Loony Easter and 4 BWB

 

Saturday Travalon and I went to Horicon Marsh for the first time this season, and it was everything I could have hoped for. We saw all four Big White Birds! First we stopped at Patrick Marsh, where we saw lots of ruddy ducks and some red-breasted mergansers. I love how the ruddy ducks' tails stick up.

This is the female red-breasted merganser.

This is the male.

Here he is doing a mating dance.

Here are a couple of swallows hanging around the nest box.

We even heard a loon calling on Patrick Marsh, and I think I saw it briefly. Then we drove to Horicon, and the first thing we saw was a pair of swans.

Not much further down the road, we saw a whooping crane!

We heard lots of sandhill cranes bugling, and then suddenly the whooping crane bugled! After a moment, it flew off, and later we saw it flying in the distance with another whooping crane.

As we walked along the boardwalk, we saw a fake duck!

What the hey? I assume it's not a hunter's decoy, but something scientists have set up to study ducks at Horicon. Then we saw another one!

And then tragedy struck - Travalon's camera suddenly stopped working. As if the birds knew, they were suddenly hard to find. We went to the area where we have seen all sorts of ducks before, but there were only a few Canada geese. Then we went to the place where we often see the white-headed goose, but there were hardly any geese there at all. We did see a swan in the distance and several pelicans flying around. Then, as we were leaving, a large white bird flew over our car. It was an egret! So we saw 4 BWB - all four Big White Birds! In one day!!

Our next stop was to visit Travalon's mother, and to our surprise, as we were talking to her, his youngest older brother and his wife stopped in too. So it was a wonderful visit. Then we had to hurry back to Madison to go to the Vigil Mass at St. Patrick's. One of the brunch regulars was being baptized and welcomed into the Church. It was a very beautiful Mass, but very long. Travalon and I snuck in the side door so that we wouldn't miss the Exsultet. That's what I'm there for, and the random part where the deacon says, "Bishop, I bring you good news - news of alleluia!" and then he sings a really long alleluia three times, going up a step each time. I love that part.

Yesterday morning I left Travalon at home and went to Mass, and the quartet that includes my OTHER choir director and Kathbert sang the Victimae Pascali Laudes, which is what I was there for. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Fair Trade Coffee, and I asked one of the guys who got baptized at the Vigil about his conversion story. To my surprise, he started praying the rosary on his own and then thought, "Huh, maybe I should look into becoming Catholic." Imagine being attracted to the rosary when you aren't even baptized! I know people who have been Catholic for years who still aren't into it. 

Travalon and I headed back to Okee with his older camera, and we saw the loon again and heard it sounding off. He took some photos with the other camera, which I will post tomorrow. We went to the causeway and saw wigeons, northern shovelers, red-breasted mergansers, pelicans, scaups, ring-necked ducks, and of course coots, mallards, and gulls. Then we saw another loon! 

Back in Madison, we drove by Brittingham Bay on the way to Rich's house, and we saw red-breasted mergansers doing a mating dance, and further along, about a thousand coots. It was a gorgeous day, so before dinner Kathbert, our Slow Food buddy, and I walked to where there had been a huge fire and checked out the damage. Kathbert was the only one who was familiar with the place, and she was stunned at the extent of it. There were about sixteen people at Rich's; I sat by Travalon, his classic rock buddy, and two Korean women. Someone made beer bread that was so good, and Cecil Markovitch made olive bread, so I was bemoaning eating so many carbs, and then the two other women took up the chorus too, even though they are both very thin. There were about eight desserts, but I only tried one I liked and one I didn't, so I didn't finish it. Travalon was even better - he went for a walk during the dessert course so that he wouldn't be tempted. We are both going to seriously try to cut back on bad food now.

