Showing posts with label egrets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label egrets. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Birds of a different feather


Yesterday evening when I headed to the kitchen to make my evening popcorn, I glanced out the window to see what I first thought was trash blown over from the neighbors... I'm used to seeing White Walmart bags strewn across our place on a windy day. On second glance, I realized the hayfield was being visited by Cattle Egrets. There were at least twenty-five of them, and they stayed for over an hour. I assume some bugs must have been stirred up when Cliff mowed, and they were having supper. What a treat! I would likely never have seen this sight living at the old house. You can click on the picture to make it larger.

I've been telling Cliff for weeks that I wish I had a couple of sweet potato plants. Just a couple, to play with (my whole garden this year is "to play with", really). I figure if I went somewhere to buy some, I'd have to buy a dozen or so. I remember how my mom made sweet potato slips, but it's a little late for that, I think.

Yesterday I decided to microwave a couple of sweet potatoes for our dinner, and I noticed one of them was sprouting on one end. So I cut off that end, stuck it in a dish of water, and am now waiting to see what happens. Looks like God gave me the couple of plants I wanted.

Life is just full of little gifts, isn't it?

*I first called the birds "snowy egrets". After a little conference with Dr. Google, I realized those are fairly rare. Further research informed me that these were the more common "Cattle Egrets", migrating through the area.

Monday, July 14, 2008

An early-morning ride

With temperatures most days going into the 90's, it's been too hot to ride Blue during the main part of the day. Last night I put him in a pen near the barn so I could enjoy the early-morning hours today.


The sun was just coming up as we traveled the road to the river bottoms. (I need to trim Blue's bridle path; he's looking a little bit "punky".)


We had to wait for a coal train to pass.



Then we headed east with the sun directly in our eyes.

We've had an abundance of rain this year, and there was still water standing in some areas; the egrets enjoy these places.


Hopefully if you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see egrets in the water and also flying away. You can also see my little town's water tower in the distance.

Shadow against the wheat-stubble.

Can you see the tiny new soybean plants?

Heading home, I enjoyed the verdant landscape: Tassled corn in the foreground, dark green soybean field in the distance.