Pictures

A few poses Sunday night when we were all together. Yeah!


Tricia at Soderquists

Flight

I turned and saw a plane careening out of control,
spiraling wing to wing downward
toward the landing strip at the airforce base. The crash was coming.
I knew it.
I held my breath waiting to hear the impact, waiting to see the flames. Seconds later it soared across the sky. Up and out and away.
When my heart started beating again I realized that a group of children had stopped and were watching too.
Jauque knew,"They're practicing for the air show tomorrow."

Later, as I mowed my lawn I almost jumped out of my skin as another jet zoomed overhead...sound trailing speed.

Saturday, all day the sound of the engines and planes coming and going filled the air.
500,000 people flocked to the Base to watch.
Sunday from our balcony we saw the encore performance of the Air Force Thunderbirds.
Six jets, smooth and sleek and perfectly synchronized raced across the sky.
First in a V formation.
Then circling around the valley, separated, yet still perfectly spaced.
Each did a"touch and go" on the runway and flew away again.
It was incredible and surprisingly interesting.

Monday, Camille and I out for a walk, saw an old prop-plane, a small brightly painted plane and two huge helicopters going different directions toward home.
The show is over, the sky empty and the air quiet.

I turned and out on the back porch stood one of our robin fledglings.
Not smooth and sleek like its parents but fuzzy and awkward and unsure.
It glided to the balcony floor and skidded on its tiny feet to a shaky stop.
After a long pause it took a short flight to the handrail, and sat.

The other sibling perching on the edge of the nest, awaited take-off.
Scratching, flapping and performing other pre-flight checks.

Dad robin stood on the fence chirping and instructing the children.

Finally the first bird took off again-a precarious flight to the garden.
I held my breath, worried it would crash.
The landing stuck.
Dad flew over to join it and both started pecking for food. Dad found the first worm and hopped over and tucked it into the fledgling's mouth.
Later the nest was empty.
When the afternoon rain tapered off, I saw one of the small birds come out from under the protection of a hollyhock. It flapped and shook off the rain.
Dad joined it providing sustenance and courage.
This little robin family has been surprisingly interesting and incredible to watch.
Now they are gone, the nest empty and the air quiet.

Update from our nature preserve

I chased a snake out of my yard this morning with my fertilizer spreader. It's my third snake sighting of the season. I'm proud to say I didn't scream this time, just a surprised ahh, and yuck.

Yesterday I peaked out and watched a skunk waddle across the street and into my flower beds. He turned around when he hit the fence and headed back and disappeared into the field behind.

Several weeks ago I noticed birds building a nest on our house in the crook of a rain gutter. We had some territorial swallows build a home in our carport in Bountiful. They were really cute until they started "swooping" at our heads to scare us away. Our neighbor, Tally, a retired school teacher, went on daily walks past our house. First she crossed the street to pass, then resorted to bringing an umbrella to protect herself from our dive bomb birds. I called animal control, they didn't want to get involved. Swallows are not a protected bird and we could do whatever we wanted with them. My friend Liz was a cub leader. She said she could bring the scouts by with beebee guns after their next pack meeting.
That just didn't feel right.
We endured.
One afternoon I was covering my head and rushing for the car. Next door neighbor Al called out,"Did you see the birds go?"
We had missed it.
Mom and Dad bird had taken their babies out for their big flight, not to return.
Well not until the next year, but we kept hosing the nest down until they gave up on our location.
So,
the prospect of another nesting situation weighed heavily on my mind. I assessed it. It was really close to the balcony (a negative). It wasn't a swallow's nest (a positive). There was a guilty looking robin on a nearby fencepost with building material hanging from its beak. I postponed a decision. When I woke up the next morning Tricia was standing at the bay window watching the birds. From the comfort of our kitchen window we were going to have a perfect view. The educational value outweighed all else.
We are accommodating hosts. We apologize for scaring Mother Robin when we go out on the balcony or need to mow. We water the flower pots on the balcony at times when she is taking a well deserved break from the nest. We make sure all the balcony lights are off at night so we don't disturb their sleep and I didn't spray the worms on the red-twigged dogwood for fear I'd poison the birds. Last week I was concerned when I noticed she was in a contorted position on the nest. Worried that something was wrong I checked on her several times. I am happy to report, she was sitting funny so as not to squash her new baby birds! I feel so proud almost like I helped. There are two babies, maybe three. They have little furry gray faces and huge hungry mouths--not huge, huge... just bird-size, but they open surprisingly far. Cute, cute....and so far no regrets about sharing our space with them.
I can't say the same thing about the snake.
Or the skunk.

What girls need

A few months ago I asked the question, "What do girls need?" I got many great answers at the time.

On Sunday Krysta came home from church so excited for girls camp. "Candice is going to make sure we can go canoeing this year and we're going to certify or something like that and look at constellations and help cook..." She loved that plans were being made and there were fun things to look forward to. (And I love that someone found a camp certification manual this year.)

Tricia often asks me at bedtime what we are doing the next day. It's happening so often that I am consciously trying to think up things to tell her to so she can look forward to it. I caught a glimpse of her calendar and realized that she is labeling events herself--birthdays, holidays, fun events at school. We have been having Achievement days right after school on the first and third friday of each month. With this regular schedule our attendance has been very high. Tricia had pre-labeled her calendar with several more months of achievement days even though they hadn't been planned by the leaders yet.

So, girls need things they can look forward to. I'll bet they wouldn't mind a surprise here and there but when they know things in advance they get to enjoy the event longer.