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Lent Fails

 

I had been doing so well during Lent. Okay, I did buy a bunch of stuff I didn't need at the International Festival last weekend, but then I just donated an equal amount to charity. Then yesterday I came to work, and only one coworker is there with me on Thursdays, and he brought in a donut. Just for me. My favorite kind. I felt like it would be really mean to be all, "No thank you, I gave up sugar for Lent," so I ate it. After work I had just enough time to run to Subway for dinner before the Holy Thursday Mass, but they had a really long line, and the co-op is next door and has a hot bar, so I went there instead. At that hour it was pretty picked over, but I grabbed two beautiful Brussels sprouts, a couple of vegan "fish" sticks, and a couple of tiny pieces of vegetarian pizza. The first Brussels sprout was everything I'd hoped, but the second one was too tough to eat. The vegan fish sticks were okay, and the pizza was pretty good. Travalon met me at Mass, and he joined in the procession with the Eucharist afterwards, so I happily did too. Religious conga lines? Yes please! While I don't love the music at that church in general, the psalm had some lovely harmony going on, but it was kind of weird to sing "Pange Lingua" to lounge piano accompaniment. I could have gone downtown an hour later with the bishop and beautiful liturgy, but I'm too lazy. Also, at St. Peter's they don't do the foot washing thing, so Mass is only an hour.

Today I took the day off of work, and it was gorgeous out, so I took several walks outside, and I prayed my Lenten chaplets. I have a Stations of the Cross chaplet, and I also have (had?) three Seven Sorrows of Mary chaplets: the first one I bought by accident, thinking it was a regular rosary; the second one was in a collection of rosaries my choir buddies were going through that belonged to our late organist, and I was the only one that knew what it was, so they said I should take it; and the third one I found in an antiques shop in Eagle River. I wanted to use the one that came from our late organist, but I can't find it anywhere. Did it somehow get mixed up with my regular rosaries and end up in the mandala in the loft? It should be in my "other chaplets" box. I used the one from Eagle River, and just after I finished, it came apart. So I got the tweezers and fixed it and also the rosary they gave me free at the Waukesha antiques shop that was made by a 90-year-old man in hospice. The crucifix had come off of that one. I went to the afternoon Good Friday liturgy at St. Peter's, and the music was not good, but when I venerated the cross, I actually began to cry, it was so moving. I talked to the other Famous afterwards. Travalon came home with a fish fry for my one meal of the day, and he also got a cup of clam chowder. I was really relishing it, but some of the clam strips looked odd, and then I looked more closely and they looked like soggy bacon. Who expects bacon in clam chowder?? Then Travalon said, "Oh yeah, I guess it did say there was bacon in it, but I forgot that bacon was meat. I was too busy making sure it was New England style instead of Manhattan style." So I ate meat not just on any old Friday in Lent but Good Friday. Whoops!

Then we went to the Lakeside Coffee House to see the band that had played at our wedding reception. I realize that was nearly a decade ago, but this iteration of the band seems very different. Of course Light Bright retired from the band, being busy with little kids, and they have replaced her with a woman who plays the fiddle. But I seem to remember the band having like six members, and one was definitely a slide guitar player. Now only the main guitar player still seems to be around, and besides the young fiddler, there is also a young standup bass player. They were really good and had lots of witty repartee between songs. Unlike last week, when I saw the Daughter of Denni's band in the back room overlooking the lake, this was in the front room. It's a cozier experience, with the soft light from all the mismatched lamps, and a much smaller space. There were a ton of people there, so it took us a while to find good seats. At first we sat in very high chairs with very low backs, so that wasn't too comfortable, but eventually we did ask a couple sitting at a table with four chairs if we could join them, and they said sure. I do love the Lakeside Coffee House and am glad it is back in full swing after the pandemic. Tomorrow night there's an Irish jam session, but I'll be at the Vigil Mass. Hopefully they have another one soon...

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Stuff I Got at the International Festival

 

So, FINALLY, I have photos to share of the stuff I bought on Saturday at the International Festival. I know one of my Lenten penances (along with not eating sugar) was to not buy stuff I didn't need, so technically I broke that, but it's to help local artisans. It's not like ordering something from Amazon. 

Here I am with Travalon and the new beach hat I bought when we first got to the Festival - notice that we still have our coats on.

Here is the hat. Surprisingly, the pink part doesn't glow under blacklight. This was sold by a Lebanese refugee, or so someone told me.

An Ecuadorian family was selling little felt animals. They were so brightly colored! I couldn't choose between the donkey and the turtle, so I bought the donkey and Travalon bought the turtle.

