachi and the little one walking across the road. Suddenly an SUV sped down the road, and we tried to signal her to slow down, but she ignored us and almost hit the baby. Bob got mad and attacked the SUV, and then when she turned around and came back, he attacked it again. I don't blame him!

One other crane pair seems to have lost their babies one Thursday night when we heard them hollering at 11 pm, and we also heard a coyote. So scary! The other pair has a much younger baby.

I don't know the story here, but Kathbert emailed me this photo, and Rich said I could use it on the blog. Yes, he is wearing a garden hose as a hat. That's the what. The why he will have to answer himself, maybe in the comments.

Tonight at Adoration I saw these fascinating flower arrangements that looked like powder puffs on either side of the altar.

And here's a view of the whole altar area.

Is it actually an altar? Because the sacrifice of the Mass is not offered on this particular table, but it is holding the product of that sacrifice, the Blessed Sacrament. So I'm not 100% sure about terminology here. Again, maybe Richard Bonomo can enlighten us in the comments. 

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Perfect Baseball Weather?

 

If football announcers were describing my underwear situation:

"She has a lot of depth at the underpants position, but she really needs to draft some bras. And some of her socks are getting near retirement age, and I'm seeing gaps in their performance, so she should consider drafting some young talent at that position as well."

Travalon got us Mallards tickets behind home plate for tonight, but then the weather app on my phone kept saying there were going to be thunderstorms. When I told the neighbor I walk with, she said her app said no thunderstorms tonight, so I looked again, and sure enough, my weather app also just said it would be overcast but no storms or even rain. This is good news for the game, but it does mean I really need to get over to my garden and water it, because I can’t be lazy and rely on the rain to do the work for me. Also, yesterday I got some pepper plants and a bunch of seeds, so I really have to get them into the ground. (I meant to go yesterday evening, when maybe it would be a little cooler, but somehow I never got over there.) And I REALLY need to weed. They keep sticking these ominous pink flags in my garden plot, and I pull them out, but then another one appears, and I’m assuming it’s because the weeds are more prominent than the actual wanted plants. They made us plant so darn early this year under threat of forfeiting our plots that my ground cherries wilted after the night in the 30’s last week. I haven’t been able to find more ground cherry plants to replace them, but when I examined them closely, all three appeared to be growing new leaves, so maybe I don’t need new plants. Maybe the three plants will recover, and maybe the Mallards game will go on tonight. (Yesterday they sent an email about the game later in the afternoon, saying it was “perfect baseball weather.” Sure, if you like to sit right in the sun while it’s 90 degrees out. Their ticket sales must have been slow.) Maybe tonight will actually be perfect baseball weather. Stay tuned…  

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Getting My Hippie On

 

Friday night when we talked, Tiffy and I did a new thing and had cocktails over Zoom. She made some elaborate concoction of frozen bananas, Kahlua, and cream in the blender, while I had Tahitian Treat spiked with Bad Man Jimmy rum that our former chair brought back from Belize. Was it good? It was drinkable. She kind of freaked out, because she remembered years ago when I had a glass of red soda and then had four more glasses of it and then went clinically insane for a few hours. "You can't drink that Red #5!" she said. But I assured her that it was the fake vanilla that sets me off, not the red dye, and she conceded that I only acted a bit buzzed, not like a rampaging warthog.

Travalon and I have been married for seven years now, and only last weekend did I find out he likes that Age of Aquarius hippie dippy side of me, so today I dressed full-on hippie.

I found this out when we were in Galena, and he thought it was adorable that I bought a crystal and a hemp hat and Buddhist prayer beads and a Capricorn necklace, and then the next day a book about Capricorn. Of course, it says Sagittarius and Capricorn are not a good combination, but we've been very happy for like nine years now. It did say the Sagittarius exuberance could annoy the Capricorn, who would then try to squash it, so instead suggest something more reasonable. This is actually what we do, like last summer when we were coming back from up north and were already going to get home at like eight at night, when Travalon suggested we stop in Wausau and check out the riverwalk. 

