A weekend in....

Sorry, they didn't have the lights on... But this - and the fact that on a Saturday afternoon there is not a single car or pedestrian on the street - is not to suggest that a weekend in Lafayette needs to be boring....

!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!
(For readers of Llew and Gemma's blog, please skip the next section)

It was a Mexican weekend with extensive cooking and a big party at Robin's house on Sunday night. There will be a more detailed report on Llew&Gemma's blog but here is a quick preview of the wonderful food...


A highlight for the Australians present was the purchase (at a supermarket! can you believe this?) and lighting of fireworks.

Llew and Lugh were equally fascinated....

And then it rained in Lafayette.... But the avid readers of my blog would naturally know that, having repeatedly and compassionately observed the weather pixie in the sidebar over the past weekend.

Monday afternoon (Memorial Day allowed us to also include this rainy day in the weekend) the rain stopped for a while and I went to check out 'Celery Bog'. This nature reserve is only a couple of minutes walk from the house. Nestled between Interstate 52, Wal-mart and a golf course on one side and a big housing development on the other side, this small refuge is surprisingly isolated from the noise of the town.


The landscape is dominated by swampy bogs. The trees are mainly dead, yet the whole area is teeming with wildlife.

I was greeted by the resident duck family paddling leisurely across the lake.


This - let's just call it 'funky bird with red patches on the wings' - was one of the more colourful or the numerous species of birds.

But also on the side of the path there were things on a much smaller scale to discover.



A clumsy bumble-bee.


And who would have thought - coming from the land of the most spectacular spiders - it would be possible to be to find a spider on a footpath in West-Lafayette and be fascinated, even stunned for minutes.


Again, I know neither common nor scientific name, but isn't it so cool how it has all those little baby spiders on its back!!! (Silke, maybe you could help us here - just checking whether you read the blog ;-)))

But that is not all. Even mammals live in Celery Bog.

This is an (admittedly bad) photo of a deer I encountered on a footpath. Startled by my presence it escaped in long arching jumps across a shallow swamp. It made a wonderful image with the arcs of splashing water in the light of the setting sun - but by the time I had my camera ready I could only take a photo of its wagging tail disappearing in the scrubs.


The little bunny rabbit was a much more rewarding photo object.

Shortly before returning to civilasation I saw this little Muskrat in one of the ponds.

Collecting green branches in its mouth it was duck-diving to - so I would assume - reach its burrow underneath the banks.
(Back in Australia I will definitely use this as my standard platypus shot ;-)))