Saturday Slight

We've been monitoring the tree activity around here. Some in the front yard have lost most of their leaves, while Meserve's giant cottonwood next door has not yet begun to give way to the nightly nips of cold, frosty air. Our oak on the west side of the house is striking with its tri-colored leaves of wine, green and brown still clinging to their limbs.

I have a feeling that when next Saturday's Slight rolls around, I'll be in raking mode. Yesterday, a friend sent me a brilliantly beautiful photo of fall on Lake Pend Oreille with an accompanying article which appeared in the New York Times last week. Seems we've now made the list for great fall foliage across the country---even compared to Vermont.

Well, it's time to leaf that subject and fly off to the Slights:

• I never dreamed I'd be following suit with my blogfather Oliveria and announcing my own blogroll, but this morning I must do so with two kids' work being featured on blogs other than their doting mother's. Yesterday in his Huckleberries Online, Oliveria noted a high school sports blog in Southern Idaho which features a story or two written by William Love. I checked it out, and it's pretty neat. It's called treasurevalleysports.com, and its address is (http://www.treasurevalleysports.com/) Yesterday's edition featured a story Willie wrote about a Boise football game from the week before. This morning I noticed that he has a new story about Skyview's girls soccer team. So be sure to check it out, and bookmark it if ya want to read Love-style sports stories from Southern Idaho. Then, there's Annie's photo blog. She just keeps getting better and better with that camera. This week she took it to the Seattle zoo and snapped some wonderful shots of the inhabitants. Her blog address is (www.nnlove.blogspot.com) Pretty soon I'm going to have to give up all my own activities and take on a full-time job of bragging about my kids. Speaking of bragging about kids, my daughter-in-law, Debbie, doesn't have a blog yet, but she's doing some neat things with the Girl Scouts of America. This week she was focused on putting together an Idaho basket for a United Way silent auction in Boise. Some locals, including Kathy Chambers of Seasons at Sandpoint, Bonnie Eng at Hawthorne Inn and Roxie Lowther at Litehouse Inc. were helping her fill the basket with Sandpoint offerings.

• Okay, enough about the kids, I've gotta talk about former students now. Jeff Bock's production of "Jenny's Journal" showed at the Westwood, Calif., film festival this week. He's also learned that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is taking an interest in the film. That's pretty exciting. Jenny's going to show the newest up-to-date version, which includes Grace's first day of kindergarten, at the Chic 'n Chop Restaurant in Bonners Ferry later this morning. It's for a Panhandle Health District outreach program. I'm going to film her showing the film and Jeff will use that footage for a grant application. We're all very touched that Jenny's message of living with cancer is being spread far and wide.

• I saw another former student from the Class of 1992 last night. She was standing behind a table of broken glass at Community Hall. Jamie Emmick received her degree in anthropology from the University of Idaho. She's now involved in the archeological dig on the east side of Sand Creek where the byway is slated to go. Last night Jamie and her colleagues held an open house to show their findings. Jamie told me she's been thrilled to be a part of this project. Bill and I both enjoyed the displays; I told him my favorite was the box of bones which indicated the menu for those folks way back when: lots of deer and pigs but very little beef. One lady told me that the bones in different locations have shown that Chinese workers ate better than the white people. I also enjoyed the opium stories and seeing the stamp for opium tax. Another lady told me that smoking opium was legal back in the early Twentieth Century, so, of course, the government charged a tax. Then, too many white people were enjoying the drug, so it was outlawed. The government had to go elsewhere to earn tax money. Overall, the open house was very interesting, and it attracted a steady stream of visitors.
• Bill's heading to Bonners Ferry today too. He's packing his shotgun and planning to walk the grain fields in search of pheasants. The hunting season opened this morning.
  

I've heard that today could be the last of the beautiful weather, so I'll wrap up the slights and get outside. No doubt Casey will be beckoning me to get him down to the Ponderosa Pasture for another day of watching Woods' cows and nibbling grass.

Happy Saturday to all.