On a trip to Paradise (which is what we call my sister’s home on San Juan Island), I had a close encounter with some actual Ducks in a Row.
There was just a little confusion though.
(Never wished more for a good telephoto lens, but I hope you get the idea. I took these from the upstairs bathroom window!!)
The pond in Paradise is beautiful and a source of entertainment all year round. Right now, there is not a lot of bird activity but the other night, out on the lawn, we had a campfire, and were serenaded by an orchestra of frogs!!
Last Summer when we were there house-sitting, I got to witness one of those delightful mysteries of Nature.
Here it is in photos. Please forgive the quality, but try to enjoy the story.
It’s a big pond so lots of room for more than one type of waterfowl.
Here are two different duck-Mama’s, each with three ducklings.
Mama MallardOther Mama. Two hatched, and one to go…
Enter mysterious confusion.
Wait. Where’d that 4th one come from?
I know I had three just a minute ago…Hey, who is that little one?
I guess I’ll just snuggle in between these bigger guys where it’s warm.
I love this one. You can see the two baby siblings of the first born “odd duck” up above on the log with its adopted family.
Hey, those two look more like ME!
Anyway, I guess these Mama’s cooperated in raising their ducklings…kind of a Blended Duck Family.
But they each got them all in a row at one time or another.
OK, very little to do with this week’s theme but I love this song, have been thinking about it a lot lately and it does have the word “plans” in it, so it should count, right??
It’s a great showcase piece for voice as well instrument, especially Knopfler’s guitar and that piano at the very end…).
Plus, it’s one of those hard-to-sit-still songs, so it can get you moving!
Enjoy!
Lyrics
This is us down at the mardi gras
This is us in your daddy’s car
You and the missing link
Yeah, I’d had a little too much to drink, now
Too long in the sun
Having too much fun
You and me and our memories
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
Rocking at the barbecue
Yeah, when we said I do
Hand jiving on the ballroom floor
You in that wedding coat you wore
And you in that amazing dress
I was stoned on love I guess
You and me, we were meant to be
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us on our honeymoon
In our hotel room
Sitting by the wishing well
Checking out of the love motel
Making plans for the sunshine state
Waiting at the terminal gate
You and me making history
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
And our baby boy
With our pride and joy
You at the sunday game
Standing next to what’s his name?
On our anniversary
With the family
You and me and our memories
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
This is us
I love them. When I see them, something confusing happens in my cells…as if there is a part of me that remembers a time when a cloud was just a cloud. Yes, sometimes it could have resembled a buffalo or a face, but it was just a cloud, no geometry involved
There was no one up there drawing perfectly straight lines across the sky…..
Can you imagine being Native to our country and looking upward to Father Sky only to see views like these?
This might be a stretch, but I have discovered a hidden prejudice.
I’m not being too hard on myself for it though. We have all been inundated with this bias for eons. Not that a history of being misinformed excuses racism or anything.
But this is a black vs. white thing.
I know the bad guy is usually on the black horse and the good guy on a bright white steed. I know black cats are supposedly scary and bad luck. I also know the black dogs in an animal shelter are the last to be adopted. Oh, and supposedly we all have this dark side and we need to be sharing more light in the world.
What the hell is all that anyway? Where did it come from?
I’m sure someone out there knows way more about all this than I and this is not really a post about the archetypes in history anyway.
It’s about Mushrooms.
I don’t really know anything about mushrooms…except that I will enjoy them in a salad or sometimes even sauté them in butter and they are yummy. But what isn’t yummy when sautéed in butter, right? But that is the extent of my knowledge. (I know, I know, I came of age in the 1960’s in California so I should at least know about “Shrooms”, right? I just never went there…)
But on my daily walks, I recently spotted some of these fungi growing and started photographing them. I found quite a variety, including some cute little patches that reminded me somehow of tiny fairy villages…or families.
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There were a lot of different kinds, shapes, sizes and colors. I do live in the Pacific Northwest after all and it is seriously WET up here.
All of these were so interesting…their patterns of growth, their shape, size, and their similar but different hues. I’m probably passing up some fancy truffles or something, but I also know some mushrooms can be toxic. I have no idea how to identify those, so I just left them ALL alone for whatever creature eats them in the wild of my suburban neighborhood.
Then I spotted these, right in my own yard.
They literally popped up overnight and gave me the creeps when I bent down to snap a picture with my phone. They just LOOK evil…like they could reach up and grab me, or spit blinding venom in my eyes or something.
Even if someone told me these mushrooms were an extremely sought-after delicacy, I think I’d rather eat a snake than go near these things again. I’m afraid to even remove them. They might release deadly spores into the air.
They are scary looking…especially because they are black, not a clean white or a warm, enticing golden color…you know, how mushrooms are supposed to look.
I’m sorry but this guy is COMING for ME!
I purposely did not Google (yes, it is now officially a VERB) mushrooms before I wrote this because I didn’t want to influence my initial reaction. I finally tried Wikipedia, Googles Reverse Image, etc., etc. But I never found my new arrivals. James says they look like they are from Mordor.
