An Almost Perfect Easter Sunday

First we shared a delightful meal with new friends, who are becoming good friends very quickly. The kids hunted Easter eggs, just a bit sheepishly because they think they are sophisticated teenagers, but they had a great time. Or at least they wanted to stop at every house that had an egg tree on the way home so they could continue the chase.

Then we took a short ride out to Lykers Pond to see what spring was bringing for Easter out in the wild world. The country sure had its Easter bonnet on. Red osier dogwoods, with stems like purple fire sticks, glowed against last year’s dry grass, wherever fields had lain fallow for a few years. Solid pewter poplars bloomed like stately candelabra along the edges of hardwood patches. Geese guarded every pasture puddle. Shaggy manes of coltsfoot blossoms brightened the roadside ditches and maple flowers out-redded the cardinals. It was just plain pretty with a nice mess of wind-tossed clouds overhead to top everything off just right.

At the pond we watched three muskrats so large that at first we thought they were beaver. They swam so fast you would have sworn they could outpace an Evenrude at full throttle. I stepped down into the woods to watch them cavorting and to admire the huge craters chopped into a dead tree by a pileated woodpecker.

As I stood in the dead grass and dried leaves, I thought to myself, ‘this isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had’. However, the muskrats came right up close and I forgot about the tickling sensation I felt on my knee for a second. I did look after a bit though but there was nothing to see….or so I thought.

All good things must end and soon we had to come home so the boss could feed the cows. I sat down to write about our adventures and felt that tickly sensation again.
It was a nasty, creepy, crawly, dangerous because-of-Lymes disease, deer tick!

Argghhhh.

Everyone has their phobias and ticks are mine. Just thinking of them gets the skin at the back of my neck crawling and sends me running for the insect repellent. Off! is my favorite perfume in summer, or you might think so from how often I wear it.
Guess it is time to put that right in the car for the season, oh, and the binoculars too. It is kind of dumb to go bird and wildlife watching without them.