Archive for the Category » Animals «

Friday, September 30th, 2022

We passed River Trail Nature Center on our way to ABT on Sunday (09/25), so after ordering our refrigerator we decided to explore it before heading home.

(Not my photo above)

They have an apiary on site, which is basically a bunch of bee hives. In addition, they have lots of bird feeders around the property where we saw chipmunks and nuthatches, none of which my phone was able to capture well. There were some cool exhibits inside too.

We are planning to go back in the summer to explore the nature trails, and I’ll bring my camera to get some bird shots. Hopefully by then I’ll have a new mirrorless Canon.

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Tuesday, August 30th, 2022

We typically visit nature spaces on the weekends in the mornings before it gets too warm, but on Wednesday (08/17) we decided to go for an evening walk at the park. We came across this interesting feather that I later learned once belonged to a Northern Flicker, which is a type of woodpecker.

I hope to see the actual bird one day! They seem to be just as elusive as Blue Jays. I hear them often, but rarely ever see them.

Speaking of elusive, it’s not often we’ll see a dragonfly that isn’t zipping around, but one decided to hang out right by our front door.

We’ve never seen this particular color before. It’s a Emperor Dragonfly.

Saturday (08/27) we visited Mount Saint Mary Park in St. Charles. We’ve been there once before I believe, but it’s been many years. I read they were wrapping up their annual Sculpture in the Park event so I wanted to check it out.

In addition to all the cool sculptures, we saw a lot of wildlife including ducks, pigeons, finches, a hummingbird, and this awesome bird of prey that is either a Red-Shouldered Hawk, or an Osprey.

My bird app says it’s an Osprey (based off the photo), but around the same time I was using it to listen to bird calls and it identified a Red-Shouldered Hawk, so I’m not sure which it was, but it was cool to watch. It even dove and caught a fish at one point, although I was unable to catch that on my camera.

After the park and a trip to a nearby record store (more in another entry about that), we ended up at Stone Creek Miniature Golf in Geneva.

We’ve been there years ago in the evening but I don’t think we’ve ever played during the day. It was perfect weather-wise and it wasn’t too crowded either. Pictures of You by The Cure was playing over their speakers when we arrived which I thought was cool.

Although it wasn’t crowded, there was a large group playing ahead of us, so we were forced to really take our time on each hole as we’d be waiting for our turn at the next one anyway. It took us an hour to play all 18 holes and I’m thankful for that delay. Otherwise we likely would have blown through the course much quicker.

Despite Joe’s teasing about beating me, I actually won by two points!

If it wasn’t for Joe’s recent oral surgery, and having to be careful about what he was eating, we would have stopped somewhere for food, but we ended up going home after golfing. We were away from the house for five hours as it was, so Wookie was happy we didn’t stay out any longer.

Category: Animals, Excursions, Fun & Games  | Comments off
Sunday, July 31st, 2022

Not me, oh no, but Joe. It was going around like wildfire at his job the week before he got it.

Monday (7/18) evening he started sneezing and I was like “stay away from me, germy”. He teased me for being paranoid, but the following morning (Tuesday 7/19) around 11 am he texted me from work saying he suddenly didn’t feel well and was coming home. When he got home he took a home test and it was positive. He told his job who told him not to come back to work until the next week. Then he called his doctor who ended up prescribing him Paxlovid.

We set it up so he stayed isolated in his office upstairs with the door closed. Anytime he came out to use the bathroom or I brought him food we’d both wear N95 masks.

The week he was sick (with a slightly sore throat, mild cough, and fatigue) was strange as we had to do our own thing and I was in charge of all the cooking which seemed to take up a lot of time. When he’s at work I usually only have to worry about dinner and on the weekends he’ll often make breakfast and we’ll skip lunch and get take out around 3 pm for an early dinner. I didn’t want to watch any of our shows without him, so I got back into watching Dateline. I’ve been watching it in the afternoons during the week now.

On Sunday (7/24) he tested negative so he came out of hiding and was able to participate in the butterfly release. I had purchased a cup of caterpillars earlier in the month that had quickly formed into chrysalis and while Joe was in insolation they started emerging. I fed them sugar water and orange slices for a few days but released them on Sunday to ensure they had time to do their thing as their lifespan is about two weeks.

