It was “Ladies Night Out” for Mallory and Mandy. They were getting ready for the Annual Mallard Mingle.
Mallory was a natural beauty and only needed a quick preen to look presentable …
… so she was gobsmacked watching her bestie’s beauty ritual in advance of this New Year’s Eve party. She rolled her eyes and thought “all this primping just for a peck on the bill from a handsome Drake at midnight? – Pfft!”
Mallory was only interested in chillin’ with a glass of Cold Duck. Growing impatient, she began tapping one webbed foot, giving a side-eye glance toward Mandy.
Mallory finally voiced her aggravation with her friend … “really Mandy, I don’t know about you girl!” and, with a tilt of her head, suggested her pal get a move on. Mandy replied “quit your wisequacks – just a few more minutes!”
But then Mandy stopped in mid-preen – she knew her friend wasn’t fooling and she’d leave without her.
She finally emerged, looking ducky, her feathers glistening from the swampy duckweed. Soon the ladies paddled across the lagoon to the Mallard Mingle.
And now, let’s delve into my personal musings, shall we?
Whew – first and foremost, I met my 2023 walking goal!!
Wanderlust was a joy as usual, but admittedly, with way fewer extra miles at year end. Thankfully, I did meet my goal of 1,257 miles/2,023 km, thanks in part to record-setting warm temps in November and December. Here in the Metro Detroit area we enjoyed the 3rd warmest and 2nd least-snowiest December on record.
But, throughout this year it seemed like there was a litany of endless errands and/or contractor appointments to deal with. I always try to bulk up my miles by mid-November when the snow starts to fly, or pesky freezing rain occurs, both unfavorable conditions for walking. Lucky for me our El Niño weather pattern was in my favor as snow was almost non-existent (just .01 inch/0.254 cm in December), but we’ve been plagued by morning fog or drizzly conditions throughout this holiday season. We may get snow tonight – poor timing Mother Nature, (even though I am staying in).
So onward and upward in 2024 – I will add just one more mile to my present goal, so 1,258 miles/2,024 kilometers for 2024.
And, no snickering please – I drove more miles this year – well yay me! All those 30-mile roundtrips to Lake Erie Metropark equaled 1,435 miles driven in 2024. (Ruth and JP are laughing at this total, but when I first began my walking regimen, not only did I strive to reach a walking goal, but also I ensured I walked more miles than I drove). Hey, there is always room for improvement.
I did not fare as well with my Goodreads goal in 2023.
What was I thinking? Reading 25 books in one year, when on average I read six books per year, usually accomplishing a book only on each long holiday weekend? I reconfigured my Goodreads goal to a more manageable 15 books, but in the end, I finished only a dozen books, most read in the first half of the year, including after we had an ice storm the evening of February 22nd and I lost internet for three days. Since I couldn’t work, reading was a great option.
I plan to do better in 2024!
I had an unintentional milestone; this is my 1,900th blog post!
I marked a milestone of one decade of blogging back on February 11th. When I got to the last quarter of 2023, I glanced at the Posts section of my blog and realized I’d likely reach 1,900 posts by year end, so, although an unplanned goal – today’s post will be the 1,900th blog post to date.
In 2023 I marked a 50th-year anniversary for many significant events.
It simply did not seem like it was 50 years since I traveled on my first solo trip, graduated from high school, got my first car, started my first real job waitressing at a diner and began college. I reflected on those vintage memories here in case you missed it.
This year-end post will recount some critter encounters.
If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you know I have taken a ton of critter photos this year and there are still more 2023 walks I’ve not yet blogged about. After each long excursion, I do a draft narrative the same day of what I saw or did since I often don’t sort through my photos for weeks or even months. The exception is if I photograph something extraordinary (for me) and I’m dying to see how the photos turned out.
So, suffice it to say my computer files are brimming with stories and critter photos yet to be shared. I also have some fun Wordless Wednesday photos to share that are non-nature related; I hope you enjoy them.
I got a few “wants” from my “2023 Birdie Bucket List”.
In my morning meanders, I was lucky to fulfill two bird “wants” from my “2023 Birdie Bucket List”.
I saw my first Trumpeter Swans at Sterling State Park …
… and my first Wood Ducks at Lake Erie Metropark (although I am greedy and would like to see a male Wood Duck with its fantastic plumage).
And then there were a few unexpected critter “firsts”.
Like this Raccoon at Council Point Park …
… and a Red Fox at Lake Erie Metropark.
Plus, I had a new “bird find” that I wasn’t even looking for … this Pied-billed Grebe.
In perusing my 2023 photos to make a slideshow, I realized it was a pretty good year and I hope it will be better in 2024. There were many construction woes keeping me from venturing to other parks and places I originally had on my 2023 agenda.
My “2024 Birdie Bucket List” is considerably shorter. Still looking for those elusive owls. Sigh.
Here is a slideshow of my favorite 2023 pics. Most were taken at Lake Erie Metropark or Council Point Park.
‘Tis the season for well wishes, so please click here for mine.
Did you know 2023 ends on an epic note, with this once-in-a-century date? It is: 123123!
Thanks a bunch if you’re still here at the end of this long and picture-laden post.
I am joining Terri Webster Schrandt’s Sunday Stills Challenge for December 31st and January 7th: Your 2023 Year-in-Review!
Happy New Year!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
I loved the way you wrote the Mallard story with the photos. Very creative and amusing!
The end collection of photos was fantastic.
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Thanks Anne! I saw those photos and knew I could do something fun with them. I especially liked the header image since one Mallard had a downy feather on her nose. 🙂 Glad you liked the end collection – I had a few more, but figured if people were still hanging in there, I’d better weed a few out!
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Congratulations on reaching your walking goal Linda! You are true inspiration to many ….including your furry pals!
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Thank you Wayne – I’m glad we had such a mild Winter so far and I hope it stays like that. I went to Council Point Park to see them after I came home from walking five miles at Lake Erie Metropark yesterday. I knew it was going to rain/snow mix this morning and be foggy today so I would not be going out. I don’t usually go mid-day and arrived there – no squirrels or birds around. Did one loop and they came out of the woodwork. 🙂
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So many wonderful things to celebrate in this post!! Congratulations, Linda, this post was a delight to read and scroll through the photos. Your walks were productive in many ways. I look forward to your adventures in 2024!! 🥳🤗🎈🎉💃🏻 Happy New Year to you and your furry and feathery friends.
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Thank you Shelley! I saw these two Mallards preening and thought it would be fun to use them in conjunction with a New Year’s Eve party. The look on the Mallard on the left cracked me up, as did the Mallard on the right who had a stray downy feather on her nose. 🙂 I had a few more photos for the slideshow, but this post was long and picture-laden already, so I cut myself off! Happy New Year to you as well Shelley – make it a great 2024!
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You’re welcome. It’s fun to see the photos that you captured in a short period of time while they were preening. The story you wrote to narrate the scene is impressive indeed!
2024 is here and I’m ready to see what unfolds for us all as we embrace the new year!
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Thank you. Animals’ expressions are so funny sometimes – no matter the furry or feathered critter, seeing a “head tilt” always gives me a smile; it’s like the gears in their brain are turning as they analyze the situation. The one Mallard seemed perplexed while looking at the other one. Just like that (snapping fingers), a tale was spun. The new year has arrived … the weatherman was wrong, but that was okay. I got my first four miles of 2024 done – I was up for another mile, but it started spitting, so I headed home.
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You’re an expert in critter serendipity!
Yay – your 2024 walking goals are going to love the head start you’ve got!!
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Thank you Shelley! I had better walk my socks off while I can since next week’s snow forecast is desire. I’m thinking that the retired meteorologist said we’d get slammed in mid-January … so is this an “early slam” or the “slam before the big slam”?
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You’re welcome! Yes, keep walking and getting in those miles.
I’ll be mighty impressed if their predictions are correct. How do they know that when they can’t even predict accurately the day as it is happening right in front of their noses?
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Now they are saying it hinges on what happens over the weekend … maybe Wednesday will be ugly. There goes our walking for a few days – if we get it bad here, you know it will be worse where you live. But what you say is true too – they said it would be sunny Saturday. Took the camera and went to Lake Erie Metropark where it was gloomy and gray and the one ray of sunshine came out so quickly I didn’t get time to unzip my pocket and take the camera out of the case. They predicted sun all day!
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See…they just keep messing with us with their predictions of what might happen or not. Ugh.
We saw one ray of sunshine yesterday too. I’m thinking my purchase of the Happy Light has been a good one.
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Yes, we had one ray of sun this morning again … made a bright light on the trees and I wished I had my camera – same thing happened last weekend at Lake Erie Metropark too, then it faded fast. Your Happy Light was a smart purchase for sure … you may need a new bulb before Winter is over.
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Yes, that’s how the sun rays come and go here too.
I may just need to order another one. I used a brighter setting this morning…!
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You might want to order another one as you’ll wear that one out. It was very gray here this morning, but I got a walk in and back before the rain/snow started.
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I might just need to do that! We’re going to get a walk in before the ‘storm’ arrives.
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It was a gorgeous day today – we even saw the SUN! Forgot what it looked like. But I had errands and grocery shopping to do, so only had a one-mile walk done … hopefully that’s not it for a while.
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Yay for sunshine! I hope you enjoyed it as much as possible. It is an odd thing to see this month.
Congrats on getting your shopping done. We heard that all of our stores were packed yesterday in preparation for the storm that may or may not hit us.
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Yes, I was going to go shopping for a few things last week and put it off – mistake. I was happy to get it all d one for what I also thought was a big storm, but it would not bee fun traipsing around in this all-day rain either.
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We’re learning we can’t really trust the forecast, just go with the flow and decide on our own when it is safe to go out or not.
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This is true – there were no high wind forecast for last night, then I went to bed, shortly afterward there was high winds, heard a big thump of something falling down. We had had rain from early morning and was still raining when I went to bed. So worried, the dead tree might uproot.
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I hope that dead tree stays put and that the storm fizzles out!
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I am worried about the tree Shelley … Friday afternoon, through the evening, overnight and through mid-day Saturday … high winds, 45-50 mph. Now it is being called a “Bomb Cyclone” – great.
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Oh, my, I know how you feel worrying about the trees, I’m here praying that it stands sturdy and doesn’t fall!
Yikes…”Bomb Cyclone” is that because of the lakes nearby? Oy…
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The way they explained it on the news (for us anyway) is we are having the snow come in, then the warmer weather come in with rain. It is raining right now, even though we had about three hours of continuous snow. So the warm air mixed with the increasing wind causes this to occur. I learned that term, plus Polar Vortex back in in 2013 and thundersnow (which we will get tonight) plus frost quakes. We had bitter cold weather during the Polar Vortex and I remember before drifting off to sleep hearing big pops outside. Other people called in to the news station or asked on social media and it is frost explosions in the ground. I guess if you are standing outside you can feel the rumble. I liked it better in the “olden days” when we didn’t have all this weather phenomena.
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Wow, that’s interesting. I’ve heard those sounds and didn’t realize what they were. I remember having to drive to work in 2013 and HATED the cold. I think a decade of working from home has made me a fan of not being cold or too hot 😆😲 I hear the plows outside clearing the roads. They’ll have to do it multiple times with the winds. But we’re not getting the strong winds like you are. Stay safe and warm dear blogging buddy!
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For me, it is 2011 and that is so very true. I have the clothing for cold weather as I took the bus for years and had to stand out in cold weather, especially when it snowed and the bus was late. They are interesting sounds and I heard another term today to mention and now I can’t remember when it was. We had thundersnow last night. We were all full of surprises, none of them nice. I’m going to have to put the heat up higher … 74 is not cutting it and I just had all-house insulation put in in 2017 – grrr.
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It’s -6 here this morning. I agree, the weather is mighty odd. We even added another blanket on the bed last night. It’ll be a chilly week ahead that’s for sure! Stay warm and cozy!
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My weather alarm went off last night around 9:30 to warn it was going from -20 to -30 degrees wind chill – yikes! Strangely enough I have not heard anyone call this cold a “Polar Vortex” … only an Arctic blast. All that wood Mister chopped will come in handy now!
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Yikes, that’s cold! Oh, the wood is coming in handy and we’re going through it much faster than Mr. imagined we would. 🤔😉
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We have a windchill advisory going into effect at 7:00 p.m. until noon on Wednesday. It’s only 7 degrees and -3 windchill right now. On the bright side, it will be 40 a week from Friday, the 26th. Woo-hoo! You may go thru all those chopped-up trees at this rate.
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I’m so excited to see the warm up coming! Yes, we’re going through the wood way faster than Mr. imagined. Come Spring he better get busy sawing, chopping, splitting and stacking the other pile of wood we ‘purchased’!
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Mister was happy he had caught a break from snow duties due to our mild Winter so far, since he had retaining wall duties, then wood-chopping duties. Looks like now he will be donning his Wintertime (wool) hat for snowblower duties. 🙂 We have snow tonight and tomorrow night, then plunge into the Deep Freeze again.
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Yes, that’s what he’s been through.
Really…dang, that’s frustrating for a weather prediction. We’re on a warming trend and then some snow possibly on Monday afternoon, into Tuesday, then even more warming. At least into the 30s. I hope you get out for a walk when it gets warm enough!
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Your pictures are professional quality. Perhaps you can sell them when you retire.
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Thank you Kate! That made my day – I was partial to that cute gosling with the dandelion, the epitome of sweet! Happy New Year!
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The cutest ducks ever, Linda! I love how you capture the moods of the waterfowl, they are clearly comfortable having you around. Those are some impressive stats with your walks and drives. Have you thought about listening to audiobooks while you drive? You can count those in your Goodreads posts. I buy my audiobooks on Chirp fairly inexpensively or borrow audiobooks from the local library.
And OMG–123123?? I just told my family this and they were impressed! High five for this fun trivia moment! And congrats on your 1900th post! Cheers to a wonderful 2024.
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Thanks Terri! Those ducks were a hoot to watch and photograph, so I thought I’d have a little fun with their expressions in a NYE post. I really liked the photo up top with the one duck with the downy feather on her nose. My 2009 car has just 11,800 miles on it. I have worked from home since 2011 and I always tried to walk more than I drove. A few years ago, I took photos at the frozen Detroit River and wanted to show how cold it was, so I took a photo inside the car. I only had 9,000 miles on the odometer, so two bloggers teased me about it. JP, who is a “car guy”, said he hoped we both lived to see 10,000 miles; Ruth asked “how long will it take you to get to 9,999 miles?” The mechanic said I have to drive more to keep the car running well, so I now drive to/from the Park (a mere mile each way). Thus, I am out more peanuts as I have to walk two extra one-mile laps. 🙂
I have never tried audiobooks – maybe I should look into it. My boss orders from Chirp.
Isn’t that statistic fun? I heard them mention it on the radio, but have seen nothing on social media … once in a century! I’m glad you could share that stat with your family! The news said a lot of people were getting married today due to the date. Cheers back at you for a wonderful year of enjoying nature and lots of picture-taking!
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The Mallard story is wonderful. I am glad you reached a walking goal. As for driving and doing more walking from here would be unobtainable. I drive around 10,000kms a year 😂
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Glad you liked my Mallard story Brian. Their facial expressions and the head tilts made it a fun story to write. I have been making a goal the last 10 years – before that I just walked in the neighborhood and didn’t walk as many miles as I do at parks. Oh, I converted that – that’s a lot of driving you do every year! I bought my car new in 2009 and it has taken all these years to get to 11,800 miles (19,000 km). Also, I’ve worked from home since 2011, so no racking up miles there either. My last car I had for 21 years and only had 80,000 miles (128, 800 km) on it as I took the bus and caught it the end of my street.
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I bought my ute second hand in 2008 with 47,000km on the clock. It just had it’s 770,000km service 😁
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And I thought I took good care of my car and had longevity with it .. that’s a lot of km/miles (478,000).
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I hope the Mallard Mingle festivities was fun for the ducks! They are ringing in the new year with style.
Congrats on accomplishing your miles, posting your 1900 post, and photographing new birds and animals this year!! I hope you photograph a rainbow in 2024.
Linda, wishing you the best this coming year and thank you for all the encouragement and support you give me. They are special indeed!! God bless you.
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Thank you Esther – I was happy to make my goal once again. I was lucky it was so mild the end of this year so I could make up for lost time when we had a lot of rain earlier in the year. I just told a fellow blogger in Australia who posted a rainbow photo the other day that my friend/fellow blogger also posted a rainbow and challenged me to find and photograph one too. I should have put “rainbow” as an addendum to my Birdie Bucket List. 🙂 You are welcome and I am happy to give you support and encouragement and an “Atta Girl” for shouldering what you do … I admire you Esther. I hope the ducks enjoyed the Mallard Mingle. I guess it technically wasn’t a “ladies night out”, but they were two hens getting ready to bring in the new year, so I bent the rules a little bit. Hope this is a better year for you coming up.
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Yes, Linda! No pressure on the rainbow picture but I think you’ll take a good one when you find it. They are so pretty to see but hard to find and fleeting.
I so appreciate you “atta girl” encouragements! It gives me a boost to keep going and to feel affirmed. You’ve done that for me since the beginning. Hugs!!
Keep your witty titles coming…they are funny and good.
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I know … I will take a rainbow picture Esther – maybe not this year, but I will find one. I never go outside after the rain during the week as I’m working and after work, if the rain stops, I don’t think of it. Why is that? I have some chalk art rainbows to use. Not my own, but I saw them at a church – drawings on the sidewalk leading to the church and it was for Mother’s Day service. I saw them and stopped and took pics and tucked them away for a special post this year. I am happy to give you encouragement – you have great moments with your kids and then such sadness at other times. I know you are strong, but sometimes you need someone to prop you up. You’ve got a great set of kids Esther … I am proud to be “Aunt Linda from afar” having never had kids of my own, nor siblings and had now-estranged cousins that I only met as a kid.
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So many good memories, good stories and good photos! Thanks for taking us along on your journey. So many miles!
I didn’t notice the 12/31/23 thing. Good catch!
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Thank you Zazzy! It was a good year for photos and for marking miles – given the nicer weather the last month, I should have gotten more miles, but the drizzly and foggy mornings put a damper on walking daily over the holidays. I wish I could take credit for the 12/31/23 and “123123” stat, but I heard a story on the radio saying that wedding chapels were inundated with marriage requests and renewing vows because of the unique, once-in-a-century date. We have several little non-denominational wedding chapels around, so I guess everyone thought it was a pretty good idea – once in a century, can you imagine?
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Linda, if you and I were those two girlfriends, I would be Mandy and you would be Mallory. Right? That’s such a cute story for the new year!
Congrats on all your accomplished goals. 12 books in a year is a lot! I like your selection.
Do you make New Year’s resolutions?
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Hi TD – yes, you would be Mandy and I’d be Mallory. Although I was more like Mandy when I was younger, as I was very vain and readily admit it. Since working from home, I’ve become a lot more lackadaisical in how I go out the door. 🙂 I’m glad you liked the story of the two Mallard. I was watching them while taking photos and between the long side-eye glances and head tilts, I knew there was story to be told.
Thank you – I have to make a new Goodreads goal for 2024 and maybe I should go to 18 books for this year, which might be more manageable, and go from there after that. I started the one book in this group and never went back to it and it’s been since 4th of July holiday, so I’ll have to start it over. I’ll do the new goal after I finished up here.
I did make a few New Year’s resolution. My word for 2024 is “time” and I hope to be better at time management by year end. How about you?
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I don’t make a New Year’s resolution. But I do like to choose a word for the year. My 2024 word is”walk” and Yorkie’s word is “more”. No exact quantity. You are our inspiration!
18 books sounds reasonable! I just recently picked up a book Summer at the Lake by Andrew M Greely (who I have never heard of) from the Free Little Library down the street.
I loved the mallard tilted head photographs too! It’s a funny look on a duck! 🦆
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“Walk” is a good word and I highly recommend it. 🙂 There is a fellow blogger who sometimes pops on here to read/comment on my posts and she was inspired by my walks, so when her job closed down during the beginning of the pandemic, she embarked on a daily walk/run and documented it with photos. Rather than use her blog to showcase the photos, she posts them on Instagram.
I did go and sign up for 18 books on Goodread – more manageable and hope I don’t have to adjust it halfway thru the year!
The mallards were putting on quite a show for me; yes the head tilt looked funny, but pet birds do it all the time. 🙂
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Congratulations on your walking goal ! I hope you see a bluebird, they are beautiful. I have only seen one once but a friend of mine sees them regularly. Happy New Year!
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Thank you Susan – it’s a good thing we had such great weather the last few months as I was not on par with what I usually am in Fall each year. I hope to see a bluebird – we have them here in Michigan, but they go South every Winter. I follow a few birding sites and they say if you have a sturdy nesting box, bluebirds will come there. Happy New Year to you too Susan!
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Happy New Year and best wishes with your 2024 birdie bucket list!
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Thank you Linda, same to you! I have almost given up on seeing an owl, but then I don’t prowl around too much at night. The Metroparks have a few nighttime excursions where they go looking for owls and you carry a lantern. I’m not sure I’d like being in a dark woods though.
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We did an “owl prowl” when our boys were pre-teens; there were a lot of people, but few owls. The thing I remember most was our youngest getting a case of the giggles when someone did a spontaneous “owl call.” (We often say the youngest was blessed with the gift of inappropriate laughter.)
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Ha ha – yes, that would be funny. Everyone is peering up at the trees to see an owl and all of a sudden they hear a “whoo, whoo, whoo”. 🙂 The owls probably see the crowd at the “owl prowl” and say “let’s go somewhere else for the evening.”
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Mallory the Mallard – love that. And “gobsmacked” is one of those words that sounds like it means (the name escapes me). As for the 2023 recap, I’ll admit to enjoying a few of Elin Hilderbrand’s books but I shied away from the one you read because a friend said it was more “for the ladies”. Finally, 1,900 posts is a lot of posts! My affection for round numbers insists you make it to 2,000, which at your pace should happen in about a year. As for me, 500 is my lofty goal. I figure by that time – somewhere in 2025 – I will have either moved on to other writing endeavors or succumbed to AI, which already has me wondering if the blogs I read are “live” or “Memorex” 🙂
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I was trying to think of two names sounding like “Mallard” … I liked “Mallory” too Dave and Mandy was meh, but my original choice “Matilda” didn’t seem right either. This wasn’t one of my favorite Elin Hilderbrand books, but it did have a few twists and turns. My favorite by her was “Summer of ’69”. Funny you mention getting to 2,000 posts because I am going to aim for that goal next year. You’re right, with a 2X a week posting schedule, I’ll be slightly over, but I may delete a few of my earliest posts. I started my blog in the middle of Winter and, after a very lengthy post about why I was blogging, it was snowy weather, so I didn’t walk, so I just put up a few quotes … so I can easily remove those. I am like you and like round numbers. I liked doing the “50 years later” posts, so I may do one for 1974, a trip to Spain with friends of the family in the Summer of ’74. Please don’t move on to other writing endeavors and leave your blog behind. I wonder as well about AI becoming the new “blogger” too. AI is become too big for its britches as the saying goes.
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“Summer of ’69” is Hilderbrand’s best book IMHO but it’s different than her many “summer reads”, and it has a specific audience. Unless you were a young person in the 60s or 70s you really can’t appreciate all the story has to offer.
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I agree with you Dave. Her “summer reads” are more fluff IMHO, a little disappointing. Over the years I used to read Danielle Steel a lot. Her books were enjoyable, but then she started churning out three-four books a year, all “chick lit” and variations of the same story line. I bought two books by Steel this year – the plot looked interesting for both and yes, they were an easy read, but all too predictable, so I likely won’t buy any more.
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Congrats on achieving your walking goal, Linda. Awesome accomplishment!!!
I am hoping you get to check off some more birds from your birdie bucket list this year. Bluebirds are very common here in PA. It seems like these are a “gettable” bird. Snowy owls might be tougher. They are an interruption species. Some years we see them, but most years we don’t. Now is the time of year to look for them, though. Through March, I think.
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Thanks Laurie! We’re finally going to be getting some snow next week – too bad because I never am usually still walking 4-5 miles in December/January.
