Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Deep Fried PEEPS

Those who know me well know I have been known to eat an entire 12 pack of PEEPS in one setting. Yes I know they are bad for me, but they are PEEPS.  Now some wonderful person has combined peeps and cinnamon rolls and deep fried them.  How can it be I have not tried these?  Maybe someday next time I make cinn rolls I will get some PEEPS and try this.  Better call 911 for me as I OD on the sugar rush.

http://www.ohbiteit.com/2014/04/cinnamon-roll-fried-peeps.html

Monday, January 15, 2018

Tajari 9 months old

Today we celebrate the 9 month birthday of Tajiri!
Already standing shy of 10 feet tall; he is a smart, and at times stubborn, calf that has brightened our world!
Inquisitive like his mother and courageous like his father, he is the mix of two great giraffes; Oliver & April.
1 year old is not far away 4/15/18 !

Thursday, January 11, 2018

UGH! Winter

Yesterday it was almost 60 and the sunrise was gorgeous, once again looking like a sunset.  This morning about 3am the rain started turning to ice and now snow.  It is 21 now and heading down down down with the wind howling making it so bitter cold. I saw a Robin out front this morning.  Crazy bird needs to head south pronto, or maybe it should just stay because Spring is 2 months away.





D24 Sightings

As we are all aware by now, since June 2017, D24’s satellite transmitter has not fully recharged as it should due to an unexplainable glitch in the transmitter. This has resulted in intermittent data since then, with a few “hits” in July (when we had our last visual of him), September, November, December, and the most recent, January 3 and 4, 2018. All of these points have come from an area 5-10 miles south of Decorah. Even though we did not have data for the last several days, I decided my technician, Bob, and I would take some time and drive to that area and search for a VHF signal from D24’s backpack transmitter. Conditions were favorable: it was early enough and cloudy enough that D24 would likely not be soaring, which makes tracking difficult. Even if the satellite transmitter is not sending data, if we could get within approximately two miles of D24, we should hear the constant VHF signal with the hand held receiver and antenna set to its frequency.
Once we got to Ossian, Iowa, we were on the eastern edge of his recent locations. We stopped a couple of times to check for a signal, but heard nothing. By the third stop we had a strong signal. We were able to quickly determine D24’s current location, east of Calmar, Iowa. He was with several other Bald Eagles, both adults and immatures, and was only 25 yards from the road in a wooded swale. D24 looks great. He has a dark chest patch and his belly is much lighter. His eye and beak are still brown, but the horn color is beginning to show on his beak. When he flew across the road to another perch his plumage appeared complete (i.e. we did not observe gaps in the wing or tail feathers). We received satellite data this morning (Wednesday) that showed he spent the rest of the day and night within two miles of where we spotted him late Tuesday morning.
It was a successful and gratifying trip, seeing D24 looking good and hanging out with other eagles not far from his natal area."

59 C

Wednesday, January 03, 2018

First Project of the Year

I love pink and purple together.  Several of my friends and I have been talking about making snowflake hats.  Anyway I decided to squeeze in a small project yesterday afternoon and with 3 rows left the power went out. So this morning I finished my hat. The project is called Snowbunny and I did not do the pompom as I just think they only belong on a small child's hat.  I did 4 repeats and used size 5 needles.  It does fit just to the bottom of the ear lobe.