"Is there a riverwalk?" I asked, but he didn't know. I said not tonight, we didn't have time, but I would do some research when we got home. Sure enough, there is one, and it took us the whole day to explore it, so while his idea was good, his timing was just a little off. So I put the kibosh on his timing but affirmed the idea, and that is why we are a happy Sagittarius and Capricorn couple. Anyway, my Grandpa was a Capricorn, and my grandma was a Sagittarius, and they were married for decades until she died. (My other grandparents were both Cancers and even had the same birthday. Wonder what the astrology book would have to say about that?) This book (written by someone with the highly probable name of Stella Andromeda) is somewhat discouraging, because it says Capricorns always have Instagram-worthy houses (which anyone who knows me knows is not true of my house!!) and we're always so organized and ambitious. My only ambition is to enjoy life. And I do!

I also love crystals, more just for their beauty than because I really believe they have any particular powers. My readers may remember a whole week ago when I posted this photo of the amazonite crystal I bought in Galena, only because I loved the sea foam green color.

But I was curious to see what they say its power is, and the thing is that no two crystal websites say the same thing. One said it was good for stress, and that it was associated with the sign of Virgo, so when I showed it to Tiffy, she said, "Obviously you should give it to me." Sorry, already got you a fridge magnet of Galena. But I would be happy to go to Galena with her so she could buy one of her own. She has never been there, and I think everyone should go to Galena. I talked it up so much that the professor formerly known as Banjo Player went there to check it out for herself. And loved it!

After Mass and coffee in the back garden of the Fair Trade Coffeehouse, Travalon and I went on a hike on Governor's Island. This mourning cloak butterfly kept flying ahead of us, landing long enough for us to think we could take a photo, and then flying away again. Travalon didn't have his good camera with him, but he did get a decent photo with his iPhone. The butterfly is so pretty, black with iridescent blue.

Then we went to our neighbor's birthday party, and that was a ton of fun. I had a gin and tonic made with lavender-infused gin, and later the neighbor I walk with gave me a whole bottle of that gin. It was so good that I can see how it was the go-to drink for people in old movies. Another neighbor and I were talking about astrology, and I said that Handy Woman said women often marry men whose sun signs are the same as their ascendant, and in fact I do have Sagittarius rising. (And my moon in Leo, so I really just want to be ADORED.) She said she had Scorpio rising, but her husband is an Aries, so there goes that theory. I said I had just found out Travalon thinks all that New Age stuff is kind of cute, and she's REALLY into it, but her husband thinks it's flaky. But then, she's like wayyyy more into it than I am. Then this flaming gay guy arrived and was hugging the birthday girl, and I almost asked, "Are you a Gemini too?" but I bit my tongue... and then he said, "We always have joint parties since we're Gemini buddies." But not birthday twins - his birthday will be later this week. Of course, these people are all older than I am, so they might have actually been around when all this Age of Aquarius stuff was all the rage. Richard Bonomo was, and he thinks it's all bunk, even though he will concede that he is the most Aquarius person ever, according to the descriptions. True story: once Kathbert and I found a list of "Twenty Signs You May Be a Nerd," and Rich had nineteen of them, but he didn't wear glasses. Now he wears these cheap reading glasses all the time, and they're always crooked, so he's the complete deal. He went to a conference about alien and artificial intelligence, and it was so popular, you couldn't get a nerd in edgewise! It was actually called something like, "Non-Human Intelligence," but they weren't considering animals, which really cheesed me off. Did I blog about this already? I can't remember. I think that lavender-infused gin is still in my system. Hopefully at least some of the above makes a modicum of sense.

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Spending a Hot Saturday Not Swimming

 

Yesterday we had a condo board meeting on the condo president's glass-enclosed back porch. As we were talking, a pair of the cranes walked by and peered in at us with their beady red eyes. Boy, up close like that you really see how they are barely updated dinosaurs! And nosy to boot. I'm not sure why they would find a condo board meeting interesting - do they really care how much we plan to spend to repair the dock? I believe this photo Travalon took is that same pair. His new iPhone takes "live photos," so they are like tiny videos, and this one has the crane going under the fence doing a very graceful limbo, but it doesn't work on the blog.