I know we have bluebirds here in Michigan. My friend/former HVAC guy who owns a Wild Birds Unlimited store has a lot of feeders and nesting boxes in his backyard and gets Bluebirds nesting every year. I tried to find a Snowy Owl a few years ago when one was sighted several times in Downtown Detroit and at Point Mouillee which is not far from Lake Erie Metropark. I’d be happy to see a Northern Saw-whet Owl which are often seen around here. I’ve seen Radar, the Great-horned Owl at Oakwoods Metropark Nature Center, but I’m hoping to see one in the wild.
Happy New Year!
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Loved your clever mallard best friends story, so perfectly illustrated! Congratulations on making your walking goal — I felt sure you would! 🙂 And even if you didn’t reach your reading goal, you still read more than you would have if you weren’t pushing yourself along. So happy you got to see the trumpeter swan, the wood duck and the pied-billed grebe. You’ve never seen a bluebird??? I do hope you get that one this year!!!
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Happy New Year Barbara! I’m glad you liked my mallard best friends story. 🙂 When I saw the photos of them with the head tilt and side glance I figured I’d do a funny narrative to go along with the preening shots. I was happy to make my walking goal and when they said an El Nino Winter, I figured no problem but then we had two solid weeks of early morning fog and rain.
You do have a point about the reading. I was lucky to have that three-day stretch and read non-stop since I had no internet, so that prompted me to keep going until I just stopped … lots of things going on in the Fall with the groundhog/possum, then the flooding debacle and other things – I don’t know where the time goes really. I signed up to read 18 books for 2024 and have not opened a page yet. As I put this post together I wondered what new birds or critters I’d see this year and at least I crossed a few of my bucket list. I know we have bluebirds here because the guy who owns Wild Birds Unlimited shows his nest boxes and even a bluebird peeking out. They put up bluebird nest boxes along Cove Point at Lake Erie Metropark and the tree swallows took them over. I hope I see one in 2024 too Barbara.
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Congratulations on reaching your walking goal, that truly is a huge accomplishment! Don’t you just love watching the mallards? You took some awesome pictures Linda! I really enjoyed looking at your slideshow.
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Thank you Diane – I am lucky it was such a warm and snow-free November and December. I was able to bulk up the miles then. It looks like I will fall behind this week and next weekend though with all the snow that is going to be happening this week. I’m glad you liked the mallards. These two mallards were so funny the way they were preening and when the one ended up with a feather on her nose, I had to laugh.
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This was awesome. What a fun update. Nice job on your walking goal. Congrats on your blog posts too. Wow. that’s awesome. Your “Critters list” is fun. I like that idea.
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Thank you Kirstin! I had fun creating the update. Every year I set a goal for my walking miles, adding just one mile more each year. When it was 2019, a fellow blogger from British Columbia, challenged me to do 2,020 kilometers since we were entering a new decade. That was more miles than usual, then it was COVID in 2020 and I worried I wouldn’t make my goal. With the erratic weather becoming the norm, now I stick to one more mile than the previous year’s goal, rather than what I actually walked, to keep it simple. I only post twice a week usually (I made a mistake last week and published two Wordless Wednesdays), but when I first began blogging I posted more, but with less photos. I hope I get the critters on that list someday – a girl can hope (oops, did I say “girl”?)
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Congratulations on your milestones! Yes, I’m laughing at your miles driven – in my new life, that’s about 3 nights! I am also killing it on books read (or at least listened to). But you have it all over me in blog posts and critter sightings/photos.
The opening story was great, and I was glad neither of the characters ended up with egg on her face. 🙂
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Thank you JP! I was proud of my walking stats, even my driving stats, meager as they are to a seasoned mileage-maker driver like yourself. That is funny – three nights of driving. I messed up my books goal and so I put 18 books to read this year – hopefully that is a more manageable goal. I have a lot of books at the house to read now, but I am going to consider a Kindle with audio on it for down the road. I took a lot of photos in 2023 so I ensure I won’t run out of photos/walks over the Winter months. I am glad you liked the Mallard Ladies prepping for the party and I laughed at your last sentence. 🙂
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