Friday Foto

gettingThegreenLight, originally uploaded by greg.barbera.

If you asked anybody who knows me what my favorite color is they would probably say blue or black.

But green does have a special place in my heart.

Green is the color I see most in nature from grass and trees to those fuzzy halos around street lamps at dusk.

Green also means go.

A green light means to move forward.

What does green mean to you?

The Sound Of Cracking Ice

 

What do you do with your kids when it is like 20 degrees arctic out?

Why you go for a walk.

Our outdoor adventure started in the backyard, where the boys marveled at the ice they were finding everywhere. We spent a good portion of our early morning foray into the wonders of a frigid Mother Nature trying to figure out how thick the ice was in the creek in our backyard.

It was thick enough for the boys to stand on but began to crack when I stepped on it.

"Let's go to the lake!" said Spencer.
"And see if it is frozen."

Curious myself, I agreed to take the five minute walk over to Clark Lake but only after we retreated inside for a spell to warm up.

About an hour later, we once again bundled up to make the hike; it wasn't far by any means but shoot if wasn't freakin' cold out.

On the way the boys were thinking about all the things they could do on a frozen lake like ice skate and play hockey. It didn't matter that they didn't have skates or sticks but such is the joy of young minds.

My wife assured us all that it indeed would not be frozen, that the lake was "too deep" to freeze.

She was soon proved wrong when we walked up and saw the entire lake frozen over.

My and the boys started throwing rocks on the ice and the sound of the rocks hitting the frozen water made this odd reverberation noise.

We all just looked at each other with open eyes - it was a sound they had never heard before and one I hadn't heard in many, many years myself.

It was all we could do to get them to not run out there on the ice.

So I set out to prove a point.

I walked over to the edge of the lake and grabbed the branch of a tree and put the weight of one foot on the ice.

Nothing.

I put two feet on there and stomped with one... and the sound of ice cracking began to bellow out through the air. There's really no other word to chose and that one is poor at best.

Once my foot broke through the ice to make a hole to the water, the acoustics changed and from underneath the ice came an even eerie, inexplicable sound.

At that moment we saw a blue heron fly over the lake.

Awesome.

On the walk back we saw couple of blue birds.

"Freaky," said Cole.
"They are like brown but then when they fly away blue," he said.
"That's weird Dad!"

We went back again today, but the weather had warmed enough that the lake wasn't totally frozen.

We still threw rocks on to the frozen section and listened for that odd sound.

Like a long, steel coil unraveling is the best I can come up with to describe it.

Today was a good day.

Charlie The Squirrel

 

Tuesday night after the family returned from the pool, a little baby squirrel came out of the shrubs next to our driveway and started to approach us.

It was a total Disney-like moment: you could almost see the thought bubbles over his head.

"Are you my dad?"

"Are you my mom?"

"Brothers??"

Now even though squirrels are everywhere in my neighborhood, I have never seen a baby squirrel.

This lil fella was clearly confused and scared.

And he kept looking at me like I gave birth to him.

When we went inside he followed us to the door like a puppy; all clumsy limbs and rocks for brains.

So I left a little bowl of water, some bread and some nuts out there for him and we called it a day. The next morning when the boys woke up they went out front to look for him but Charlie, as I had dubbed him because he just looked like a Charlie, was gone.

After I dropped the boys off at their respective school's I came back to do some laundry. The dryer didn't seem to be doing its job so I went out back to check the exhaust and was startled by a grey blob sitting on the lawnmower in my shed.

It's was Charlie.

And once again he looked at me like I was his parent and beagn to walk toward me. Once again I got some water and food and tried to place it near him but as I walked away he followed me.

So I went inside, did a little quick internet research, got a box, lined it with a towel and then went back out on to my deck. I picked up Charlie with another towel, he shrieked a shriek I've never heard, and I put him in the box. Then I ran some errands. A friend stopped by on his way running about town doing errands and I showed him Charlie. When we came out back Charlie again made a bee line toward me once he saw me and as I bent down to say hello I almost felt like he was about to jump on me.