Here is a sunset from a couple of days ago, when Travalon went to read on the dock.

He also saw a magnificently lit-up contrail.

Today we had a simple plan: we would go to White Mound County Park, hike in the wooded part of the path around the lake, and then swim in the lake. Our plan was quickly derailed by none other then ourselves, when we went to Sauk to walk at the VFW Park. We could see some pelicans in the distance.

The road was closed for construction further ahead, so we couldn't drive to the dam, but I said we could take the path through the woods to the dam, so we did. We saw more pelicans.

And a graceful great blue heron.

And even more pelicans, in a conga line the way they always do it.

After that we were hungry and thirsty, so we went to the Mexican restaurant in town for horchata and lunch. The antiques shop is across the street, and last time we went they had a cool rosary with a relic in the crucifix, but I waited to get it until the woman who knew how to open it was there, since she was off that day and the other women who worked there couldn't get it open. When we walked in, they greeted us VERY warmly, which is definitely a sign that we spend entirely too much money there. The woman I needed was there, but the rosary had been sold to the other person who comes in and buys rosaries. (N.B. I have no idea who it is.) So I bought a different rosary.

Then we drove on Highway PF, but we missed the turn to get to White Mound and ended up in North Freedom, where the Mid-Continental Railroad Museum is. I said we could take a train ride, but the last train of the day was pulling out as we arrived, so we went into the gift shop. I got a wooden train whistle like the one my grandpa gave me when I was a kid (he worked on the railroad), and a mood ring that looks like a caboose. It was fascinating to watch because it kept changing colors from teal (normal) to indigo (relaxed) to purple (in love) every few minutes, and once it was green, which is nervous. I don't think I'm that moody! Here is a photo of some of the antique train cars they have at the museum.

We did finally get out to White Mound, but by then we had our steps for the day and didn't feel like taking a big hike. The beach was absolutely packed, so we didn't feel like swimming. We found a very short (half mile) nature trail, and at the end was an overlook above the lake, but Travalon hadn't brought his camera so sorry, no photos. We went to Culver's to get a quick snack, but we waited forever and ever until Travalon finally asked how long it would be... and they had lost our order! I'm not sure pretzel bites were worth that much trouble, but they did give us a coupon for a free value basket, only good at that Culver's. Then we stopped by my garden plot to water my poor plants, since the beach at Governor Nelson State Park was also packed, and my neighbor texted to see if I wanted to walk. Not really, but she desperately needed steps, so I walked with her, and that's how I ended up walking almost seven miles on such an incredibly hot day that I expected to spend it all in the water. On our walk, we found this rock that looks like a perfect heart.

Maybe tomorrow we will finally get in the water, but it's going to be harder, because there's Mass and a neighbor's birthday party and of course Irish class. It seems we're not taking a break for the summer.

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Trains in Galena

 

There was something I was going to blog about today, but it has completely escaped me. Instead, I will post some more train videos. The neighbor I walk with is as crazy about trains as I am, and today she went to Galena and sent me two videos of trains there.

We saw trains in Galena too. It seems like there are tons of them in that part of the world. Still, nothing beats seeing them from way above like we did from the Dubuque Monument and the Mississippi Palisades overlook. As Travalon said (I think this got edited out of the video because the visual part at that moment was a bit sketchy), "It's like looking at a model train!" Galena is built on a hill, so there is probably a spot from which you can look down and see the trains below you. I have to admit that I don't know exactly where in Galena my neighbor was when she made these videos. She seems dangerously close to the train, but maybe she's above it and zooming in. I'll have to grill her for details soon. Enjoy!

