Spring report: longer days, flowering trees and duck eggs

Quick update on vaccine progress this week: Mom and Dad got their second Pfizer shots on Wednesday, and I got my second Pfizer on Friday! They didn’t have much reaction, and I had (am in the throes of) a pretty typical reaction – fever and aches about 18 hours after the shot. The fever was gone when I woke up this morning but I’ve definitely not been at 100% and therefore had to dedicate the day to the very restorative activity of daytime TV watching. Feeling better but I think I can fit a few more shows in this evening! The lineup has been 2 episodes + extras of The Nevers and tonight more episodes of The Spy.

This week there’s been a lot of talk about environmental policy and goals, with Earth Day midweek. I thought it might be a good time to give an update on our solar panels, which readers may remember were installed last August. The energy that the solar panels take in is logged daily on an app that I have, and it’s been very interesting to see that March produced as much solar energy as September, given that March feels like winter here (ok maybe early spring) and September feels like summer. My conclusion is it’s all about the hours of daylight, and September and March are equidistant from the Summer Solstice. Mind-blowing, huh?

I wish this app also tracked consumption, but it doesn’t. So next are some snippets from our electricity account. This is a really fruitful time of year to have solar panels since we don’t have air-conditioning on as we might some days in September, yet we have the long days. Our last monthly bill was $14! We still pay a service fee to be connected to the electrical grid, since this isn’t a system designed for self-sufficiency but as a way of introducing renewable energy to the overall energy mix while lowering our bills. The panels feed to the grid and we take from the grid, rather than providing for our own use. But I think the next charts are interesting in showing that we took in more power than we used in March.

All numbers here are kWh, usage and production in month blocks. I’m very pleased with how this is going – I have to say I was a bit skeptical that solar production in the upper midwest would amount to much, especially in the city with a lot of shade and a crazy roofline.

Trees are blooming with flowers and new leaves here, giving this almost-TreeKeeper (I need to do a pruning practical before getting my badge!) plenty of info to use in tree identification. I’ve been using the iNaturalist app – highly recommended – and have this super fun little book that helps identify trees by leaves by asking questions like: does the tree have leaves or needles? Then guiding you to pages that will ask the next question to narrow down the tree type. Maybe everyone else remembers this from school but I didn’t – this tool for identification is called using dichotomous keys. Fun to say and do!

Now when we go on walks we spend a bit longer looking at trees and making some educated and wild guesses about what kind of tree it is.

More park / spring news… there’s been a lot of male ducks swimming around by themselves in the lagoon, indicating that the female ducks are busy sitting on nest of eggs. A few weeks ago I happened to glance over at a hollowed out tree stump to see a mama duck inside!

Now we can’t help but swing by this spot in the park on walks to assure ourselves all is good in the nest and also in hopes of seeing ducklings as soon as they hatch! So we were very alarmed one day to see her gone and the eggs – to our eyes – dangerously exposed.

We’ve since learned that the mama duck needs to leave the nest to get food and that duck eggs can be left “unheated” for periods of time. Phew! However this is a public park and the weird stuff that can happen, happens. Like with this swan boat broke free from the others and wandered over to the nest.

Needless to say we are very excited for ducklings and goslings to hatch. On that note, here’s a nice twilight view of the park to say that’s all for now and have a good night!