Beginning of last night’s hike:

End of last night’s hike:

Only accessible via kayak, Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge – just across the bay from my beloved Occoquan Bay NWR – has long been on the list of places I MUST visit. In fact, I’ve been pestering Mark to buy a kayak for some time now, just so I could get to Featherstone. So when a Friends of the Potomac River Refuges board member organized a kayak trip out there just after a brand-new kayak rental company opened nearby, I was all over it. Mark and I were the only people to sign up, which is everyone else’s loss because the weather was GORGEOUS and there were bald eagles soaring over our heads the whole time, and basically the day was simply perfect. AND I got to explore a new refuge!

I was a bit nervous about taking a camera kayaking since we are beginner kayakers, but it didn’t me long to talk myself into taking my mirrorless camera, which is weather-sealed (and therefore can withstand some water falling on it) and it’s not going to Africa with me, so if I destroyed or lost it, I’d be upset, but it wouldn’t affect my Africa budget. I’m very glad I took it because although it sucks at taking pictures of moving objects far away and therefore I didn’t get any clear photos of soaring eagles, look what we saw up in a tree we paddled up under, sitting still and posing for me:

As we kept paddling around the tree, it soon become apparent that eagle wasn’t alone!

Eagles apparently don’t mind kayakers. They will usually fly away if you walk too close to one, but we paddled very close to this pair and they acted like we weren’t there.

My trip to Featherstone lived up to my hopes and then some, plus Mark enjoyed it too and now he wants to buy a kayak after all! Can this spring GET any better?!

For eight years, Mark and I have lived 10 miles from Manassas National Battlefield Park, where the two battles of Bull Run were fought in the American Civil War, and in fact we drive through it all the time on Lee Highway, but I’ve never visited it. I’m not interested in wars, and if I were to pick a war from American history, I’d be like Mark and choose the Revolutionary War, because a fight for independence is something I can get behind, whereas the Civil War just makes me sad. Moreover, I couldn’t grasp how a battlefield could possibly be anything but hot, overly bright, and buggy – from Lee Highway I can see people trudging along the grass under the glaring sun on hot summer days and I just picture them hot, sweaty, and bored. And really my perception isn’t all off because the vast majority of it does look like this, minus the interest of the trees on the right:

Then one day last week it was raining after work and, annoyed, I was procrastinating getting on the treadmill, which I hadn’t had to resort to using in days because the weather had been so gorgeous, by scouring the internet for new bluebell stands, when I came across people talking about some stone bridge on the battlefield. This interested me: water, old bridge, bluebells? I was deep in bluebell ecstasy at the time and committed to heading there straight after work the next day, when, lo, the gray clouds suddenly parted, the rain stopped, and the dazzling sun streamed into my eyes. Tomorrow, I asked myself? HECK NO! I grabbed my camera bag and was out the door two minutes later. And what do you know, but 20 feet from Lee Highway, I DID find bluebells by an old stone bridge!

It turns out that the area directly around Bull Run itself is wooded and the Stone Bridge Loop trail, though short, is actually pretty idyllic.

Especially when the bluebells are blooming.

If you followed Bull Run downstream a few miles (which you can’t actually do on foot), you’d end up in Bull Run Regional Park, my favorite place for bluebells.

I was so happy that night I was literally running through the trail – camera gear and all – trying to take it all in before the sun went down when the next thing I know, A BARRED OWL FLEW OVER MY HEAD!! I’ve only ever seen one owl in the wild before but I’m ALWAYS looking for them so I was beside myself with excitement…though slightly annoyed the longest lens I had with me was a 24-105mm, as I was expecting to take bluebells photos, not wildlife. But he did land on a tree and pose for me for several minutes and I went home totally elated.

Turns out the boring old battlefield DOES hold some interest for me!

Scott’s Run Nature Preserve

A month’s worth of April showers are being dumped on us right now. It’s dark, gray, and very, very wet. So here is a picture of falling water in a more appealing format:

From Scott’s Run Nature Preserve.

Horned Grebe (this guy was totally charming: he’d swim under water for several minutes, then pop up somewhere unexpected, swim above water for a few seconds, then go back below again):

Common Merganser:

Double-crested cormorant:

Muskrat!

On Conn Island, from the Maryland side of Great Falls. The gray blobs sticking out of the nest are babies.

From the nest at Occoquan Bay NWR:

April is nesting time for many species. Most animals are extremely wary of others getting near their eggs or young, but I met a Canadian snow goose the other week at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens that let me walk right up to her nest.

After carefully arranging and checking the eggs, she settled down and preened, although I decided she was doing goose yoga.

Who else has been tending to their eggs?! The bald eagles, of course! This picture is from a couple of weeks ago; I’ve heard the eaglets have now hatched. I can’t wait until they start flying!

And yes, although they don’t come in eggs, it’s baby raccoon time as well! Taken two weeks ago, this is one of Emmy’s babies. It was 5 days old in this photo. Emmy is a wild raccoon that was rehabbed by Dogue Hollow their first year, so she’s ten years old. She’s also a great mother and has raised orphan babies for us in the past. In fact, when a neighboring mother raccoon left her den for too long last week, Emmy couldn’t stand the babies’ crying and trotted over and “rescued” one before the other mother returned!

Speaking of Dogue Hollow, a very kind reader alerted me a while ago of Amazon’s new “AmazonSmile” program. All you do is pick your favorite charity, then start shopping at smile.amazon.com instead of www.amazon.com and Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of many of their items (nothing I have bought in the last few months has not been included) to that charity. I’m not going to spam you and beg for money (although we desperately need some!), but this is really a free and effortless way to raise a little money for your favorite charity, and if your favorite charity happens to be Dogue Hollow, so much the better! Make a raccoon happy today!

