An Unusual Birthday Celebration

My youngest daughter is now 50 years old. Even though that fact makes me feel very old, she acts the same way she did as a child. She still loves her birthday. In fact, we tease her that she starts celebrating on May first and continues through the entire month. It's a birthday month instead of a birth-DAY. I never cared for my birthday but she loves it.

I'm not sure her birthday reached her expectations, but she did spend two full days of fun for me.

Since I wanted to go to a place called the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve and she loves hiking and nature also, we decided to start the day there. It is a free boardwalk in the City of Menasha, Wisconsin. It has three miles of trails with the opportunity to see and photograph a variety of animals and plants.

We had heard that the property had two owls with one having nested this spring. The owlets were able to be seen from the trail. We got there quite early and walked the trails. We saw a few animals but nothing more than I can see on a regular basis. She wanted to see a baby fawn laying all alone in the sun near a babbling brook. We saw some deer but no baby fawns. We saw pelicans, geese, various birds and small animals, but the trail was closed in the area of the owls. It appears that the owlets were about to fledge, and they didn't want any extra people scaring them during this process. It was a bit disappointing, but it was a peaceful walk and a lovely morning. There was a group of school children on a field trip and that could have forced more animals deeper into the woods.

We stopped at a bakery when we were finished and splurged on a tasty treat. It was delicious because we don't often do that. 

 

 

Next we met my oldest daughter and switched places. I drove home and they spent the next few hours at a spa. They had massages and loved being pampered. That is definitely not my thing so I was happy the two of them could spend time together. They finished the day with a trip to her son's track meet and dinner with the family. But wait, there's more.

 

The next day started off bright and early. My daughter's birthday also means a trip to the cemeteries. It sounds morbid, but it is actually a nice tradition. My mom, dad, grandparents and great grandparents are buried about two hours away from my home. Every spring before Memorial Day we make a trip there to clean up the gravestones and put baskets of flowers out. It was a very important thing for my parents and grandparents so I am continuing (along with my daughters) to keep up that tradition.

 

On the way up we had coffee and a treat at our favorite coffee shop. Two days in a row was heaven. Then as we were traveling the back roads of Wisconsin, my daughter pulled the car off the road. I thought we might have been having car trouble, when right up close was a baby fawn. It didn't have a babbling brook in the sunlight, but it was newly born and adorable. The mother was no where in sight, but the baby looked healthy. It was behind a fence so it was safe.

 

 

Then a little bit later down the road we came across a young eagle and a full grown one out in the field. It wasn't the best picture, but fun to see out of the car window.

The first cemetery was bustling with many people trying to take care of the graves before Memorial Day. I am sure this tradition will diminish as the years go by. The tradition of funerals and burials are becoming less and less, but right now there were several people paying their respects. The second cemetery we went to is an old country cemetery. It is very quiet and serene and we were the only ones there. It is where most of my mother's relatives are laid to rest. It is always a good feeling to just visit and feel all the history there.  

As we headed home, it was good to honor my family in that way. I imagine it wasn't the two-day birthday celebration my daughter would have chosen, but I appreciated it more than I can say. It's a good thing she celebrates for the whole month and maybe she can also do something for herself before the month is over. In the fall, my other daughter will take me to pick up the baskets and put everything to sleep for another year.

Horicon Marsh Road Trip

A couple months ago I wrote a blog about not putting things off. Recently I was reminded of it again. I am reading a book called The Measure by Nikki Erlick. It begins with everyone in the world receiving a box. Inside the box is a red string. The strings come in various lengths. It is divulged that the length of the string coincides with the time each individual has left in their life. To be truthful I haven't quite finished the book, but it sparks a question. What would you do if you got a short string? Would you live it up or would you curl up and wait for the end? Some people didn't open the box because they didn't want to know. I'm not sure, I might not open the box. It goes even further by asking what if you got a long string and your partner, parent, sibling or friend got a short string. How would it affect your relationships? It is an interesting premise for a book. 

As I was thinking of the book and my life, I know my string is pretty short considering my age but I refuse to give up. Young people won't understand, but my peers will. I say Get Up or Give Up. So today I got up.

My daughters have two files on me. Not actual files (I don't think) but mental files. One is my incompetence file. This file consists of stupid things I do like leaving the stove on or leaving the water running in the sink and leaving the room. I did that once, but got extra credit points for fixing my own garage door and brushing out a whole section of buckthorn in the woods. I was told recently that my file is almost empty for now. The second is an independence file. It contains things I do without asking for help like getting oil changes, calling for help when I need something repaired in the house, paying taxes and banking. I think I have kept up with that quite well. Where I come up short is getting in the car and having adventures by myself. 

