First Blue Heron Sighting Of Spring

Blue Heron In Spring

6:17

8:21

I was up at 6:00, to a quiet morning on the lake, the stillness, unnerving, not a ripple on the lake.  And as I begin this,  a loon shrieks a couple of times off in the distance.  It's 44º, the same as yesterday morning at this time and the clouds should dissipate by late morning,   It's 8:30 and I have been out on the lake for an hour.  I had my first glimpse and photo of a blue heron, really exciting.  I also followed a wood duck to the shore but he was able to camouflage himself so well I could not find him even with my binoculars.  And, unfortunately, I saw my first barn swallow, yet there still seem to be no purple martins. 

Kayak Morning

Migrating Ruddy Ducks

Female Red Breasted Merganser

Yesterday was a quiet Easter for us, as we hung out at home most of the day, missing our families in Virginia, Texas, and Missouri.  I wonder where they got the idea to move so far away from home!   I was up early, of course, and got a long paddle in before it started to rain (but it never did).  After breakfast and finishing the blog with Evie, I did little, watched some basketball saved from the night before.  Around 11:00, I decided to go a walk around the Chautauqua Institution.  Evie, unfortunately, was suffering from a headache that would not go away so she stayed home and went upstairs to bed to see if that might help. 

My walk around the CI was fine and as is the case this time of the year, it's like walking in a ghost town, as I met one person on my walk.  I circled the grounds, just about a three-mile walk, taking just about an hour. It felt good to get a walk in because I have not been out recently, mostly going to yoga. It is fun to watch the building that goes on in the CI during the Spring, Winter and Fall as invariably, there is a teardown and a new house going up. And it's rare that we can remember the looks of the house that was torn down. 

When I returned home, Evie was still napping so I made my breakfast, a menemen, basically a Turkish omelet with tomatoes and feta cheese.  It's easy and always good, reminding me of my days drinking beer with Turkish friends in the Cicek Pasaj, the flower passage.  We would always order a menemen and on my last visit there, the cook took me upstairs in his tiny kitchen and showed me how to make one. 

Evie felt better in the afternoon, relaxing and watching some basketball with me as I switched between three games saved from Saturday.  I soon got bored and returned to my book, to Evie's relief and she watched a movie we both had seen before,

Around 5:30 we garnered up enough mojo to make our dinner.  I pulled out the rack of lamb and Evie made a rub for it, with olive oil, parsley, and garlic.  It's an easy cut of meat to make, just brown the rack in a pan for three or four minutes, then put it in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 130º.  Evie made a salad, warmed up some bread and I heated up some leftover mashed potatoes.  So we had an easy Easter dinner and ate it while watching our new series, Rake, which we are really enjoying.  And since there was little else we wanted to watch on TV, we ended up watching four episodes, finishing season one.