14 March - Spring Fevers

The weather has been warming up. I have spring fever something awful—and that is in addition to Jack’s flu fever and my slightly nauseated feeling (great). Eveyone keeps saying think how bad it would be if you hadn't gotten the flu shot. Small consolation when you are sick. 

The last two days, I got Jack to walk up to Foubert and back, which was hard on him, being sick, but I felt it was better for him to get out in the warm air than languish in the house. The second day, I let him go back by himself and continued on around the loop. A good walk on a sunny day. Fabulous. 

The walk confirmed that under the snow spring is coming. In my own yard I have snowdrops in bloom and daffodil points poking out of the ground. On the walk I saw several of the early trees showing signs the sap is running. Here is a really early aspen tree putting out some catkins. Just this one branch end has fluffed out like the popcorn, but the branches behind it have big swollen buds.

Our neighbor's magnolia is starting to show buds.  And one lone silver maple was covered with red flower buds,  looking  very ready to open. My heart is so happy.
 

Back home I was contemplating spring clean up.  Most of the snow has melted off the lawns and left them in a flat matted state. not good. And the pool-- pretty putrid. Robin called during my musings, and since multitasking is my middle name, I put the phone on speaker, stuck it under my bra strap and proceeded to rake the middle lawn while talking. After a while Robin asked, what is that noise?  Turns out the raking sound was quite annoying over the phone. I tried to rake more quietly. 

Finishing the call, I got serious about the lawn raking. Finished the middle lawn and the side lawn, plus I scattered the trail of deer poop so it would be fertilizer instead of grass killer. This was a solid black trail about 14 to 16 inches wide and at least 15 feet long. It was similar to the trail of sun on a lake as the sun sets.  Hard to see, but this trail goes all the way to the fence behind the tree.

I got Jack to help with the hose and we got the lower pool drained. The next day we raked the decaying leaves out so they could dry, raked leaves out of the upper pool, emptied it into the lower pool and started draining it again. 

Since Jack was up and not feeling too bad, we took the Christmas lights off the trees. Tomorrow we'll tackle the lights under the eaves. 

I would like to finish raking the lawns this weekend, plus we have some downed limbs to cut up and get out.  We have rain in the forecast for the middle of next week and it would be great to have all this done first. We worked so hard on the yard last year that our Spring clean up will be minimal. Minimal being relative of course. 

Yesterday there was an article in the paper about the Avocets returning to the Great Salt Lake in mid-March to start nesting. Mid-March? Close enough. We took a drive out to the lake, but we saw very few birds. I was surprised how few birds there out.  One little brackish pond had a pair of  Redhead Ducks. There were a few coots and many cormorants. No Avocets. But.. the ones we saw? Cool! 

Here is the pair of Redheads, but the black and white duck?  If I have identified it correctly it is a Lesser Scaup, another first for my list!  Ooo-ee!

We parked a stone's throw from the marina and watched a raven. There was a large bird beyond the raven. Too far too see clearly. It was going through all kinds of contortions. I thought it might be bathing. Couldn't see it well enough with the camera to tell what was going on.  After getting home and downloading my pictures, I realized it was an eagle eating something. The contortions were most likely him pulling out the intestines, or stretching pieces of meat from whatever it was eating. 

I bet the raven is waiting around for leftovers. 

At a tailings pond across I-80 was a little island filled with cormorants. 

 The lake is so beautiful and yesterday was no exception. A mist was rising and made it look very otherworldly. 

Just another perfect day in paradise. 


Speaking of Spring, we are 6 days away from the vernal equinox. And not only are we 6 days away,  but we are 6 minutes away. This morning sunrise was at 7:39 am and sunset will be at 7:33. My heart is happy.  

Happy Pi Day!