Where Are The Purple Martins?

Wednesday's Dawn at 6:25

Tuesday's Dusk at 8:15

It's another overcast morning, no sunrise to speak of, a warm 55º morning.  And no purple martins. Usually, the martins arrive on April 15th  and last spring,  all of the martin houses in our neighborhood (eight of them) had at least a couple of martin families.  We would wake up each morning to the sounds of the purple martins, building their nests.  This morning, none of the houses are occupied.  About ten days ago, I noticed a few martin scouts dancing around a couple of houses but since then, we have not seen any.  And on Monday, the day after we put our dock in, we noticed barn swallows, swooping under our dock, looking for nesting spaces but since then we have not seen any.  It's been a strange spring.

We did not have much of a Tuesday, at least Evie didn't, having decided early on that Tuesday was going to be a day off from any chores so she stayed in her pajamas the entire day, without guilt, just kicking back, doing some work on the Shutterfly album.  She made it into the living room for an enjoyable wine time and into the kitchen, to heat up some frozen leftover dinners from who knows when.  They were tasty by the way, mine chicken with gravy and sauce and Evie had noodles and sauce.

I did a little having gone to yoga at 9:30, with Julie, trying to master a few asanas to no avail.   I came straight home, no coffee or shopping.  Evie had not moved but volunteered to make me a couple of toasted cheese to go along with vegetable soup.  My afternoon was lunch, some TV, a nap, and then I wanted to do something although I did not have much mojo.  So I drove off to the gravel pit, found the gate was closed, opened it, shoveled five buckets of pea gravel, and left, closing the gate after me.  I am now ready for it to rain, to show the low spots, so I can fill them with the gravel.

5:42 pm

At 4:30, I noticed the lake had settled down, so I asked Evie if she wanted to kayak but she was busy on the phone talking to our daughter Beth about their plans to visit us in June, how exciting.  So I paddled down to Sandy Bottom, tried to extricate a floating raft from its position on the shoreline but couldn't, then looked for other detritus from the winter storms.

Photo Shooting At The Golden Hour

Rainbow with no Rain

Ellery Farm

I was home by 5:30, in time for wine time, cheese and crackers and golden hour's metamorphosing sky.  We would take a sip of wine, then take a photo. Cool beans.

7:54 pm

 We watched BETTER CALL SAUL, which is getting better, some Vice News, and CNN, MSNBC and FOX, just to see what they were talking about.  Both CNN and MSNBC were talking about Michael Flynn's problems, the testy Sean Spicer's press conference.  FOX news was talking about Hilary, of course.  How typical.  That was enough to send us up to bed.