I am happy to announce that I am now set up in my new studio in the Northwoods, Wisconsin. I packed up all of my arts and crafts, loaded down my little car and drove from Southern California to Wisconsin just as the massive heat came crashing through the palm trees. My little car has been having some engine overheating problems in recent months so I was a little worried about making the drive through the Rocky Mountains. Luckily, the engine almost exploded only twice near Vail, CO and a short pull over with emergency flashers on an enormous mountain did the trick. After chugging into Denver, the drive was pretty much flat and un-taxing the rest of the way up to Wisconsin. I must say that I particularly enjoyed driving through Iowa with its rolling pastoral landscape and wasn’t able to see much of the flood devastation from the route I took through the state. My heart goes out to all of the Iowans and their beautiful country.
I’m way up north in WI and communication such as internet access is a little challenging but I’ve discovered the magic of my sister’s laptop combined with the wonders of the local library which has undergone about 20 years of progress in the course of a year as it now not only has graduated to a computerized finding system (goodbye card catalog) and has traded its dial-up for superfast internet! I do love nature and the woods but I also like staying connected and sharing my experiences so I’m really happy that I’ll still be able to do that.
How else would I give you an update on the eagles? (I’m going to try to get some video, at least, in the upcoming week.) The eaglettes, now learning to fly, have been taking leaps out of the nest. We were worried because (before I arrived) an eaglette fell out of the nest and was hobbling on his wing. We contacted the local wildlife center and they first asked if we could contain it (Yeah right! Eagles are HUGE!) and then they came to take a look at it. They ended up rescuing it and bringing it to their rehab facilities right down the road because they discovered that the eagle had two fishhooks in it. Needless to say, the use of barb-less fishhooks is the number one priority of my Grandma now come the next lake association meeting. So with one eaglette gone, one remains in the nest and he has been quite ardently stretching his wings.
I heard an enormous crash a few days ago and looked up to see this giant winged creature spiral-swirling towards the ground. Well, we all caught our breath and went to investigate. The eagle hopped around, went into some brush and, after about 10 minutes, jumped into the air again and flew back up into the nest. Phew! We think that it’s parent wants it to leave the nest for good, though. It no longer brings it good fish meals – just a couple of morsels every now and again – and so sometimes we hear the eaglette’s sad cries. I guess it’s just part of what has to happen. It’s so interesting to see these huge birds in action, though! More to come!
