If You Can't Take The Heat . . .

Wow! It's above zero and climbing. Put away the snow blower, get out the lawn mower. It won't be long now. Slush, mud, and flooding, all the wonders of late winter. The icy roads will become sand and gravel covered before turning into pock marked asphalt obstacle courses. But then, the most beautiful time of the year here in Southwest Wisconsin, Spring. Fields will start to green, trees will bud and blossom, pastures will be populated by future roasts and burgers. (and cheese for those burgers) Like giant puppies the Black Angus calves frolic in the fields unaware of fact that they're only a drive-thru window away from some one's "Happy Meal". An assorted variety of birds will show up at my feeders and huge flocks of migraters will head up the Mississippi to their summer homes "Up North". Meanwhile back at Blume House, preparations are being made for "Operation Kitchen". Although the project is not enormous, the psyching up process is epic. The whole job entails, wallpaper removal, painting and maybe a new counter top. (All of this to make our new mixer, toaster, tea kettle and garbage can feel at home) If I were to follow all of the helpful hints, advice and suggestions that we have received from friends and acquaintances, I should be finished by . . . ah, yesterday.
This past weekend, daughter Sally (Summer) drove down from Minneapolis to make good a birthday gift to JoAnne. She pledged a weekend of editing, sorting, archiving and throwing away our accumulation of millions of family snapshots. The dining room became photo central. Sammy and I hid out up in my computer lab and Uncas (Reid) stayed up in Minnesota claiming to be ice fishing with his dad. I guess the photo librarians made some headway (I put two garbage bags of throwaways out this morning) but, there are still a lot of crates of photos untouched. Finally on Sunday, I called a time out to give "the girls" a chance to get their eyes back into focus. I coaxed Sally away with the promise of going shopping and settled Jo down by having her talk over supper plans with Sammy while we were gone. Actually it was just an excuse for me to get out of the house for a little fresh air and maybe take a few more Bald Eagle pictures. (After all the temperature went above zero) We headed over to Prairie du Chein and found that frigid weather over the past weeks had pretty well frozen up almost all of The River. We did manage to spot three or four eagles and got a shot or two of one of them but I guess the large majority of their population had gone over the Prairie du Sac/Saulk City area for the Annual Eagle Days. They get a lot more respect over there as well as food and refreshments. Well I've managed to babble on much too long so I'll sign off with one new eagle pic. As I post this I realize that all my eagle pics pretty much look alike. Sorry!