(If you don’t want to set anything up now, I have created a Helping wildlife page under my “About the author” page that has information about donating to both Dogue Hollow and the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia.)

Warning: the “recipe” for this post isn’t really a recipe and I don’t even have a picture of it. It’s just an excuse to say hello. I haven’t really cooked all month. Mark and I were in Charleston for a week, then he went to Boston for a week for work and came home deathly ill. He’s been home almost two weeks and still isn’t fully better, but at least he’s no longer cycling between being delirious and comatose. The only things he has wanted the whole time he’s been sick are wonton soup and kimchi. Frankly, I’m a little wonton soup- and kimchi-ed out but he’s STILL requesting it. Some nights I fix myself something different because I can’t eat wonton soup six nights a week. But here’s the recipe for making Mark a little happier when he’s sick; it’s actually extremely easy to do:

Wonton Soup
frozen vegan wontons (the Asian grocery stores have many varieties of vegetable wontons that are vegan-friendly, but read the labels)
as much water as you desire broth
vegan “chicken” bouillon – enough for the amount of water you are using
a couple splashes of rice vinegar
a few drops of chili sesame oil
maybe a little soy sauce
if you feel like it, miso

Bring the water to a boil and add the bouillon, vinegar, oil, and soy sauce if you are using it. If you are using miso, scoop some broth out before it comes to a boil and whisk the miso into it, then set it aside. Add the frozen wontons and cook until they are warmed through. If using, stir the miso into the soup. It’s also a great idea to add a lot of grated ginger to the broth, especially if you are serving the sick. Top with sliced scallions if you have them available. And I like to add sriracha to my bowl.

Serve with copious amounts of kimchi. Rather than making kimchi, I bought some. Mark was nothing but grateful to me during his illness, except for telling me I didn’t buy ENOUGH kimchi the first time. But that’s okay, kimchi is really good for fighting germs, so I just went and bought him more.

Yes, I realize this is a ridiculous “recipe” to give you after weeks of radio silence, but believe me, that’s what’s been going on culinary-wise in my house for the last two weeks.

Aside from taking care of Mark when necessary, I have been EMBRACING SPRING. I probably say this every April, but OH MY GOD I have NEVER been so glad to see spring. Last winter was cold, snowy, and STUPID. There is probably some truth to the fact that I’m more glad this year, even over other snowy years, because I feel like I just appreciate life in general more and more all the time. Not that I ever didn’t appreciate life, because I’ve led a happy life, but I don’t know; I seem to actually take the time to be thankful for things more than I did when I was younger. And to that end I’ve spent nearly every day of spring so far in a park, hiking and taking pictures. It feels weird to be sitting inside right now at 5:53, in fact, because I’m usually outside gallivanting around at this time. (I gave myself until 6 to write a post before going out so I’d better hurry up…).

I have felt neglectful of the blog, though. Not that I had any recipes to post, but I still felt as if I wasn’t doing something important to me. SO, I’m going to try to post much more often, BUT until the farmers market starts (next weekend, FINALLY!) and provides me cooking inspiration and/or until the weather turns less AWESOME than its been and I’m not pulled outside like a magnet every night after work until after dark, I’m probably just going to have pictures for you, and they probably won’t be food related. But so as not to be super annoying, I’ll just do one a day. Maybe two…we’ll see how good my self control is. So to start off, I present a few pictures of something that gives folks in this area super spring fever (other than the DC cherry blossoms): Virginia bluebells. The gorgeous usually-blue plant lives in marshy floodplains and is one of the first things to bloom every spring. They peak for a week or so and then they are gone, but while they are around, if you find a place where they are abundant, it’s like being in a wonderland. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. I’ve been bluebell stalking in several places this year, some of them new to me. I’m letting myself post a few more than one picture today just because I’ve been gone a while (and also I can’t help myself when it comes to bluebells).

The pictures tonight are from two parks. The first ones are from Riverbend Park, which I just discovered a few weeks ago (when looking for prominent bluebell locations) and have since fallen in love with. Riverbend has everything: the Potomac River, the Potomac Heritage Trail, woodland trails, a meadow trail, BLUEBELLS, it’s free, AND you can hike into Great Falls National Park, which is lovely, but kinda pricey and the parking lot is often full on really nice days so it’s cool to “sneak” in for free. It’s only about 1.5 miles from Riverbend Visitor Center to Great Falls Visitor Center! I’ve been to Riverbend several times in the last few weeks and love it. And it’s especially great when the bluebells are blooming!

My favorite bluebell spot in previous years has always been Bull Run Regional Park, and even though Bull Run was a near fiasco when I went for my first visit of the year a couple of weeks ago (the trail was so muddy and slick I nearly fell about a hundred times, AND they are doing some water main work that disrupts the bluebell trail in two places and is ugly and constructiony), I have to say that when I returned for the bluebells, it won my heart again. Bull Run is THE best place to see bluebells. If you are local and go nowhere else to see them, go there. I might prefer other parks for other reasons, but for bluebells, Bull Run is #1. There are just ACRES of them. My tip: on the bluebell trail (from the entrance across from the water park), once you get to the water, head left off the trail. There is a very narrow path through the dense bluebells for a while (though it eventually stops), and if you keep going, you’ll find yourself completely surrounded by bluebells for as far as the eye can see. And you won’t run into everyone and their brother walking their dog and taking cellphone pictures while you are off the official path. After enjoying the blue solitude, head back to the trail and finish the loop – it’s all lovely (minus that construction), but there’s nothing like being totally immersed in a carpet of blue.

Okay, I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE now. I will be back, hopefully tomorrow, with another picture or two…although I can’t promise it won’t have bluebells in it.