Anyway, I’m happy to report our efforts worked and I never ended up catching anything. I’ve still never had COVID (unless I had an asymptomatic case at some point) and I hope to keep it that way. I’m not worried about dying from it but the long-term damage it can do, even in mild cases, is concerning and not entirely understood.

—–

A funny thing happened the day Joe tested positive. An hour or two later the doorbell rang. I almost didn’t answer, but then I spotted the unmistakable Crumbl cookie pink box through the video doorbell camera, and got very excited as I knew it was my bestie who had sent them.

The message on the side of the box was funny:

I liked all the cookies except for the chocolate chip which I actively disliked. The two all-chocolate ones were my favorites. They may be on the pricey side, but I’d say they are worth it.

Category: Animals, Food, Health  | Comments off
Thursday, July 14th, 2022

One thing I’ve been seeing on Tiktok lately is people keeping jumping spiders. They are super cute! We get the really tiny ones in the house frequently, which we’d get in my childhood home too. I nicknamed them zebra spiders growing up, although based on some research they might have actually been called that. Anyway… I’ve never actually seen the larger jumping spiders before. That is, until recently.

Back on June 4th Joe spotted one on his car in the garage. He was shy, so I couldn’t get a photo of him, but he basically looked like this:

How cute is that?!? I wish we’d see them more often!

On July 5th I was out on the patio watering flowers and a moth decided to land on me and hang out. I brushed it off before going inside, or so I thought. I was at the kitchen sink when I felt an itch on my head, and when I brushed at it, I saw the moth fly away. It disappeared so quickly, I had no idea where it went and quickly forgot about it.

The following morning I was grabbing towels from the guest bathroom and the moth was there. I was able to capture it in my hand and let it loose outside.

On the 9th an identical looking moth decided to hang out on the patio door screen for half the day.

Could it be the same one, and if so, why was it so obsessed with me? I love nature.

Category: Amusing, Animals  | Comments off
Tuesday, June 14th, 2022

We’ve been trying to maximize our free time the past month by getting out and doing as much in nature as possible before the extreme heat hits (which it did yesterday).

Sunday 05/22 we hit up Armstrong Park & Fountain View Park because it was such a beautiful day out. I neglected to bring my camera to the first park, so I didn’t make the same mistake when we went out later that afternoon.

We went back to Armstrong Park the following Sunday (05/29) with my camera and spotted some cute baby ducks.

Saturday 06/04 we ventured a little further from home to check out a new to us nature center in St. Charles called Hickory Knolls. It was pretty crowded between the native plant sale and all the kid soccer games nearby. We’d love to go back at a quieter time to explore more.

Instead we headed over to Peck Farm Park to walk around and bird watch.

I got a photo of a common yellowthroat, which was exciting since I never knew this bird even existed!

We decided against checking out the butterfly tent this visit since it was overcast and they weren’t terribly active.

After snapping plenty of photos, we drove over to Fabyan Forest Preserve since it had been years since our last visit. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t get any photos of the barn swallows that call this preserve home. They move too much and are too far away for even my longest telephoto lens to capture.

By this point it was threatening to rain, so we decided to get over the Windy Acres Farm to check out the strawberry festival I heard about. The place was a madhouse and there was a huge line to get into the festival grounds so we noped right out of there. I’m glad we did because I later emailed them to ask if you had to pay the $12 fee just to get access to the festival food and was told yes. WTF?!? I understand having to pay to go on rides, but not just to get to the food booths. Sorry, but no. It’s too bad as I wanted to try the strawberry donuts.

Sunday (06/05) we visited Northside Park in Wheaton.

We visit this park often because it has so much wildlife to watch. I was able to get a close-up picture of a killdeer on this particular visit!

They are more prevalent in the area than I originally thought. They are just very good at going about their business undetected because they blend in with the landscape. If you do spot one, they usually run off if you get too close. This one was standing its ground, so I suspect it was a female protecting her camouflaged eggs.

On our way back to the car I captured a few shots of this cute fox squirrel.

This past Saturday (06/11) we took a picnic lunch over to Ray Franzen Bird Sanctuary in Itasca.

We didn’t see any good birds (mostly just red-winged blackbirds which are a dime a dozen), but we did spot this cute baby bunny hiding along the trail.

We also saw a dead squirrel. He looked like he had climbed on a tree branch, laid down, and passed. Poor little thing. I want to go back either early morning or closer to dusk when birds tend to be more active.

I really want to buy a new camera and lens to up my photography game. More on that in my next post…

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