Shall We Gather at the River? in Everyday Ramblings

Even though it is summer, officially, now here in the Northern Hemisphere, the river was just full of new life. This is a mama Common Merganser and her ducklings. There were many family groups of them moving up and down in the current and against it all day each day and were an absolute joy to watch. It was such an effort to get upstream the little ones had to rise up and flap flap flap like when one stands up on a bicycle going uphill.

They moved so fast it was hard to get a truly good shot. But I tried. :)

And the males? Nowhere to be seen.

The cabin in the woods on the Metolius River met and exceeded our expectations. It was fifties funky and very comfortable with a full kitchen, including a propane stove. There was one magic bedroom that was literally right over the river (it had a creek that joined the river in direct line of sight) that Kes and Most Honorable actually encouraged me to use because it was my birthday.

Everything was green and the air was full of birdsong all day.

I saw a number of new birds for me including a spectacular white-headed woodpecker, lots of warblers, some crossbills and evening grosbeaks. Most Honorable was particularly interested in the dippers. They are so much fun to watch and a couple of them had fledglings.

There were marvelous well-maintained trails, miles and miles of them just outside the cabin. I spent hours wandering around on them, with Kes, with Most Honorable, with both of them and every morning my internal pony would get up and go alone. Luckily no bears were out and about.

We ate wonderful food, drank a little, read, chatted and hung out on the deck and snacked on pistachios for hours. Most Honorable got in an enjoyable early season bike ride.

The place, the weather, was a kind of paradise, the smell of the Ponderosa Pines, the endlessly changing sound of the clean clear river, the wild flowers and the warmth radiating up from the ground in the afternoons.

Poor Kes got a nasty infection the day we left and I spent part of the afternoon with her on my birthday in the clinic, lab, and pharmacy but she was able to get treatment right away and felt much better the next day.

They found an iPad mini at a great price and that was my gift. Very cool! Now we will all (including Miss E.) have the same device. I am going to try to find time to get it out of the box and initialized this evening.

The Seattle family sent a gorgeous flower arrangement that came just an hour ago, How thoughtful and sweet. I never really could have flowers when Stella was here but Sammy could care less.

But boy is he happy I am home.

Oh yes indeed.

Thanks for all your wonderful notes. What a treat reading them has been.