Tonight, a female robin attacked our windows. My guess is that it’s attacking its own reflection. A lot of backyard birds are out, nesting, stealing our herbs, pooping on our deck. Sena saw a Baltimore oriole and we both saw a female goldfinch trying to do the same thing as the robin—bite the screen.
We’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.
I put 2.5 miles on the step counter today walking on the Clear Creek Trail, so my feet are complaining a bit more.
Sena didn’t come with me on the walk today because of some gardening she had to do. She deals with foot issues and has been trying shoe inserts lately. Trimming them is an inexact science, but she got it right. The thing was, her feet hurt even worse with the inserts.
That’s because they were upside down. There are raised gel contours around the bottom for extra support, which have to face downwards in the shoe. They were a lot more comfortable for her once they were in right side up.
I didn’t get any shoe inserts because my new shoes fit pretty well. I walked a little further than usual, moving east on the part of the trail which has a fair number of ups and downs. It feels more like a nature walk (which is on the Make It OK Calendar for May Mental Health Awareness Month).
The trail is paved, but the trees and other vegetation are thick and tend to crowd around both sides. The trees sometime bend in archways across the path.
It was tempting to park my butt on the bench, but just sitting might have invited more flying bugs to buzz around my ears—despite applying enough OFF to defend me and a few other people.
We’ve walked this trail many times, but I saw something a little unusual today. There’s a big old dead tree that looks like a tuning fork.
I set a goal to reach a familiar place that’s high enough and cleared of foliage to see the creek from high above. That’s where I saw the 3 ducksateers: mallards in a line swimming up and down the stream in a sort of aimless way, yet determined to make good time.
After I returned to the trailhead, I heard the camera-shy gray catbird I always hear in a tall shrub right next to the trail. I sat in a bench close by with my camera out. It made the typical catbird noises, which sounds like a collection of whistles, creaks, and meows. But it hid in the leaves and when it burst onto the paved trail, it moved too quickly for me to get a shot.
I think the catbird hides in the trees right next to other birds, like robins, just to misdirect you. And that fooled me today–again. I thought I got a video clip of the catbird—but it turned out to be a robin, hamming it up for the camera like robins always do.
So, I included an old picture of a real catbird I took about a year and half ago.
We hit the Terry Trueblood trail yesterday and caught pictures of several birds including a hilarious family of killdeer herding babies around the parking lot. At first, we weren’t sure how many chicks there were because they were difficult to see in the grass.
Eventually we counted 3 chicks. It was a comical show as the parents, aided by other adult birds trying to be helpful, attempted to round up the youngsters.
Crossing and recrossing depended a lot on the traffic flow and other factors including us. We made them nervous following them around with a camera!
I think most drivers got the hint that we were out filming the killdeer in the parking lot as the adults tried to round up the stilt-legged chicks, who would scatter in different directions. Their only guidance were the calls of adult birds—which we couldn’t reconcile into anything sounding like “killdeer” despite what the books say.
So, I have to hurry up and get these 3 photos posted for today because it’s getting pretty late. Recall the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative calendar along with my photos to share:
The images are important features of events in my life or my sense of humor.
I’m a birdwatcher and many different species of birds visited the fountain. The fountain attracted bluebirds who splashed and even swam in it. That fountain was very heavy. We couldn’t leave it out all winter. In the fall I had to lift the bowls off and move them somewhere else. Moving them entailed lifting them onto bags of mulch so as to reduce the work of hefting them a small distance at a time. The birds were beautiful to watch.
The letter was a class assignment our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher had us write at the beginning of the class. After we graduated, she mailed us those letters shortly thereafter. We were to write something connected with what we thought we had gained or what we thought might happen after taking the MBSR class. The book might seem out of place, and while I can’t talk much about Gordon Strayer, I did meet him and read his book (which is now long gone; probably lost in a move). I admired him. I don’t think he feared death.
The Chrysler Building reminds me of the Men in Black (MIB) 3 movie, and I included it because my sense of humor is very important to me. In the movie, Agent J and Jeffrey Price have this funny conversation about time travel back to an era that was not the greatest for black people. I know because I lived through it. Agent J is about to use the time travel device which involves jumping off a tall building (it’s a “time jump!”). Agent J is preparing to travel back in time to M.I.B.’s early days in 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his friend Agent K and changing history. They have this short conversation:
Jeffrey Price: Do not lose that time device or you will be stuck in 1969! It wasn’t the best time for your people. I’m just saying. It’s like a lot cooler now.
Agent J: How will I know if it works?
Jeffrey Price: You’ll either know…or you won’t.
I haven’t done a juggling YouTube video in a while, and lucky you I made one. When the daily news gripes me or gets me down, juggling forces me to concentrate on just that—juggling. If I break my concentration for any reason, I literally drop the ball.
I’m limited a little in our new house because of the lower ceiling height, risking a throw into the ceiling lights. And I’m still prone to flinging and dropping balls, depending on the trick I’m practicing. So, I go downstairs to practice more difficult juggling tricks.
So, if you need a special kind of focused attention meditation, try the 100-throw cascade.
