Meet Frankie

 

I worked on campus today, and when I got home, Frankie was waiting for me.

When Travalon got home, he put Roy Jr. on Frankie's lap.

Frankie came with that name, but look at the eyes - she's a girl! So I am saying her name is Francesca and we just call her Frankie. She is a weighted stuffy, so she is supposed to help a person relax. I debated between her (she's a cat) and Quinn the Koala, but Travalon said Frankie was more original. A blue cat? She's almost the color of my old rabbit Cashmere.

I forgot to tell this crazy story: I ordered some books from Germany for a professor in December, and in early February it said they were finally going to arrive... and then it said they were lost. I requested replacements but they said we had to request a refund and reorder the books. We got the refund very quickly, I'll say that, but due to the exchange rate it was a lot less than we had originally paid. Then in mid-March the books arrived - was it the old order? the new one? Who can say? The books were all there... and so were three bags of tomato paste.

Good thing these didn't burst and get all over the books! The plot thickens, because this brand is made in Nigeria. What the heck? Did our box of books travel via Nigeria? One of our grad students said that her parents will send her packages from Germany, and sometimes stuff is missing, but weirder, sometimes stuff is added. She got one box with a really ugly necklace in it, and she sent a photo to her mom and said, "Thanks, but this isn't really my style," and her mom was like, "The heck? I didn't put that in there!" So apparently receiving packages from Germany is always an adventure.

Tonight Travalon and I went to Lola's because it was the last day they would have the pelmeni that he got on Mardi Gras that was so tasty. We each got an order of it, and then I did get a drink with gin and pear and lime that tasted like drinking a flower, and I even had a few bites of Travalon's blondie a la mode, so there went my Lenten resolution today. (The only one I hadn't broken yet - not eating sugar.) But oh my goodness, the food there is so good, and today was Motown Monday, so the DJ was playing excellent R&B and soul music. Tomorrow I will get back on the wagon. I wish I'd realized there was a bluegrass jam at the music club - that would have saved us some money and calories. It wasn't mentioned in the club newsletter, but they posted a video of it on social media. Hopefully they have another one sometime soon.

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Lousy with Loons

 

This morning Travalon did not feel at all well, but we did go to Mass, and he made it all the way through. After relaxing at home for a bit, he felt he could go look for birds at Patrick Marsh. Guess what the first thing was we saw when we got there? A loon! And then we saw like five more!

We also saw some ring-necked ducks.

I love their mating dance of stretching their necks waaaaay up.

Then a loon came up right by them, and they flew away. We walked further along and saw two common mergansers who flew away as Travalon was trying to take their photo.

I suggested that we go to the Union Terrace, since on cold, rainy days like today there would be no people out there but possibly lots of loons. We found a free space right in front of the Union, and our good luck just continued from there, because we saw loons, and a cute little horned grebe, as well as tons of mallards.

This loon was close to the shore, so I was talking to it: "Welcome back up north. We're glad you're here! You're a very pretty bird." It appeared to be listening to me. It didn't dive under the water until I stopped talking to it.

It did come back up again.

Finally we went into the Union and warmed up at Peet's with hot drinks and little chicken sandwiches on herb biscuits. We drove through campus to Picnic Point, but we didn't see anything going on there, so we drove around the lake and stopped at Mendota County Park. All we saw there were a handful of mallards, but we did take a short walk along the canal.

On the way to Cherokee Marsh we saw a blond squirrel.

We had one just like this in our neighborhood for years, but it's been a few years since I've seen him (I say that because he appeared to be chasing females) so I assume he either reached his natural lifespan or got picked off by something. Then we drove to the part of Cherokee Marsh where you can see the small, nameless island, and we found a path that goes to a really good spot to see it.

The pelicans were hanging out around the island.

Here's a better view of the pelicans hanging out on the north side of the island.

So it was an excellent birdwatching day, especially if you're loony for loons like we are.

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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.

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