A Sunday Afternoon Drive

Today Sherwin and I took a drive to Hamer Idaho to the Camas National Wildlife Refuge.

We went there a couple of weeks ago but we Sherwin left his camera home and mine had a dead battery.

We were surprised and a little disappointed when we went back today that we didn't see all of the same birds.

Some may have migrated. But we saw others we hadn't seen the first time.


Above are some falcon that we saw at the entrance. I wonder if they are the same species that are on the Idaho quarter?

Believe me when I say that I am tired of hearing all of the complaints that they put a falcon on the quarter and not an IDAHO FAMOUS POTATO.

To the right is a Red Winged blackbird.

Below is a Yellow Headed Blackbird.




Wow...I have had so many problems getting the picture placement in this blog. I need some tips from you experienced bloggers.

Obviously it doesn't put the picture in where your curser is. Curses!!!








I took the picture of this duck. It has a very scary yellow eye when it is enlarged. Does anyone know what kind of duck this is?

The first time we went we saw two moose. This time with the cameras we didn't see any large game.

There were quite a few of these Canadian Geese but they were hard to photograph because they were too wild and you couldn't get close enough to them. Sherwin happened to catch this one because it was nesting.

There are trails that you can walk on but the road goes along the marshes so you can do a lot of photography from your car which is what we did.

Probably if we had taken one of the walking trails we could have seen some elk, antelope, or moose.

This is a strange duck that we saw with a blue beak. Does anyone know what it is called?

For those of you who enjoy photography, this would be a fun outing when you visit.

It will be fun to see if other birds migrate into the refuge a couple months from now.

Memorial Day Weekend is upon us. This is one of the holidays that reminds me of my father. No...not because he is deceased but because I can remember him dressing up in his Disabled American Veterans Uniform along with Uncle Jim and Uncle Harland on Memorial Day. Then we would all load up in the car and drive to the local cemeteries where they would have a ceremony to honor the veterans. I can remember them having a color guard and gun salute over the graves of the veterans. I can remember collecting up the rifle casings afterwards. There was always something somber and dignified about the ceremony.
I can remember Uncle Harland getting after us kids (Jack, Jane, Denys, and me) about not running around in the cemetery and showing respect to the grave sites. It all makes more sense to me now as I reflect on some of the stories we heard at his funeral. The first year after Uncle Harland died, Mom, Denys, Jane, Judy and I met at the Lincoln Cemetery for the gun salute. Gil Karst, one of Harland's buddies from the war was participating in the ceremony. All of the DAV soldiers looked so old. Gil got pretty emotional as we all did.
In my childhood days we also used to go to Rockland, Idaho for Memorial Day. Grandpa and Grandma Rock had 2 children buried there along with many other family members. It was a time to listen to the relatives recall their favorite memories. It was also a time for having a huge family picnic. Lots of good memories......

Thoughts of Germany

I was recently visiting with some members of the Credit Union while I was helping them with a loan. Somehow the conversation turned to Germany and the Berlin Wall. Anyway, the next day the members came to my office and gave me a surprising gift. It was some earrings that their son had sent them while he was stationed in Germany. The earrings were made from some pieces of the Berlin Wall when it was torn down. They are made from chunks of the cement with some blue paint that was graffiti. They brought them to me in the same envelope that their son had sent them in. Printed on the envelope was the note that they were purchased at the Brandonberg Gate in West Berlin February 1990. They were wrapped in toilet paper from East Berlin which was brown and about the texture of crepe paper. It was one of the finer quality in East Berlin according to the note.

The earrings are by no means precious jewelry but I value them none the less. Actually I was quite surprised that the Worthington's would choose to give them to me. They insisted on it.

They brought back a flood of memories about war, the consentration camps and the photos that Jim brought back from his visit there. What a horrible time in history. The thought kept running through my mind of some quotes that were on a sculpture of heaped up dead bodies at one of the death camps we visited "Lest We Forget" and "Never Again".

I choose to remember the good times I had in Germany and the beauty of the country and the friends I will probably never see again. Those are the sweet memories. But the earrings will be a somber reminder of the history.

Shelley News Flash

Well...I decided to try this blog thing. I hope it works

The big news in Shelley today is that there was a neighborhood lock down. There was a robbery at an Idaho Falls home where the owners were tied up, threatened and forced to help the robbers. The robbers took guns among other items and their car. The car was later found abandoned at the Jamestown LDS Church. Yup....That is where we meet on Sundays. The police did a door to door search of the area. The suspects were armed and dangerous. They were white males. One spoke with a Russian accent. You can read about it at http://www.localnews8.com/ The robbers have not been found so we are all being sure to keep our property secured. One scary thing is that when the news tried to interview the people who were robbed, they answered their door with a gun in hand. The victim thought he was targeted by the Utah Russian Mafia??????????? Have you heard of a Russian Mafia in Utah?