Open Water

Still convalescing from the flu, strep, and a bad reaction to the medicine prescribed for the step, for four days I hadn’t strayed far from our couch, letting the illnesses run their course. As the symptoms of the illnesses passed, what seemed to be side-effects of the antibiotics increased---sleeplessness, nausea, and (the worst by far!) a non-stop, unrelenting horrid taste in the mouth. Every morsel of food or drink tasted bitter, like an alkaloid poison excreted from the knees of lady beetles or the aftertaste of sipping a shot of turpentine. I slept most of the morning, tried to get up, slept some more, and only truly got up around one in the afternoon.

A few hours later, Lisa drove me to the large pond at the St Olaf Natural Lands. The pond was about ninety percent open, with just a small amount of ice hugging the curve of the southwest corner of the pond. Several dozen Mallard pairs. One Ring-necked Duck pair. We heard Sandhill Cranes passing overhead. A hatch of black midges flew at the shore where I also encountered several leaf-roller moths.

Driving home, we spotted a pair of Hooded Mergansers in the small catchment below the St Olaf science building. Lisa stopped the car and I was able to get out and manage a couple of photos of the male.

Posted on March 20, 2017 02:49 AM by