What's a mother to do?

As we hunker down for a 11-17 inch snowstorm I thought it might lighten the forecast by remembering a kinder and warmer time last summer, when a mother duck tried to send her ducklings on the straight and narrow. Metaphors, all.
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ABC WednesDay

Dawn on White Bear Lake in early spring. If you click on my photograph you'll see that ducks were already eating before the sun was hardly up.

An update: I couldn't leave out Dave dancing with daughter Audrey at a neighbor's wedding, back when she was in middle school.

Today is the letter 'D' for the ABC Wednesday meme hosted by Mrs Nesbitt. Do stop by and/or join in the fun.

'Ah the pity youth is wasted on the young.'

Y is ABC Wednesday's letter of the week-- impressing on me the youth or young among us. . .
a vigilant and petulant mother Wood Duck and her 12 (I counted them!) young ducklings


or young Wisconsin dairy calves, adorably inquisitive,

soon-to-be young turtles when this lady get finished laying her eggs. I caught her resting from the digging process--note the symmetry of the design on her shell as well as her footprints behind her. Amazing daylong--certainly exhausting--procedure.


And finally a young daughter of a mother running a race on the 4th of July (when she saw her mom pass by she had a sobbing meltdown because she wanted to go along!)
Many more Y photos are waiting for your visit to Mrs Nesbitt or to join in the fun!

Here's where the horns come in. . .

A bit of explanation is due. October last, moving to the Twin Cities, I left our home of 14 years behind in Chicago. Now I find myself in a small apartment complex with the added benefit that our living room opens up onto a marshy pond. Every day since then I've been looking out across the parking lot and I was rewarded with daily songs from chickadees and a devoted pair of cardinals. Exactly on the first day of spring I heard the first lovely notes from red-wing blackbirds who had just arrived, set down their luggage and sounded happy to be breathing their old familiar air again. As the pond water slowly warmed and the ice melted, the skies were filled with the constant circling and landing of pairs of Canada geese and mallard ducks and the daily slow passing of one lone blue heron. Days are now filled with the sounds of a horn section gone wrong, all music to my ears (pun intended).

Then I saw this on the roof of our three-story building.
This goose had taken the high ground to maintain his watch on their nest in the pond across the street. I was greeted by warning honks turning to threats. He disappeared before my eyes. . .then I heard a thump, thump, thumping like large hail falling. Next he was airborne and landing on the nest, all in an instant. He had used the flat roof for take-off, however galumphing it sounded.

And safety was once again restored to the land.

As a post script, please know that while I watch these events occur, I feel the constant nagging reality that we have shortchanged these wonderful creatures through our greed. We've taken and built and taken some more, all the while they persevere with their duties on the bit of space we've let them have. I'm learning that Minnesotans stay aware of this and continue to care.