CROCUSES AND CRANES FOR EASTER

CROCUSES FOR EASTER...

...AND SANDHILL CRANES

Monday,  49 degree F, wind ESE and variable, calm with some gusts.  The sky is partly to mostly cloudy at present after being clear an hour ago. but it is a nice morning (since it isn't snowing).
   Our quiet Easter Sunday was greeted by crocuses blooming in the gravel debris on the edge of the guest driveway.  Tough blossoms, those.
   And on a short getaway drive at noon yesterday we came across three Sandhill cranes out on Highway K.  Two were doing a courtship dance while another looked on.  Andy had said more than a week ago that he had heard cranes, and he certainly did, as these were in a huge hayfield about a half-mile from the Larsen camp.  
   We love to see cranes, as they remind us of our time spent in Nebraska, where we watched them on the Platte River every spring.  These Wisconsin cranes are an eastern flyway subspecies of those we watched in Nebraska, and are a somewhat larger race of birds.  Those we saw will nest here.  The Nebraska cranes stop along the Platte in early spring on their way to Canadian, Alaskan and Siberian nesting sites.