Today I had a tremendous birding (birdwatching) day. Best of all, I was able to "sweet talk" a pair of mallard ducks into remaining in my pond, allowing me to capture them on camera. How do you sweet talk a duck? With high-pitched saccharin commentary like, "Oh you are such pretty birds!" Really. When I first approached them they began to exit the water but somehow I talked them into staying. They returned for a swim, taking time to eat some plants and groom themselves. Tossing them some bread to nibble helped, too.

This morning, I sipped my coffee out on my patio. I was feeling a bit blue due to the never-ending cycle of the moon (aka - my monthly PMS bummer-day.)

As my mind wandered, I spied a robin alight on the edge of the pond, even though I was sitting only a few feet away. He cocked his head and winked! I smiled. And he proceeded to enjoy a splash in the watery wonderland that is my tiny marsh.

Whenever I am feeling down, I go to my garden. I always find a new bloom on a perrenial, hear an unfamiliar songbird, or take in the soothing splash of water in the pond.

I was so pleased to find that, yet again, my garden didn't let me down in my time of need.

As I finished my coffee, I ambled back into the house and began to check my email. I was shocked to read a notice from my parish prayer list that stated that Ed, a funny, smart and vital man in my bible study class, died suddenly in his garden yesterday.

Ed was also the father of a guy in my parish council, Tim,  who is equally talented and charismatic.

As I got ready to make my communion visits to the homebound, I thought sadly about the loss of Ed in our group discussions - and of his poor wife, also in the class,  who must be utterly devastated.

As I walked into Church to get some host, there were Tim and his mother, clearly distraught, on their way to make funeral arrangements.

I called out to him and offered, "Oh, Tim, I am so sorry to hear..." He gave me a hug and through his tears noted, "God was looking out for dad - he died doing what he loved in a place he loved."

I then shared with Tim the story of the brave robin cheering me up today...and from now on, whenever my green thumb needs some inspiration, I will be praying to the new patron saint of my backyard: Ed The Gardener.

Without further adieu, here is a slideshow of our hideaway in the woods - 3br/1ba, barn, and 9 acres of land.

Note - the house has pieces of wood propped against it - that's cause hubby was installing crown molding & baseboards in the MBR that weekend...

I kept it quiet until it was a done deal...

This past weekend we closed on a 3 BR cabin in central Wisconsin on 9 acres of land -mostly pine forest. It also has a large barn/mega-garage, some small outbuildings (wood sheds, old outhouse, former chicken coops...)

We have quite a bit of fixing-up to do but after one weekend's worth of work it is already taking shape and is rewarding us with the promise of many fun summer vacations to come.

The wildlife up there is amazing. The privacy is awesome (it is on our own private road, too), and the fresh air is invigorating. I could do without the deer ticks, though. I don't consider Lyme Disease a "feature" of a northwoods retreat!

Pictures to follow sometime soon...

With a disappointing voter turnout...the call is for the GI Tract disater.

Here is the story:

A few weeks ago, hubby had to take the day off from work when our sump pump began emitting terrible noises from its cavernous lair below the basement floor. He hustled over to Home Depot, bought a new pump after removing the old one and realizing it wasn't even a proper sump but a 1960's effluent pump for a septic system!

He got the installation and cleanup done by 1pm so we all decided to go out for a nice lunch and a beer for dad to reward him for his handyman skills.

We settled on Houlihans as our destination because it is near home, offers Guinness on tap, has a kids menu and fantastic burgers.

As our lunch commenced, hubby and I each ordered a salad and a burger; kiddo opted for chicken tenders.

Everything was delicious but along the ride home I felt a tell-tale gurgling erupting in my stomach. I assumed too much diet coke was giving me gas.

We arrived home, I began some chores and felt like I had to pass some of the aforementioned gastric carbonation...so I attempted to squeak one out only to be engulfed in an underpants emergency: I didn't have gas but rather DIARRHEA! I sh*t all over my thong and new jeans! I had to get into the shower and clean up, the schmear was EVERYWHERE!!!

Hubby heard my screams and inquired about the problem.

"Oh man, something I ate at Houlihan's gave me the skids!" I exclaimed.

