osprey_archer | Daffodils

Things I have seen while out walking this week:

1. A man with antenna sticking off his bicycle helmet. Or possibly through his bicycle helmet. Perhaps he's a forerunner of alien invasion.

2. Ducks! On the outdoor swimming pool behind my old elementary school, which fills up with rainwater every winter and grows great trailing green clouds of moss. They were a mallard pair, male and female, and I looked around hopefully for a nest, but no luck. I wanted ducklings.

One of the saddest things I ever saw: a lone duckling struggling upriver last spring. Rachel and I tried to coax it close with bread crumbs but it paddled away.

3. Daffodils, all over and everywhere.

Daffodil story: at the botanical gardens in Christchurch, NZ, there's a forest the blooms all over with daffodils and Canterbury bells - just stunning. It's so lovely that it's in the Christchurch calendar my mother bought.

(It occurs to me that this year I get three springs: one in New Zealand last September, one now in Indiana, and a third next week in Wisconsin. I'm the luckiest girl in the world.)

Except the daffodil photo is in March, when of course in Christchurch the daffodils bloom in September. Do they just expect that tourists will buy most of the New Zealand calendars? Or are they so used to reading stories and poems from the northern hemisphere that they feel vaguely that daffodils ought to go in March - just as American authors often feel vaguely that fantasy worlds ought to have European flora and fauna?

Seriously. I want more fantasy raccoons. They have little hands, people! How does this not say "super useful telepathic companion animal" to you? And cuddly, too!