Sadly - Lots of Flags

The small town of Elgin, Oregon is situated in the rural country side on the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains. It is about 60 miles southeast of Walla Walla, with about 2,700 people living there at an elevation of nearly 1,700 feet. It has a large lumber mill and a small Elementary School.

Stella Mayfield is the elementary school there and it is located along highway 204 as you enter the town from the west

Each Memorial Day weekend the students place small flags on the lawn in front of the school. Beside each flag stands, unseen, the soul of a soldier that died in the Iraq war - one flag for each soldier whose life was taken away too soon.

The front of the school lawn is covered and the flags extend down the far side of the building. The Iraq war, for the most part has concluded but other conflicts still rage on.

On this Memorial Day pause for a moment and say thanks to those who gave their all, regardless of which conflict. It is very sad to see so many flags.

Let us know if you have any questions

All the Best
George and Deanna

May 18th Bluebirds

Tom Scribner and I made an excursion on Sunday May 18th for the purpose of checking Bluebird nest boxes and replacing any that might be damaged. This short post contains a few images from that trip.

We headed east out of Walla Walla past Pomeroy and turned south on Sweeny Gulch Road just before you get to Alpowa Summit Rest area. The circle in red on this image indicates the general area where we were.

This is a Male Mountain Bluebird very vibrant blue in color. On this particular trip we only saw Mountain Bluebirds no Western Bluebirds and for some reason no Tree Swallows. We always find a few Tree Swallows utilizing some number of nest boxes.

We are at a little higher elevation about 3,600 feet and we frequently find these Cassin's Finches. Very striking birds and at one point we saw a flock of about 14 Cassin's. Neat birds

This is a very old and worn out nest box. It has lived well past it's usefulness. Tom took this one down and we replaced it on the post with a new one.

Now it gets to be fun. The clouds rolled in and it started snowing, that nice spring corn snow. The road and the surrounding ground was turning white. Who carries chains for their car in May? Glad we have 4WD.

Accompanying the snow was a big drop in temperature. It got down to 34 degrees and keep in mind this is the middle of May. We both looked at each other, laughed a bit and questioned "What the heck are we doing here"

This gives you a little perspective on the snow. There were nesting Bluebirds in probably 80 percent of the boxes we checked with either eggs or young bluebirds. Many nestboxes had Bluebirds sitting in front or adjacent to the box so we just left those alone.

Tom is checking another box. It is starting to snow harder now. Who said checking Bluebird nest boxes was dull and boring?

We hope you enjoyed this collection of images. Understand that checking Bluebird Nest boxes is not always such a memorable experience. This was a fun day, really.

Let us know if you have any questions

All the Best
George and Tom

Just Some Images

Here are just a few, somewhat interesting images. It is 5 degress here on this almost mid February morning and we don´t want to get out for a walk just yet so we thought we would look at some older images and let our thoughts wander here inside where it is not so cold.

This image shows two Sandhill Crane landing. The picture was taken at Whitewater Draw in Arizona a couple years back. It is a wonderful well known habitat wildlife management area where thousands of Sand Hill Crane and lots of other bird species spend the winter. The Crane towards the top of the image is a juvenile, last seasons young, you can tell that by the lack of red coloration on it´s head

The dead plant is an Arbovitae. It was located along a fence line two houses away from us here in Walla Walla. The specific spot in the ground appears to have a virus of some type as earlier attempts at planting in this same spot netted the same result. The owner had this plastice skeleton and placed it adjacent to the dead plant. Interesting image and I call it - We Commiserate.

Several years ago I went out to chat with a local wheat farmer with the intention of placing a couple of Barn Owl Nest Boxes on his property. In the workshop he had one of his large combines being worked on and this lab liked to sit in the tire well and watch the goings on. Just a fun image.

Cave Creek is one of the many regional parks around Phoenix Arizona. This Sajuaro cactus is situated along one of the numerous trails in the park and is nicknamed The Michelin Man because of the growth pattern.

On one of our many travels we were driving up I-5 in Northern California and Mount Shasta was presenteing itself in all it´s beauty. The crystal blue sky really accentuated the blowing snow. Looks a bit cold to me.

We were out driving along Johnson Hollow Road just east of Dayton, WA during the wheat harvest a couple years pack. At this point we are higher in elevation than Walla Walla and there are lots of windmills sited to catch the wind. We thought this was an interesting image with the wheat harvest and the wind mills.

Feeding the kids - here is a female Mountain Bluebird bringing bugs, which appear to be grasshoppers, into the nest box to feed the growing bluebirds. I spend some time in the spring, summer, and fall with a friend, Tom Scribner, building, placing, and cleaning bluebird nest boxes. It is a fun hobby and of great benefit to the bluebirds.

This seemed a most fascinating image. It was taken on a neighborhood walk and shows a puddle of oil after a rain. The oil dripped from a vehicle and the rain water does not mix well with the oil. I enhanced the colors by saturating them a little but I was surprised at the variety of color that showed in the image

Some of you may have seen this image before. It is of Palouse Falls a State Park here in Washington about 75 miles north of Walla Walla. There was an individual that intentionally went over these falls in a Kayak and as I recall all that got damaged was he broke one of his paddles. I believe there is a you tube video showing this feat. This is obviously a panaoramic photograph and it was taken with a smartphone. Seems you don´t need fancy equipment to get decent images.

This small insect is a Praying Mantis. There are over 2,400 species of praying mantises found all over the world. They are very beneficial in the garden as they eat a lot of other detrimental insects. It won´t be too long and the garden will get going and we might be able to find some of these insects hunting amongst the leaves, quite honestly I cannot wait.

Here is a Female Northern Harrier taking flight. You can tell it is a female due to the brown coloration. The male of the species is gray in color. These were called Marsh Hawks and can often be seen flying low over wetlands in search of food. They are a slight cross between a raptor and a owl in that they have very acute hearing and can detect prey by listening for them.

We hope you enjoyed this disparate collection of images. It is for us a nice respite from the cold and snow outside.

Let us know if you have any questions

All the Best
George & Deanna