I Notice You Have Cheese

Recently we drove to Oregon for a quick, 4 day trip.  We’ve visited Oregon once before in 2009. 

In 2009 one of the places we didn’t have time to see was the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  We made sure to stop by this time. 

I have always liked factory tours and this one was just what I expected.  Lots and lots of cheese!

We saw gigantic hunks of cheese and the smaller, more manageable hunks like you buy in the grocery store.  

It was a fun self-tour with lots of free samples.

I usually don’t buy the Tillamook brand because we like the Walmart brand just fine.  But, after we got back home, I decided to do a taste test to see if we could taste any difference.  Final result,  hummmmm we kind of liked the Walmart brand better.  I was a little disappointed in the results.

Teri

Final Count Is In

All our little birds have grown up and left the nests!  Considering the fire and drought conditions this year, it has been a good year.

We had a pretty bad fire close to the park that started July 5th.  The whole area the bluebird houses are in was closed to house the fire camp.  With several hundred firefighters camped out, a heliport, caterers, water trucks and other assorted personnel and equipment, we weren’t sure how that would impact our little birds.  For one week we were not able to check the houses at all.  The next week we were allowed into most of the area but there were still a few houses we were not able to get to.

Luckily our little birds (and our flying squirrel) came through it okay.

Final count: 113 Western Bluebirds, 50 Mountain bluebirds, 55 Tree Swallows, 27 Mountain Chickadees and 6 Black-capped Chickadees.

These numbers aren’t too far off from last year. 

With all the houses empty, we’re able to start cleaning and repairing.  We have 53 houses of which many need some kind of repair.  We are going to replace 8 of the houses because they are the wrong size or are getting so old they are falling apart.  Several houses need new critter guards (entry holes) because they have been enlarged by squirrels or woodpeckers.

It’s sort of a fun job to inspect each house, get it all cleaned and sanitized and ready for next year.

The first thing we do is --

Check for wasp nests: 

We are finding a lot of wasps nests this year.

Then, of course, spray the wasps nest: 

Extract the wasps nest: 

Scrap off the old poop and stuff:

Brush the house out real good:

Disinfect with bleach water:

 

Check to see if any repairs need to be made then close it up for the winter.

You might have noticed Mark wearing a jacket.  We are finally having some cool mornings.  I'm sure all the animals are enjoying the cooler temperatures.  We have been seeing a lot of turkeys this year. This is the largest group we have come across so far - 20!

 

We’ll spend a few evenings making new bluebird boxes then gathering them all up and getting them back out on the poles.

Another fun, successful Bluebird year!

Teri

What do you do with 2000 tongue depressors?

You put on your thinking cap!

We’ve created a lot of fun, new interpretative programs this year.  The Jr. Ranger programs have continued to be very popular.  Having a lot of resources to use makes it a lot of fun for us also.  We have a wonderful volunteer coordinator (Errin) who is happy to get us pretty much anything we ask for.  We also buy supplies on our own, especially if we know what kind of program we want to create but are not sure exactly what supplies we will need.

Another interesting thing that happens to us is when staff and volunteers find something they think we would be interested in.  Several times we have had a volunteer come up to us and say “Here’s a skull/bone I found while I was out walking, I picked it up for you.”  Sometimes there is still a little hair and "ripeness" left.  But that’s okay, it’s nice of them to think of us!

Recently we were gifted with 2000 tongue depressors that one of the staff bought at a surplus sale.  We knew they would be useful for something, we just had to figure out how to incorporate them into a program.

We have a really fun Jr. Ranger program we call “Bring an Insect.”  We tell the kids to bring an insect and we will help them identify it.  Of course, we get a lot of ants and grasshoppers but the kids are always very proud of their bug (even if it’s not an insect). We bring a bunch of insects in jars and try to catch a few butterflies the morning of the program. Mark has been putting together a very nice insect collection that is still in progress.  Lately, with the hot dry weather we have been having, it is getting harder to find insects, or any critter for that matter.  So .... we decided we could just make our own.

Dragonflies!  Tongue depressor dragonflies to be specific.

A few hours and a lot of hot glue later, 80 tongue depressor dragonflies:

We’ll be doing the “Bring an Insect” program again soon.  We’ll bring all the crayons and markers so the Jr. Rangers can decorate their own insect.

Even after making all these dragonflies we still had a bunch of tongue depressors.  So, we came up with another project - bird feeders.  This one takes a lot more tongue depressors and also a lot more time.  It goes faster with two people.

One person lays down the hot glue:

The other person positions the tongue depressor and presses it in place:

(You might notice my tree slice necklace.  More on that another time.)

 We have quite the production going!

We’ll make 50 - 60 of these and take all the rest of the supplies with us to the program in case we don’t have enough made up.  We still need to add the string for hanging.  We’ll also give each kid a little baggie of sunflower seed to take home with them.

We’ll bring out the crayons and markers and let everyone decorate their very own bird feeder.

Here is one we hung at our place.  It didn’t take long at all for the chickadees and nuthatches to find it!

Red-breasted Nuthatch enjoying our hand-made feeder.

