February 16, 2002
Now, I could be wrong, but it certainly appears that spring has sprung here in the Portland area. We've had a week of really gorgeous weather, full sunshine and not a drop of rain. The pasture has been "dry" for a couple of weeks now, except for some ponding over in the Klopeks' part of the pasture, where the Canada geese, mallard and pintail ducks have taken up a seemingly semi-permanent residence. Our second, larger pond at the bottom of the yard still has water, though, and last week I was out on the back deck before dawn, listening to all of the ducks flying around and trying to catch a glimpse with my binoculars, and I got to see two pairs of mallards fly in and touch down in our pond for a bit of breakfast and romance. Today I saw a large flock of perhaps 40-50 Canada geese fly in and land by the Klopeks'. And a few days ago the great blue heron flew past our deck. I don't think that sort of thing will ever fail to amuse me.
I sleep with the window cracked now, because in the past week, the frogs have woken up or thawed out or migrated in or whatever it is that they do, and the sound is amazing. Even with the windows shut, and the noisy heater running, they are still audible.
We can see Jupiter and four of its moons with our spotting scope.
Here's my picture of the week. Miss Delilah and I were outside this afternoon, hanging out with the ducks, when I snapped this picture of her rolling around on the deck behind me. Daisy the duck was in the background, popping her head up and down, and I was trying to capture them both in the same shot. What I ended up with looks pretty neat, though: |
