27 April 2025.
It has been quiet on the Girovaga front for many weeks. I see I last posted in February to announce the 2025 editions of our books. Recently I was asked if there was a problem with the blog since a friend hadn’t seen anything lately, so I guess it is time to shake off the dust and revive this thing.
The daffodils have faded and all that remains are the green stems feeding the bulbs for their off-season dormancy and tulips came and went too quickly but in oh-so-stunning display! Flowering trees are giving way to leafy canopies while drifts of pink and white petals color the streets too briefly. The azaleas are gaudily brilliant with rhododendrons coming on strong. Vineyards are in bud, tomato plants cautiously set out, and from gardeners-to-farmers-to-vignerons, fingers are crossed against a late-season frost.
Sleeping with the window open in this rare time when we need neither furnace nor A/C is a treat. Molly and Sven certainly think so. The other night I heard three large flocks of geese passing in the wee hours. Life goes on.
It is mid-spring in the Willamette Valley and the surest sign to me that summer approaches is the appearance of baby waterfowl. We spotted the first ducklings last Monday (could they even have been 24 hours old?) at Fernhill Wetlands and at least three families of geese delighted our walk on Wednesday at Dawson Creek. Makes me smile every time and we take photos of them paddling after dad with mom as rear guard.
As to travel, May will find us wandering in Yorkshire and Ireland. You may recall, if you’ve been reading along for some time, that we planned to go to Ireland in 2023 but mid-trip we took a detour (See Why we are in Switzerland and not Ireland). This year we are resurrecting that itinerary with a week in Yorkshire as a pre-amble with a plan to do with some coastal and countryside walking. We’ll meet my brother and SIL in Dublin for a two-week road-trip mid-month.
We hope you’ll follow along the next three weeks and see what we can find to entertain ourselves. Perhaps there will be goslings and ducklings and surely lambs!
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Have a lovely trip and take warm, water proof clothing.
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Yes! I am eager to see those cute foreign little ducklings and goslings. Cute not matter their origin.
If we could talk to them they would probably be quite shocked to learn that there are things called countries and such a thing as ‘foreigners’. Perhaps the duck and geese mothers would laugh in a kind of beak enhanced chuckle and say that you crazy humans can make up whatever kind of games you want, but mother nature is really in charge, has always been in charge, will always BE in charge and of course she never comments. She just sends us Spring to remind us who is in charge.
Gayle
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