"Hmmm, maybe they should call it "Stool-ihans," he deadpanned.

For today's blog topic, I can either relate one of two true stories:

A compilation of sweet, slightly humorous observations from the Bible Class I attended this morning

or

A minor scatalogical disaster that happened to me this afternoon.

You choose.

(I think I already know what the concensus will be...)

I spent almost all fo this glorious 70+ degree day outside fiddling around in the pond. "Fiddling" as in cleaning, adding plants, scooping out dead tadpoles...

Yeah, two of the "newbies" I added last week didn't make it.

But I made an incredible discovery: a bullfrog tadpole that I put in the pond at the beginning of the fall survived the winter and came out of his hiding/hibernation place under a pile of decaying leaves at the bottom of the pond. This dude is HUGE. Actually he's almost horrifically scary - think of a big snake head with a thin, fish-like tail and that's pretty close to what I have swimming around, sucking algae off the plants and rocks. Two of the new tads are still alive and scuttling about, and of course my lone but gorgeous goldfish thiks she's queen of the pond.

But she isn't alone...

Apparently she had just enough time with some fish I imported to the pond at the end of the summer last year to spawn. All of those pet store fish died. My large goldfish remained and stayed the winter. I noticed during a warm patch of weather we had in december that there was a tiny little grey guy swimming around - likely her offspring. Well "Pee Wee", as we call him, is still alive and is spending much of his time in the shallow parts fo the pond, scraping algae from rocks and pebbles.

So the three swimmy survivors include a beautiful 6+inch long goldfish - she looks like a cross between a shubukin and a comet; a year-old bullfrog tad, who is starting to get leg buds, and a goldfish fry about 1" long. Also include inthe "survivor" category an uncountable number of japanese trapdoor snails of varing generations,  a multitude of seed-size common pond snails, and a decent amount of duckweek plants.

I'm concerned that once the Big Tadpole (as we call him) morphs to carnivorous from algae-eater that my fish will be in danger. I just hope that there are enough insects flitting about the water's edge to distract him.

Last night I taught a review session for the first grade home-study religion class at my parish. This means that instead of weekly "ccd" class, the kids do their workbooks at home and come to church once per quarter for a review of the material, plus time to work on themed crafts, play games relevant to the lessons, etc.

My daughter was in the class, as well as a girl I taught last time and a boy named Michael.

Despite good planning on my part (textbook earmarked with post-in notes, guidelines of cirriculum at hand, bible at the ready) I encountered a number of stumbling blocks through this challenging evening.

First, my daughter kept tearing apart the plastic tablecloths, seemingly unconsciously - some might call it "fidgeting." She also provided quite precocious answers to many of the review questions, sending the other kids into giggles.

Then, one little girl asked me a tough question about loving others:

"I know God wants us to love other people but do I have to love my Stepmother even though I don't like her?"

*sigh*

Finally, as the grand finale to the evening, Michael provided the class with background "music" by cutting gas quite audibly throughout the evening!

Spring is *almost* here. Dummy me: I neglected to check and re-check the weather predictions for the week before I ran to the pet store last night and bought 4 bullfrog tadpoles for my pond. I knew that night time temps were too cold so I scooped up a bunch of pond water into a giant bowl and allowed them to spend the night in an indoor environs. My plan was to take the bowl out this morning to acclimate to outdoor temps which I *thought* were going to be in the 50's. It was merely 37 (air temp) this morning at 10 am and the water was insanely cold. In fact, the goldfish went back into his nest in "torpor" which is like suspended animation, which they do when the water is too cold for normal activity.

Luckily, the sun has been beating down all day and so my relatively shalow pond, sans floating plants in quantity, is warming up nicely. I just took the bowl outdoors and sunk it into some gravel on a shallow pond bank. In about 30 minutes I'll measure water temps in the bowl and the larger water area and if its close enough, I'll release the tads and hope they make it overnight and start making a dent on the algae situation in the swamp!

I copied this from Michelle over at smoochdog who copied it from her friend, Janet and so forth...

Anyway...

I liked this quiz and I somehow feel happy about the resulting analysis which basically states that I'm a grounded, down-to-earth, yet sophisticated gal. Nothing like a "complimentary" quiz!