A walk in the woods

The kidlet and I returned to one of our favourite spring haunts today. The trails at Wellesley Island State Park are, simply put, the best science lab and the best gym a homeschooling family could ever hope to find. We find it to be most beautiful in the spring of the year, when everything is waking up again after the long, cold winter.

The Ospreys, whose regional population was nearly decimated in the middle of the 20th century, is clearly thriving in the region now. One swooped in front of our windshield as we crossed the Thousand Islands bridge this morning, the closest we have ever come to this bird of prey.



After dozens of excursions to the beaver pond, we finally spotted the busy engineer at work, and were treated to its iconic slap of the tail against the surface of the water.



The Canada Geese appear to be settling in to their nesting grounds, and may have already begun to lose their flight feathers. This one made no effort to fly away as we walked past its section of the marsh.



No sooner did I wonder aloud if the garter snakes were awake yet, did the first of a dozen rustle through the leaves and taste the air.



The chipmunks entertained us with their Napoleonic posturing.



And, to our utter, utter surprise and delight, we saw the season's first ~



~ wildwood flower, ~



~ butterfly, and, ~



~ A BLUEBIRD!!! SQUEEEEEEE!!!!

They're back!

Some of my favourite birds are back, much to my delight!

The delightful harbinger of spring, ready to make her nest.

The Great Blue Heron was patiently waiting for the pickerel.

The ospreys have returned to their nest near the Lennox Power Generating Station.

And away they go ...

Great minds think alike

As I have previously mentioned in these pixellated ramblings, I greatly admire the President and the First Lady. I was especially impressed by Mrs. Obama's initiative in planting a Victory Garden on the South Lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and I was charmed by the fact that the President and the Secretary of State held a meeting at the picnic table adjacent to Sasha and Malia's swing set. What a breath of fresh air, eh?

The other day, as I was blissfully hanging the laundry out to soak up the sun, I mused that it would be awesome if the First Family started using a clothesline as well. Surely, if anyone deserved the God-given luxury of sleeping on line-dried sheets, it's our President and our lovely First Lady.

It appears that I am not the only person who is so obsessed with clotheslines. There is already an online petition to ask the First Family of the United States to dry their clothes on the White House lawn during a one day photo op. This symbolic act will send the message to America and the world that our nation is ready to regain energy independence.

I urge all of my friends to go and sign the petition. Let the fresh breezes continue to blow through this great land.

This is as it should be

As a Canadian citizen married to a (now retired) American soldier, I have often lamented the vastly different ways in which the media of our respective homelands have covered the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the Canadian media puts the relatively rare casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom at the top of the newscast and often breaks into regularly scheduled programming to cover the repatriation of fallen soldiers at CFB Trenton, its American counterparts were prevented from doing the same for the fallen soldiers of OIF and OEF.

Until now.

President Obama directed Secretary Gates to review the ban on media coverage of the repatriation ceremonies at Dover Air Force Base. Now, with the approval of family members, the media is able to observe and report about the return of our fallen heroes.

The first hero to be honoured in this manner is Air Force Staff Sgt Philip Myers. May he rest in peace.

Vee-Dub Love

From the archives ...



My Great Aunt Margaret is holding me in this picture. That's my big brother giggling in the foreground. To the right is the front bumper of my parents' 1966 Volkswagen Beetle. It was the first car I ever rode in.



My brother and I in front of my parents' 1965 VW. My Dad tells me this was a 1500 Varient. I have no clear recollection of these vehicles, but I believe this must be the genesis of my love for German engineering.

Best. Birthday. EVER!!

For the past several months, we've been contemplating the replacement of Wolfgang, our 2004 Jetta Wagon. Wolfgang has served us well over the years, but his warranty was close to expiration, and his transmission, like many of his ilk, has been cranky and ill-tempered of late.

But what to get? The choices around here have been plentiful, to be sure. There has been a plethora of gently used, late model, higher-end cars and SUV's on the local lots. None of the choices have really wowed us, though. There are also some great new cars on the local lots .. but all of them, it seemed, were grey, silver, or white. White is an inappropriate choice for an area which receives snow for at least five months out of the year - unless one likes to be camoflaged in the winter, of course! And grey and silver are just too boring for our tastes. Yes, I am a pampered princess. Why do you ask?

