Birding Adventure

On Public Lands Day, September 28, we avoided public lands and Jeremy, Lucky, Jet, and I went to Ouray Wildlife Refuge and Pelican Lake to do some birding. It was quite the adventure trying to get 24 species at each of those places for Jeremy and Lucky for this year's UCB birding challenge.

It was also International Rabbit Day and Jeremy and Lucky saw rabbits.

I didn't see rabbits but I saw the prairie dogs they saw. 

We also saw a porcupine like when I was there last.

Lunar New Year 2023

The Lunar New Year was on January 22 this year. Year of the Rabbit.

The night before, the mall had fireworks which the kids listened to.

Jr. Jr., Jr., Nichole, and I made a trip to Salt Lake City the evening of the New Year while Jeremy made Chinese food for us. We then ate that yummy food for the next few days. 

We went for an event at the Conference Center. It was cold and snowy while we were in Salt Lake City and we walked a lot because I didn't want to pay for parking on a Sunday and I didn't realize how many free spots were closer to our destination. It's been a while since I've been up to Salt Lake City.

Jr. Jr. did get his first ride on TRAX, though.

On a trip to the Orem Library another day, Jet and I saw the dragon the librarians made for the Lunar New Year. Some of the scales had been decorated by children at the library.

Jeremy got to build some balloon sculptures.

We have yet to eat fortune cookies because I keep forgetting to get them out of the pantry. But here are a couple fortunes Jeremy got.

Dancing with Birds

April 29 is International Dance Day.  We spent the day birding with some dancing thrown in.
We went to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.  There were birds... and there was dancing.

 Jr. didn't want to dance but demonstrated what it is like when you've danced too much.

We went to Golden Spike National Historic Site.  There were birds... and there was dancing... and rabbits.

Jr. has been learning a lot about Utah history this year so this was pretty neat to visit a place that has an important part in Utah's history.

We went North searching for short-eared owls.  There were birds... and Jeremy and I were doing a happy dance on the inside when we found short-eared owls.

Good birding and good dancing day.

Spring Break Trip to Antelope Island

I'm exhausted.  We spent the day at Antelope Island (well, the afternoon and evening- we didn't get out as early as planned) and it was great.  Except for the biting gnats.  Jeremy had been checking the website to see if there was any problem with the biting gnats (we decided not to go last Summer because apparently they were so bad).  When we went during Fall Break there was no problem with bugs.  Jeremy didn't check the website this morning (not until we got home tonight).  Apparently they mentioned on there that the biting gnats had hatched.
Luckily they were only bad in certain parts of the island, like where we were first going to go hiking and where we were later going to go to the beach.  Yeah, that wasn't pleasant.  But there wasn't a problem on the other side of the island where we took a little hike and by the ranch we visited again.

It was still a great trip.  We saw lots of different animals- more than last time we were there.
We were able to sing, "Home on the Range," because we saw bison (buffalo), pronghorns (antelope), and deer.

We also saw rabbits.
And lots of different birds including a few we need to identify (too tired to look them up tonight).  We saw one running down the road and how it moved made me think of Compsognathus from Jurassic Park. 

Several birds posed nicely for us.
We saw plenty of bugs.
We even saw a coyote on our way back along the causeway.  I couldn't get a still picture but was able to get a video of it.
We also saw lots and lots of horses.  Several people riding horses passed us as we were hiking.  And passed the bison that were coming down the hill as we were eating lunch in the van.  That was fun to watch the bison as they got closer to us while we were sitting safely in the van.  Our timing was good, too, because as we were about to drive off from that spot, we saw a bison walking along the trail we had been on a little while before.
It was a great day on the island but we won't be going again too soon... because of the biting gnats.

Yellow Pigs Day 2014

Summertime means county fair time.  County fairs mean animals, including pigs.  July 17th is Yellow Pigs Day.  Guess where we went today.  A county fair.
We went to "Cook's Pig Races" where a man raced hogs and dogs.  The dogs and pigs came out of four different colored gates.  After the dogs raced, the pigs raced and the pig from the yellow gate won.  Ha Ha Ha.  Yellow pigs day.  

That was the highlight of those races.  When the yellow pig won.  That and Jr. won a blue ribbon because he chose the yellow pig and Nichole won a hat because she held a winning ticket.  ;)

Jeremy took the older two kids on a bunch of fair rides.  Nichole has been really wanting to try riding on a roller coaster so she got her chance.

The rest of us went to see rabbits and horses (after Jr. Jr. got to ride one of the rides).  When we told the kids originally that we were going to go the fair, Jr. Jr. said he wanted to see bunnies and rabbits.  Cute.

 It was a good family day.