Sunday, April 5, 2009

Corn bread and poetry and eagles, oh my!

Well, this was a fairly productive weekend. Of course, when I say "productive," I really mean "extremely productive in the kitchen" and, simultaneously, "utterly and completely unproductive elsewhere." Rob and I made some delicious deviled eggs (and yes, I know they're easy to make... but ours had chives in them, which automatically makes them superior), a loaf of honey whole-wheat bread, and some corn bread. And now that I've read my friend Evan's blog about double lemon poppy-seed cheesecake muffins, which sound amazing, I'm definitely going to have to make those, too. I love baking and cooking, but I really need to have some sort of excuse to make large amounts of sugary foods (i.e., a group of hungry people at my house), as I've been militantly going to the gym for a reason (one that would surely be negated by aforementioned sugary foods).

In addition to the baking/deviled-egg-making, there were a few bright spots in the weekend; one was Friday night's poetry group at my house, which is always enjoyable. Some good people, those poets. :) I've been working a lot on my own writing this weekend, too, including a series of poems on individual artists, which has been fun. Another thing that made me ridiculously excited (and now I'm embarrassed...) was seeing a bald eagle from our backyard in Milford; Rob and I happened to be looking out our bedroom window when he spotted one flying over the river. It stopped to rest in a tree right across the river, so we grabbed the binocs and got a bird's-eye view (okay, now I'm just lame). THEN, we decided that it would be even cooler if we could drive over the bridge to Indian Island to get a closer look at the eagle. What can I say? We clearly lead a sad existence; we've resorted to eagle-stalking. Oh, well. Anyway, we got over there, and within ten seconds of being in the field, I managed to scare it away by attempting to get too close. I forgot about their impeccable eyesight. Oops. But on our way home, we actually ended up seeing the eagle again, swooping over the river, and coming to rest in another tree (far away from me, for a reason, I'm sure) with another eagle! I know. Life just doesn't get any more exciting than this.

On our way back to the house, we stopped in the parking lot by the dam in Old Town to watch the river for a few minutes. It was beautiful, in a strange way; the water was dirty and brown (and full of mercury, I hear), but it was mesmerizing to watch the ice floes swiftly fall over the dam and break into smaller pieces, as the sound of the river rushing filled our ears. The sound is almost deafening, but it's really peaceful, too; it's hard to explain. I think I'm going to go back on a warmer and drier day. Speaking of which -- I can't wait for those days to come. I just want to ride my bike and hike in the refuge and be outside, all of the time. I'm not very patient. Winter is frickin' long here.

Uh-oh- I just looked at the time, and I'm down to six and a half hours of sleep if I go to bed right now. Tomorrow's my 25th, so Rob and I are planning to spend the whole day in Portland/Freeport, maybe going to a museum, browsing some shops and going out for a nice dinner. It'll be nice to be in semi-civilization for a while. As much as I love the wilderness, I can't help but miss culture. I wish I could have both, but unfortunately, wildlife doesn't particularly mix well with tall buildings and crazy drivers. ;)

Oh, well.

3 comments:

  1. You're right, it is sad that you're eagle-stalking, but really, what else is there to do in Maine but stalk eagles and watch ice flow down the river?

    I hope you have a happy birthday and enjoy the day in Portland!

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  2. my friend and I sat in her car by the dam yesterday for a quite long time too...it is mesmerizing. seeing the ice come out is one of the world's top phenomenons in my opinion! Happy birthday!

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