eagle marsh

Mike had the whole weekend off (a rarity these days) and everyone was home (also a rarity). It's the middle of the boys' two-week-long spring break, for which we have made exactly zero plans (per their request to just stay home and chill and play video games the whole time). It honestly felt like a luxury to have this much time to play with. So Saturday we worked on projects around the house, including cleaning out the garage to make room for bikes (yay!) in anticipation of summer maybe eventually finally getting here. And Sunday morning I woke up and decided it was time to get outside ... nevermind the fact that it was the last day of March and snowing.

I woke Mike up, then rousted the boys, and eventually we hit the road to scenic Fort Wayne, where we visited Eagle Marsh in search of birds. We did find some nice specimens, including great blue herons, song sparrows, and robins (and possibly an eagle but it was too far up to tell for sure). The ground was really muddy, though, and covered with a layer of crunchy, icy snow where it wasn't flat-out filled with water. We started down one trail and made it a good distance before we hit an impassible area of flooding, so we had to turn back, then we ended up taking a boardwalk around a different pond that had higher ground and led to a paved path. It was pretty cold and windy, but so nice to be out hiking, even though the boys were much more interested in making as much noise as possible and scaring the birds away than they were in the sedate nature walk I had intended. Come on, spring! We need more nice days because I'm starting to get a little stir-crazy!