four eggs
When it comes to mimd, mornings during nesting season I check the status and what's going on with the osprey nest in Longmont, Colorado at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. This morning the wind looked high as the nest swung back and forth above the pond.
A couple days ago I got a screenshot , early of the male bird sitting on the eggs. Mostly mom bird does it, I reckon it's Women's Work except when she needs to fly off and do her business. In the photo above, she's back and sitting on the perch for a bit before she moves over to the nest and shoves the male off the eggs.
Male and female are easy to tell apart, the female has the brown nest feathers in a "necklace" across her chest, the male's chest is all white.
Maybe I'm not "there" as much as I've been in the past, but it seems to me that this male bird doesn't stick around as much as the other males I've watched there over the years; although I don't think the mom bird sits there steaming that this guy isn't as attentive as her other husbands have been, and maybe she has a boyfriend she likes more back at the winter campground.
Usually I manage to catch the male arriving with a fish for her, but've not so far this year. That should change when the eggs start hatching,
which should be in a couple of days, assuming they're all viable and none froze during that snowstorm that covered everything.
Anyway, if you need something to enjoy during retirement, having a remote osprey or eagle nest to watch on line is a great pastime.
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Yesterday we set out in Linda's car to find Tanya's Garden, her new location at the Bay County Fairgrounds. It's easy once you find it. Drive east on East 15th Street just past the railroad track, then immediately turn right into the dirt driveway that winds back through an open gate to the first building. If you get to the traffic light at Sherman Avenue you've gone too far. As soon as you make the turn you'll see Tanya's sign back by the fence; she needs to put the sign out at the street, but there may be a legal restriction on that. This is a much better space, huge compared to what she had on Route 77, and safer getting in and out; but it's not on the well worn path between PC and Lynn Haven and may turn out not as convenient for just stopping in.
Anyway, she had what we went for, which is crookneck squash, and we also bought turnips and tomatoes, and I think Linda bought a package of frozen turnip roots and greens. Tanya was just leaving as we arrived, but she told us the tomatoes were hard to get; and one of the young women working inside said they're Alabama tomatoes.
Along with my mug of hot & black early this morning, I had a nice, thick, red slice of tomato on bread with mayonnaise for breakfast, and right now Linda is baking sliced squash for our noon dinner. This Time she's trying a new recipe, "twice baked squash." We've enjoyed sliced open and baked crookneck squash all our married life, which is coming up on sixty-nine years next month.
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Since starting this blog in 2010, my practice these going on sixteen years is that blogposts are never "serial," that today's post has nothing to do with yesterday's post. But yesterday I was trying to get out a little list of things that I've been meaning to say but kept forgetting. Number one was about not messaging me on Facebook Text Messenger, because those don't arrive, it's turned off. Then I promptly forgot all the rest of my list of items and wandered off into the sunset as usual. Sorry, I still don't remember any of them.
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What I do remember is that Fathers Day is coming up in a few weeks, and my treat for myself is going to be lobster. I'll order it from Maine sources, either/or or both/and fresh and frozen lobster meat, partly because Linda doesn't allow lobsters to be murdered here, I last did that with a bunch of live lobsters I brought back from a business trip to New England about 1983 when we were living in Pennsylvania. I remember putting a live lobster down on the kitchen floor for the cats to see. They crept warily up to it, when the cats got too close, the lobster moved and waved its claws, and the cats jumped three feet into the air then nearly tore up the kitchen flooring as they backpedaled out of the room. It was funny, but dropping the live lobsters into the pot of boiling water was not. Anymore, I order lobster meat: tail meat for Linda and Kristen, claw and knuckle meat for me because that's what I like in lobster rolls,
two on large hotdog buns: one lobster roll warm with lemon and melted butter, one lobster roll cold with mayonnaise.
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Even though Linda goes grim when I show her a car I want, at least I can continue to shop Cramer's website for that used Buick that actually looks like a Buick.
When Better Automobiles Are Built, Buick Will Build Them.
RSF&PTL
T90