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Videos of Impressive Trains

 

I feel so lucky that I get to practice with my band again. We are playing for Make Music Madison on the 21st (the Solstice), which is always an unpaid gig, but usually we do get a few tips. This year we are playing in the same place we practice, my bandmate's driveway which is on a side street, so we probably won't get much of an audience. After all, we don't always attract much attention while practicing, although today a neighbor came out with her baby boy and listened to us a little. It hardly matters to me, I just enjoy making music with others. It would probably be just as wonderful to sing again with others, but our choir director has retired, and my OTHER choir director is now Catholic and the director of music at our parish, but his choir will be at the other church in our parish, and at the 11 am Mass. If I'm not going to go to my church of many years, then I might as well just go to the local church that Travalon prefers anyway.

As promised, here are the train videos. This first one is of the train in Dubuque, as viewed from the Dubuque Monument in the Mines of Spain State Park. It is so, so, so long, and all the cars seem to be identical. I've never seen anything like it here in Madtown. Part of the train was still running beneath us as the engines (there are at least three) pulled into downtown Dubuque.

And here is the video of the train coming from Savannah, Illinois and passing under the overlook at Mississippi Palisades State Park. It is a far more interesting train, and going a lot faster.

Compare these to the videos I have posted of the little baby trains putt-putting through our neighborhood! These are some serious trains. The one in Savannah even appeared to be carrying a lot of the back parts of semi trucks, and honestly, isn't moving goods by trains a lot more efficient than moving them by semi trucks? In my dreamworld, you could get almost anywhere by train, and all your stuff would come to you via train. Hardingfele just went to visit Rockstar Taylor (who is now well into her college career) in the Twin Cities, and she took a train and LOVED it. And who wouldn't? Trains rock!

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Photos from Sabula

 

Today I will post the photos from Sabula that weren't uploading when I was trying to blog from our bed and breakfast in Galena. Actually, these first two are of the bird party we saw in Bellevue: pelicans and cormorants!

And this is the war memorial they have in Bellevue.

We stopped at a park on a tiny island along the bridge to Sabula, as you come from the Iowa side. This is a view of the city, which is on a much larger island, from the tiny island park.

We saw lots of cormorants flying overhead in Sabula.

And we saw two beautiful white egrets.

There was a cormorant right by them, swimming with only its head above the water.

We had no idea there was a bed and breakfast in Sabula! We might have to stay here sometime. Know what they don't have in Sabula? A Catholic church. The closest one is in Savannah (admittedly, that's very close), and they have Mass at 8:30 Sunday morning. Ugh - too early! We actually passed a fancier-looking bed and breakfast on the way to the bridge to Savannah, but this one is called the Castle, and it has a certain charm.

Check out the balcony on this house! Actually, the balcony's not that weird, but that upper story sure is. It's like five feet wide!

Here are photos from the Mississippi Palisades State Park, from the overlook. These are, I'm gonna say... islands?

And this is the wood duck. He was way below us, but Travalon got a good shot of him.

And this is the bridge to Sabula from Savannah, as seen from the overlook.

Still to come: videos of very long trains going very fast, from the high vantage point of the Dubuque Monument and the Mississippi Palisades overlook. When we first heard the train below us at the Dubuque Monument, I was a little bummed because a few minutes earlier we had been hiking right by the tracks, and I thought how cool it would have been if the train had passed right by us... but then I realized how much more excellent it was to view it from up above.

Today on my morning walk, I saw a deer run by, then it saw me and stopped and stared at me. It didn't move - I eventually had to leave because I had to get back to work.

One of my strawberry plants seems to have vanished, but the other one is still putting out pretty pink blossoms. My aunt said she has one that blooms red, and she sent a photo! Check it out!

Today at lunch, a train passed by, so that was fun. It made me feel like my vacation wasn't really over.

Granted, this is a little baby train with one engine, not like the quarter-mile-long ones we saw all up and down the river. We even saw a few on our river cruise yesterday. And this one is putt-putting along, not like the ones in Dubuque that were really flying along. The one we saw from the Mississippi Palisades overlook was going so fast that after it passed, the tracks were bending for a few seconds. So weird to see! Unfortunately, you can't really see that on the video Travalon made, but I promise that I will edit it and post it here eventually.

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