Eagles at Manawa

John (ham radio, cycling, photography friend) had been over at Lake Manawa State Park to shoot photos of the eagles. My visits to Bosque del Apache and talking with birder friend Tom, I planned to bring the camera bag with me Sunday morning.

Sunday John brought a print we took at coffee. After coffee, I headed to Manawa to find the eagle. John had seen them in the area of Boy Scout Island and E. Manawa Drive.

I started on the West side where I visited with Tom. No eagles. Next stop was Boy Scout Island. A few geese, and some large birds further into the lake. Took a couple photos but was getting discouraged.

Looked there were a group of folks stopping along the East side of the lake. Drove there and parked along the road as there were several large birds flying in the area.

I forgot how difficult it is to fallow birds in flight and keep the lens in focus. Auto focus was having a fit. Switched to manual focus (which I am not accustomed to - like how to move rings to focus vs zoom). Was able to a get a couple "in flight" photos.

One immature bald eagle decided to perch on a branch right over my car. Gave me some time to fine tune the focus. Here's the best of the photos I took.

Tennessee Neighbors

This fair lady is the neighbor of my parents in Tennessee. Last time I visited, she gave me a huge cabbage from her garden. When I got home, I sliced, blanched, and froze it. I'll make cabbage stew this winter.
I've taken photos of her barn in all seasons. I want to do a watercolor of it soon.
When I was a small girl, I'd visit her parents with my grandma. Two smells I associate with their house and yard; tobacco (one of both of them dipped) and boxwoods. They had these huge ones on either side of their walkway you'd have to pass through to get to their front door. Today when I smell a boxwood, it makes me swoon. I guess that's one of the reasons I love Williamsburg so much. There are hundreds of boxwoods there. I'm going to order two English boxwoods for containers. They are the ones that have the wonderful smell. I'm not so sure they'll flourish down here with our humidity, but I won't know unless I try.

Grocery shopping on a bike: An exercise in practicality

Earlier this week, my fitness/commuter goal for April was put to the test by general necessity.
My cupboards were bare, my fridge nearly empty and the only things left to eat around my apartment were ranch dressing, pancake syrup and leftover Buffalo Wild Wings food from Lord knows when.
It was time to go grocery shopping. However, since my biking/running totals are still catching up to my driving mileage for April, I had to figure out a way to pad my mileage. Beyond that, gas prices have been going up like crazy lately and unfortunately, my modest salary is not matching that rate of inflation.
So with that in mind, I put my car keys away, grabbed a backpack and did my grocery shopping on a bike. My shopping included stops at Cub Foods, Kwik Trip and Aldi.
Surprisingly, it wasn't as difficult as one would think. I essentially bought all the groceries I would have gotten with a car, only I took two trips. The method I used for packing the groceries included my backpack and dangling a pair of grocery bags from my handlebars (first photo on the right).
The most difficult aspects of it were figuring out how to make everything fit and keeping myself balanced for the bike ride home. The only real trial and error came from determining that the weight of items in the grocery bags on the handlebars had to be relatively light, otherwise steering would get awkward (I initially tried this with a gallon of milk in one bag, bad idea).
I will touch on the experience more in a column I wrote for Monday's paper, but for the time being, here is a list of groceries I was able to carry home on each trip, with photos accompanying each list. As you can probably guess, the second trip was a lot tougher to package and carry than the first.
First trip (Cub Foods and Kwik Trip)

• 2 bags of hashbrowns
• 1 pound of grapes
• 2 pounds of bananas
• 4 boxes of cereal
• 1 gallon of milk
• 1/2 gallon of orange juice
• 2 bags of pizza crust mix
• 1 dozen eggs

Second trip (Aldi)

• 1 bag of apples
• 2 jars of peanut butter
• 1 jar of jelly
• 4 cups of yogurt
• 1 package of breakfast sausage patties
• 1 box of pancake mix
• 3 boxes of rice
• 1 box of banana bread mix
• 1 package of chocolate chips
• 1 container of bread crumbs
• 1 package of tortilla shells
• 2 jars of spaghetti sauce
• 2 pounds of shredded cheese
• 1 package of dried fruit
• 1 package of baby carrots
• 1 box of mashed potato mix
• 1 6-pack of bagels
• 1 package of pepperoni
  
• 1 box of cereal

(Note: this isn't intended to depict me as a hulking figure of grocery getting ability. Rather, it is meant to illustrate how much a person can actually carry on a bike if they organize it correctly. Also, I realize my eating habits probably seem a little odd, but I happen to like cereal ... a lot.)