Teri

A Bird in the Hand...

We have a few bird feeders here at our site in Farragut State Park, and the local chickadees and nuthatches scold us if we don't keep them full. I went out to add some seed yesterday and was amazed at how quickly the birds appeared when they heard the sound of a feeder being filled.

Black-capped Chickadee on Feeder

Even as I held the feeder to fill it the first Black-capped Chickadees and Red-breasted Nuthatches began to use it. 

Just for fun I decided to pour a few sunflower seeds into my hand, and sure enough a chickadees decided that was just as good as a feeder and hopped right on. 

Can I Help You??

It is amazing how tame these birds have become. They are probably so used to us being outside within a few feet of the feeders that they don't notice we're not part of the landscape.

Mark

Family Visit

I woke up to find our bird feeders empty this morning (thank you squirrels!!) so added some fresh black oil sunflower seeds to them. In a matter of minutes a group of four Chestnut-backed Chickadees was hard at work trying to get as many seeds as they could.

We see Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees in the nest boxes that we check, but never the Chestnut-backed. Looking at this group I am pretty sure that they are breeding successfully as they seemed to have a couple of the kids along.

The adult birds look smooth and seem to have their feathers sorted out nicely.

The youngsters look a bit scruffy. I suppose that they are still getting their adult feathers.

They whole family whirled around the feeder for about ten minutes and must have grabbed 100 sunflower seeds. And then off they went to do whatever chickadees do. I wonder how long the fledglings will stay with their parents?

Here's looking at you!

Mark

Round Lake State Park

We are spending our second summer at Farragut State Park. At 20,000 acres with over 200 campsites, it is a big, busy operation. Just 15 miles away is Round Lake State Park, which couldn't be more different.

Round Lake is a 58 acre lake formed by the last remnants of a glacier melting in that location. With 142 acres of land surrounding the lake, this state park totals a whopping 200 acres. We have visited the park twice and have enjoyed the quiet and the wildlife. The lake is shallow with a muddy bottom, and supports lots of submerged and shoreline plants. Along with the plants come frogs, turtles, dragonflies, and birds.

Round Lake

A shoreline plant with huge leaves got our attention on our first visit. It is called "Skunk Cabbage" and is named for the pungent odor that attracts gnats and flies which pollinate the flowers. Unfortunately (?) it wasn't blooming during our visits so we didn't get to experience the aroma.

Skunk Cabbage

There are several trails along the lake, and on the Swamp Loop we saw this strangely pigmented American Robin.

Leucistic American Robin

On our second visit we hiked around the lake and along the outlet creek on a 3.5 mile trail. Much of this trail is out of the park and on other public lands, but it is all very natural and shaded.

Bridge over Cocolalla Creek

There are several beaver dams forming ponds along the outlet creek.

Beaver Pond

We enjoyed good looks at many butterflies and dragonflies, including this handsome Twelve-Spotted Skimmer.

Twelve-Spotted Skimmer

Our favorite bird on this visit was a Three-toed Woodpecker that poked at a fallen log for a bit before flying off. We've not seen this woodpecker species back at our park, so were surprised to find it nearby.

American Three-toed Woodpecker

We are pleased to have found another beautiful area to explore here in Northern Idaho.

Mark

Hot, Dry, and Fire!!

This summer has been much dryer than last, and we've had record high temperatures for much of the month of June and early July.

Teri and I were enjoying lunch at our favorite Mexican food restaurant on July 5th when we heard a big commotion out on the patio. We stepped outside to see smoke pouring off of the adjacent mountainside and down into the town of Bayview. Bayview is immediately adjacent to Farragut State Park, so we headed home to see what they needed us to do.

View from South Road in Farragut State Park

It was a dry windy day and there was concern that the fire might blow down into the park. Park staff decided to evacuate the two large campgrounds on the east side of the park nearest the fire. I put the trailer hitch back on the truck and we did some packing up just in case we had to make a run for it. 

Taken from a boat on Lake Pend Oreille

Since this area has been under a fire watch for some time, there are a lot of firefighting resources staged locally. Tanker planes, helicopters, fire boats and Hotshot crews were brought into the area within hours and the fight was on. The entire north side of the park is being utilized for the fire camp, with the radio-controlled airplane field used as a staging area for helicopters. All told there are about 400 people here fighting this fire.

Dropping Retardant

In the first couple days of the fire we volunteers were assigned to man checkpoints to let emergency personnel through but turn back the sight-seers. Teri and I worked the 1 a.m. till 4 a.m. shift that first night, and it was eerie to see the fire burning on the mountainside, with occasional flare-ups as large trees would ignite. It was also strange to see how many folks drove down in the wee hours of the morning "just to see what was going on...".

Overall the fire has burned 1300 acres and destroyed six homes. They have a good fire-line around the fire and the weather has cooled some. We've had a light drizzle today, so we all feel like we've turned the corner. The campgrounds re-opened yesterday and we are back to our normal program schedule. 

We are all looking forward to a return to normal, and hope that this is the end of our fire experience for the summer!!

Mark