I’m passing on an ‘opportunity’ tonight

On Tuesday, word came down from above that the headquarters area of the refuge needed to be mowed, and that’s my responsibility.  So when the rain seemed to abate, I put on my steel-toed boots, safety glasses, and earplugs to do my duty. 

                                                                         Male purple finch.

Things chugged along fine until the motor on the mower quit while I was kind of stuck under some low branches of a tree just as the skies opened up with a drenching rain.  Uff-da!  I got the engine restarted and headed for the barn.  By the time I got there, I was soaked to the bone.  Of course, once I was inside the rain quit. 

                            Female purple finch coming in for a landing on the Hard Rock Bird Café.

It takes quite a few hours to do all that mowing, and by the time I climbed off of that John Deere, I felt like I had been riding a horse all day.  The pedals for getting it started and engaging the mower blades are made for someone that has much longer legs than I do.  I tried to adjust the seat forward, but it wouldn’t budge.

Yesterday, I did some more bird atlasing, and spent half a day picking up litter along the refuge roads.  No good photos opportunities presented themselves, so tonight’s pictures are Bird Café visitors.

I headed for Fargo, ND, this morning to get some needed supplies.  While wandering around the city, I came upon a Carol Widman’s Candy Co. store.  It reminded me of the Andies Candies stores of my youth in Chicago.  Both my mother and my sister had worked at Andies Candies back in the 60’s.  It’s one of those candy stores that has quality chocolate selections behind glass cases that you choose your favorites from, and an employee individually boxes your selection.  Lo and behold, they had dark chocolate covered sponge candy!  I’m not much for sweets, but I love sponge candy.  Guess I’ll just have to suffer through the rich dark chocolate to get to the melt in your mouth treat inside.   I think I’ll see if they have a website where I can just order some sponge candy without the coating.  I remember buying an unadorned brick of it about thirty years ago, but haven’t seen it since.  Has anyone run across plain sponge candy in their travels?

                                            White-breasted nuthatch doing its upside down thing.

On my way back, I also stopped at a little malt shop along US 10 for an honest to goodness old fashioned butterscotch malt.  You know, it’s one of those little places that puts real hard ice cream, malt, milk, and flavoring into a metal container to be whipped up by a malt maker machine.  It comes complete with whipped cream and a cherry on top!  Egad!  A piece of sponge candy and a malt all in one day; my system is in shock.

Tonight, the volunteers have been offered the ‘opportunity’ to go with a guy from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to try to re-trap a couple of loons.  Seems he needs to remove some GPS tracking devices from them.  Well, here’s the deal.  We can come along and watch from shore; after dark, ensconced in a duck blind, with eighteen zillion mosquitoes, unable to make any noise, or take pictures with a noisy camera or flash.  Umm…both Steve and I are going to pass on this.  Last year, they were out until 3:00 in the morning on this little escapade.  Sorry, I’m feeling a bit too old for this adventure, and want to be awake in the morning for a little escapade of my own.

                                                                              THE END!!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy