Feathers, Scales, Sparks and the Moon

February 20-25, 2024

I really, really love my job as a district literacy coach. I get to travel to schools and work with their coaches and teachers to improve literacy instruction for our students.

I’m passionate about reading, writing, speaking, and listening and I am incredibly lucky to work with the folks here.

But…

It’s a big task and there are so many moving parts.

Stress is inevitable. I can dwell on a problem or worry about a colleague for hours. I try to not take those things home with me.

One way for me to let the day go is through exercise. Another is to practice mindfulness – to be present in the here and now.

When the weather is not great, I have the option of exercising at the Y.

When the weather is clear, I can practice mindfulness and exercise by walking.

My camera helps me stay present. I can’t check out the scenery of my mind is elsewhere. There’s always a moment that I can feel the stress switch flip.

The reward for being present?

Stress reduction means that I am pleasant when I get home. I don’t have to unload the day onto John.

I also get to see some beautiful and incredible things, like a heron catching and eating a water snake. This is only the second time I have seen this – and both times it’s been in this park.

On Friday, John joined me at the Wetlands, which made my afternoon even more wonderful. Some folks pointed out this barred owl – the squirrels were pretty much yelling at it.

Taking our time and looking gives us insight into how animal behavior seems to be changing with the season. The birds here are starting to get territorial – we watched a marsh hen (red beaked bird on the left) chase a coot (white beaked bird) for a minute or two. They’re both paddling birds, so I guess they compete for food. The ibis and herons seem pretty chill with sharing their space.

This young gator was trying to get in on the feather game, too.

The water must be warming, since we saw more swimming gators this week. For the last few weeks, they’ve mostly been basking in patches of sunshine.

We’re also more likely to appreciate the way the light changes throughout the day – and how the big sky in the marina lets us see so much.

My new camera has an incredible zoom lens. John was able to get a great photo of the moon with it.

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A really big and really necessary job is replacing the Xantrex sine-wave inverter charger. When we are plugged into shore power, this charges the battery. When we’re motoring, it inverts 12-volt power so we can use our 115 volt electricity.

Both the charger and inverter died so John decided to replace it.

John removed our old Xantrex from our tiny engine room. The system weighs around 70 pounds and is mounted on the wall. Installing the new one is going to take a lot of finesse since it’s heavy and a little bulky.

The parts of the Xantrex that were supposed to easily tap out didn’t so John had to get out the power tools.

This is an ongoing project.