Beautiful Morning....June 1st

I woke up early which is normal for me in the summer. As soon as my sleeping body senses a light change, I am up.

Charlie followed me around the house and demanded breakfast as I as started making my morning decaf coffee. 

I walked outside with him and looked to our east. It was still pretty dark, however the sky looked amazing.

I grabbed a to go cup and my keys. Charlie wasn't letting me go without him. There was a time when he would run and hide any time I grabbed the keys. Now? He is a car ride nut case.

We headed up to the spot where two of our gravel roads intersect.

I've photographed this ridge for nearly 10 years at least so I generally know where I want to go for a shot. I let the folks in the new house on the corner know that I parked or walked up to the intersection often in the middle of the night or predawn.

They have no issue with that.

Charlie got out of the car and explored the crops while I watched the land start to appear.

The sky just kept me amazed. 

I kept trying out different shots and some were up to 10 seconds long. The clouds were barely moving. 

Then for the last shot, I decided to go wild or go home....

I don't normally do HDR but sometimes it can be fun.

Happy June 1st. Looks like a beautiful weather day!

Oh Deer and other things

When I got up I didn't think the sunrise would be much of a big deal. I walked out to the summer pasture and everything looked rather hazy and bleh.

I thought perhaps the ridge might offer something different so I walked up the steep hill. When I reached the spot where I come out of a wooded area, I saw a herd of deer in the cornfield.

The group yanked their heads up so I stood stock still.

I crept up to the ditch so I could stay somewhat hidden from them. I sat in the ditch and decided to just watch and see if I could catch them in the dim light.

The sky kept brightening and I kept shooting trying to get the deer to appear on the horizon.

 Yesterday we saw a bluebird that perched on a fenced post. 

I saw a swan flying overhead while I was driving to drop off my tax paperwork.

And in the afternoon Charlie and I spotted a Robin that I could photograph. I'd only heard them for the past few days.

I had one more awesome cool discovery. The boxelder tree sap was running like crazy!

I managed to get a shot of the sap dripping from the ends of the branches. Look at the droplets, they are reflecting the trees and sunlight to the west of the trees.

Today is going to be warm and sunny. All my chores are done and I am thinking....

Perhaps I can sneak out and go look for some Sandhill Cranes or at least some Geese to watch.

The day started out amazing. I want to keep that going forward.

Quiet Weekend

 

There is the Wild Man in the skid steer.

I mentioned that I wanted to pull some multiflora rose bushes with the 4 wheeler, or chop them down and maybe then pull them out afterwards.

Rich thought he'd just grub them out with the skid steer. Oh and boy he did. He made a mess and tore things up like mad. But I just smiled because he felt good enough to operate his skid steer for a bit. 
He wanted to get down into the trees and muck around, but his fuel ran low so...whew. He had to go park it.

I'm so glad we don't own a bulldozer.

Sunday morning, my temp thingy on my smarty pants phone said it was 47 degrees out. I grabbed a heavy sweatshirt and Charlie and we headed out to watch the sun come up over the Merry Meadow. Brrrr. How did I think PJ pants and a sweatshirt with chore boots were going to be warm?

But the colors in the sky were interesting so I walked back towards the meadow.

It was worth it...

I heard some thumping that was strange and a bit weird sounding. I couldn't think of anything in the woods that would cause that. And to my surprise I counted 6 Tom Turkeys beating the hell out of each other.

They were literally running at each other and bumping chests then grabbing for each other's throats.

And...they were not uttering a sound. No gobbles, nothing. Just running at each other and wham!

This is one of those times I wished I owned a seriously Big Assed Lens. You know one of those telephoto lens that could take me right up to the Tom Turkey's faces. Alas.
I'd love to own one but probably wouldn't carry it on just a morning walk. This was my 14mm-150mm Olympus lens. It did a fair job with the low light. I took about a dozen shots and this one was the better of them.

One Tom in the left side was strutting after his battle, two are locked in a death grip and a loser is ducking under the line fence.

The fence? It has been that way for 30 years, this portion belongs to my neighbor to maintain. Yeah, it will stay that way for another 30 years. There is a hot wire to keep my critters off it.

I spent Sunday afternoon sitting on the porch with Rich and Charlie. We enjoyed the warm temps, no bugs, and sunshine. 

The veggie garden is a mess and I have to start working on that. I need to plan out some flowers for the east side of the house. My mental list of To Do's is long. 

I registered with the Wisconsin Vaccination Site and already received an appointment. 

Here's to the mini happy dance.

This guy is on one of the trees over by my shady rock place. I'm hoping to transfer some fern plants when they come up along with some other natural plants that grow in the woods. 

At least for now, the tiny Buckthorn trees are gone and I have a quiet spot for some afternoon reading if I want to get a stone's throw from the house yet feel like I am in a private place.

