It's a Bird Eat Bird World

One of the things I enjoy most about our small backyard is the trees and bushes that attract a wide variety of birds. Ever since getting a DSLR camera with a good zoom lens I have enjoyed playing paparazzi to them.

These are Eurasian Tree Sparrows. They are not native to the US but haven't spread across the entire country as their relative the House Sparrow has. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow is almost only found around St. Louis.

I love the splash of color the cardinals give against the dull winter landscape. Their are a good number of song birds that stay year round here but none as bright as cardinals.

Even the usually brilliant male Goldfinch turns drab in the winter.

There are several thick trees and a large bush near the feeders that shelter the birds. I took the above picture one bitterly cold morning. How grateful that cardinal must have felt for the warmth of the sunshine after a long night! These trees and bush are also why I had little concern when I would see the occasional hawk up in the big tree. The little songbirds have plenty of safe places to hide right next to the feeders. They have as good of a chance at surviving a hawk attack as they would anywhere.

One late morning Keith and I were talking near the back door when out of the corner of my eye I saw a hawk dive into the big bush and birds frantically fly out of it. For a while it flapped around as if struggling to escape. I began to wonder how I was going to free a raptor from it.

But eventually it dropped to the ground and, to Keith and my amazement, had a small bird in its talons. It had actually got one. Keith grabbed the camera and began snapping pictures from the backdoor.

The down feathers are still falling in this picture.

I don't think I have ever had this kind of opportunity to see a wild raptor this close. It gave me a good chance to identify it, which I have a hard time doing with raptors. It was a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.

At first I thought it got a Eurasian Tree Sparrow but after looking at the pictures I think it might have been a junco. They are cute. I kind of hope it was the tree sparrow.

The whole time I had the voice of David Attenborough* in my head narrating the whole thing.

After awhile of taking pictures from the door Keith slowly made his way outside, giving the hawk a wide berth. As long as Keith kept his distance the hawk seemed okay with his presence.

Eventually it flew off to finish its meal in private.

I guess you could say that in a way my feeders feed two tiers of the avian food chain. Though I only intentionally provide food for one.

*I tried to find a link to one of Attenborough's many shows for those unfamiliar with his voice and way of speaking. There were just too many to choose from! He is most well known for his narration of BBC's Planet Earth I and II, Blue Planet and Human Planet. I absolutely love the way he narrates. Look him up on YouTube or watch an episode from one of his series. You won't regret it. (If you want a recommendation, Charlie's favorite episode is "Deep Sea" from Blue Planet. Jane likes the "Grasslands" episode of Planet Earth I, because it has zebras and elephants. If you want my recommendation I would say the "Mountains" episodes from both Planet Earth I and II, but really you can't go wrong with any of them. ;)  )

A White Christmas

This Christmas was our first Christmas by ourselves and only our second at home (though does the first one really count if I can't remember it much due to having brain surgery just before it, and I didn't even post about it?)  I couldn't wait for the break to start! Charlie would be out of school and Keith would be off of work... it was going to be great.

I absolutely LOVE decorating Christmas cookies. I made them a couple of days before so when Charlie got out of school Friday we could decorate them. It was a great start to our Christmas break.

A sampling of our creations.

It snowed!!! Both on the day before Christmas Eve and Christmas day! It was so fun and beautiful!

I never tire of seeing Cardinals in the snow.

Both kids enjoy helping when I make rolls, but especially Jane. I made rolls before church on Christmas Eve so we could have them with dinner Christmas day. I love my messy-haired girl, even if I secretly re-did most of her rolls...

Christmas and fires in fireplaces just go together so well. Everything about the above picture makes me smile.

We had my family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner (pirogis and mushroom soup), read the Christmas story, tucked the kids in bed, explained for the 20th time why they are strictly forbidden from entering the living room without us in the morning, and got down to Santa business.


Christmas morning was great. It always is with little kids.We opened presents, video chatted with my folks in Ghana, and played with games and toys that Santa brought and  the gifts we gave each other.


They get so excited with little things. You should have seen Charlie's face when he found green olives in his stocking (his favorite)! It has been tradition to put olives in stockings but it has always been black, never green. Charlie looked as if he was going to burst with excitement and exclaimed "Santa knows me REALLY well!"




Santa even put a few things in Molly's stocking. :)

And I took more pictures of Cardinals in the snow.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

This past summer we realized a BIG bonus that came with living where we do. On August 21st we were in the path of totality for the solar eclipse. For almost a minute and a half we would experience totality just by stepping outside.

I was SO EXCITED!!!

So I told Deb that she should come join us for the weekend.

And she did.

And she brought her family too. ;)

 I love this guy.

 Can't forget sweet Baby E! Perfectly squishy and those big mouth smiles just melt my heart!

Deb had made "Wild Kratts" power vests that they brought with them. The older boys had endless fun with them and pretending that the little playground was the "Tortuga" (the home base of the Kratt brothers).

They enjoyed them so much that when they returned home Deb made two more and mailed them to Charlie and Jane! A blue vest for Martin and a purple one for Aviva.

 

 Monday was the day we had been waiting for. Eclipse time.

 Eclipse glasses are made to be used looking directly at the sun. So the sun is the only thing you can see when you have them on. Just a deep yellow orb surrounded by black.

The missionaries in our ward joined us for the (most likely) once in a life time event.

