SHELTON AND RALPH

While we are on the subject of former pets, I thought I would post a photo of Shelton and Ralph herding ham ham, the hampster.  And, of course, Shelton with his head in the garbage can.  He was a great dog.  I really miss him a lot.  And Ralph was a sweetie.  Border Collies are amazing dogs.

AVERY

Avery just started preschool.  Here is a cute picture of her.

And I sent her some mustaches that she just loves!

ODE TO KITTY (OREO)

Last year, about this time, I had to put our kitty, Oreo, to sleep.  She was 19 1/2 years old!  She was born in Connecticut summer of 1988.  She moved to California with us in 1993 and then to Utah in 2007.  That was a hard move for her and her health started to deteriorate quickly.  She was having seizures and didn't look too great.  In fact, Meriel has just recently compared her to Grizabella, the glamour cat, from CATS.

She was a good kitty.  Here is a picture of her in Connecticut.  She liked to sleep in the sink.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to flip the photo around.  Sorry.

A lot to catch up on

I know it is no excuse to say I have been too busy to keep this up-to-date.  But it is true.  So much has happened and every time I sit down to write, I get distracted.  

This week I have spent the ENTIRE week getting ready for Trek.  I am in charge of all the food for 90 people in my ward for 4 days.  That means putting together a menu, buying the food, finding a place to freeze and refrigerate everything, finding coolers to put all this food in, packing it up in the coolers and boxes and putting it in the trailer, then leaving Monday morning at 4:00 am.  Then cooking it all at camp!  Of course I have help, and I am enjoying it, but I am very tired.

So, I owe blogs on these things at least:

Trek, when I return.

New Jet Skis - what a blast.  We have had them in the back yard for two weeks and have been able to ride them almost every day.

Our fabulous visit with Littlejohns, Wyatts, and Christensen on July 3.

Huntsville 4th of July.

Meriel running in the Wasatch Back with members of the Holt clan.  I still owe her pictures.

My visit with Uncle Bill

My trip to Denver with my Mom, Uncle Bob and Aunt Nancy, Jarl, and Price to dedicate my Great Grandmother Lula McDaniel's grave.

Rachel is in New York staying with Laurel.

My trip to Disneyland with Laurel and Avery and Ashton.

And of course, our exciting trip to Jordan and Israel with our wonderful Danville/Alamo friends.  

I promise to get to it soon!

The Couch Bike

Our neighbor, John Tanner, made this cool bike.  I was driving down the street and saw Price getting a ride on it.

Israel Birds (Not more Bird Photos!)

We had a great time in Jordan and Israel. I was so happy to have taken my Cabela's 8 x 42 Binoculars along. And many folks on the bus were jealous because I was the onlyone seeing stuff up close. The guides didn't really like me because my attention was always wandering around the area looking for birds and other details. Binoculars are the tour guides' worst enemies and you will never see them on the packing list.

So, I honestly did not know what I was going to be seeing. When we got to Amman it looked so dry that I honestly didn't think we'd see any birds at all. The whole of both Countries is packed with common sparrows. So many that i think this is what God fed to Moses' people in the desert. Sparrows are everywhere and one gets sick of seeing and hearing them. Picking through the sparrows to find real birds is the job at hand.

Then at the Karak Crusader Castle 

I saw a little bird from about 200 yards away. I thought the bird had something in its beak. 

So I ran toward it and got a good look at the best bird in the Middle East in my opinion, the Hoopoe.

Unbelievable! And when it flies, the black and

 white striped wings are horizontally striped.

And then we went to Wadi Rum, where Lawrence of Arabia campaigned and where the movie was filmed. I saw some Tristam's grackles. Great songs.

Crossing the border 

into Israel, I saw a 

Common Kingfisher above a canal,

 

and a Crested Lark in the dust near the border fence.

Israel is chock full of water (they get 80 percent of the water from the Sea of 

Gallilee/River Jordan 

and Jordan gets 20 percent). So there are lots more birds in

 Israel. In Joppa I saw the first of many Palestine Sunbirds. 

I thought they were hummingbirds but they don't hover. I looked up hummingbirds online and found out a VERY interesting factoid. Hummingbirds exist o

nly in the Americas! Wild huh?

Then on Mount Carmel I saw the first of many Eurasian Jays. 

And then later in 

the day in the Valley of Armegeddon, I saw some Kestrals. Everywhere in the Country are Hooded crows, the second most common bird. 

In that valley there are so many Kibutz's, or Communistic Farms, and there are fish ponds everywhere too. An amazing show of water in such a dry place. But there were so many birds around the ponds, especially Spur-winged Plovers.

At the Sea of Galilee I saw a European Goldfinch 

and many

 

Yellow-vented Bulbols (at Capernaum),

 

a Squacco Heron 

on the lake, and a European Greenfinch

 on the Mount of the Beatitudes.

At the Jordan River, we were blessed to watch three Pied Kingfishers, 

right next to the group discussing Jesus' baptism, and then one very pretty White-breasted Kingfisher.

As we traveled up to Jerusalem I saw many pairs of Red-ringed Parakeets. 

Once in Jerusalem, the Masked Shrike's increased in numbers.

And then the highlight of the trip. 

Coming back from Bethlehem, through the security 

wall at the check point, we stopped in a hillside olive grove. I saw a flash of color even before I got off the bus. And was rewarded with a group of ten, yes ten European Bee-eaters, sitting on the power lines above the olive tress, eating bees, of course. They were beautiful.

There were many many more birds but these were the highlights.

Duck Weekend

April 6th was General Conference weekend. As we sat around watching both Sunday sessions of conference, I had some time to scope the lake. It has really come up a lot over the past few days. That day the highest part of the lake was just past the east end of the house, and a perfect view from the back windows of the great room. Keep in mind that the lake is still frozen, so as the temperatures rise, and the lake fills from the several streams that feed it, the only clear water is on the tips of the three fingers of the lake, one of which goes right by us. So, with the

temp hovering around 30 degrees and snow flurries off an on all day, with periods of sunshine, we had over two hundred birds behind the house on the lake and in the marshy areas, feeding. I began cataloguing all the different varieties. About 14 American White Pelicans, dozens of Canadian geese, 

tens of American Widgeon, 

tens of Mallards, twenties of Northern Pintail, 

twenties of Green-Winged Teal, 

twenties of Gadwall, 

about 6 Cinnamon Teal, 

about ten Ring-Necked Duck, 

two Northern Shovelers, 

three western grebes, 

two Common Mergansers, 

three Red-Breasted Mergansers, 

3 Canvasbacks, 

two Redheads, 

and ..... a pair of WOOD DUCKS, make and female. So beautiful. They only pass through Utah, on their way north, but they graced us with their presence, and hung around most of the icy day. The sun came out around 3 p.m. and they looked great in the sun.

Watching over it all for a couple of hours was a Pacific Peregrine Falcon, 

sitting in the tree behind the house. Amazing day. Truly, all the possible ducks that could have passed through our area, did,

 except the Blue-Winged Teal.

It was so great watching that huge group of ducks swim about, feed and interact.