And guess what? They glow under blacklight!

This rosary and the tropical earrings were sold at two different stands run by First Nation people.

And here is my name written in Nepali. Isn't it cool?

Today I took a walk at lunchtime, and the water on the lake was so rough that I wondered if there were any loons around. I ran into a guy from the Shamrock Club, the one I went to lunch with a few weeks ago - no idea he worked on campus! No wonder he was able to meet us for lunch! Then I heard something - was it a loon call or just the cry of a gull? When I looked over, I did see a loon, so they are still around.

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Tuxedo Duck

 

Not too much happened today. I worked from home and went to Adoration. My big plan was to post photos of all the stuff I acquired at the International Festival, but Boethius seems to be having a lot of trouble downloading the photos from the cloud, so that will have to wait for another day. Travalon and I did go out to the dock during my morning break, and we saw some birds there. First is what I call the "tuxedo duck," since from a distance he looks black with a white chest. He seems to be some sort of mallard hybrid and has a female mallard mate. Here you can see that he is actually a very handsome duck with a brown body and a green head.

We saw some buffleheads and ring-necked ducks in the distance, but those photos aren't clear enough to bother posting. There were some coots close to our dock.

When I went out at lunch and again in the afternoon, I saw the tuxedo duck with his Mrs. and several blue-winged teals. The teals flew away both times, but the two mallards weren't scared of me. I can't wait until we see the wood ducks, because the male is so beautiful, and the female is so cute with her eyes like an Egyptian painting.

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Photos of Migratory Water Fowl

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I walked on the Lakeshore Path. I could hear loons calling on the lake, and then I could see two pairs doing mating dances. I tried to make a video, but it didn't really turn out. But we have lots of pictures of birds from the past week. Here are some from our dock. First, some coots.

And a couple of male buffleheads.

Here are some photos of ring-necked ducks. I love when the males stretch their necks way up.

And some more buffleheads - an action shot!

Here are photos of the loon and the pelicans.

Here are a couple shots of Lake Wisconsin.

These shots are from the causeway.

These are wigeons. I love their white bills.

And these are northern shovelers, busy dabbling. They are such handsome ducks.

These are red-breasted mergansers.

We went for a short walk in a prairie just north of Waunakee, and we saw this wooly bear.

How surprising! I thought they were only around in the autumn. We were trying to see Pasque flowers, but we didn't see any in bloom. We will try again in a week. Prairie Man once sent us a photo of them in bloom in that prairie, but he sent it April 12, so maybe we were just too early.

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Back to Okee

 

This morning we managed to get to our own parish church for the long Palm Sunday Mass, then we tried to go to brunch with the usual crowd at a place called Brothers 3, but they had an hour wait. We went to Daisy Cafe and didn't have to wait too long to get a table. It was the usual crowd, which meant that once again I was the only woman. I do have to say that I laughed way too hard when Rich said he had gone to a seder, but instead of having lamb for dinner, they had pork. When he realized what he had said, he quickly corrected himself: "Chicken! I meant they had chicken instead of lamb!" So now I'm picturing the least kosher seder dinner ever: parmesan-encrusted pork cutlets with a side of shrimp. 

After brunch, Travalon and I drove to Okee, where we saw a couple of loons, as well as pelicans, eagles, and of course lots of gulls. We took a walk there, then we drove to the causeway that goes to Tipperary Road, and on one side we saw ducks in the distance, and much closer to us we saw northern shovelers, and then on the other side we saw red-breasted mergansers. Now that I have gone through Travalon's photos, I see that the ducks further from us were mostly wigeons and ring-necked ducks, or maybe scaups. It got too late to post photos, but there are lots of them, including from off of our dock. Travalon got some really good shots of ring-necked ducks from there, and to my surprise there were northern shovelers in the channel. I will post photos soon.

We had to hurry back for my Irish class, then Travalon dropped me off at band practice while he went to Leopold's. Unfortunately, the book he wanted to get there was gone. I enjoyed band practice again, and it makes me less antsy to join all these bands that I am not nearly good enough to join, and in some cases don't play the right instruments. The bass player was there again tonight, and she adds so much to our sound. Plus we dug out some of the klezmer music, and that stuff is so much fun. I'm less jealous of other klezmer bands (especially Latin jazz klezmer bands that haven't existed for a quarter of a century) when I'm playing in one myself!

