You Little Creep

That's not what I call Kim, but that's the name of a very small and highly camouflaged tree hugging bird. The Brown Creeper. This little bird is hard to see at best and most of the time, you just catch a glimpse of it moving around the side of the tree, then off it goes. It flies to the base of a tree, then climbing the tree in a spiral movement. We only see them in the morning, just after sunrise from about a hour or so. They are kind of hard to find, so don't feel bad if you have never seen one. But keep looking.
It is starting to feel like spring is in the air. It has not snowed in ten days and the sun is melting the ice on the street and birds are singing in morning.

Patriotism

In going through one of this years up coming fair entries, there is a category for a photo that depicts patriotism. I looked through thousands of photo's, enough to make my eye's cross. I had nothing. Then on the way to the wildlife refuge, I saw the sign for the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. For me, this is the resting place of true Patriots. They served our country, to protect and to help make us what we are today. As I drove around the cemetery, it was hard to find one item, that one photo. I found a couple, in a sea of white, an American flag blew in the wind. Just one, among 50,000 plus headstones. I later found out that you can only place flags at headstones ten day prior and ten days after Memorial Day. How did this one survive. Can you believe there is a regulation about that. I wonder how much this big Oak tree has seen. And since the graves are placed around it, I am sure it was there long before. And yes it does seem cold, and somewhat forgotten. But then I came upon "Let It Snow". I know a couple of individuals that are at there final resting at Fort Snelling and in my eyes they displayed the ultimate in Patriotism. Can you define what Patriotism means to you?

Famly Outing

Let me just apologize at the start for the blurry photo's, there's a reason. Since it is the middle of February, snow up to your butt, every deer trail you walk down is rougher then a Alaskan back road. I thought I would spend sometime, waiting for a Hawk or an Eagle to grab something to eat, in one of my spots that are good for that kind of photo. After a couple of hours of nothing, something way out in the distance caught my eye, and I mean why out in the distance. What started out as one dot, turned out to be three Bald Eagles. A parent and what looks to be yearlings. As the yearlings would fly, the parent would check them out. Sometimes it looked like the parent was saying, lets see if you can do this. The parent would roll, fly upside down or just do circles around them. This went on for about 20 minutes, then they formed up and flew off. Not something you see everyday. The next time you look up and see that dot moving, Is it a plane or a bird?

Practice Time

It's that time of year, the mixer is going, the oven is on and the smell of fresh bread is filling the house. Now it is only February, but it is only 120 days till the first fair of the season. And with a dozen or so different kinds of bread each year, the practicing has started. This weekend, is Sour Dough. Now if I can just get Kim to make beer bread!