Chickens, cards and more

Good Morning to all my followers! Well, it is nearly afternoon, but it seems like morning, since I overslept. And, by the time I finish writing this and uploading photos, it will be afternoon!

Do any of you have one of those nights where you wake up at 2 a.m. and can’t go back to sleep? I don’t have them often, but last night was one of them. Awake at 2, still awake at 3, finally fell asleep sometime after 5:30, when it is time to be getting up! Then, I slept until 10! Unheard of in this house. So, now I am all mixed up. Good thing I don’t have to be anywhere until this evening.

I have a couple of cards to share, though they are nothing strictly mine as I CASEd the cards of some of my friends. I have a LOT of family birthdays the first 3 months of the year, so it is keeping me hopping in the craft room. I appreciate the inspiration of friends, especially for the masculine cards, as I have a lot of men/boys in my family.

I try not to just copy, but to use that as inspiration. I am sure there are others out there who have used pretty much the same layout, etc., but I think it makes a pretty card. I really like the Flight and Airy Designer Series Paper from Stampin’ Up!, that you can get for free with a $50 order during Sale-a-Bration.

The next card was for an 8 year old boy who helps his older brother with his traps. They recently trapped a beaver, so his card features the beaver from the Fluffiest Friends bundle, an online exclusive.

When I am not making cards, I might be reading a book, or piecing a quilt. Here are some blocks from my current project. When I get it assembled (next week, maybe?) I will post an image of the completed top before I have it quilted. This one is a charity quilt to be raffled by the Iowa Order of the Eastern Star with proceeds to benefit Retrieving Freedom, which trains sevice dogs for veterans and children with autism.

Each year the Worthy Grand Matron chooses a project(s), theme of the year, colors, and symbols. This year’s colors are shades of blue, gray, and burnt orange. Symbols are songbirds, bicycles, and birdhouses. I have tried to incorporate as much of all of this as I can into the quilt to be raffled. If anyone wants to purchase tickets for the raffle, let me know! 🙂 They are $1 each.

Now, you can try to figure out how this will all come together. Trust me, it will.

As for the chicken part of this blog today, I had word that there was a Greater Prairie Chicken seen near the road about a 2 1/2 hour drive from my home. WELL! That constituted a challenge, as the only photos I have of that species are from quite a distance, and, even with my 600mm lens, it is NOT a very good image. There is a lek not too many miles from where the lone bird was seen, but photographing there does not garner any great images.

lek noun an assembly area where animals (such as the prairie chicken) carry on display and courtship behaviour: also…an aggregation of animals assembled on a lek for courtship

Well, I can’t let a challenge go unchallenged, now, can I?? After mulling things over for a few days and checking my calendar, I decided that Tuesday, and perhaps Wednesday would work for a road trip. I texted my birding friend Therese to see whether her calendar would allow her to accompany me. We had challenged each other a couple years ago to try to see and record the sightings of as many birds as we could in each county (99) in Iowa. Some counties near where the bird was were on her list with low numbers, as were a couple of them for me. We thought we could perhaps increase our county numbers as well as getting photos of the Greater Prairie-Chicken.

This might seem a daunting task, however, Iowa isn’t a large state, so not as daunting as it would indicate. It does involve putting a few miles on the vehicle, but, isn’t that the reason we have a vehicle?

The promise (made while biting my cheek, because birds do fly and there was no guarantee it would still be there) of getting a close-up shot of a Greater Prairie Chicken was too much for her to resist. We left home at 1:30 Tuesday and I pulled into my driveway at 7:30 last night after dropping her off at her house. We covered a little over 500 miles and 11 counties, adding some good numbers to those counties where we had seen few birds. The BEST part, and a God-given Blessing, was the opportunity to view and photograph a male Greater Prairie-Chicken in full courtship display. WOW! WOW! WOW!

That doesn’t begin to tell you how excited we were to arrive at the place he had been seen and to spot him right away. I pulled over as far as I could and turned on my flashers. I am so thankful that other drivers are tolerant of 2 crazy ladies pulled off to the side of the highway (virtually no shoulder) as far as possible, standing in front of the car with a camera. Not one motorist honked, or made any obvious negative moves. They just let us do our thing.

I am sharing these as they are hard to come by, but they are copyrighted material and may not be used by anyone for any purpose without my consent.

We were saddened to think that he had been seen at or near this location, alone, for over a week. He needs a friend at least, or a girlfriend. Therese got a great video of him as he approached the car, (Maybe he thought we were the girls he sought??) and you can hear his calls even though it was windy. If you are interested in seeing that, here is a link to her facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005297958176

I do NOT post on facebook. Not very much, anyway, and very seldom my photos.

His courtship calls were rather sad, and I hope he finds more of his kind.

HISTORY LESSON: The species is considered vulnerable. Greater Prairie Chickens were more abundant in Iowa during the period of 1835-1860 than in any other state- EVER.. Total population annually reached close to 12 MILLION birds. No other state had more ideal acreage than Iowa. Illinois was second and Missouri third. However, over-harvesting and habitat destruction caused a massive decline. If I am not mistaken, the last nesting Greater Prairie-Chickens in Iowa was in 1952. Interested in more information? Go here to read about the restoration of the area I have mentioned.

I do believe that is enough for today. All of you have a wonderful, Blessed week. We are having abnormally warm weather, and I am trying to just enjoy it and not worry about the ramifications of such early warmth.