Althouse: Sunrise on Lake Mendota — 7:04

December 4, 2021

Sunrise on Lake Mendota — 7:04 — what am I laughing at?

Ducks! I am easily amused. Sunrise. Ducks ducking. What more can you want?

It goes to show you don't ever know.

29 comments:

rehajm said...: What a big smile...nice.; 12/4/21, 8:17 AM
What's emanating from your penumbra said...: It’s the secret to happiness and the opportunities for that kind of happiness are everywhere.; 12/4/21, 8:27 AM
tim in vermont said...: Were the ducks 'sublime,' or 'ridiculous'?; 12/4/21, 8:59 AM
Original Mike said...: Watching ducks feed with their ass in the air is amusing.; 12/4/21, 9:24 AM
Original Mike said...: We get to watch a couple of duck families grow up each summer at the lake up north. They start out with cute little ducklings following mom around in the spring to teenagers midsummer to adults by fall, still paddling around as a family. Very pleasant.

Then comes duck season…; 12/4/21, 9:36 AM
Friendo said...: Beautiful: you, the scenery, the sincere smile, the music. All of it. Have a terrific day!; 12/4/21, 9:38 AM
john mosby said...: Watch each card you play, please play it slow.

Don’t you let that duck, duck down….

JSM; 12/4/21, 9:40 AM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Is it true that president Biden said Golda Meir asked him to mediate the 6 day war between Israel and Egypt?

Wow. How come Althouse never blogged about this tremendous historical event.

I’ve looked and found nothing 😉; 12/4/21, 10:11 AM
Mid-Life Lawyer said...: Lovely. That video looks like a snippet from an independent movie. My wife had just posted a video of her feeding ducks at a local lake right before I saw this. Something is afoot.; 12/4/21, 10:16 AM
Scot said...: A wild duck hits my funny bone every time.; 12/4/21, 10:34 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I never feed the ducks. I was just observing them completely vertically positioned, asses up.; 12/4/21, 10:40 AM
Original Mike said...: Whenever I'm on the pier the ducks come over, presumably wanting to be fed. We don't feed them. There's a problem with swimmer's itch at the lake, supposedly created by all the duck poop.; 12/4/21, 11:09 AM
David Begley said...: That’s a crazy head of hair you got there lady.; 12/4/21, 11:10 AM
narciso said...: well golda wasn't prime minister till 1969, it would have been during the other war; 12/4/21, 11:23 AM
rcocean said...: Ducks are always good for a laugh. Chickens aren't really funny in real life, but are good for Jokes. Wild Turkeys and Geese can be comical too.

Crows? Not funny. Swans? Not funny. Sea Gulls. Not funny. You can like them, but they're not comical. Dont' know why.; 12/4/21, 11:51 AM
Owen said...: I recently was told by a neighbor (who keeps ducks) that ducks can drown. Yes. It's not only physically possible, it does happen. She claims that in a recent heavy storm she lost several that way.

I consider this information to be life-altering. Since childhood who has even imagined it to be so?; 12/4/21, 11:54 AM
Craig said...: You look so happy! Good for you, Althouse.; 12/4/21, 11:56 AM
MadTownGuy said...: Why a duck?; 12/4/21, 12:09 PM
Mid-Life Lawyer said...: "I never feed the ducks. I was just observing them completely vertically positioned, asses up."

I get it. The duckness of it all. My wife, however, does often feed the local tame ducks, many the white variety, on Saturday mornings at the town lake that is really more of a pond if you ask me. This morning, she filmed them as she walked up and laughed when they heard and recognized her and ran toward her quacking. Our original plan for this morning was that I would do a sidewalk and paved trail run that would end approximately 12 miles later at the pond where she would have been wrapping up her nature walk with the ritual feeding of the town ducks at about the same time I lumbered into the area. But, it is sneaky humid here today, and I'm pretty beat up by the tempo run of Thursday, the Yoga class Thursday night, and even more so by the ninety minute traditional Thai massage of yesterday afternoon, so I just ran a six mile loop closer to the house. My hips are tighter when it's humid. I think it's arthritis related but I'm just now figuring that out.; 12/4/21, 12:15 PM
dreams said...: Althouse looking good, aging well.; 12/4/21, 1:11 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: comedy gold Jerry; 12/4/21, 1:17 PM
Lucien said...: MTG:

Whya no chicken, whya no goose?; 12/4/21, 2:21 PM
Gospace said...: Crows? Not funny?

There was a problem up in the Boston area. Crows were continually getting hit by trucks and the highways were littered with crow carcasses. Curiously there weren’t any widespread reports of automobiles having the same problem. The highway department hired a group of distinguished ornithologists from nearby universities to study the problem. After a few months of intensive study and observation of the problem they reported they had found the problem but didn’t yet have a cure. When the crows were feeding on carrion on the road they had lookouts in nearby trees and on wires. All the lookouts could say “Cah! Cah! Cah!” to warn the feeding crows, but none of them could say “Truck! Truck! Truck!”; 12/4/21, 3:36 PM
Unknown said...: Nice laughs!; 12/4/21, 4:46 PM
Original Mike said...: "This morning, she filmed them as she walked up and laughed when they heard and recognized her and ran toward her quacking."

I had fun a couple of years ago dropping coins in the duck-food-despenser at the Queenstown municipal gardens. Drop in a coin; the ducks came scurrying over expecting to be fed. Drop in another coin, much quacking ensued. Another coin, more excitement. They never did get fed…

Qwack, qwack,…qwack!, qwack!, qwack!; 12/4/21, 7:01 PM
gpm said...: Stop dumping on (not my auntie or gramma) Golda!

The name's not pronounced (or even spelled!) the same, though many have done so over the years. We're Scots, dammit, not Jewish (not that there's anything wrong with being Jewish). And, in my old age, I still have traces of the Celtic ginger from my youth.

Says George (named after my Scottish grandfather that nobody in the family knew) Mair.

Don't get me started on my mother's German Catholic family on the South Side of Chicago.

--gpm; 12/4/21, 7:55 PM
Meade said...: If you find a girl who looks at ducks like that, marry her.; 12/5/21, 3:40 AM
Narr said...: I did, Meade. I did.; 12/5/21, 10:48 AM
Paul From Minneapolis said...: "Them comes duck season..."

I don't know, maybe your cabin lake is home to some lucky ducks, but any family of ducks I've observed over even a week seem to lose ducklings at a pretty rapid clip before the hunters come into play. Lots of critters will chomp a duckling.; 12/5/21, 12:58 PM