Fiddlesticks!! Crap!! Oh, Mon Dieux, and all those other Expletive Deletives!!!!!

Today I have good news and bad news (at least that is the way I look at it).



First of all, we were heading to town to do some business. I always take my camera with us now, because I have learned that we can sometimes spot a hawk or a rainbow or any surprise when we least expect it.



So as we were chatting in the car, up ahead I see a bunch of ravens on the side of the road, down a little embankment.



I turn to my husband and said: "I bet there is road kill....a deer or something down there...because look at all the ravens.".


I no sooner say that and we are exactly at the spot on the highway and I look up to see a gigantic EAGLE right there! I yell at my husband: "STOP the car! I gotta get a picture of that beautiful eagle!" So he does and I grab my camera case and camera out, take the lens cap out and fiddle with the buttons....


NOTHING~! Black!!


I swear!


He now has gotten the car back to where the eagle is still there, standing magestically.


I fumble and try the camera buttons again.



Then. I. realize.





Last night, before I went to bed, I had removed THIS:




Oh, yes.

It was my Panasonic battery pack.

Still at home, plugged in and recharging.

I could have cried. So, I lament and go on and on about how stupid I was not to check that I had everything in the camera before we left, etc. My poor husband is trying to console me....telling me that we have seen a lot of eagles this year and he is SURE we will get another chance again soon....and reminding me that we went out in the woods yesterday and got some terrific shots, etc. etc.

So, okay...I finally get over it and remind myself to ALWAYS check my camera before I take in anywhere in the future. I chuck my camera and case in the back seat of the car, and we go on our way.

But wait.

It gets WORSE.

On the way home, we are laughing again about my blunder.

And up ahead, there are 4 cars pulled over on the highway.

I tell my husband: "Oh, oh, maybe there was an accident or something?"

I see a woman kneeling down on the shoulder, like she is taking a photo of something.

I get a sick feeling in my stomach.

We stop the car....and to my right, within a STONE's throwing distance..................is......................

TWO beautiful HUGE gorgeous MOOSE standing in the woods.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Son of a b....tch!.........................................................................................

I have been waiting my entire life to see a moose up here AND to capture it on film.

Let's just say.........................I was thrilled to see them, but SICK that I had a nonfunctioning camera to capture them.

Let's just say...
today was not a good day to buy lotto tickets!!!

Anyway, to make ME feel better, I am going to post some things we DID see and capture yesterday when we went into the U.P. spring woods....

First, before we left home, we saw a visitor at the birdfeeder!:

A Rosebreasted Grosbeak:

Then, I told my husband my goal was to find some Trilliums at the end of their life cycle, because they turn pink then and are very pretty. We found a lot of them:

And a simple moth on a dandelion was really fun to capture, too:

We found a pink flowering crab tree at a country cemetary too, that I just HAD to capture on camera:

Now, take a look at THIS photo. Do you see an animal hidden anywhere in it?:

Oh no, the brown you see on the upper left of the photo is NOT the side of a deer.

Here is the photo of it a little closer. See his head? So, what is it?:

A Sandhill Crane! (One of my favorite large birds!):





I would expect to see him in a field or by the water...this one was out in the middle of the woods where they had done some logging nearby. Isn't he huge? And beautiful?:

Later that night, after we got home, we took our usual walk around the neighborhood and down to the lake. We saw another set of geese with their babies:

So, we really had a great day..............................................YESTERDAY!!!!

But of course...that was when I actually had BATTERIES in my camera.....(sigh!).........................