Well, the forecast was for a very windy day, more windy than we’d like. On the other hand, it was bearable on the Terry Trueblood Trail. However, the forecast is for high winds and hail and we’re not looking forward to that.
The highlight was seeing a leucistic Canadian Goose for the first time. They’re rare. It’s a color variation. The one we saw had a brownish head and white feathers on its body.
It was a great day for bird watching.
It was fifty degrees in Iowa City yesterday so we went for a walk on the Terry Trueblood trail yesterday. Other people got the same idea. One guy was jogging in shorts! Yeah, it’s fifty degrees, but there’s still snow on the ground (in places) and there’s ice on Sand Lake.
About that ice on Sand Lake. It looked thin in places and we could see cracks in it everywhere. But that didn’t stop ice fisherman and others from going out on the lake.
We even saw an American Kestrel! That’s the first time in over 4 years. In 2020, we were out on the Trueblood trail and another walker pointed out an American Kestrel. I couldn’t get a clear shot of it then, but I did this time. I think it’s a female because of the black bands on the tail.
The balmy weather won’t last. We’ll be in the deep freeze next week.
We finally got a couple of videos of a goldfinch! It has been years since I’ve been able to catch a brilliant male goldenrod and it happened last week on the Clear Creek Trail.
In fact, we saw a few birds with the usual idiosyncratic behavior. Goldfinch are rocket fast and hate getting caught on camera.
On the other hand, robins seem to be aware of when they’re being watched and ham it up.
Catbirds also seem to know when they’re being observed and flit away just as I’m getting the camera focused. The one I caught seemed to moon me with its rusty-feathered rump as it took off.
Cardinals also show off and can sit for several minutes preening while you get decent footage.
Birdwatching is a lot like fishing. When you tell others about the whoppers you lost at the lake, it’s a lot like birders telling you about the rarely seen, mysterious birds everyone but experts almost always never see.
And I swear I saw a blue bunting while we were out that day. It flew right in front of me. You should have been there. I haven’t seen a blue bunting in decades!
I almost got the shot.
I’ve been practicing the reverse cascade lately. It’s slow progress but faster than the shower pattern.
You start with the regular cascade pattern and gradually work into making every throw over the top instead of under.
I still do a lot of windmilling. I’ll get there-I think.
We play cribbage and we tried playing using the Muggins Rule the other day. We “muggled” through it is what I should say.
During one game, Sena got the total count wrong, which led to a confusing situation leading to her overpegging and eventually winning a game, which didn’t make a lot of sense.
Most of the problem was misunderstanding how to apply Muggins rule to overpegging. It’s not clear to us how to address that. Underpegging is easier to understand. If Sena underpegs and I catch it, I’m supposed to call Muggins and peg the difference between the actual pegging score and her over score.
She overpegged a large number of holes and got so far ahead, that I couldn’t catch up. What we didn’t understand is that, according to some rules, the player who overpegs is supposed to move her peg back to the original position behind the front peg.
On the other hand, there is more than one set of rules for how play Muggins. The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) has official rules for it, and they say it only applies to underpegging. It applies after you peg.
On the other hand, I can find guidance for overpegging elsewhere on the ACC website, and it covers overpegging. It’s in the Tips Library and interestingly there’s a slang term for it: Hauling Lumber.
“Hauling Lumber – Hauling Lumber (or Timber) usually refers to intentional Over Pegging, which is one form of cheating during a cribbage game. It is believed the term originated due to most boards being made out of wood and the offending player was pegging more wood than what they were entitled to.”
“Overpegging – Overpegging is pegging more points that what you are entitled to take. It may happen during the play of the hand, in counting the hand or by accidently taking more pegs than indicated. If the opponent catches the Overpegging, you must return your front peg to the proper place and the opponent gets to take the difference between what was pegged and the correct total. If you notice your own Overpegging before your opponent, you may announce the fact and correct your front peg to its proper location with no penalty. See also False Claim of Game and Hauling Lumber.”
However, the Tips Library also says this about Muggins:
“Muggins – Muggins is taking points your opponent misses. Muggins points come from one of two sources. If your opponent misses points during the play of the cards, Muggins may be called after a pause to make sure the opponent is truly missing the points. The other situation is where your opponent fails to count and/or take all the points in the hand. Once he has under pegged his hand, Muggins may be called for the difference in what was pegged and the actual count in the hand. Muggins may not be taken in the case of an opponent failing to take his two points when a Jack is the starter card, those points are lost once the dealer plays a card. Muggins is not applicable in the case where an opponent over pegs his hand, see Over Pegging – Hauling Lumber.”
The bottom line seems to be that overpegging is not allowed in Muggins. If you do it deliberately, you might want to haul ass away from the game table.
I wondered about what the term “Muggins” itself means so I made a cursory search for the origin of the term. I found out that the term is connected to the word “mug,” which means fool or idiot. By extension, I guess it could mean that a cribbage player who makes mistakes in the game is thought to be a simpleton.
This is part of the reason why we’re not going to use the Muggins rule anymore. It takes a bit of the fun out of playing cribbage.
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