Tree Frogs: The Sound of Summer

Summer is officially here! Tonight we were sitting on the front porch, talking with Barb, our neighbor, and just after dark I heard it--the raspy, sandpaper-on-bark, slightly whiskey-voiced call of a tree frog (or tree toad, some call them) in one of the oaks to the south of us. The summer croaking of tree toads brings back memories of my childhood, of summer camp, of Ozarks vacations. When we moved to this house six years ago in July we were delighted to hear these creatures calling in the night. Usually they start 'hollering' around the first week of July in these parts, so once again, Nature is keeping pretty good time.

Links, Anyone?

I finally got around to adding some favorite blogs to the Links section in the sidebar. Among them are Doug's commentary on Southern Gospel; my pastor's blog, a blog by Norm's niece Debbie and a brand new blog by my cousin Debi. I check these every day and enjoy them all. To add these links in the Blogger template I'm using involves tinkering under the hood and correctly typing one line of html tags for each link-- so I'm feeling rather smug that I accomplished the task and they actually seem to work!

Ethereal Visitor

Yesterday afternoon we arrived home from a couple of meetings and as we were unloading the car, I spotted a bird in the bird bath that looked "different" somehow. At first I thought it was a young, light mourning dove, but on closer inspection, it appeared to be completely white. We watched it for several minutes, got the binoculars and the camera, and noted it had pink eyes and feet as well. Clearly it was an albino, but what species?

Our question was answered when an adult brewer blackbird swooped down to join the visitor, who fluttered its wings and hopped over to the adult to be fed! So we have an albino young blackbird in the neighborhood. Eventually the adult coaxed the youngster to fly to a neighboring garage roof, and then to a tree a couple of houses north, where our friend Patty lives. Now we know how the plains Indians might have felt the first time they spotted a white buffalo.

I did some research on the Internet and found a Missouri Department of Conservation article that discussed albinism in birds. It is most common in jays, cardinals and finches, but has been reported in red-winged blackbirds and many other species as well. It doesn't affect their health but may cause troubles in attracting a mate. Since the genes for albinism are recessive, that makes the appearance of one even more remarkable!

I still need to put up posts dealing with some of our Kansas vacation adventures and I will, soon, but I wanted to share this rare sighting before it becomes ancient history.

Linville Sibling Reunion 2007

The Linville Sibling reunion took place this year in Garden City, Kansas, home of Norm's youngest brother Don and his wife, Kay. We arrived on Thursday, May 31 to some cloudy skies, after an interesting drive through central Kansas.
Along the way we visited an historic fort, Fort Larned, that I'll post pictures of separately. On Friday, everyone but Evelyn had arrived for hamburgers on the deck. We hope Evelyn feels better soon! Five brothers and one sister and their spouses gathered on the deck after a rare rainy day.
(The agenda for the women on Friday was shopping...you can't believe the bargains we found.)

Saturday was our active tour day. Several of us got up early to meet the Sandsage Bison Range tour wagon at 7 a.m. We rode in an open wagon with hard, cold seats...it was about 49 degrees when we started out. The sand/sage hills ecosystem is very interesting. This had been a forest preserve in the early 1900s. It is home to one of the largest bison herds on public land in the country. I'll do a separate post after we get home on the many prairie flowers we saw on this trip.

After almost an hour of bumping and jostling on the prairie, we had a much better appreciation of the travail of those hardy pioneer ancestors who made the trip in covered wagons. We tried to imagine day after day of slow progress through landscape like this. At least it was cool and not windy. We heard many birds, saw mule deer and a jackrabbit and a painted box turtle. But where were the bison?

At last, near the end of the pasture, we spied part of the herd on the top of a sand dune. The recently born calves were having breakfast. At this time of year, the bulls separate themselves from the cows and calves. All of the animals were shedding their thick winter coats and they looked really ragged. The slowly wandered over the hill and out of site. And the time of our tour was up.

Our next project, after a post-ride brunch at Don and Kay's, was a guided tour of the Sunflower Electric Cooperative generating plant in Holcomb (scene of Capote's In Cold Blood) about 12 miles from Garden City? Why would we visit an electrical generating plant, especially a coal-fired one? Because it was there. No, seriously, because Corey Linville, Don and Kay's son, is a manager of the plant, where he has worked for 14 years. That's Corey in the green T-shirt and jeans, just to the right of center in the photo. We look pretty work ready, don't we?

In the future I hope to devote a full blog to the plant and what we saw. Here we are entering the ground floor. The pipes carry water that is either going to become steam or on its way from being cooled back to water. We took an elevator 14 stories up, and then climbed two flights of stairs to the roof of the plant. Sometimes it was hot and noisy. Sometimes we walked on grated floors and that was SCARY. But we all came back alive.

Corey explained all of the plant's safety features and all of its features to preserve the environment. It runs at nearly full load, and on this clear day, no visible smoke was coming out of the tall stack on the property. Corey will be in charge of the plants' expansion by two more units over the next few years.




On Sunday after church, we went to eat at Las Margaritas Mexican restaurant, in downtown Garden City. Everything was delicious. I definitely recommend the spinach/cheese quesadillas, and thank Kay for recommending the dish!

Another treat during our visit was an open air band concert in the park. We wrapped up in blankets and enjoyed the music and the sights of small children parading, dogs playing, some pure small-town USA Americana. These concerts have been held every year since 1879. Impressive. Garden City has a wonderful zoo (which we visited this evening) and a long-standing support for the arts.

Sunday after our Mexican dinner, we went back to Kay and Don's for more visiting, and taking the formal reunion picture that ends this post. Until Harold's official copy with all of us in it arrives, here is mine, sans moi, of course. Carol & Walt and Larry and Dolores returned to Colby this evening. Harold & Jan will go home in the morning and Roy and Maxine will start for Mineral Wells in the morning as well. Norm and I will head to Great Bend to see the Quilt Walk in the Courthouse Square, then on to eastern Kansas and perhaps the TallGrass Prairie preserve. We will return to St. Louis on Wednesday, probably. But we will have lasting memories of this golden time together, opportunities that seem more precious as time goes by. Below: Larry, Don, Norm, Walt and Roy . Front row: Janice, Dolores, Harold, Carol, Kay and Maxine.