Someday, I will be warm.

Word of the Day:

deliquesce \del-ih-KWES\, intransitive verb:
1. To melt away or to disappear as if by melting.
2. (Chemistry) To dissolve gradually and become liquid by attracting and absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts, acids, and alkalies.
3. To become fluid or soft with age, as certain fungi.
4. To form many small divisions or branches -- used especially of the veins of a leaf.

Here's that word in a sentence:
I wish all this damn ice would deliquesce.

A view from our side yard...facing the west.

Ice, ice, ice.

The neighbor's ornamental grass looks cool, though.

Our red maples don't usually touch the ground with their branches. For the first time, I am thankful we don't have tall, mature trees. They would be split in half by now with all the ICE. Everyone else's trees are in pieces.

Onto the BEWDS...

Lake Isabella today: Finally saw something other than a mallard...
redheads!
Oh, I need a big, scary MAN zoom lens, know what I mean? I zoom in to the max with my camera, and while I get a good sized shot, the res is for crap.

They are so pretty...better than the mutts that hang out at the lake.

I caught up with my buddies the Hooded Mergansers again. I haven't seen them for awhile. There's a very small amount of open water at the lake, because of the aeration fountain they have been running.
Look at this guy and imagine in your head, in a deep, deep voice,
"Oh...I'm a studly muffin, I'm a studly muffin...look at my pretty crest..."

A coot scared the hell out of me as I approached the dock (the open water is very close to the shore, and you can't see the birds until you are practically on top of them).

Fellow birders:
I need validation here:
This is a female canvasback, right?

She came puttering around the dock and I didn't really notice her. When I got home and looked at the pictures, I realized that she had a sloping forehead and redheads don't have that.

It looks like a canvasback to me. Chime in, my peeps!

An end-of-the-week "Awwww" moment:
The girls model their new PJ's.
A little story about the polka dots:
One day, in a store's bathroom, Isabelle noticed that I was wearing polka-dotted underwear. So she proclaimed for all the other people in the bathroom, "Mommy! I like your POLKA-DOTTED UNDERWEAR!!!!"
So now, anything with polka dots is a cause for general hilarity.

On Lynne the OCD Queen's blog, there was a discussion about what to call our little blog journey to NJ this fall.
How about calling ourselves "The Flock"?