Snow

I was eating a lunch under a tree Tuesday and there was some cold turkey breast on my plate.  While I was securely covering my Coke can so that a bee could not get into that, the yellow jackets that were out, seemed more interested in the food on the plate.  One landed on my meat and when I took out the camera to take some close-ups, I noticed that he was not eating the meat or drinking the juices – he was cutting off a small chunk of the turkey and then flew off with it!

This is a yellow jacket – really not a bee, I think, but a version of swarming wasp.

More Snow…!

Just ten hours later:

So, even this snow was unexpected – we had a good fresh four inches covering everything.

Well, I linked up with a visitor from S Dakota and we went onto Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles this afternoon.

The weather was absolutely superb – almost better than last Saturday morning! And I was home at 7.30 again.

This morning I was wondering how “cool” paddling would be – the temperature was only 65ºF when I put the kayak in the water at the northern beach on Lake Calhoun.  There was now wind however, and a bit of rowing kept me perfectly warm!

The first photo in this little gallery that shows the bridge, is my best paddling photo ever – it contains the crisp clear and fresh lake air, the blue sky, the tranquility of the trees and the life of the city is shown by the runners enjoying nature.

On the way back from the braai we drove through Eagan where we used to live and saw a lot of storm damage from early Saturday morning!

Everywhere  homeowners and city workers had pulled the broken branches to the curbside for pickup by the city in the coming week.

Large parts of the metro were without power, but where we live, the storm seemed to miss a heartbeat – we just had a little rain!   How lucky can you be!

On Hyland Lake – while waiting for some fellow South Africans to arrive for a Braai.  The water was a bit choppy with a slight breeze, but the kayak handled vary well.

There was quite a bit of branches in the water from the storm a day before.  On the north side of the island in the lake, several trees were down or badly broken by the storm.

The little water turtles enjoyed the sun on the pieces of driftwood, but as soon as I can close, they would dive into the water…  just to appear a few seconds later as almost curious little nose tips and eyes above the water.

As summer seems to dwindle, the days are getting shorter – by now it is virtually dark at nine in the evenings.  And the available hours for kayak trips are shrinking alarmingly fast as well.

So even though it was a bit early to get up, I had to take advantage of the current warm weather we are having and so I was out on Fish Lake in Eagan at 6.30am this morning.  This is truly a very special way to start your day…!

Early morning on Lake of the Isles.  The water is like glass and everything is super calm – totally the oposite of my previous thunderstorm experience on this lake!

At the ceiling of the bridge I spent the thunderstorm under, a bird (swallow maybe) had built a nest, suspended from who-knows-what.  Three little heads can be seen with some imagination and the mom is sitting on something left of the nest.