What’s your super power?

Everyone has a superpower. My dad’s is being able to call on the phone at the most inconvenient time: when I’m as far away from the phone as possible, on another call, forgot to take my phone off vibrate for the night, etc. My husband, in the same vein, starts a conversation when I’m in the bathroom, doing something noisy, or have just walked out of the room. He can also nap any time and any place, something not in my super power arsenal.

Some have the superpower of always being elegant,

while others look great in feathers and a hat.

I’m a mom, so I obviously have a multitude of superpowers! But one very useful super power is being able to pack well, whether estimating how much will fit in a container for the fridge or freezer or packing the most possible items in the space allowed, whether in a suitcase or boxes in the van. My other superpower is being able to drive for long periods of time without having to stop (gas stops and bathroom/food breaks should always happen together if at all possible) and actually enjoying it.

What’s your superpower? I know you have one! If I don’t see any responses, I might be forced to come up with one for quite a few of you who follow this blog, so get your choice in so I don’t have to do it for you. 🙂

BTW, I look great in hats, too. 🙂

Going, going, gone fishing

for Lens-Artists Challenge #115: inspiration

Distance

For One Word Sunday: distance

Breakfast 1 and twice the price of gold

I know it’s rude to watch someone while they’re eating, and even worse, take photos, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. I caught this snowy egret mid-gulp and nope, I don’t feel bad about it at all.

Snowy egret or great egret? Egret or heron? If you’re not sure which egret is which, as I wasn’t, the site linked above lets you compare types side-by-side, which is really helpful. The snowy egret has a dark beak with yellow at the top and by the eyes as well as yellow feet, which you can’t see here. The great egret has a yellow-orange bill and is much larger. But I didn’t know that egrets are also herons. Did you?

And did you know snowy egrets were once more precious than gold? The allaboutbirds site says:

During the breeding season, adult Snowy Egrets develop long, wispy feathers on their backs, necks, and heads. In 1886 these plumes were valued at $32 per ounce, which was twice the price of gold at the time. Plume-hunting for the fashion industry killed many Snowy Egrets and other birds until reforms were passed in the early twentieth century. The recovery of shorebird populations through the work of concerned citizens was an early triumph and helped give birth to the conservation movement.

Talk about killer fashion! Makes me even happier to see crowds of these fashion leaders now at the Riparian Preserve!

At long last

After several trips to the Riparian Preserve, I’d seen a variety of birds and lots of egrets, but no herons. Then one day I glanced to my right as I passed one of the lakes and there he was, Mr. GBH. Sylvia at anotherday2paradise and I joke about Mr GBH (Great Blue Heron) as she calls hers. I told her that from my reading of British mysteries/thrillers, I think of GBH as “grievous bodily harm.” I’m sure that’s the interpretation the fish put on those initials!

Is it spring yet?

The thinker

If I get up at 5:30am

If I get up at 5 am  (my six words for Six-Word Saturday), I can get a LOT done before noon.  Here’s how it went on Wednesday.

I walked in the park on a beautifully cool, sunny morning, spotting cormorants in the “bird tree” (the dead tree where the birds like to congregate), wild irises amongst all the green, and a heron looking for breakfast…

did a weight workout at the health club, straightened up the house, did dishes, had breakfast, did two loads of laundry, stopped at WalMart for Consumer Reports highly-rated suntan lotion, then Costco for an outdoor carpet for the Wyoming cabin (plus a few impulse buys)…AND…went to Verizon, where I got everything on my old iPhone switched to my new 6s iPhone all before noon.

Then I had time to read, get a few more things done, fix quiche for dinner, and catch up on my blog reading, all without feeling in the least bit guilty.  Oh, yes, and had some tea.

Life is good when I get up at 5:30 am.

Ice fishing

After powering through all that snow without a sight of any wildlife other than small birds, I headed back towards where my van was parked.  Crossing the dam, I looked down the river to my left and saw what appeared to be large grey spot quite a distance away in the snow by the water.  But I wondered whether it might be a heron, as I’d seen one some weeks earlier.

Taking out my camera with the telephoto, I focused.  Yes! It was a heron, hunched over, balancing on one leg while looking cold despite his nice and puffy down coat.  I guess he must have been ice fishing.  It was the view that made me morning complete.

(Anyone else having issues with WP formatting some of the words differently in the final post, even though they don’t show up that way in the original?  I didn’t change “nice and puffy down coat” above, but there it is.)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Dinnertime…sushi

Sushi.  It’s always been what’s for dinner, at least in some places.