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International Fest 2023

 

This morning Travalon and I met Jilly Moose and Cali for coffee, then all four of us went over to the Overture Center for the International Festival. This might be the first one since COVID, and I remember one being on Leap Day so I thought they used to be in February, but today it was on April Fool's Day. The first thing I did was buy a beach hat, because as my regular readers will know, I desperately needed another one. Then we went to listen to music. The first group we listened to was the Russian Folk Orchestra, and as always, I thought about how I should join them one of these days. Then we heard a couple of flamenco guitar players, and one gives lessons, so I pondered taking lessons. We listened to a gypsy jazz band, then we watched some flamenco dancers, and I thought about taking flamenco dance lessons with the leader. The problem is there just isn't time to learn everything. The other problem is that you can't go to everything at the International Festival, because while we were listening to Spanish guitar, we were missing West African drumming, for example. We ran into Pete the Sailor Man here and there, and after we heard one brief song by the pipes and drums, we checked out the vendors upstairs, and I bought two stuffed animals (a turtle and a donkey) from an Ecuadorian stand, earrings from a Native American stand, and a rosary from another Native American stand. We had our names written in the Nepali alphabet, and I tried to stick a paper fish onto Travalon's back for Poisson d'Avril, the French April Fool's Day, but he looked up, so I had to stick it onto Jilly Moose because Cali moves too fast. (I saw some other people with fish on their backs too.) By then we were tired, so we got Indian curry and sat listening to a Cuban guy sing and play guitar, and Pete joined us. Travalon and I danced to the last song the Cuban guy did, "El Cuarto de Tula." He got Hungarian goulash, then he headed home to watch basketball while we ladies watched Brazilian capoeira. Pete said he was going to watch a fiddle group, then he would join us for the Colombian band, but we didn't see him again. Cali is originally from Colombia, so she could understand what this band was singing. She got to talk to a lot of people in Spanish today: the Ecuadorian vendor, and the Chilean woman who sat in the seat we'd been saving for Pete the Sailor Man, for example. That band was really good, and they had a woman bass player who was fabulous. I wanted to be her! 

After the festival was over, Jilly Moose, Cali, and I went to my church library and prayed a rosary. (I used my new one, natch.) Then Cali suggested we pray the Stations of the Cross, so we did that too. Jilly Moose accidentally did the Sixth Station instead of the Fifth one, so Cali made her go back and do the Fifth one, and then Cali did the Sixth one again. I feel like Jilly Moose did something else goofy too that I'm not remembering, but the funniest thing was when Travalon was leaving and she said, "Bye, Luxuli," so Travalon said, "I'm going to sabotage your Moose Herd for that!" Cali laughed so hard she was crying! Since Luxuli is pretty much the opposite of Travalon (petite where he's a big, tall guy, a woman when he's a man, and Asian when he's white), we're not sure why her named popped out of Jilly Moose's mouth when she was saying goodbye to him. The Moose Herd is her collection of stuffed moose.

After Cali left, Jilly Moose and I went to the Hub in the Sheraton on John Nolan Drive to order takeout. The Daughter of Denni's band was playing at the Lakeside Cafe, and they don't serve food after five, but the website said it was fine to bring food in. I had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, and Jilly Moose had a chicken quesadilla. She generously bought me a drink, so I had a Montucky Cold Snack, which is a pilsner beer that goes well with grilled cheese. The band was really good, and they did an extended set of Beatles tunes. Travalon would have loved it, if he weren't watching the Final Four.

The best April Fool's joke today was a friend who had a social media post that said something like: "My husband and I are excited to make a big announcement! We have been working on this for a while and feel this is the best time to tell everyone. Starting in April, we... see more." Now this isn't strange, because if posts are too long, there's always that "see more," and then you click on it to open the post up all the way. But I clicked and clicked to find out the exciting news, and nothing happened. Finally I realized - April Fool's! Man, was that genius!!

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