Jen's new bundle.

Jen's new bundle.

Inspired by Jen's new paper, but I changed the colors to match my fall mood

There were no birds at the start of our tour of the refuge, but by the end we had seen thousands of blackbirds plus geese, ducks, and marsh wrens. The reeds were just too tall at our first big lake stop, but we found a spot farther along that we liked, to see what was on the big lake.

Persimmons are a symbol of good luck, longevity and joy in many New Year celebrations. They're an end-of-year tradition in our family now. They remind me of my dad. He told us we wouldn't like the ones that he found on the ground in the fall, and kept them all for himself. Years later, I learned...

As on other holiday trips, Interstate traffic was very light on Easter morning. It got windy south of Pueblo, but we still had a good trip and I had enough energy to visit both refuges before lunch. All of the mountains along the way were beautiful with fresh snow against mostly blue sky. I had...

This was my second try at this template, and I found it much easier to use when I took a different approach and didn't try to make it work. And I totally enjoyed it! :p :p :p

Checking my book, I found two pages from way back in April I needed to add. And it was harder for me to remember from snippets of notes that far back. For April Fools' Day, we had just a sliver of sun to start a mostly cloudy day. And it was pretty cold and windy, so we waited until 9 am to...

Wow! Thank you so much!

Thanks for the challenge, Flor. I used Lorie's promo, only changed the fonts and spacing.

All of the little details on our Sunday stop at Alamosa refuge added up to a beautiful sunny warm day full of fall color. The colors were especially vibrant and interesting in the areas that had been burned. We saw a few ducks, just one redwing blackbird, and a black swallowtail butterfly.

Again on our last day we saw the cranes enjoying bed & breakfast. The sun was up and they didn't fly off right away. I added the ice fishermen, because the cranes planned to fly off to find wheat and barley in the fields. (But the temperature did finally get down close to freezing.)

I made a Jack of Spades for Halloween. So fun! Thanks for the challenge.

For my official standard-size playing card, I picked the Jack of Spades for Halloween.

We saw a couple hundred sandhill cranes and no other visitors besides us. We avoided masses of cranes that make it much harder to get a photo of just one or two, and also issues of crowding that starts with just six or seven vehicles. In a few weeks there would be many thousands of...

We liked seeing a smaller number of cranes as most had not yet arrivged at the refuge. Temperatures for the region were at and near record highs, but each morning the temperature inched closer to freezing, and we started to see fog on the waters. We were comfortable.

Yes. Each year I fill a 442-page book. I started in 2008, but made my own handmade books before that, after printing tech books starting in my early twenties.

Thanks for the challenge, Amy! Not crazy though, about way too many parts. Like a 10,000-piece puzzle when I love the 5,000 piece ones. :p I soldiered through, think it's OK, but not easy for me to create a strong design and flow, although I totally love fixing the templates, because I have to...

On Wednesday haze made it hard to focus on the cranes about 450 feet away, but after sunrise the golden light on birds in flight and loafing in the fields was beautiful. As well as cranes, Canada geese and ducks, we saw thousands of blackbirds in flight and one lone night heron.

No comments on this page, because I put it in my book at the end of the year where I always like a few reflections on change, and will write them in a couple of months. I used the Blendy on pretty much everything on the page.