Morning Sounds......

Fenway and I bundle up and go for our first morning walk about 7:00.....winter means we really bundle up because he hates cold weather. So our morning walk is usually quite abbreviated....he does what he has to do and wants to come in for breakfast immediately.

But still our few minutes outside often provides us with a surprise. Sometimes the sun is still coming up over the lake from behind a low layer of clouds...so we see pink, yellow and blue. Morning rainbows. Sometimes the temperature over the land combined with temperatures over the water provide us with ghostly smoke out toward the middle of Lake Michigan.

And today I realized that we are greeted with special good morning noise every day.  There are hundreds of Canadian geese that winter in Port Washington. They gather in the evenings and land in the water at the marina and behind the breakwater. Quiet all night....but as I begin my walk in the morning I realize that I always start to hear them waking up. At first it's just a few geese who begin the honking....then others join in. During our ten minutes outside the noise grows and grows......amidst winter silence.

And then the flock begins to take off in groups as they leave the water and head to area farm fields to forage for their food. We see them during the day as they search for left-overs in area cornfields.

Late afternoon they begin to come back - v formations heading toward the edge of the lake and landing in the water. Again the noise......getting louder as more and more of them head in for the night.

A daily ritual.....and I like the fact that they greet me as I begin my day. Their ritual accompanies one of mine...walking the dog.