Today was a nice day. I saw people posting interesting photos on one of my Facebook nature groups. Although I live on a marsh, the Horicon Marsh near Waupun, Wisconsin is huge and has many varieties of birds, ducks and marshland creatures that I don't see. I have wanted to go there, but I usually talk myself out of it. I did go there once. I saw whooping cranes and ducks, but not alone. I went with some friends. Although I have gotten a lot better at doing things by myself, I haven't gotten there yet. I have shared my experiences and adventures with someone my whole life. It is foreign to me to have experiences alone with no one to talk about it with or make decisions on where to go. One particular post was my kick in the pants to just go. There is a certain bird that doesn't live in very many locations. I have seen several pictures recently from Horicon of this bird so it was a good time to leave my comfort zone. Today I just decided to go. I ate lunch, filled up my gas tank, set the GPS and left town. My gosh, it only took 45-50 minutes to get there. I thought it was a lot further, and it was an easy drive. It was a bit cold and windy but when I got there the weather warmed up. 

I had one of the best days I have had in a long time. Horicon Marsh has a three mile loop auto tour. It has pull off areas with information as well as walking trails. I parked at the Egret Trail Boardwalk. I left my camera in the car and walked a ways down the boardwalk. Almost immediately I knew I should have the camera. I walked back for the camera. It wasn't busy today so I could take my time.

The first thing I saw was a tree full of Tree Swallows. There were hundreds of them (maybe thousands). I have them too, but not in these numbers.

This boardwalk is called Egret Trail for a reason. This area of the marsh is home to a lot of Great Egrets. They are a beautiful white bird. I watched for several minutes at a resting area. 

Nesting Canadian Geese were everywhere. I should say Canadian Geese ARE everywhere in the state but these seem to belong here. The babies are beginning to hatch so I was careful not to get too close to the parents. They squawked at me if I got too close. I wasn't going to tangle with them. The goslings were adorable.

I enjoyed the walk and the view as I walked back to my car.

 

 As I left the area, I saw Terns, Ring necked ducks, American Coots, and a Swan. 

 

 

As I left the Marsh I knew I would come back again. I drove and parked the car in different locations but didn't see the bird I had come to see. It is an even better reason to return soon.

 

As I returned home, I drove through Waupun. I was a little bit hungry but I wasn't in the mood for fast food. As it turned out, I found even faster food, Chocolate. Waupun has a chocolate shop named Guth's. They make delicious chocolates, and I am always in the mood for chocolate. I didn't know what to buy so I got a plain white paper grab bag. It contained a variety of what they sell.

 

 

It was a good day. Today just felt like a good day for an adventure, plus I got points in my independence file. Life has a way of teaching us the lessons we need to learn, even when we didn't know we needed them. All is well.

A "Peep" at Easter Week

It's Easter Week. It's a very important religious holiday for some, and I do respect that. It is also celebrated by those who are not as religious. For those people the center of attention is the Easter bunny and eggs. I don't know how or why someone equated rabbits and eggs, but that's the way it is. When I was young there was a newspaper column called "Tell Me Why". I remember mailing a question to them. I asked how the Easter bunny originated. I never did abide by blind faith so I wanted to know. I never heard a word back. I'm sure the newspaper didn't want to disappoint children or they didn't know. This was way before the internet. More than seventy years later I found this information from Wikipedia. Who knew there is a connection between religion and folklore.

"The Easter Bunny is a folkloric figure and symbol of Easter, depicted as a rabbit-sometimes dressed with clothes- bringing Easter eggs. Originating among German Lutherans, the "Easter Hare" originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide, similar to the "naughty or nice" list made by Santa Claus" 

There are rabbit, chicks and egg decoration in every store. Especially "Peeps" which are right up there, in my opinion, with candy corn. I doubt I have ever even eaten one but the idea of a rabbit shaped marshmallow is quite distasteful to me. However, they are super cute.

Other crafting people must feel the same way because there are a lot of patterns on social media for making these non edible creations. Not to be left out, I headed downstairs to my yarn stash. I found a couple skeins of yarn left over from many years ago and started crocheting. 

These are my first efforts. They are useless but really cute decorations.

There must be something about rabbits reproducing because I didn't stop there. I went to Dollar Tree and bought several balls of Chenille yarn. One ball for $1.25 makes a bunny with yardage to spare. Then I was told the local Dollar Tree is restructuring the store and everything is 50% off, so of course I bought more yarn. I have a problem, I know. Before I knew it, I had a whole family.  

If love is in the air, I am sure I will be seeing more of the real thing very soon. 

