Spring Bittern

Spotted this fellow the other night while driving around the backroads of Grand Portage. I consider myself lucky for spotting this guy as we drove by this meadow, as these birds are NOT easy to see when they are standing in the tall grass like this!

Photographing ice at Cutface Creek Wayside

This morning I met up with my friend Bryan Hansel (http://www.bryanhansel.com) near Grand Marais to photograph the sunrise. The shoreline we visited was littered with these large "mountains" of ice, pushed up by wave action from Lake Superior. The temperature was even cold enough to have some nice sea smoke out on the lake. Along with the fascinating ice, we found several otter "slides" in the snow along the shoreline. Otter slides are trails made in the snow by the otters as they slide down slopes on their bellies. It sure was a fun morning!

An Ageless Subject - Age - COG 52

Lisa has posted the Carnival of Genealogy, 52nd Edition over at 100 Years in America. The topic is "Age" and as Lisa says " This is a collection of tales and trivia, stories and statistics. Thanks to these contributions by various family historians, we have a look into the lives of others who stand out from their family tree (and society in general) because of their age." There are some new contributors as well as the "regulars" and a wide variety of tales that have been told. As always, I'm amazed at the quality and variety of the posts contributed to the COG. Check them out! Lisa has done a wonderful job of putting it all together. I for one know that it is not an easy task to come up with a good "lead" for each of the posts. Well done, Lisa!

The next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be a “carousel” edition. Just as carousels have a variety of animal figures so, too, will the next edition of the COG have a variety of topics. All subjects are welcome but please limit yourself to one submission. Submit any article you’d like (genealogy-related of course!) and if you'd like an introduction for it, please write your own. Jasia will be hosting the next edition on the Creative Gene blog but she won't be writing any introductions this time around. The deadline for submissions is August 1.Submit your blog article using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found at the blog carnival index page. Want to know more about the Carnival of Genealogy? See Jasia's Frequently Asked Questions page.

Kudos to footnoteMaven for the Carnival of Genealogy posters.

For numerous reasons, I neglected to post something when the last two "issues" of the COG were published. So, in case you haven't read them yet:

• The 50th Carnival of Genealogy : Family Pets was posted by Bill West at West in New England.
• Carnival of Genealogy, 51st Edition on the topic of Independent Spirit was posted by Thomas MacEntee at Destination Austin Family.

Green chair frog

Have you ever heard of a dog who doesn't like to eat?

Jasmine has to be forced to eat, most days. Otherwise she'll sit and guard her food all day, protecting it from everything except ants. Then she won't want to eat it later either, because the ants bite her nose.

So now we have a game, in which she has to eat her food before a mean old stick gets it. One of us mans the stick, which constantly tries to sneak up and grab her food when she stops eating. She gets annoyed, snaps at the stick, and eats a little more.

Sometimes this game takes a while to finish, so I pull out a chair.

Guess what greeted me the last time I did that?


A green chair tree frog (Hyla cinerea).

I just love how he aligned himself with the green stripe, for camouflage!


His profile.

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For your weekly critter fix, visit the Friday Ark.

NEW PA alpine route at Sunday School Crag

Tom Thomas engulfed in PA alpine sending this new line

Tom Thomas, Andy Shriner and myself decided to go out climbing. As per my last post conditions looked fickle at most SWPA ice areas. I didn't check Sunday School figuring its usually one of the first to come in. Neither Tom nor Andy have been to Sunday School making it agood choice as a first stop towards getting some climbing done. We had a fourth lined up for the day, but he bailed at the last minute making us an uneven 3 man team... Not the best way to go out when conditions have been so limited and everyone wants to climb as much as possible. We made the adventurous hike into the ice. It's fairly steep going and... well to make this readable, I'll just call it "alpine" in style.

Tom and Andy approaching our destination

Those that have been here know exactly what I'm talking about. After our approach, we stood before the ice laden walls. A little boney, but definitely climbable. In the recent years though, boney has become the standard, thus making todays conditions "in" I guess? Either way Tom was amped up and anxious as a high strung cat to start clawing at the walls. Understandably so having climbed here for 15+ years. How can't one get excited with all the various options of ice between chossy, usually protectable, rock sections. Its alpine climbing heaven (in an easily accessible, miniature form ;) I always find the climbing reminiscent of The Black Dike in NH. Not nearly as long, but harder, similar pitches in abundance and concentration. Tom racked up an arsenal of screws, gear and pins while Andy flaked the rope and set up to give Tom a belay. It was at that instant that I realized the predicament of having 3 climbers. Tom and Andy were paired up to have a go at a surely fun line. The reality that our ice climbing has been ultra limited and I could be picking a plum as well. It really bummed me out to say the least. I WANTED to be climbing too. May sound like a childish thing to some, if so, I guess our passions for ice climbing differ. Its pretty high on my list of fun things in the world... Here's one of a handful of days being wasted all because of a backed out partner. It made me realize how valuable my wonderful "better half" Laura really is. I can't stress how much of a trooper she is. I just wish she could've been there. We make such a great climbing team and having her there is priceless! So cutting my losses on climbing and being totally bummed about being partnerless. I decided to take advantage of the great climbing talent and work on some photograpic opportunities I seldom get. I started hiking and worked my way up around to the return of an adjacent cliff to click off some shots from different angles, hopefully documenting a first ascent.

From a distance, Andy is in blue at the base of the climb

The route looked awesome and Tom did a great job leading it for a first visit to Sunday School. He described the opening rock section to be quirky as do most other climbers. I found it took a few seasons to learn to read this odd style of climbing. The rock isn't as friendly as other local rock for hooking, etc. Slopers are the norm with some odd fractures here and there for a "thank god" moment every so often.

Tom enjoying the opening moves

Either way after a quick introduction he was into the business and working up through the rock to a steep snowfield which appeared to be in good condition.

Snow covered choss

The snow led to the base of a vertical ice section that offered some reasonable ice screws and three dimensional climbing around thin columns.

some ice...

Then more ice...

The ice ended at a steep rock cleft that offered up a piton placement before another snow ledge. Another section of ice was above, but extremely poorly bonded.

The rock cleft finish

Tom wisely opted to end the route at the base of this ice. He built an ice screw anchor and Andy followed the line in fine style. He seemed to be enjoying himself the whole way up, pulling his first "legit" pin and getting some V-thread practice in lean conditions. I snapped quite a few photos of all the action. Here's my photo highlight recap of the guys in action on this new unamed line at Sunday School Crag. Congrats go out to Tom and Andy on the great new addition.




Here's Andy in action seconding...

Sunday School partial crag overview

Andy starting up the ice

Tom belaying below the delaminating upper section

Crazy Angle, could be rotated 90 right?

Andy Shriner enjoying a wonderful day in PA

My artistic attempt

Mountain Top

Eternal Dancers

1. My sister, Sarah, got into belly dancing about 30 years ago to loose weight. It worked and she loved the dancing. She still does it and teaches classes in gypsy dancing, belly dancing and simular styles several times a week in her home. On the day I was there her group called the Eternal Dancers were doing a performance for one of the retirement homes in Las Cruces. I went with them and took photos. Sarah is the lady in the black and orange custume. Denise is the lady with the long curly hair and Jennifer is the lady with straight hair. The seniors and employees at the home loved the show. It was the second time they had danced there and they have been asked to come again. On this day only 3 of the dancers were able to preform but there are several more in the troop. This was a free preformance but they do dance for other events for a fee.