 I had also ordered special filter paper to wrap around cameras or binoculars. Checking on the eclipse progress with the binoculars was pretty fun. The tricky part is finding the sun! Think of trying to find an object through binoculars without reference points. Just like the eclipse glasses it is all black. You don't see anything until bam! there is the sun.

 

Over the course of about an hour we would check on the progress. Little by little the eclipse was getting further and further along. As it got close, the air felt cooler and the sky was less bright. The moon was covering more and more of the sun until it suddenly disappeared. We could no longer see the sun with our glasses. They had gone dark.

I pulled mine off and looked up at, what appeared to be, an alien sky. It looked as if some thing had taken a hole punch to the sun leaving a small portal looking out into the blackness of space. I saw Mercury. There was a sunset all around the horizon. I was in complete awe and yet, at the same time I felt a primal fear forming somewhere inside. Excitement, fear, wonder, jubilation all could be used to describe how I felt. Charlie was freaking out, Keith was laughing, and Jane was scared. Then as quick as it had left, the light came back. Glasses went back on and it was over.

A little while after that I watched a TED Talk about total eclipses. The message that the presenter gave was simple: no one can adequately describe it, no picture can adequately capture the experience and a partial eclipse doesn't even compare. You simply owe it to yourself to see a total eclipse in your lifetime.

The next one in the USA will be in 2024. I might have to see another, even if I will have to leave my backyard next time.

Total Solar Eclipse 2017 Merrill family party: The Blacks (Deb, Nate, Manu, D and E), Kathleen and Joe Patrico, Elders Atkin and Seamons, and the Merrills.

Utah Camping

Waaay back in June we took a drive to Utah for a two week vacation, one of which was spent camping in the mountains (Granite Flats to be exact). It was wonderful!!!

We had had Molly for about a month at that point so she came along and proved to be a pretty decent camper, which is good considering the family she has come to. She would get pretty cold in the morning so I would stuff her in my jacket as I got breakfast going until a good sunspot showed up.

I am often jealous of dogs that can lay in sunspots to their hearts content without any pressing responsibilities.

We reserved two sites and for the first part of the week our good friends, the Cleggs, joined us. Their first morning there, Becky pulled out a face painting kit and pretty soon the kids were lined up to get painted. Except for Jane. She didn't want that brush anywhere near her.

It did our hearts good to see a second generation of Clegg-Merrill friendships begin forming.

 Piper, the Clegg's dog, was the first dog that Molly interacted with during her time with us. It was amusing to watch her observe Piper play. It has become pretty obvious that wherever it was she came from, she was the only dog.

I have a new appreciation for my dad's patience and sacrifice as he taught his kids to fish. It is a labor of love. Worth it though. Definitely worth it.

About half way through the week we said good-bye to the Cleggs and hello to the Jaggis!

 

Grant, Charlie, and Jane were playing a game where they would take turns "burying" a treasure while the other two covered their eyes and then they would try to find it. Good in theory but as you can tell from the picture, poorly executed.

 

 Jane loved playing/taking care of Hannah. Hannah loved running into the street and Jane was great at bringing her back to the camp. I took a super cute video of them playing ring-around the rosie. They make sure to fall all the way down, very carefully.

 Charlie really wanted to stay up to see the stars so twice we let him stay up late and twice he fell asleep. Both times we would try to rouse him when the stars came out but he was too tired to be interested at that point. Oh well. We tried.

One night during the trip we were startled awake by the voice of an announcer booming off the mountain sides up and down the canyon. Apparently there was some kind of race (with a very early start time) being held down on the road by the reservoir. The announcer kept on reading off raffle ticket numbers, reminders of race rules, and a seemingly never ending countdown to the start of the race. I was tired, cranky, worried that he would wake up the kids, and cursing the people who would need to have their raffle number announced more than once. But mostly I was furious with the announcer and the race organizers for waking me up. I would drift back off to sleep just to be jerked awake again by the announcer repeating a raffle ticket that someone still hadn't claimed. At one point I dreamed that I stormed over to the stage, grabbed the mic stand and hit the announcer over the head with it. Hard.

Only in the morning (the proper, reasonable morning) did I learn the identity of the announcer. It was the "voice of the Cougars" Greg Wrubell, the man who all BYU sports fans loved. Well not me. To me his name is Mud. (Joking, not joking.)

 There was a lovely reservoir below the campground where we went to play one day.

 Hannah and the "puhppy."

 Jane was REALLY excited to see baby ducks and REALLY disapointed when they swam away from her as she tried to go after them.

 The Jaggis also brought their dog Frankie. Despite the big size difference between her and Molly, Frankie was only about 6 months old at the time. Frankie thought Molly was pretty boring, but thanks to Frankie, Molly was introduced to "fetch."

 Alex took a break from his rock climbing adventures to join us for my birthday celebration! Technically my birthday was before our trip but I wanted to celebrate with family and have Keith cook me a Dutch oven shortcake. :)

Charlie and Jane happily helped Alex find the perfect spot for his hammock; right next to our tent. They think Alex is pretty cool. I agree.


 Beautiful sister and handsome nephew.

 
 Charlie and Grant carried large rocks around. Not sure why...


Swinging in the hammock.

 

 Keith was part way through cooking the cake when he realized that he didn't have tongs for the coals. Not to worry. He made his own and the cake turned out great.

 

 Joe and Bonnie, along with pups Roxie and Sadie, joined us for the evening to celebrate with us.

I think I may make camping with family a part of my birthday celebration traditions. Especially the lack of cellphone reception and internet access.
It was a truly wonderful week.