On My Walk Today

We are having such a love 75 degree day here in South Dakota and I just had to get outside to enjoy enjoy it on this lovely Easter Sunday.  Easter for me is a day of reflection and feeling oh so blessed that Jesus has risen on this day.  

On my walks I usually try to remember to bring my camera, but I found I forgot to plug it in the last time I used it to recharge my battery, so I had to grab my cell phone instead, so here goes.

Each year we have a pair of Canada geese that nest on our land and for the most part I don't usually find where she nest, but I don't try really hard either because I don't want to disturb her too much.  But this year she made what I feel is a bad choice of nest placement.

She had made her nest on a section of the river bank, which only about 4 feet above the water level.  This still being spring and granted all the snow has melted, we still have chances of hard rains and flash flooding and I'm afraid that she might get flooded out.  Not only that but the river is a magnet for raccoons, skunks and coyotes and I'm just hoping one of those don't find her and chase her off the nest to eat the eggs.

It's hard to see her on the nest, but her black neck and head are stretched out and resting on the ground as she's trying to make herself as invisible as possible.  If you're not spotting her there are 2 black shadows on the river bank that form two parallel lines and if you follow the largest shadow on the left straight down you can make our her tan body and black neck that looks like a stick.  They are so wonder at camouflaging themselves you can almost walk right by them and not notice if you're not looking. 

And I'm sure momma goose was even more nervous because I had my usual companion with me.  Ms. Honey Bun.

She's my rescue cat from 3 years ago that one very cold January she appeared on our porch.  She was friendly, but she didn't like being in the house and especially didn't like other cats and every time I took her to the barn where she would be warm and have plenty of food, she would always return to the porch. She has a stubborn streak, probably why her and I get along so well.   So I made her a shelter on the porch from old coats, blankets, a tarp, and a heating pad and she spent the rest of the winter happily on the porch.  It took me the rest of the winter and following summer to get her to the point where I could get her to tolerate being in the house and kind of accept the rest of the house cats.  For some reason she just doesn't like other cats and still to this day only tolerates my other babies, but she now likes indoor living better.  

Signs of spring are finally beginning to appear as I spotted a lone Siberian Squill flower growing up between the rocks. Such a pretty delicate flowers that always seems to survive our harsh early spring weather.  

Even my crocuses are in bloom and some are even at the end of blooming already.  It was just last week that I took the mulch off the flower bed and boy did they leap to life after doing that.  The first picture I took of the crocuses didn't turn out too well, Honey Bun headbutted my arm.  Sorry dear I forgot to pet you.  How shameful of me. :) 

One of my facebook friends posted that she already has asparagus coming up, so I walked over to the family farm to check out my mothers old asparagus beds, but the only thing that I found was the old stalks from last year and no signs yet of new growth.  I was kind of sadden to not see any yet for I'm anxious for the first harvesting.  

Since I was at the farm I walked up to indian mound area to check out the bald eagles nest to see how they were doing.  I've always wished we could put a cam on this nest like the one in Decorah, Iowa so that we can watch the day to day life of our eagles, but this tree isn't just built for that.  So as I sat on the burial mound I was able to get a pretty good picture of one of the parents on the nest.  I figure either this week or next week the eggs should start hatching.  

Indian burial mound that I sat on.  We have 17 mounds on our land from the Woodland Indians that lived here 1500 years ago.  I'm humbled by the history of this land and all the people that came before us.

I got lucky and have a great view of the parent.  Can't wait for the babies to arrive. Even after hatching it will be a while before you can see the babies, but on quiet days you can certainly hear the babies squealing for food.  Such beautiful majestic birds. 

As I was only my way back home I went through my dad's old orchard and was surprised to see that still hanging after all these years was one of dad's little bird nest that he made out of a coconut shell.  My dad passed away 27 yrs ago this month and it was nice to see that a bit of him was still around hang in the pear tree that he had planted.  

Easter time for me has always been a bit of a sad time, reflecting back, missing the first man that I loved and cherished in my life.  Since I was the only girl with 3 older brothers I was always the apple of my daddy's eye and we had such a close bond.  We both had a passion for nature, going on long walks and dad teaching me the flora and fauna.  Especially this time of year when we would go searching for the first pasqua anomie (aka May flowers)flowers.  I would always wonder why they call them May Flowers when they usually show up depending the weather in late March or April and almost always were gone by May. 

I get my passion for weather from my dad too.  Him and I would be outside watching the clouds rolling and turning during sever storms, waiting to see if a tornado would develop and mom would be yell at us to get inside and into the basement.  

Each year I'll make the trek into the wooded area to see if I can find that first May flower in remembrance of dad.  I didn't find one today, but will give it another week to see if they start popping their fuzzy little noses out of the grass.  

Happy Easter Dad, I enjoyed our walk today, even though you were not with me physically you certainly was with me in spirit!  :)  Love you, miss you and will see you again someday.