Last week, the Mister and I were discussing dream vacations. The idea of driving through central and western Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway, and then south to California, was floated and received with much enthusiasm. The conversation then turned towards what type of vehicle would be most suitable for such a journey. We immediately agreed that the new diesel Jetta Sportwagen TDI would be perfect. As it happened, our local VW dealership had a couple of them on the lot, but they were the most hideous, boring shade of gray imaginable. Blech and ptooey and all that childish, pampered princess stuff!

And then .. and then .. my blog heroine and the object of my serious girl crush, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka The Yarn Harlot, bought a red Jetta TDI sedan. Well, that did it for me. I needed a red TDI Sportwagen, period, end of discussion.

The Mister, who was undoubtedly thrilled that I finally made a definitive decision for once in my life, went out and test-drove one of the soul-crushingly grey TDIs on Monday. He was impressed by many of the improvements that Volkswagen has made to the Jetta Wagon, but he didn't care for the highly-touted automatic transmission. Well, said the friendly VW salesman, we do have a TDI Sportwagen with a manual transmission coming to our lot tomorrow. It's red, by the way.

By staggering coincidence, the red TDI Sportwagen arrived on the lot on my 40th birthday. Can you guess what I got for my birthday??



His name is Amadeus. Isn't he lovely?

There is a riot of purple ..

.. erupting in my south-facing flower bed.




Nice, eh?

Hitting all the right notes

Throughout the embarassing epoch that was and is The Great War on Terror I have often lamented the great disparity between the sacrifices borne solely by the military and its families, and the blissful oblivion of the rest of the country who were distracted by American Idol and the shopping sprees encouraged by the (thankfully) former Commander-in-Chief.

While not directly related to her stated mandate to support military families, the First Lady's endeavour to plant a vegetable garden on the White House's South Lawn strikes exactly the right tone for our troubled times. This will be the first time since World War II, when Eleanor Roosevelt oversaw the White House Victory Garden, that veggies have been grown at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's still a little early in the season to be turning the soil in our raised beds. There was a sheen of frost on them this morning, after all. But soon enough, we'll be growing our own lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, and whatever else strikes my fancy this year. Maybe I'll try to get some raspberry canes growing in one of the beds, as the First Family will be doing.

How fortunate are we, in this country, to have such an awesome and tuned-in First Lady? I can't wait to see what she does next. But in the meantime, I'm off to do a little workout with some free weights. I need to emulate the First Lady if I want to earn my right to bare arms this summer!

HA!

Enough said.

Loving this new lens!

I hope that my faithful readers - all five of you - will forgive the recent silence on the blog. I picked up a whole bunch of night shifts over the past few weeks, which is good for the pocketbook, but bad for the brain, the body, and the blog.

The brain and the body benefitted greatly from a nine hours of deliciously decadent, uninterrupted sleep last night. Aaah, the wonders of 3 mg of Melatonin. Don't leave home without it.

The blog will now benefit from a new stash of photos, taken with the monster lens that I bought myself as a reward for picking up all of those extra shifts. Here are a few of the three hundred shots that I took at the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY, today. Enjoy!

While the coffee brewed

Who is that crazy lady?


Oh, that's just Rose. It's perfectly normal for her to go outside, at dawn, in her bathrobe.


Check it out! Rose bought a new lens for her camera!




Well, let's help her get her money's worth! Excelsior!

Can I get an Amen?!?!?

So, I attended a bridal shower today, and it will take me several days to recover from this event. No, I'm not hung over. In fact, I didn't have a single sip of wine. By recover, I mean the shaking off of the toxic sludge which the Wedding Industrial Complex oozes by the gallon.

I found this piece in today's Globe and Mail to be timely and completely in synch with my feelings on the subject of grand weddings.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to quote the author, Leah McLaren:

The thing that has always shocked me most about many newly engaged couples is the level of pretense required to fit into the Hallmark-approved idea of romance.

This starts with the proposal, in which he "asks" and she pretends to be "surprised." Then there is the engagement, in which she becomes suddenly obsessed by trivialities like napkin colours while he rolls his eyes indulgently and makes lame jokes like: "Just tell me where to show up."

