A Visit From Suue

The rest of the world knows her as Sue, but to me she will always be Suue (pronounced Sooey) as that's who she was back in our high school days. Her younger brother couldn't pronouce Sue, I think, so it became Suey. At some point she decided to change the spelling to Suue. And, yes, we have been friends since high school, although we didn't live in the same town or go to the same school. But we had a mutual friend, another horse crazy kid, and horse crazy kids will always find each other. A year younger than me, Suue went to the same college and became my roommate in my Sophomore year... and every year thereafter. After college we took different paths for awhile but always reconnected off and on.

Last week, she rambled her way to our farm for a few day visit. And it was just like always... easy and fun. We hiked around the farm on a mostly-non-rainy day. We found some interesting orange fungi on a beaver-killed tree.

 And we drove up Agency Creek Road beyond our farm, enjoying the woods and streams. Suue lives in Maryland now and misses the ferns and fast flowing streams. She volunteers at a wildlife refuge that is all marsh.

Suue was excited to see a whole flock of Gray Jays (I think they've been renamed  Canada Jays) following us along the road. Some of them came down into camera range but didn't sit still very long for photo ops.

 We saw three Dippers in one place, which is unusual except when the juveniles have just fledged and are begging for food. Perhaps these were youngsters from last year?  They eluded my camera. I later considered that two of the three birds might have been the next pair downstream (Dippers have territories about a mile long) meeting and having a boundary discussion with one of the upstream birds.

A few tenths of a mile upstream, a pair of Dippers were preparing for next year's brood... Perhaps one had just flown in from sending the downstream neighbors back downstream.

The female seemed to do a happy dance afterward the nuptials.

The snow was getting too much on the road for our little car, so we turned around and went home. A Red-tailed hawk was sitting in a tree by the road ignoring our silent Prius.

Back home, it was time for Suue to head for Portland and the airport. Her next stop was to visit her 99 year old mother in Arkansas. We look forward to the next time her ramblings bring her our way.