Female Hooded Merganser

My remembrance of JFK is at the bottom.

A gorgeous day today with our continuation of blue skies and cold weather. And it was wonderful at Ridgefield NWR today and we did see some activity for a change. I was thrilled that this pretty female Hooded Merganser was right beside the road and I was able to get something different and pretty much in focus. Yay! There are a dozen or so images on my Flickr page if you'd care to take a look. I also liked the yellow-crowned sparrows that were on a sign and the eagle isn't too bad. We saw an eagle, red-tailed hawks, and those adorable little American Kestrels along with egrets, herons and nutria, which are highly invasive and shouldn't be here but they are. I've left the picture of the Kestrel in this grouping, but I sure wish it turned out better. The swans were there, but they are just not very close and too far for a good shot from my camera. Still, it was fun to see the wildlife even if my camera (and my unsteady hands) doesn't do the best job in the world.

While we were there an airplane was heading our direction. It was an airliner and I said, "There's Dave!" Our son, who got a ride with his roommate to the airport, left for a vacation today and I am 99.99% 100% sure that had to be his plane. When we came home I looked up Delta and the colors of the plane match to the picture I got of it...dark blue underbelly and red on the tail. We looked up his flight on the Delta site and could see the route he took....right over the Ridgefield area. Have a good trip, David! I think that is so cool that we saw his plane. I don't care what anybody says, that had to be him, as that was the only Delta flight that left at that time. Made my day.

See ya later

Remembrance of our fallen President or more accurately, where I was when he was struck down.

I was in high school, a senior and 17 years old and parts of that day are very clear to me. I was in Chorus (why, I don't know as I can't sing very well, but it was an easy class and I always liked to sing..) and somebody must have left the room and then came back in...a bathroom break or whatever, because as fast as Twitter, it was whispered around the room...the president was shot! Then the bell rang and we were out for lunch break. I went into the business office as a lot of kids did to get change or some such for the various food machines (we didn't have a cafeteria) and then we gathered in the auditorium which served as a place to eat lunch and the school put the radio over the intercom and we listened silently as we were told our president was dead. Then the afternoon was spent digesting this information and not doing much actual schoolwork. Then I walked into the town, got my hair cut, and then that night our school , Roseburg High and one in Portland, Grant High had the only football game in the state as all others were canceled. Grant was already on the bus and officials decided to just let it go forward. I don't even remember talking to my family about this. But it was a quiet somber weekend and we had Monday off as it was a National Day of Mourning. Crappy times, I tell you.