Edinburgh Christmas bustle

The pre-Christmas 'bustle' at Here and There Slocan inspired me to post a similar shot of Edinburgh's 'Main Street' today. To get an exact comparison I had to stand in the middle of the road - not an easy thing to do in the middle of the day on Princes Street.
Many people are still at work, so it wasn't too frantic out on the streets. Marks and Spencer's food hall however was living up to its pre-Christmas reputation, so I was glad to escape to the relative tranquility of the lingerie department, from where I knew I would get a bird's eye view of the street.

Ozzie is Recovering Courageously!

Oz has been home now for three days. And. She has amazed us by her rapid adjustment to being a tri-pawed kitty. She has not had a super appetite, but we've tried to offer her faves; fresh shrimp, which she's munched on daintily and her Fancy Feast fave, which she's eating here. For the first time today, she tried to escape from our bedroom, where she's been held captive. We're stunned by her continued improvement.
After she ate a bite or two, she headed for Sam's giant bed to relax a bit. She hates her meds (of course), but they help her sleep and keep the infections away. We stopped by the Humane Society today to say thanks to those involved in finding her and to re-license the pups. There were at least five individuals who were interested in what happened to her. We learned little more about what happened to Ozzie, except that instead of that nutty woman keeping her for two days, Oz was apparently held hostage for four days. All the days she was missing. I guess we can thank Dog that she was inside on those cold nights. For those who are squeamish, you may not want to look at the next photo, which shows Ozzie's amputation and stitches. She is in great spirits! We are so encouraged by her courage and backbone! What a winner!

Beautiful GABE Pressie and Some Other Adventures!

It has been a bit nutsy around here, and I apologize for my mom's rudeness in making me so AWOL with my pals - I finally pawed her to take some dictation today. Here we go!We won! We won! Silvie (check out her blog here), a cheerful and happy Bichon, sent us a wonderful pressie! Here I am inspecting it carefully, as I wanted to make sure it wasn't another new puppy. It didn't smell like one; in fact, it smelled very sweet!

Here I am, snootering it a little bit more...

And some more!
As Silvie said on her GABE post, I'd have a huge void in my life without a Bichon candle.
And you know what? She was right. It's guarding Ma's and Pa's pix of my Splash doggin'! Thank you a ton, Silvie! What an adorable candle!
Look who showed up for our next adventure??? I was so jazzed! Here's a little photoshow of our walk with Sierra, her mom, Eric (who is the all-time greatest doggeh caretaker in the world) and his two charges, Smudge and Prius (the hybrid hee hee)!

Another beautiful day on the Bay and a pretty park that had asphalt, so my sister could come too. Nothing beats a swim out to my kong on a rope! Yeahhhhh!


A little movie of my sister walking. She's been doing a lot of practicing - that's not bad, Avalon!

Woodchucks at Grand Portage State Park

At work this week we've noticed some new little critters running around near the visitor center... a family of woodchucks! They are living under the boardwalk and in the bushes next to the visitor center. Throughout the day they venture out to chew on the grasses and dandelions in the yard.

Every now and then one of the young ones takes off running down the paved trail, much to the delight of the park visitors. They look so funny when they are running full speed! And, they are much quicker than I thought. I never realized they could run so fast.

We have recently had construction work begin on the site for our new visitor center, so there is a lot more noise than there usually would be, what with chainsaws running and dump trucks and loaders coming and going. The noise doesn't seem to bother these guys, though, as they are pretty active all day long. If you happen to visit the park, keep an eye out for them as you walk past the visitor center!