Roses, Lunch and Ducks...February 22

It's been fifty-eight years that a dozen red roses have arrived for me on April 22.  This November, Tom and I will have been married fifty-eight years.  Tom and I had broken up in 1960 and we hadn't seen each other since that fateful day.  Tom said when he sent the roses he really didn't think I would reply but he wanted me to know that he would always remember me. I had been remembering him, too.

The flowers arrived in late morning.  At noon, we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday's.  Our daughter had given Tom a gift card for Christmas which he used.  After choosing salads from the well stocked salad bar, Tom had meaty ribs, so tender and well cooked that the meat fell off the bones.  I had grilled chicken with a honey barbecue sauce.  Dessert was apple cake with ice cream.  We were pleased.

The day was chilly but sunny.  This time of year "sunny" means the day is a good one.  Tom drove us to Englewood dam, one of the five dams built in the Dayton area after the devastating 1913 flood flooded downtown Dayton up to the second floors of many buildings

The ducks were too far off for Tom to get good photos but we got good looks at Canvasbacks, Redheads and Ringbills

The usual Canada Geese and Mallards were there also.

Tom decided to check out Eastwood Lake.  That was where we saw our first Bufflehead of the year.  The next stop was Eastwood Metro Park.  There we spotted two Hooded Merganser males and one female. 

Tom finally found a bird close enough to get a good photo...a Great Blue Heron.  He already had a nice bib of mating feathers.

Seeing the ducks means Spring is on its way and that brings smiles to our faces.

Common Goldeneyes on Eastwood Lake on January 13, 2014

Thanks to Tom's new camera and lens, he was able to get this photo of the Goldeneyes.  There are two Hooded Mergansers to the left and a couple American Coots in front of the Goldeneyes. Tom's camera has image stabilization.  His old one didn't.  This photo has already been enlarged.  Below is the photo enlarged even more.

Goldeneyes are rarely seen in our area though they are sometimes seen along Lake Erie, especially if the lake is frozen over.  Yes, it's frozen over.

Our winter has been much snowier and much colder than the average.  I think I've mentioned before that we don't get much "average" weather.

Neither of us are particularly fond of very, very cold snowy weather but some of the sightings that come because of it are exciting.

Here are a two photos Tom took of our garage window.

I'm playing around with these photos.  I'm planning to make a collage.

We always have Northern Cardinals at our feeders but we are seeing more than we usually do.

MetroParks Prairie Seed Nursery

Tom and I had another commitment so we didn't go to the Germantown Prairie Seed Nursery with the Butterfly Transit Walkers and other area naturalists.  Thanks to Phil, I have these photos to show you.

Tom and I visited the nursery several times in the 1990's which was when the nursery was established.  At that time we were attending the Ohio Prairie Conferences.  The Ohio Prairie Conference was a fairly new group at the time.  This group is interested in preserving Ohio's remnant prairies.

Because Ohio has been heavily populated over the years, most of the prairies were destroyed for one reason or another.  The only natural prairies are those which are inaccessible to industry, or unusable for farmland.

In the 1990's, native prairie seeds were difficult to obtain so the Prairie Seed Nursery was established to fulfill that need. Now seeds are more readily available.  According to the people who went to the nursery, much of the seed now produced is distributed throughout the Five Rivers MetroParks to reseed likely prairie sites.

Here, the group is walking out to the seedbeds.  Each wide row contains a particular prairie species.  The woman is the red shirt is a volunteer guide who, Phil said, gave the group a lot of interesting information about the nursery and the plants in it.

In this row, a lot of seed heads are nearing the time for harvesting.

The group visited the building where the seeds are dried.

Their guide explained the process to them.  I wish I had been there to learn how this was being done.  I'm sure the process has evolved over the years.  Back in the years when Tom and I visited, the beds were still in the process of being established so not much seed was being harvested.