At Home and Ducks

April 13-21– At home and ducks

Once we got home we turned on the water and “un-winterized” the house. It did not take long. However the next day we realized we were not getting any hot water. Turned out we did not turn off the correct breaker to the water heater and the element burned out. Dennis tried removing the old one to replace it and it would not budge. We ended up purchasing a new water heater which was a good thing as there was lots of crud in the old one. We also increased the size from a 12 gallon to a 20 gallon.

Sheila a brought Henry to our house on Thursday (5/13) and he stayed overnight. He went with us to Chippewa Falls for Easter. Sheila came up on Saturday.

Dennis got a call from Carolyn at Kohler Andrae State Park on our way to Chippewa Falls. We were originally scheduled to start hosting at the park on May 15^th. However she asked if we could come earlier so Dennis can help cut the grass. We will now be starting May 1^st.

On Wednesday (5/19) we went with a group to hike a portion of the Ice Age Trail. The naturalist at the Ice Age Center has organized a series of hikes over the spring, summer and fall to cover the entire trail in the Northern Unit of the the Kettle Moraine. The hikes are scheduled every Wednesday. This was the first one. The last one is in September. If you complete all the hikes you receive a special commemorative patch.

We noticed ducks on our lake but they were too far to identify. So Wednesday afternoon we went down to Cabelas to check out spotting scopes. We purchased one for $60 plus a tripod. We set it up in the living room and identified the following:

1. Lesser Scaup
2. Bufflehead
3. Common Merganser
4. Pied-billed Grebe

These are all fairly common waterbirds but it was exciting to see and identify them. I have included a photo taken with my phone camera through the scope.

3 male Lesser Scaups and 1 female Bufflehead