Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

photo by Forrest Stonedahl 2021

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March 3, 2022
After the coldest part of winter (5 degrees F) for the end of February, it's in the 40's and 2 inches of rain for the first part of March. The ice is still fairly thick on the lake, but turning rotten fast.. It results in a patchwork of puddles on the ice. There's still only about 20 yards of open water at the bridge, but looks like more...

March 6

This is one view of Spirit Lake from the ridge today. The yellow house is along the edge of town facing the mill pond. The tall trees behind it mark our pottery property. The mountains behind that are about 15 miles away and have Lake Pend O'Reille along most of them... Although near the mountains, most of town does not have a view of them, except for the ridge Butters and I were on this morning.

We've seen these ice formations in muddy soil around here for years. After decided to photograph it, a search led me to this video on ice lenses...It is a form of frost heaving...

March 7
Because the birds at the hole on the millpond change regularly during spring migration, I'm making a point of checking it daily. Apparently yesterday the two holes (from the bridge and the culvert) converged, and are likely to stay that way inspite of colder weather predicted in the week... Anyway, here's a deer showing why they're called whitetailed crossing the ice on the millpond. You can also see the willow on the other side is brightening towards budding...

March 13
I'm remaking some of my music videos to higher definition nature backgrounds-- so here are the links of some I just uploaded:
1 Noah’s Ark
2 Dem Bones
3 Do Lord
4 Give me oil in my Lamp
5 I have decided to Follow Jesus
6 I’ve got that Joy, Joy, Joy
7 Keep on the Sunny Side
8 Lord I want to be a Christian (Little Wheel a turning)
9 Go Down Moses
10 What a friend we have in Jesus
11 You can’t get to Heaven on roller
skates
12 You’ve got a home (written by
Brad)
13 Children of the Heavenly Father
14 I’m so glad Jesus lifted me

March 14
There were lots of signs of spring, aside from the drizzle, today... Robins and spotted towhees are back and becoming common... On a south facing part of the local ridge, we saw two buttercups in bloom:

Red tailed hawks were heard in our land...

March 15
Chestnut backed chickadees were at our feeder today--we rarely see them more than a couple times a year...

We got a good 3/4 inch rain overnight, still raining... In the history of the west, water has always played a major role... I'm certain that the south western drought and accompanying wildfires have been a large part of Idaho becoming the most popular move-to state for the last 5 years...

March 16

This was one of the clouds producing hail and stuff yesterday...

And here's the first and only grass widow spotted today at the end of the lake...

And this is a wonderful mystery shot in the middle of natural daylight sequences... It could be what it looks like in the atmosphere of Jupiter... (it turns out it was a shot of my blue jeans as I was shutting the camera down..)

March 17
Although it was over 50 degrees today, there was one beautiful frosty puddle this morning:

I'd seen the cross hatching before, but not turning into feathers...
Speaking of feathers

These were some common goldeneyes on the Millpond today--a willow turning gold provided the reflective color... The two brown females were pursuing one drake... This was at the limit of my 85X telephoto--about a half mile away...

March 18
We went to Farragut near sunset, and were greeted with a snowshoe hare by the boat launch area. When we left there was clearly a different one, slightly more adapted to current conditions...

March 19

This is a spotted towhee advertising that it's spring...

March 20

This is the view up the street from the pottery at sunrise on this vernal equinox... I was also trying some photos of planets, which are currently all on the morning side of night, but Venus just looks like a bright blob so far...
This evening I saw a bright blob in the sky before the other stars were shining, and since I have the Skyview app on my phone, I found out it was the International Space Station, shining as bright as Jupiter was last summer... When I looked up it had moved into the earth's shadow and disappeared...

This great blue heron was at the Fireside beach today--first spotted this year, although there was one on the lake until it froze up before Christmas...

I have been adding more videos from my More Hymns CD:

1. Coronation by Oliver Holden (All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name)       1:25
2. Beautiful Savior (Schonster Herr Jesus–Silesian Folktune)         1:59
3: God is Working His Purpose Out by Martin Shaw            2:34
4. St. Catherine (Faith of our Fathers) by Hemy and Walton         2:07
5. St. Christopher (Beneath the Cross of Jesus) by Frederick Maker    2:08
6. Triggare Kan (Children of the Heavenly Father) Swedish Folktune        1:34
7. Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring by J.S. Bach                2:27
8. Galilee (Jesus Calls us O’er the Tumult) by William Jude            1:25
9: Hyfrydol (Love Divine All Loves Excelling) by Rowland Prichard     2:25
10. Sine Nomine (For all the Saints) by     R. Vaughn Williams        1:50
11. Flemming (Praise to the Father) by Friedrich Flemming        2:09
12. What Wondrous Love       by William Walker       2:07
13.Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley Folk tune            1:54

March 29
Spring Marches on, with every day new reminders--the swallows are back as of yesterday. Bluebirds are around now...

Geese are passing through to the north, past the recent spotted towhee in the tree...

Spring beauties started over a week ago, and open and close nightly with their blooms lasting longer than most spring flowers...

A pair of mountain chickadees are checking out our nesting box which usually ends up with robins nesting on top...

I saw this Columbia ground squirrel today e-biking along the lake road...

books read

The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide--a Philip Marlowe novel.. I've enjoyed some of the modern takes on Sherlock Holmes, both in books and on TV. This one might also work on tv, but for me there were too many sketchy characters to keep track of, and to move a 1950's icon into the 2010's didn't work. It might as well have been a Spenser novel, which was what Robert Parker was going for--updating without appropriating the name... There were too few relatable characters, and Marlowe was more like the fellow in the Monty Python routine that always arrives late for the murders..

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