Then there is the social permission it gives otherwise sane, polite people to behave like spoiled celebrities, the ridiculous, narcissistic "princess-for-a-day" clichés and finally the unfettered materialism that turns so many otherwise happy celebrations into garish cake shows.

Suffice to say, I have some issues - not with all weddings (I have been to some very nice ones), but with the ghastly wedding machine.

Amen, Sister Leah.

A-frikking-men!

Photo Meme

I was tagged by Shaun in this photo meme.

The instructions are to open one's photo file, grab the 6th picture, and post it with an explanation.



The sixth picture in the first photo folder on this laptop happens to be of a pair of Wood Ducks at the Thompson Park Zoo in Watertown, NY.

That reminds me .. our membership has expired. Time to renew!

What a delicious life he must lead!!

The imminent arrival of my fortieth birthday has led me to some periods of deep introspection of late. On the whole, I'd have to say that I'm quite satisfied with my lot in life at this stage of the game.

But I must admit to feeling a few pangs of jealousy when I read this article on the CBC's website. For in that article, there is a reference to a book entitled, Pancake: A Global History.

The CBC describes the author, Ken Albala, as a food historian at the University of the Pacific whose tome is erudite and witty. How does one score such a fantastic gig as writing a book about the most perfect food ever invented? And more importantly, why didn't I think of that?

Ceci, ce n'est pas ma faute!

I see that Target's 4th quarter profits fell 41% last year.

I take no responsibility for this shortcoming. Indeed, I did more than my fair share for Target, by spending the equivalent of a small country's GDP on Puff's with Vicks. And I may have spent a dollar or two on my secret obsession, Hello Kitty swag.

Perhaps if Target kept a year-round supply of Puffs with Vicks, their financial prospects would improve!

I'm really not trying to be flippant or irreverant here. Really.

This evening, we were treated to yet another gorgeous sunset. I ran outside to snap some pics, as I usually do. I was struck by the vertical beam of orange which seemed to extend straight upwards from the descending sun. As I came back inside, I was mulling over an appropriate yet catchy blog title to go with the pics I had captured:




"Stairway to Heaven" came to mind.

And then .. and then .. as I was going through each picture to choose which ones to put online .. I came across these ones:





These picture are cropped, but not altered in any other way. Is it just me, or can an Angel be seen above the sun?

Here's a more closely cropped view:



Although I no longer practice the faith, I was raised in the Catholic Church. The stories of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Medjugorje filled my young imagination. The sceptical agnostic in me sees a beautiful sunset and an interesting refraction of light. The Catholic in me sees Our Lady, and hopes that she hasn't given up on us yet.

And now, my imagination wanders again ...

Soon, I shall rule the world!

The chain stores around here are notorious for stocking their shelves with merchandise that is completely out of sync with the season. I learned this lesson many years ago, when I attempted to purchase mittens for my son in January, in the snow belt. I could have bought myself a bikini and some sunscreen, but there were no mittens to be found in the snowbelt in January.

So I have made it a habit to stock up on winter supplies in September and October. I feel a surge of deep satisfaction when I can gaze lovingly on my arsenal of Buckley's cold syrup, brandy, and Puffs Tissues with Vicks. Old Man Winter can bring on his worst, and I can laugh in his face.

Sometimes, I think that my paranoia runs a little too deep, but I was vindicated yesterday. I was at Target when I overheard someone asking an employee if they carried Puffs with Vicks. I knew exactly where they should have been located, having bought several boxes there myself. Alas, the shelves were devoid of those fantastically comforting pieces of paper, in the middle of cold and flu season.

This little ant knows the location of a great stash of Puffs with Vicks.



I might be persuaded to share my stash, for a price. Perhaps $10/tissue?

My 401K might be tanking, but at least I had the foresight to invest in some valuable commodities!

Mwah.
Ha.
Ha.

A-HA! I knew it!!!

Throw away your television and pick up your knitting needles. Your brain will thank you for it.

Beautiful Frost

The morning after a night of ice fog.

Snow Rollers!

Well, look what the south wind is doing!


Wikipedia describes snow rollers as a rare meteorological phenomenon. They aren't so rare around here, as I see them nearly every year.