Slavic Day in Milwaukee

 

Yesterday Travalon and I went to Cecil Markovitch's house, where we were soon joined by the Single B-Boy, then we all piled into Cecil's car to drive to Milwaukee. We met Tiffy at Franklin High School, where we watched the local tamburitza orchestra, plus one from Cleveland, perform. The little kids were super cute but not that impressive, although I did adore one boy named Darko who plucked a smaller-sized bass like he just didn't care. Pluck, pluck, who gives a... The teens, however, were quite impressive, especially a group of girls who sang a cappella, and the dancing was really good. There was a reception afterwards in a totally different place, but we had reservations at a Serbian restaurant, where we weren't allowed to say anything about our Croatian cultural experience. This is part of my agreement with Travalon, that if we spend too much time doing Celtic stuff, we will also do Croatian stuff, and honestly I don't mind. I love all sorts of ethnic celebrations. Dinner was delicious; I wanted to try the lobster pie, but they were out, so I went with my old standby of burek. (Bonus: I always get at least three meals out of it.) I also tried a walnut martini, but everyone laughed at me because I nursed it for the entire two-plus hours we were at dinner, and then we all got dessert except the B-Boy, who just had ouzo. I had the sour cherry strudel, Tiffy and Travalon had the palachinka with the chocolate hazelnut filling, and Cecil had baklava. I should note that for their main courses, Travalon and the B-Boy had chicken paprikash, and Tiffy and Cecil had moussaka, though she had the vegetarian one and he had the Serbian one. We also had lots of bread with cheese spread and ajvar, which is like Serbian salsa - so good! Everything was so good. The only sad note was that on such a beautiful day, we spent most of it inside or in the car, and I was really short on steps so I cheated by moving my arms the whole drive back from Cecil's place. That got me almost all the rest of the steps I needed, and my one workout of the day - my FitBit thought I was using an elliptical trainer.

Today we had a ton of plastic to recyle after Mass again, then there was a bit of excitement right after Mass when a tween girl puked all over the floor right in front of the plastic bins. We managed to dodge the puke on the floor while preparing the plastic for recycling, then after a quick lunch we went to Governor's Island. The carpet of early spring flowers is mostly gone now, at least the white Dutchman's breeches and trout lilies, but the purple and yellow violets are still blooming. We saw a couple of goldeneyes there, but I don't know why they look so brown. I think of goldeneyes as black and white, but Merlin confirmed these were goldeneyes.

It was so beautiful out that I was sad to go inside for my drum lesson, but the feeling vanished as soon as I stepped into the Quadra and heard the soft samba band playing. Since they changed the ukulele strums from Wednesday to Thursday, now I have to miss their monthly concerts at Working Draft brewery, so it was fun to get to hear them. We worked really hard at our drum lesson, and I always hate it during the lesson itself, but then the endorphins must kick in, so afterwards I think of it fondly. Also, the people are really cool there. I decided it's no more money and time than if I were doing an exercise class, plus it's music and parties so totally worth it.

Meanwhile, Travalon went fishing at Yahara Park and saw some coots.

After he picked me up, we went to the part of Cherokee Marsh with the little island, but all we saw were a couple of geese. However, along Wheeler Road there is a pond where we saw several wood ducks.

And a line of turtles on a log.

Then Travalon left for a guys' night dinner with Cecil, the B-Boy, Trinidad Cap, Prairie Man, and Richard Bonomo. (When Travalon said, "That's a lot of Cecil Markovitch, I might need a break after this," Cecil replied, "Imagine how I feel - I never get away from Cecil Markovitch!") Meanwhile, I went to band practice. Our leader thought we should resurrect some of the songs we used to do and haven't done in a while, and honestly I don't know why we stopped doing them. Sometimes the version our leader had was totally different than the one Hardingfele and the other fiddler were looking at, and sometimes the chords made no sense. We went around taking turns choosing tunes, and after a long evening of playing things we are rusty on, we ended with the gentle waltz "Tumbalalaika." So that was lovely. I do like playing chords on that one, because I love hitting the one D major chord among all the D minors, but if I play tremolo on the melody, I sound like a balalaika. So that's what I did.

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A Tale of Two Marshes: Patrick and Horicon

 

Today after Mass there was a Care for Creation meeting, so Travalon had to take the plastic for recycling over to Pick N Save on his own. This set us back a bit in our schedule to go to Horicon Marsh today, and we stopped by Patrick Marsh first. It was very windy, and at first we didn't see any birds, but then we realized they were out there, it was just harder to see them among the waves. Travalon did manage to get some good photos, but in some of them the birds were behind or under the waves. First, I believe this is a juvenile Bonaparte's gull.

We saw two loons. This one was a lot closer to us.

There were a pair of canvasbacks and a pair of red-headed ducks swimming together. Travalon unfortunately never got a good photo of the male canvasback, but here is the female.

And here is the male red-headed duck.

There was also a tiny horned grebe swimming around and constantly diving.

Here is the loon again.

There were also buffleheads, common mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, and a pied-billed grebe, but those photos are from further away or not as clear. Oddly, no pelicans - there are often dozens of them in Patrick Marsh.

Then we drove to Horicon Marsh and saw egrets in the pond at the start of the scenic drive.

We also saw a pair of ring-necked ducks and a pair of red-headed ducks in the pond.

We walked on the boardwalk and saw northern shovelers.

This poor male blue-winged teal was being blown around by the wind. His mate is just to the right of this photo.

This red-winged blackbird tried to fly away as we approached, and the wind blew him right back into the rope he'd been sitting on! So Travalon was able to get an extreme close-up of him.

It began to rain, so we hurried back to the car and continued on the scenic drive. We saw a pair of swans, which I am assuming are trumpeter swans because they were quiet, their necks are dirty, and they appear to be a breeding pair. Tundra swans are noisy, hang out in big crowds, and don't get dirty necks, and they do not breed this far south.

As we drove through the town of Horicon, we saw a bunch of train cars with beautiful graffiti.

We also saw this flock of turkeys hanging out by the tracks. This is only part of the flock - there were at least twice as many as this.

Then, as we drove back toward Beaver Dam, we saw a flooded field with all sorts of birds hanging out in it. It was almost better than what we saw at Horicon! We saw a pied-billed grebe and not one but two black-necked stilts, as well as mallards and Canada geese which are not pictured because they are everywhere, including just off our dock.

Though I have to say that, this spring, I have seen way more shovelers than mallards. Are they actually surpassing them in population? I'm not sure they stay here to breed, which the mallards do so we see them all summer and even in the winter, hanging out in the places where the water doesn't freeze over completely. 

After that we went to Columbus to see if we could watch a train pass by, but we had missed the Amtrak by about half an hour, and no freight train went by in the few minutes we waited. Travalon tried to find a free train tracking app, but he didn't have any luck. By then it was too late to bother with band practice, but I had already warned them that I didn't know what time we'd get back to town so I might not make it.

One thing that was frustrating was that my FitBit didn't give me credit for a workout when we walked on the boardwalk, so back home I walked around while listening to music and still didn't get credit. I checked my settings, and the setting to notify me of a workout was turned off for some reason, so I turned it back on and went into the app, and I'd gotten credit for a workout for both walks. Whew! How the setting got turned off, I have no idea. Weird things would happen to my FitBit if I showered with it on, so I've been taking it off while I'm in the shower for ages. Also, the gift card I was supposed to get via email in fourteen days, so by today, never came. I was about to email them when I reread it and realized it said fourteen BUSINESS days, so they have until Thursday. Hopefully the Belleek castle tower is still available on eBay by then...

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