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Wildlife reserve on Henry's Fork river
Mar. 9th, 2013 04:28 pmTime flies! I haven't posted in a bit, but that's because my 8YO got baptized last Saturday, and so we had relatives in town for that. Meanwhile, making sure everyone stays well is always a trick, and the past few days, just as everyone else has improved, I got one of those colds where you have no outward symptoms, but it feels like a parasite is sucking your strength from inside, and whenever you breathe, it's like someone's taken sandpaper to your windpipe. Doing better today, but I'll be glad when my air tubes don't feel so lumpy inside.
So naturally, what do we do today? Take a walk in blasting wind. Of course! :) I don't know about anyone else, but I seriously cannot handle being trapped inside a second longer. So when my boys got back from an Eagle Scout project and my girls got back from Craft Store with Aunt, I took those interested and we went back to this nature reserve area near Menan Buttes that I drove out to a few weeks ago but didn't have time to explore. It was sunny and warm in town (low 40s? People are all out in shorts, anyway). But out on the lava wasteland plains, there is nothing to stop the blinding wind. But, we are hardy Idahoans now, so we went. We did not get close enough to the 1500 trumpeter swans plus 2000 Canada geese to take pictures up close. But it was loud, like listening to an Arkansas Razorbacks football game from a distance. We just weren't sure how far you could go without trespassing on private property. I thought it was public land all the way to the river, but there was a farm there. On our way out, a fish and game truck passed and asked if we'd seen anything cool. Turns out the fish and game guy lives there, and yes, you can freely wander all over. So sometime when it's not so windy, I'd love to go back. But anyway, here are way too many pictures.
The larger of the two Menan Buttes, which are actually volcanoes. I took this picture a couple weeks ago; the snow is a lot lower now. On our way out we noticed a lot of students climbing the thing. In shorts.
Close-up of basalt lumps. This whole area is the hardened remains of miles and miles of boiling lava. The bubbles rose and cooled into basalt columns and lava tubes and strange cracks in the earth.
Trumpeter swans. I wonder where they go in winter? Some of them stay here year-round, but many migrate. Our house is directly under a migration path. They are all coming back now--and they are loud!
It all felt like an advertisement for some Scandinavian country, maybe Sweden:
The sky was thick with swarming birds. The darker, smaller ones are Canada geese.
Horses watching us curiously. They sure grow thick winter coats in Idaho!
Now we just have to hope the wind blew the germs out and the exercise did us good. It's still cold, but hey, there's sun, so it must be getting close to spring, right?
So naturally, what do we do today? Take a walk in blasting wind. Of course! :) I don't know about anyone else, but I seriously cannot handle being trapped inside a second longer. So when my boys got back from an Eagle Scout project and my girls got back from Craft Store with Aunt, I took those interested and we went back to this nature reserve area near Menan Buttes that I drove out to a few weeks ago but didn't have time to explore. It was sunny and warm in town (low 40s? People are all out in shorts, anyway). But out on the lava wasteland plains, there is nothing to stop the blinding wind. But, we are hardy Idahoans now, so we went. We did not get close enough to the 1500 trumpeter swans plus 2000 Canada geese to take pictures up close. But it was loud, like listening to an Arkansas Razorbacks football game from a distance. We just weren't sure how far you could go without trespassing on private property. I thought it was public land all the way to the river, but there was a farm there. On our way out, a fish and game truck passed and asked if we'd seen anything cool. Turns out the fish and game guy lives there, and yes, you can freely wander all over. So sometime when it's not so windy, I'd love to go back. But anyway, here are way too many pictures.
The larger of the two Menan Buttes, which are actually volcanoes. I took this picture a couple weeks ago; the snow is a lot lower now. On our way out we noticed a lot of students climbing the thing. In shorts.
Close-up of basalt lumps. This whole area is the hardened remains of miles and miles of boiling lava. The bubbles rose and cooled into basalt columns and lava tubes and strange cracks in the earth.
Trumpeter swans. I wonder where they go in winter? Some of them stay here year-round, but many migrate. Our house is directly under a migration path. They are all coming back now--and they are loud!
It all felt like an advertisement for some Scandinavian country, maybe Sweden:
The sky was thick with swarming birds. The darker, smaller ones are Canada geese.
Horses watching us curiously. They sure grow thick winter coats in Idaho!
Now we just have to hope the wind blew the germs out and the exercise did us good. It's still cold, but hey, there's sun, so it must be getting close to spring, right?
