Fixing Sad

 Hubby is getting better, and that made me feel better. 

But a part of my day has been missing, people are missing, a daily Internet get-together is missing. A year ago in April the creator of a Facebook group I joined in 2016 passed away. He was so loved by everyone. He was there every day, to say good morning, to welcome new members, to encourage us as growers, to comment on our pictures with his vast knowledge of plants, to make sure we were kind, to keep out politics, to gently enforce group rules. We would comment on each other's posts, support each other, and make friends. He was always there, until he wasn't.

The group has not been the same. People stopped posting, well, some people are posting, but many who have shared their lives and succulents for the past 12 years (the group was created before I joined) have not been posting. The group was not the same. We were like a community. So Thursday, the last day of April, I wrote, in honor of the group's creator, here are some pictures of my succulents. Let's see your plants! I miss him and I miss all of you!

People are responding! Some people are still missing, maybe they will respond later. People are thankful for my post and more are posting each day. It is a joy to see the group become more active. Sometimes recovery takes effort, and instead of just thinking about it, you need to do it.

We had some cold weather and now it has warmed up again. We still have some cold nights forecast. Today was beautiful, sunny, windy and warm.

We found an interesting place to walk. It's a wetland management area, with a network of levies to walk on. It is a large area and we will be checking the maps for more places to go. For this visit we were near Rush Lake, only a few miles north of Ripon.

As a reference, here is the Fish & Wildlife Service website: https://www.fws.gov/wetland/leopold 

The orange area on the map is where they have counties with management areas in the state of Wisconsin.

We set off for a walk. Hubby was still coughing so we made it short.

I imagine these fields will dry up after the floods recede

A broken Robin's egg?

Way down at the end of this waterway is a large tree with an eagle's nest. I also don't know what that gray dot is in the sky, slightly to the right. Dust on my lens I guess. It's only in this picture.

Zoomed in to see the nest

Cropped to see an eagle sitting on a branch!

Cool looking wooded bridge

This building must house a pump because quite a bit of water was rushing through that big, brown pipe

That big, lone tree would look neat in the morning mist or something

We headed home after this. 

Catching Up

 I haven't been writing much so I'm not sure where to begin. January came and went. We had some awful cold weather, down to minus 22 on January 23rd. The apartment got freaking cold, down to 63 degrees, which is way too cold for me. The radiators were barely warm. I called maintenance and he said turn the thermostat up as far as it would go, which is 90 degrees. Not much help, so we bought a little space heater. When I plugged it in I realized a massive amount of cold air was coming inside through the air conditioner (through the wall A/C), which was over my head where I plugged in the space heater. We then went to ACE Hardware and bought an outside cover and an inside cover. They made a huge difference! The good thing about the apartment being so cold is a week or two later all my orchids began to spike, all but one. In case you were wondering, we keep the apartment about 72. My hubby likes it warm.

We didn't let the cold slow down our weekend adventures. We like to stop at antique stores and drive home on country roads, often stopping in at some random little town we had not seen before. 

January 5 - Redgranite. Stopped for coffee and then drove to the former quarry. Will visit in spring/summer for sure!

Love the light bulbs!

Cute coffee shop, Dauntless Soul Brew Co.

ACE Hardware actually has this light bulb

Redgranite quarry. The stones are dark red, but the light was fading so you can't tell

January 9 - drove down some of the roads through the White River wilderness area. My pictures are tagged "Berlin". One of the roads was icy. Hubby wanted to test the SUV. It drove perfectly.

The icy road

me...

Jan 10 - Fond du Lac. Stopped to eat at a supper club. Great food! Would like to go back sometime. Red Cabin at Green Acres, W2701 Fourth Street Road, Co Rd T, Fond du Lac.

Jan 11 - Neshkoro. Stopped by the river.

January 25 - Briggsville and Wisconsin Dells.

Briggsville. We had a cottage a few miles out of town. We used to go to Foxy's!

Wisconsin Dells

The dark entrance to the forest! Creepy! I held hubby's hand.

Inside wasn't so bad. LOL

Walking back to the parking lot, pine trees and blue sky.

January 31 - Pardeeville, Baraboo, Packwaukee. We stopped at a big antique store in Pardeeville, then went to the antique mall in Baraboo. On the way home we stopped at Packwaukee, because we never went there before. There were houses all along the Buffalo River so we followed the signs to the public access, which is a series of piers along a roadway that crosses the lake.

We parked on the side next to a pier.

The moon

Named after Winnebago Chief Packwaukee. Packwaukee is Ojibwa, meaning shallow land.

Heading home I suddenly yelled, "THERE'S A BALD EAGLE SITTING IN THE FIELD!!!" Hubby stops the car. You scared me! "I'm sorry but there's a BALD EAGLE sitting in the field!!!" He backs up. I took a picture as it was flying away.

I think that's enough stories for tonight.