Bald Eagles in the Rain

If you haven't been glued to this webcam, you should be.  It's been a lesson in survival and nature and creation for my boys, topped with a bit of science, love and sharing.


It's raining this morning in Iowa, the webcam has a blurred look, yet the heads of the parents come in clear as they have positioned themselves to avoid the droplets.


You can link to the eagles right here.

Pampas, Spiders and Dead Things

 This past weekend I had my camera in the backyard.

We have a nice backyard, we are in the suburbs, so there are houses each way I look and power lines obstructing my nature photos.  I've started taking pictures facing up to the sky, then lightening them so the background nearly fades away.  I really love what happens to the subject.

 This spider was cool.  He was the only thing living on my Japanese Red Maple that I got as a freebie from a friend. Unfortunately, it was too shocked to keep it's leaves this year. 

I'm hoping that the roots will find a good footing this winter and in spring, sprout back to life.  Oh, yes, that would be good.  I'd even let the spider stay.

REMINDER:  The free photo (from my entire collection) is still current, if you were to leave a post HERE  right now, you'd have a 25% chance of winning!  

Camping, Again

This is my favorite picture from camping. My two boys, occupying themselves as we set up camp. This isn't just a turtle, though. It's a turtle-dinosaur-shark-whale. Bet you didn't know that! All the rocks had a shape of a different animal, unlike the turtle. I love the imagination of Big Boy. His explanations seem so convoluted, yet end up being so obvious.

I think I took more pictures of weeds this year than I did of my kids.

Our second annual tradition of tie dying was in full force this year with the ingenious mind of my sister in law and great friend, Lisa. She bought soda ash. If you've never used soda ash prior to tie dying...you must. The colors are brilliant and I think we used less dye. Well, except for me, I soaked my yellow and in turn used most of it (sorry, Lisa!). These turned out great and I'm already excited for next year's batch.

As we were mixing the shirts in soda ash with Little Man and my niece, LM's stick flew out of the bucket and soda ash water splashed up. I grabbed him and Lisa turned on the water and we stuck his head under the faucet. Well, first I rammed his forehead into the faucet (my alignment was off) and then we rinsed his eyes out. He was screaming, we were frantic. We set him down to look and found that the stick scratched his face and that was the reason for the scream. It had nothing to do with the soda ash water. Hey, at least we were prepared!

Here are all the cousins with their tie-dye shirts. They all had a great time this year. It was great to see them interact and play together.

Oh, Chenango Valley State Park...I do love you, even if you rain on us EVERY year!

Out of the Woods

Replica of Millard Fillmore's childhood home. It fits right in.

This is Little Man saying, "MOM, enough pictures of our camping trip!"

Okay, no more pictures.

But one video. This is a baby spider nest. Every 10-15 seconds they all move, then become still. It was amazing to watch.

Beaver Meadow

When I was a kid, we would go to Beaver Meadow Nature Preserve in North Java once per month, or at least it felt like it. The folks that ran it were so friendly and knew my family as if they were my Aunt and Uncle. I just remember being there all the time.

I remembered Chipmunk Run and the boardwalk that opens onto the Beaver Pond. That same boardwalk is a lot smaller now. There is a picture somewhere of me as a kid, perhaps my own son's age sitting on the corner seat on that boardwalk. Those little planks of wood are gone, but the nostalgia runs high.

What has changed, everything else. The main building is a great nature center, complete with screech owl that we thought was mechanical, plenty of frogs and tortoises, snakes and lizards, and many taxidermy animals. They have done some wonderful things there, although I slightly miss the 'old' style.

We had a great time. The kids were great, they really do love discovering things and exploring.

As I did as a kid.

On the same paths.