 

My Eleven Blog Volumes

In order to preserve the blogs I have written for my family, I have had them made into hard cover books. We decided to do this in 2013. I explained how this happened in a blog called Making a Book of this Blog.  https://www.thecabincountess.com/2013/10/making-book-of-this-blog.html?m=1 If the website can't be accessed in the future or technology changes, a hard copy will exist.

My husband did the books. He spent hours, days and weeks getting the pictures positioned and the text to match. He had a table of contents and all the pages numbered. Although we had to change companies over the years, it was still an arduous job. 

The first books were made through an online company called Blurb. Originally you could just upload the blog and position as necessary. At some point they quit doing that and changed the format. From that change, all the photos would be uploaded and the text was uploaded separately. It was really difficult to match them up so I had to find another company. I found two more companies. These required putting each blog post into a PDF file and then transfer and arrange into the book pages. It wasn't terribly difficult but very time consuming. 

Although Mike wrote all the instructions for making a book down, I found it difficult to remain interested. I like writing the blogs, but I did not like arranging it into a book. It didn't fit my personality. I either like doing something or I don't. I am too old to force myself to do anything. If I don't like a movie, I quit watching it. If I don't like a book after a hundred pages, I don't read it anymore. I either have a lot of patience or I have none depending on my interest in something. Because of this, I needed to find an easier way to make these books. I found a new company that makes books from blogs. It is called PixxiBook. You can control the cover color and text, the title page and the back cover. The rest is just uploaded from the blog as is. There is no rearranging photos or text, no table of contents or page numbers, but I didn't care. My main goal was getting the blogs into a hard copy. 

Mike would not be as happy with the final product. I admit some of the arrangements are confusing and out of order, but overall I think they turned out great. The paper is thick and the photos are crisp and clear. The book is high quality. 

I now have eleven volumes of my life from December 8, 2012 to December 22, 2024. Since I rarely blog anymore, it may take a while to get to #12. Hopefully this company will still be in business when I am ready.

Seamus Has Left The Building

It is always sad when an era comes to an end, but it is time. Many of you know we have celebrated our annual family St. Patrick's Day feast for many years. When Ewan my youngest grandchild was really little, he and grandpa would build leprechaun traps and try to catch the elusive little fella. I have probably written ten blogs about the meal and about Seamus our leprechaun. If you haven't read some of the stories, just type Leprechaun or St. Patrick's Day in the search box. 

Today we had our family feast. Every year I make more and more food because you just can't fill up these growing boys. Last year I make 12 pounds of corned beef, this year it was 17 pounds. Last year I made 3 racks of BBQ ribs, this year I made 4 racks. I did have too much meat but everyone was able to take a little home for leftovers. 

When the subject of Seamus came up, I had to make an announcement. This week in the mail I received a postcard to each of the grandchildren. I blocked out my address for obvious reasons but here are the messages. Seamus has flown the coop for greener pastures. He left his idyllic home in the woods to see the world. Ewan received the first postcard. It was from London.

The next card arrived for Jack. Jack was not feeling well today so he stayed home. For spring break they are going to North and South Carolina to do college visits. Jack has wanted to be a marine biologist ever since he was a small child and has been visiting a lot of interesting colleges that offer that curriculum. He wanted to rest and get healthy plus none of us wanted to get sick. His mom read his card on FaceTime and brought him home some food so he didn't miss out completely.

 

Sam received a special card from Giza. I was really happy to see Sam. He has been at college and came home for spring break. He will have an internship this summer and won't be living in the area. I'm proud of him but it will seem odd to not have him home.

 

 

Melissa is my only granddaughter. She is an adult with her own apartment and job. Throughout the years the older grandchildren played along with Ewan and his fascination with Seamus. Melissa is ten years older than Ewan but joined in the fun. She received a card as well.

 

 

And....the last postcard was for Dylan, Ewan's big brother. Dylan is also an adult and is finished with college. He has a good job and his own apartment. The fact he still wants to come and participate in this annual celebration makes me feel so happy. His card arrived from San Francisco, California.

None of us know if Seamus will ever return. As the song goes, "how ya going to keep them back on the farm (after they've seen Paree)? Well he has seen Paris, London, Egypt, Hawaii and California. Who knows what adventures await him. It's hard to say, but if and when that happens I will let everyone know. I am happy for his new life. Life is too short to put things off and now I know how to spell his name. It's not Shamus as I originally thought. He didn't say what to do with his belongings. Maybe I should put them in storage until we know for sure. 

Here are all his worldly possessions. I guess he didn't need any winter clothes. I won't say goodbye.

 Just, SEE YOU LATER!