memorial day 2010

we invited some friends to join us for memorial day weekend- neil to fish with steve & molly to go on photo safari with me. we all went to fairfield friday evening, had a nice chicken gorgonzola pizza at soldier mountain brewpub & headed back.

molly & i got up early to catch the sunrise over the marsh. and a beautiful sight it was too!

the birdsong is amazing. i tried to make a video, but all i got was wind, so you'll have to imagine instead- are blackbirds (redwinged & yellow headed), geese, sandhill cranes, coots, mallards, bitterns, stilts, cinnamon teal and many other feathered creatures all singing their heads off.

the camas, a wildflower that was a food staple for the indians (and a main cause of the bannock war of 1878, when the indians discovered hogs feeding on their important food source), is starting to bloom on the prairie. as you can see, the soldier mountains have fresh snow and the contrast is beautiful.

after a few hours of photo safari in the freezing windy cold, we headed back to the house to warm up & plan the next adventure. steve & neil were getting ready to go fishing.

they headed out to meet some folks and spend some time on the south fork of the boise & molly & i wandered off in the car. there are all sorts of farm and ranch roads that i've been curious to check out, so that's what we did- headed out on a road that runs south out of the marsh (monument road) and into the hills.

this is what we found  shortly thereafter

we kept going, ran into some cattlemen rounding up their animals on horseback (i stayed in the car to keep the dogs calm, molly got some photos). kept driving and found a sign marking the beginning of the king hill wilderness study area. (which none of the 4 of us has ever heard of.) beautiful country-

headed home, had a good dinner & planned sunday's adventure. the guys had a decent shake out day on the river, though it was none too warm & a bit windy..... we were all hoping for a balmier sunday.

headed out a bit later sunday. you can see the difference in the weather.

these guys were hanging out in the marsh they were amazingly good sports about letting molly get their photo. (photo by molly o'leary, thanks for letting me use it!)

we headed out on a different farm road toward castle rock, looping around and coming back up on the other side of the valley on another farm road. i could post a bunch of photos, but am trying to restrain myself.

i do want to share these birds (again courtsey of molly).

western tanager

mountain bluebird

sandhill cranes (back to my photos)

there are wildflowers blooming everywhere- this is a white-rayed mule's ear

 

neil & molly headed back sunday evening (the weather was nicer on the river, but there was no love from the fishies). steve and i took a drive this morning. we took some farm roads back from the marsh and saw this gal in a field. steve noticed the baby as we drove by.

baby is pretty tiny- what a cool thing to see! and she did settle down and we drove off so as not to bother them.

and back to town to go through hundreds of photos and kick myself for not doing a better job of focusing or paying more attention to exposure.... but there's always next weekend! when steve needs to get some work done on the house for a change....... ;)