My mom lives 4 hours away. I wasn't able to see her today (though I saw her yesterday... she came up for my graduation.) So, my husband and I went on a bike ride. It was the perfect day: sunny and 70. We knew there were some new families of geese and ducks around campus, so we went looking for them. And, we found them all. :)
Follow me below the fold for some adorable pictures of mothers and their families.
The first family was, I think, actually two families combined, because it seemed there were two groups of babies. One group looked older than the other. But, they were all walking together, except for the little runt of the flock.
Some people came up to feed the geese some bread, and they all went running, mom right behind the leader.
From there, we went to see a little family of ducks. Both mom and dad were close by, resting.
I took it very slowly with them, and at one point managed to be laying in the grass on my stomach not more than 5 or 6 feet from them.
When I got up to leave, it scared the ducklings, and they ran right to mom for protection.
While taking some pictures in another location, a police woman on patrol stopped. I thought maybe we were in a place where we shouldn't be, but she just stopped to tell us about a nesting duck. So, we went to see her. She had built her nest in an ashtray!
It was a bizarre scene. Someone had put police tape around the ashtray so that people would know to leave her alone, and someone else (or maybe the same person) had put a box of shredded paper next to the ashtray so that momma wouldn't have to stray too far to find fresh nesting material.
So, there is my tribute to Mother's Day. Share your stories and/or pictures in the comments!