Spring Intermission
March 29, 2026
Hello friends! No time to write this week, so this will be a short, photo-centric post. We continue to ride the weather roller coaster: 93 on Thursday and 25 on Saturday morning. I definitely have to check the weather app before leaving my house right now.
All of today’s photos were taken in March. It’s the month I take the fewest photos in, traditionally, and it’s held up to its billing. Thank goodness for a little break before migration really heats up!
In all the news that really matters, the eagles at our lake have at least one chick in the nest. Scaups, shovelers, ruddy ducks, grebes, and other waterfowl continue to migrate through. I still haven’t had a close encounter with a loon, but hopefully they will do me the honor soon!
I have to post one more photo of the mink. This is how I first saw her (or him). I caught the motion as she climbed from the rocks and went under the dock, as I was sitting near the dock on the other side of the ramp. She stopped to decide what she thought of me. The scaups, who were diving nearby, took heed and went on alert.
She scampered back into the rocks and out of sight. Ten minutes are so later, I was walking up towards the marina when I saw the assistant marina manager. I stopped to show him this photo, and when I looked down over the ramp we were standing on, she was looking up at us! (The photo I posted last week.) As he walked back down the ramp toward the marina, I watched her jump up and run down behind him.
Amazingly, there are still scaups hanging out near the dock in the morning. I don’t remember this happening in any prior year, and they have now been here for two months! I hope this becomes an annual tradition.
Here are more March sights:

I filled my heart by attending a “No Kings” rally this morning. How are you filling your heart this weekend?





















I drove past a no kings group with posters etc by ramp to the interstate highway as I drove Keira to/from swim practice🏊♀️ in Garland…. meanwhile Mom was with Carmella at dance event💃🏻🩰 and Dad was with Aliya at softball🥎 tournament near Fort Worth….Giana had the day off after 2 softball games🥎 this week(they are undefeated this season)and then cheered👏 at boy’s soccer game⚽️ (they were in 3rd round of championship playoffs) so definitely a full heart this busy week…and I love it❤️
So cool to see your photos of the mink, Karen! I'm working on my long-neglected yard, a project that will occupy me for years to come. I've got serious invasive agricultural weeds (perennials, mostly, and thus harder to get under control) including whitetop, an invasive plant from Eurasia that makes space for themselves and their 13-foot-long underground stems by poisoning other plants around them. Ignore whitetop for a few years and it acts like a gang of thugs, expanding to control more soil territory by killing everything within reach. And that's what's happened in my yard. It fills my heart to free my old lilacs, peonies, and what once was a pollinator garden along the front of my yard from slow death from whitetop. Kind of like what we're rising up against in this country.... Blessings to you!