WHITE ON WHITE

I have quite a collection of swimming trumpeter swan photos.

Swimming swans are fairly easy to photograph.

But catching them on the wing is a little more of a challenge.

I learned of a nearby wildlife refuge where grain fields next to some ponds are left unharvested.

 Migrating birds stop and rest there and get a little fast food before traveling on.

No motorized vehicles are allowed so I strapped on my snow shoes 

and brought along my camera to see what I would find.

 At first I only saw one or two birds.

 Then I located dozens and dozens of them. 

Trumpeters are named such because their call sounds like a honking horn.

This flock of birds sounded more like a traffic jam of taxis.

They are huge birds.  Standing flat footed they are around five feet tall

 and the adults have a wing span of over seven feet.

 My ski pole near a trumpeter’s track.

 Their feet are twice the size of my hands.

 They weigh between fifteen and thirty pounds so it takes a good run

 for them to get off the ground.

Here you can see how much larger they are than Canada geese.

 Over by the grain fields there were hundreds more of the big birds.

  They were having quite a dinner party.

Anyway, I got plenty of photos.

 One flying swan.

 Three coming in for a landing.

 Four winging their way overhead.

I took two hundred photographs, 

but I edited them down to about a hundred. 

Guess I have a few shots of flying swans now.

Here are a few seconds I recorded of their honking.

I was trying to shoot in full sun off the LCD monitor of my camera

so I had no clue what kind of video I was getting.

The clackity-clack sound is my auto-focus freaking out.

I've got a lot to learn about taking videos with this new camera.

BIG GERMAN BROWN plus FEEDING CHARLEY

Fish in the sink is a common occurrence around here.

The guys go fishing sometimes once or twice a week 

and bring home big rainbow and brown trout from the deep, cold lakes not far from here.

 When this happens I just get out of the way and prepare for a 

main dish of the freshest, finest trout imaginable.  

The guys clean the fish and leave the kitchen spotless.  How can I complain about that?

DH brought home a monster the other day.

  It was a German Brown Trout which weighed close to six pounds 

and was twenty-two inches long.  

That’s about the size of most newborn people babies.

 Look at those teeth!  

That’s DH’s hand plus the scrapes on his fingers he got removing the hook.

(I just realized I've set myself up for censure from the Friends of Fish --whatever)

Below is a short video of two of our sons and their dad

fishing Hebgen Lake, Montana in January. 

Plus a visit from one of the locals.

THEATER OF THE MIND

My low bid on EBay won a radio.  When I unpacked it a few days later I got a fast ride on the Wayback Machine. Suddenly I was sitting on the floor at my grandma’s house in front of the big Motorola consol radio listening to Fibber McGee and Molly.  My new acquisition was a replica of that radio from my childhood.  It would go with my collection of vintage dollhouse furniture. 

It’s weird how I can remember whole radio commercials from that era for products like Hallo Shampoo, Ajax the Foaming Cleanser, Jello-Jello-yum-yum-yum, Plop, plop, fizz, fizz Alka-Seltzer and Cream of Wheat, yet I can’t remember the number on my own cell phone.

Speaking of Cream of Wheat, I remember hurrying through my Saturday chores so I could listen to “Let’s Pretend” on the table model radio at home.

Our radio had a place in the kitchen where it sang out the latest hits for mom, and the farm market report for dad.  In the evening my sibs and I would listen to “Bob and Ray,” “The Lone Ranger” and “Suspense;” to name a few shows.  I’ll blame all that theater of the mind for my vivid and overactive imagination.

We didn’t get a television until I was almost in high school.  My poor brothers and my sister and I had to read every book we could haul home from our library.  Those were hard times.

Try this mp3. See if it sets off some lights in your brain.  Hint, Monitor Radio   

 How about Hallo Shampoo or Jello Pudding or Cream of Wheat or Pepsi Cola.  Thanks for going along with me on my Wayback Machine ride.