18 February 2018

With many activities every week, our afternoons and evenings can be very busy.  Abe and Helen have been helping out by making dinner once or twice a week.  It's a huge help.  This is a photo of Helen making Five Cheese Penne, one of her favorite meals.  Now we just need another driver. . . 

We ate breakfast together Wednesday morning for Valentines Day.  We had to eat early before Abe left for seminary.

Helen made this cute banner.  It says "I 💗 friends, music, books, piano, violin, food, family."

Our high school boys basketball team won their league championship on Friday.  Two of our next door neighbors are starters on the team.  Our whole town has enjoyed cheering them on this season.  Brandan and Abe went to the game Friday night.  This is a photo of the team cutting the nets down after the game.  You can see Abe in the left of the photo.  Look for a blondie with a blue sweatshirt.

Eighty percent of the migrating birds that use the Pacific Flyway pass through Klamath Falls, Oregon.  We made a day trip on Saturday to visit Klamath Falls for a guided bird walk that was part of the annual Winter Wings festival.

 The bird walk went along the Klamath River for about a mile and a half.  It took 2 and a half hours.  Bird watchers are not in a hurry!  Gibson found this shelter along the river.  The river is also a popular fishing spot.

 Our guide had eagle eyes and could spot unusual and interesting birds hidden in the bushes.  He would focus his scope on the birds and we could all take turns admiring their unique coloring.  Our guide would point out subtle characteristics, like pink shading on a Townsend's Solitaire, or the differences between a dark eyed Junco and an Oregon junco.  He pointed out a group of trees where a colony of Black-crowned Night Herons were sleeping.  We wouldn't have seen them at all without his help, but there were 170 of them.  Birding for a day made us realize how much we walk past without noticing.

 Here's a photo of our group.  Even the least skilled birders among us (Becky!) could spot the five Great Blue Herons flying along the river and the Red Tailed Hawks launching themselves from a bluff above the river.

 We learned how to distinguish Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes and Buffleheads which are three different kinds of black and white ducks.  Buffleheads are our favorites.  With their oversized heads, they are easy to identify.

 

Abe, Helen and Gibson took several side trips along the trail as the group stopped frequently to look at birds.  Here is a photo of Gibson and Helen in front of the waterfalls for which Klamath Falls is named.  The kids also liked throwing rocks into a canal that ran along the other side of the trail.  The water in the canal was frozen in many places and their rocks sounded like raindrops hitting a tin roof. Occasionally a rock would break through the ice with a satisfying smash.

After our bird walk we warmed up inside and ate our picnic lunch.  We brought along some of the Taiwanese candy Sofi sent us for Christmas.  This package of mango gummy candy was delicious.  The grenade gum she sent us, however, was hazardous to chew.  A piece of it makes your whole face turn red and your nose run.  Of course, we all had to try it, even after watching Abe suffer for 5 minutes until the heat wore off.  

 After lunch we drove to the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge along the Oregon/California border.  Although we enjoyed seeing birds along the river, we wanted to experience the Pacific Flyway and see some of the millions of birds we had heard about.  We saw thousands of snow geese, scores of swans, two bald eagles and plenty of other birds we don't know the names of.  We also saw this Golden Eagle, helpfully perched in a tree along the road where we had a clear view of him.

It snowed for about 30 minutes after church today.  It's the most snow we've had this winter.  The snow has all melted now.