By now it was 1pm and time to pick up Cole from playschool. He asked about Baby Jr. (his name for the squirrel) and I told him that Charlie was indeed still around and now on the back deck. When we pulled into the driveway, Cole barged out of the car, into the front door, out the back door and on to the deck to see the squirrel.

He was just sitting on the back rest of the bench chillin'.

Cole was totally excited to tell his brother so at 3:15pm we left to pick up Spencer from school and once united the two boys talked about the baby squirrel that was going to live in their backyard. When we got home Spencer went out back but Charlie was no where to be found. They boys played some before Spencer opted to ride his bmx bike around the back yard doing "stunts" dreaming of a day he'd be like Travis Pastrana. I went back inside to finish up the chili I was cooking for dinner when Spencer called out, "Dad! The squirrel! The squirrel!"

And as soon as I stepped out the door I saw Charlie in his rodent toddler gallop heading towards the deck. I scooped him up with a towel (more like he stepped on to it) and placed him back on the box. He was shaking. I then put on some gloves and held him and gently petted (is that even a word?) the little guy to comfort him. I guess it must of worked because after that he sat in the box and ate a raisan and an almond along with lapping up a bunch of water.

By then my wife came home and now Charlie was either trying to nap (my hunch) or dying (her hunch). Once again, after consulting the internet, we found a neighbor just a fews blocks away who was in the business of rehabilitating baby squirrels. So my wife and the boys took a short ride over to the woman's house to drop of Charlie.

The boys were bummed, and quite honestly, I was a little bit as well because we had all daydreamed about the pet squirrel that was going to live in our back yard yet be friendly enough to feed.

Once again a lesson was learned by my sons: wild animals should remain wild.

Sweet, Sweet Sunflower

 

We planted four sunflower seeds on the request of our youngest son.

Three fell victim to rodents, rabbits or the drought.

One survived.

It's almost as tall as the house.

Circle Of Death

 

"There's a white stain in the backyard," said my wife from the kitchen window Sunday morning as she sipped her coffee.

A short time later, after she went out to clean the backyard of toys and debris to mow it, she came back in and said that there was what looked like a dead bird out back.

I figured it to be one of the wrens from earlier in the week.

"Can you rake it up?" she asked.

"What's to rake up?" I thought.

So I went out in my t-shirt and sweatpants, flip flops on my feet, half a cup of coffee in my system and barely awake.

And then I saw the circle of death.

And then I figured this needed to be photographed.

Anf then I tried to figure out what had happened.

Like CSI.

Only I'm an authority on nothing.

It's Like A Jungle Out There

 

Our backyard has become ground zero for all things nature this past week.

I don't know who ate what but clearly, somebody got so stuffed that they left table scraps...

All Hell's Breaking Loose

 

So when had this wren lay soem eggs in our shed a few weeks back.

We watched as the bird incubated the clutch and then peeked in on them once they hatched.

It was a nice little view of nature for the boys.

Earlier this week I noticed that the chicks had gotten so big that they were essentially pushing one another out of the nest.

It would soon be time to fly I thought.

Then Wednesday I went into the shed to get the charcoal to fire up the grill for burgers and all hell broke loose.

Apparently the chicks had ventured out of the nest and were investiagting their surroundings until I spooked them getting the charcoal.

The chicks flew into the walls in all directions and dropped to the floor.

Three of them fell behind junk I thought they may never find a way back out of because of the cramped quarters.

I watched a confused mother wren come back to the nest with a worm to find her chicks gone.

And then I watched her bounce about the shed looking for her babies.

I felt bad so I grabbed a broom and swept the floor, then started humping junk out of the shed to give the chicks some space. Of course this scared the shit out of them and they began sending out chirping calls of distress.

Suddenly I found myself surrounded by a family of birds flying around me, zooming through my legs, bumping into me and basically just general chaos.

I managed to huddle three of the five into an empty corner and then left for a few minutes.

I came back to find that mom must have rescued two of them and was on her way ot the third when - once again -
I startled and scared them.

The third chick flew across the deck to the other side, hit the brick wall and then slide down and to cover under the deck.

I heard him chirping under there an hour os so later.

I'm not sure if he ever reconnected with the family.

I tried to help but felt I'd only made matters worse.