It feels odd

I really didn't expect that my MIL's passing would affect me as it did. 

I mean I'd been masked up, gowned, and confined to her room for three days watching her sleep and struggle for breath as her body started to shut down its systems.

She gurgled and made odd noises. Sunday she did speak a few different sounds.

"I'm tired." 

It did though. I haven't felt like doing much for the past couple of days. I did take Siera for an evening ride in the woods which seemed to help me focus again. Maybe it is relief  that she isn't in pain and sadness that I will miss her, but I have been mourning her for a long while. Harder when the only way I could see her again was so I could sit with her in her final hours.

Today, the 4th of July we will have a small graveside service on a HOT and blazing humid day.

The funeral had been paid for ahead of time and MIL did save our butts by picking out the casket. She had put her daughter in charge of the visitation and her son in law in charge of providing the service.

I won't go into it further but Covid-19 was not the only reason this didn't happen.

Lenise's grand daughter, Rich's daughter, was invaluable for helping with the small details. She helped with the Obit. 

I will digress here. We had so many laughs and wonderful memories putting this together. Discussed Fireworks! What could go wrong! Said the Mark [the funeral director].

He said the strangest obit he ever wrote was "Jane Doe, born on insert date, died on insert date.

Jane Doe loved Cats and Jesus.

Stephanie knew what flowers Lenise adored the most. We decided to be prudent and offer a short graveside service and hired a pastor for that too.

A few of Lenise's friends will come. It will be unbearably hot, humid, and sticky. But it will be outside and people can be socially distanced.

My son Jer showed up last night with his two children to pay his respects. 

The kids were so well behaved and didn't even complain about my cooking. Yeah, I didn't exactly have kid friendly stuff in the house.

However. What can I say? Those kids put on masks and wore them while playing on the porch.

We did sit together for a few minutes on the porch.

We may have looked like hooligans but we were being very careful. Charlie was in 7th heaven.

The kids are staying at a "No Tell" Motel in town and will be back this morning for breakfast. I can make cinnamon rolls by Pillsbury I think without screwing it up to badly.

This morning's sunrise was stunning. I didn't get out to the ridge to stand on the rise and watch it...

but...

...but there it is..

Well well now

After a week of very long doctor appointments along with many road miles put on the Subaru, I told Rich that I was going to go to the Kickapoo Valley Reserve on Friday or Saturday. Well, even perhaps on Sunday.

My first plan was to go on Friday and to borrow my neighbor's Roadmaster bike she has.

Yesterday afternoon on a whim, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. I drove to town and did something I never do. I stopped at a bike shop.

Years ago ... probably 1982 maybe? My sister and I went to a bicycle shop and bought matching road bicycles, 10 speed bikes. We eventually went on a pretty epic sister sister road trip of two days and nearly 150 miles. Our bikes were not composite lightweights, but heavy and sturdy Ralieghs that weighed nearly 18 lbs a piece.

Bicycling has come a long way since then.
So have bicycle helmets.

The guy at the shop, Roger, came out and we started looking. And soon I was cruising the back streets of Viroqua on a Mountain/Road bike. At first I was hesitant, then...I felt the joy seeping back into my soul. The warm air caressed my face and hair through the helmet vents and I felt freedom creeping into my body in the form of childish joy.
That 10 minute ride gave me what I had been searching for.

Roger spent a long time adjusting the handle bars to suit me. The seat to suit me, ...and explaining the brake system, the gears, and how to take the wheels off.

We talked a bit about putting a rack on back for things like camera gear, tripods, and even a crate for Charlie. He said it wouldn't super easy, but it could be done.

So before dawn I crept out with my chore boots on and climbed aboard my Bliss 3. What a great name. Bliss. Yep, you figure that out.

The dawn suddenly belonged to me.
The cool damp air rushing past my face as the morning brightened around me.

I literally beat the sunrise to 3 different spots before the sun poked its face over the horizon.

And the morning was ...
incredible.

As I rode from favorite place to favorite place I began to feel more comfortable with being able to shift for the hills.
The feeling of being a kid again was still there, only now I had an incredible backdrop for my ride.

I felt free and resisted the urge to shout out in joy. Geeze, I could have because no one except the wildlife would have heard me.

Watch out trails and backroads.
I'm going to be a 'kid' again.

Oh yeah. I have the neatest bad ass helmet too.

It is a horrid bright green with a neat visor. It is called a Tremor Helmet. Roger said he thought of the movie Tremor when he saw it. I said "The Earth Shall Tremor as I ride!"
He thought that was perfect.

But hey, and old lady can be excited about riding bikes again, right?

Ride on.

The inner child awaits me.

[Yep, it fits nicely in the back of my Outback too!]