Autobahn vs. Audubon

What's the difference between life in Germany and life in Maine?

Swans in the backyard = Germany.

Wild turkeys in the backyard = Maine.

Walk This Way (Or, the BFMF Virtual Tour)

Now that spring is here in fits and spurts I've been able put aside exercise DVDs and get outside to exercise.  So, screw you Tony Horton and all your P90X friends who invaded my cold, cold basement to mock me with your freakishly taut faces and cement-filled pecs and glutes. Perhaps, yes just perhaps, it's possible that I'm slightly bitter because after nearly three months of looking at this man's Grecian Formula dyed noggin I am still unable to do one pull-up. And how pathetic that my push-up prowess seems to max out at five (and if we are being completely honest, my form goes down the crapper after the second one).

Tony's motto is, "Do your best, forget the rest." My motto is, "Hey, it's better than nothing." You know that part where Tony breezily says (between his 29th and 30th pull-up) that most people give up waaaaay before they've reached their max burn?  Yeah, that's the part that usually finds me and my tuckus plopped on the sofa couch flipping through decorating magazines from the 90's.  Thanks for the tip, Ton hon, but I'll think I'll just sit this round out while you and your fellow aerial gymnasts slash aspiring actors slash brain surgeons slash Miss Utah runner-ups slash GAP models circa 2003 grunt out another set of one-handed, reverse spin pull-ups with a bench squat breather in between.  Hey, whatever happened to the stencil craze anyway??

I have a walking loop that takes me around both our lakes and is about 7 miles start to finish.  One foot in front of the other - that's an exercise routine that I can manage.  I even got a blister so do not get all up in my face Horton and accuse me of cowardice when faced with building core muscle mass cuz I limped my spare change back home like the true Nike geriatric advertisement that I am.

View BFMF Walk in a larger map

The loop starts at the southern tip of Lake Fasanerie and winds around past the swans...

to the northern tip where the retirees hang every day drinking beer and shooting the scheisse.

 

From there we knock off a few decades and pass the skate park which is basically a living testament to the gospel of Ed Hardy and Converse.

 

Then we get to the grilling area.  The accursed grilling area where my best intentions of living a healthy lifestyle filled with organic-cotton underwear and wheatgerm-garnished entrees is diabolically undermined by the aroma of charred flesh speared on metal skewers.  I am concurrently repulsed and yet drawn like a moth to a hickory-smoked flame.  Few people understand the woes of a vegan wanna-be with an Achilles heel for cased meats and lighter fluid-laced meat. Sigh.

Fortunately, the scent of shish kebab is quickly replaced by the nostril tingling odor of freshly churned manure. What's that you ask? Why, again, do you call it BumFeldmochingF*ck? Observe...

Past the cabbages and the turnips we hit Feldmochinger Lake.  Same procedure as Fasanerie except that there is an all-nude sunbathing area at this lake unlike Fasanerie which seems to top out at topless.  Yup, I peek.  Every. Time.  And I always think of my younger brother who was 14 the first time my family traveled to Europe.  While walking through a public park in Switzerland rife with topless sunbathers he suddenly and inexplicably faced a reoccurring wardrobe malfunction.  His shoelaces kept coming untied.  And untied.  And untied.  My father finally figured out that every time my brother bent down to retie his laces, he was sneaking a covert underarm gape. Clever boy.  Still works like a charm.

After my gawker stalker lap around Feldmochinger Lake I trace my steps backward until I end up here...

This is approximately 200 yards from my house.  It is a rescue / observation station that is replacing the old, small rescue shack.  It's big and my sinking fear is that there are plans to put a little snack bar on the lower level.  Which means cased meat. Grilled. Wafting. Waiting. Oh so patiently waiting for my triumphant return. Unless I go all Winona Ryder and glut myself to the point of puking on Farmer Fritz's five-finger discounted rutabaga, I could end the summer significantly larger than I started.  Looks like I'll be seeing you in November, Tony.

Happy Mother's Day!

Spring is in full force on our little Lake Fasanerie. Mother ducks have already started to hatch their broods and the swans are busy building nests and laying eggs. I saw the first nest on Monday tucked up right along the shore line. The mother was sitting proudly, the father patrolling the surrounding water. Across the lake, another swan couple was canvassing the shoreline. Sure enough, by Wednesday they’d claimed their stake and were busy decorating their new nest with sticks, twigs and grass.

