Osprey are Learning to Fly!

Mabel is about to fly today!  Maybe! Check out the Osprey Cam today.  Tory already flew off.  They will return to the nest for a while before migrating south.  They have a long way to go, so after the first few weeks of August they will be gone, heading off to their winter homes in places like Jamaica, Mexico or Florida.

There are a number of osprey nests around the area that you can see from the highway, from the river, and from the bridge.  They are in the tops of trees or on very expensive platforms built specifically for the osprey nests.  Sometimes it takes years for a pair of osprey to build on a new platform.  The pair stay together for their lifetime, though they "vacation" separately when they fly south.  They return to the same nest each year, returning to the same spot within days of each other.

They are fun to watch, so a few places have put cameras close to nests (which doesn't seem to bother them in the least).  Osprey are protected, so there are fines for disturbing them in any way.  Of course, a few years ago when they wanted to paint a small bridge joining the island to the mainland, the State had a problem...the osprey were about to return.  They had to put off painting the bridge for a year while the osprey raised a family.  Then they built a platform, moved the nest there, and put cones on the overhead bridge framework so they wouldn't begin a new nest in the spring.

So go visit the nest in Bremen, Maine!  Hopefully you will get to see her fledge!

Remember when I made that cake...

I still remember the first cake I made all by myself.  I was probably 12?  It was my mom's birthday, and she was at work.  I was the "babysitter" for my three siblings at the time.  I remember thinking what a surprise it would be if I made her a birthday cake to surprise her with when she got home.  I had made frosting with my mother's help before, and I'd seen her make cakes.  Of course, this was before cake mixes and canned icings were available, or at least not in our household.
The cake turned out...interesting.  When I think back on it, it was kind of a disaster, but I remember it as not only funny, but a bit of a creative problem-solving event.  For some reason, I really didn't see it as a disaster.  It was a "go with the flow", "one mistake after another" type of project.  I'm so glad it happened.
Wish Mom was still around today...I'd love to make her another birthday cake!
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She won't be home for hours.
There's time to bake a cake.
It'll be the best surprise,
And not too hard to make.

Just get out some ingredients-
No "packaged cake mix" days-
Some sugar, flour and water;
Sure measure always pays.

Grease pan and heat the oven,
Pour mixture, scrape the sides;
Then put it in the oven
And watch it start to rise.

The sweet smell fills the kitchen
As it sets out to cool.
Begin to make the frosting
But it ends up a pool.

The yellow lumps of butter
Can't hide in chocolate soup
The icing must be poured on
It's more like icky goop.

Tip pan to get the cake out,
Oh, no!  It broke in two!
It makes it worse to fix it,
It's turning into stew!

Quickly arrange the cake clumps,
Pour chocolate butter lumps,
Yell "Happy Birthday, Mom!"
And add surprise-y jumps!

Those mountain cakey mounds
With chocolate soup for icing
Must still have been to my mom 
Just a bit enticing.

I wish I had a picture
Of Mom's birthday mis-cake
And her loving over-look
Of my multiple mistakes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wishing everyone an ever-loving, over-looking mom!

Check out more poetry links at Sherry's place Semicolon .  Thanks for hosting this week's Poetry Friday!

Bird Watching

We have a few osprey cams in Maine for viewing the young in the nests and their parents bringing them food - fish, that is. The huge nests built of very uncomfortable looking sticks are found up on top of dead trees, bridges, power line poles - any high perch near a river. This camera is in Bremen, Maine, and has some month olds. 

I'm blogging from my car on a road trip....

Just saw a momma duck and her ducklings trying to cross the road.  The car in front of us never flinched. Just ran over two or three. We and everyone else went around them.  I think she made it with the rest.  I am going to assume the person that ran over them just wasn't paying attention and didn't see them until too late. Momma duck was frantic trying to decide which way to go.  I hate when that happens.

Anyway, enjoy the osprey, while I try to get this out of my mind....