Birthdays, Migraines, and Wildlife

The last weekend was both busy and slow.  Saturday we collected The Child and visited my folks to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  He'll be 90 next year; when that happens, we'll have to plan a large celebration with fancy food and champagne and maybe a Mozart Quartet... Or something.   This time around was a modest affair with immediate family.  

Sunday started out typically. Mark and I had talked about getting up before dawn and going to Delta Ponds to try an spot some more beavers.  I woke up around 6 AM, peered between the blinds at what I thought was an overcast morning, groaned, and burrowed further under the covers.  

Around 7 AM I did toddle out of bed and found Mark in the living room.  The sun painted high clouds magenta, and the waning full moon hid behind the two pines to the west.  I realized I was a Bad Husband for keeping Mark from his early morning nature walk, and said that we should go—but Mark said we could go in the evening.  

After breakfast, I thought I'd join a Zoom writing session of folks I know, but then I got a blind spot in my vision as I was trying to catch up on social media on my phone and the next thing I knew, there was a vibrating spiral of blue lightning in the middle of everything, which put the kibosh on reading or doing anything requiring sight.  

I ended up napping outside all morning on our deck furniture.  In the sunlight. It got up to 65F.  This is two weeks after the snow and ice storm and about a week of temperatures in the mid-20s.  I think I might have gotten a mild tan.  

Luckily, my aural-migraines aren't too bad; although my eyes didn't feel like they were focusing properly until the mid-afternoon.  I convinced Mark to go to Delta Ponds a little early, and we headed out around 4PM.  Mark thought we were there a little early, but as we were walking along the place where we'd seen a beaver the week before, I heard a nibbling sound, and there was a great big beaver sitting on the bank just below the walkway stripping the bark off of a twig.  Mark saw a smaller beaver near-by.