Besides the joy that comes with seeing nature work its miracle, the swan nests have provided an added health benefit for me. I’m more eager to get out there and exercise because I’ve become so emotionally invested in the swans and their eggs. I play games with myself. Yesterday I decided to do as many loops as it would take for one of the swans to get off her nest so I could get an updated egg count. It took me five laps (just over 6 miles) before one of the lovely ladies hauled tail and went for a little dip in the water.

Apparently, swans lay anywhere from 3-10 eggs usually separated by two days in between. My last count has one nest at 2 eggs and the other at 5. The gestation period averages between 35-40 days. So, come June, we’ll have at least seven small, sweet swans swimming around. How’s that for alliteration?

I’m personally hoping for at least nine cygnets so I can name each one after the Fellowship of the Nine.When I was an early teen and well into Lord of the Rings, reading and rereading it obsessively, a stray cat that we'd christened Gray Lady had a batch of kittens under our back porch. As I recall, it was nine kittens but a lot of what I recall is not 100% historically accurate. Shocking, I know. However, the number of nine does make for a better story so let's just go with nine, shall we? Good. I immediately declared myself Namer of all things Kitten. Fuzzy little Frodo, Gandalf the Gray (he took after his mother), Aragorn... My little sister had another idea entirely. At the time, she was reading the Big Book of Bible Stories and she thought the kittens should all have biblical names. Ruth. Rachel. Abraham. I mean really, if it comes down to Abraham or Aragorn what cat would you want covering your back?

I don't think Gray Lady and her offspring stuck around long enough for the issue to ever get resolved. It's been a gaping hole in my childhood development ever since. So come on swan moms - keep a laying and give a girl a little Legolas!

 

Update: as of this morning we are up to eight eggs. Thanks Moms! And Happy Mother's Day!

Seventh Swan Sob Song

As I was out partaking in my daily constitutional yesterday, I scrutinized the sights and the sounds of the lake as is my wont. Our lake is inhabited by a huge goose population, a colony of ducks and six beautiful swans. Swans, as all girls who have weathered the love-lorn teen years know, mate for life. Our lake swans carve out separate areas of the lake for themselves careful to maintain a suitable distance from other couples. And even though the male and female can be quite a distance apart at times, it is always easily discernible who is with whom.

Except yesterday. Yesterday there was one swan who seemed to always be alone, drifting in the middle of the lake. It was so unusual that I stopped and did a pairing up of couples. Two. Four. Six. And Seven. The swan did not have a partner.

Maybe it was the overcast day, maybe it was the first hint of homesickness, but I was so touched by that lone swan. I created this whole story in my head about how he had lost his beloved life companion one crisp fall night when she unknowingly swallowed a plastic six pack tab some hooligans had tossed into the water (recycle people!). All this poor swan wanted, nay desperately needed, was a compassionate ear to help hold his pain. The other swans ignored him and the ducks wanted nothing to do with him. Not even the uncool Emo ducks who hang out on the fringe of the lake where they probably smoke reed all day. Futilely the lone swan would swim toward a group of ducks only to have them turn tail and paddle off in another direction. Again and again. It was heartbreaking. Simply heartbreaking. I worried about the cold weather approaching. Who would keep him warm at night? Could I make a nest out of an old wool blanket and nestle it in some bushes? Can you get more teen-motional than that? I nearly cried I tell you.

When Thomas got home I shared the sad plight of the Seventh Swan with him and then I did something really pathetic: I told him that I was that Seventh Swan. We were as one. Floating alone in a lake full of people who ignore us. Surrounded by ducks who don't speak our language. Without family. Without friends. Facing a long, lonely winter ahead. Yeah, so then Thomas pretty much felt like crap too. That kind of made me feel better.

I went to the lake today to check on my Soulmate Swan and imagine my surprise when I counted TEN - yes ten swans. Divide by five and you get TWO. Every swan had a partner! So now I figure the real story probably went something like this. Big Swan Partner Swap this weekend. Maybe Sienna Miller isn't the only one who thinks monogamy is over-rated. Really, shouldn't swans be able to give in to their animal instincts once in a while? And now I think the Swinger Seventh Swan got into town a few days early so he could get a head start on scoping out the other bloke's birds. Pig.