Adventures Out Back-- The Main Pond

First I must say that my husband did a great job of finding a home for us! He did it by himself, as I was working in California, and he did it on a very tight time-line-- I'm not ruling out divine intervention here-- this is a good place for us. The house has it's quirks and is not amazing all by itself. What makes it all noteworthy is what's Out Back.

We have a fenced in yard to call our, rented, own but behind our back gate is not another house, it's a park. A wooded park with a walking trail loop-- the typical playground and sports field is on the other side but most of our time is spent surrounded by trees and with spring comes a lot of cool things to see. the next few posts will be about those!

This is the main pond. This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago and the place as greened up a bit since. I left this photo large so you can get a closer look of you want. This shows roughly two thirds of the pond. It's not huge but is not small and lots of folks live here.

The nesting goose is one of my favorites for many reasons: 1) she's always there so I look forward to seeing her 2) it's neat to watch her nest (not quite as passive as one might think-- still a lot of sitting though) and 3) I'm really looking forward to goslings! The thought makes me beam inside.

And if you look behind and to the right you'll see the Heron-- not the best picture, I know, he's on the other side of the pond. He's more of a visitor than a resident-- but pretty awesome. That day I watched him catch two fish. They wriggle as they go down his throat!

I went out on the first really sunny day we've had in a long long time and was surprised to see turtles... we had never seen them here before. There are 9 in the photo above and as I sat I counted no fewer than 25 ranging in size between 2 1/2 to 5 inches long. Times like this I wish I had a telephoto lens/ camera with telephoto lens capability.

These Green Frogs are pretty common (they can withstand higher pollution levels than many other frogs-- and this pond receives runoff from an adjacent golf course) but they typically don't stay still long enough to get a good look. These are the ones that croak a "meeerp!" as they jump into the water to hilarious effect especially if several jump in succession.

I learned that sitting still, and having a nice toasty sun out, will coax them to hold still. A few days later I learned that it's a different game at night!

Me? Impulsive?

It was Tuesday, last Tuesday, almost a week ago. I had just finished puppeteering in a video shoot (for a really cute show about keeping rivers clean-- I'll let you know when I find out the name-- for the California Department of Fish and Game) and I was really really missing my beau. Not just the sad but glad I have someone to miss, no, this was the sad with no redeeming qualities what-so-ever and this wasn't the first day I was feeling this way.

So that evening I'm partaking in the nightly conversation with my beau and he gives me the good news that he had booked his flight to California and it arrives a couple days sooner than I had expected-- this pleases me very much. He goes on to tell that he found a good deal as well-- also good-- and that he was using a popular website to find it but a different website than I usually do so I hopped online and went airfare shopping and landed a $362 round-trip ticket (after all the taxes) and after much deliberation we decided that I should go see my honey! Yippee!

(as a side note: On the SouthWest Airlines website you can find flights after the summer from Sacramento to Detroit for $85 one way-- yeah, I know, awesome-- I luv SouthWest and not just because that's how I found the fella who's gonna be my husband... although that certainly helps!)

So that was Tuesday. My plane left for Michigan on Friday and here I will be until July 4th (the only noticeable holiday the he and I have been consistently able to spend together. The travel was alright (I had a flight attendant that I swear smelled of maple syrup and I got a little woosie from reading during the landing-- then unfortunately was woosie periodically for the rest of the day) and it was so nice to get to see my beau! I just couldn't stand it.

We made several stops on the way to the house which was fun but it was also nice to finally get to see the place. It will serve us very well I think but I think one of the best things about it is that it backs up to a wooded area with a trail that wraps around a pond (not one of those manicured kind... the kind with fallen logs, algae, and bull frogs) and leads to a park. We walked the trail yesterday and it was great. we had to be careful, the baby toads were out and crossing the trail. They were itty bitty bitty about the size of a sunflower seed and, if they were to hold still, two could perch side by side on my thumbnail. I couldn't believe the cuteness! Even the beau hadn't seen ones quite that small... and he's seen a lot of frogs, I dare say he's seen more than the average person. Walking is something we like to do together so I think we'll make good use of this trail... and there has been talk of getting cross-country skis so we can use it in the winter too-- we'll have to see about that though.

When we got to the park, without any known froggie casualties, we sat on a bench together for a small while and as I sat there holding his hand I realized that with him beside me growing old is not a scary thing at all.