This is their first trip outside in the grazer after being in the garage under the red heat lamp. As you can see, their main concern is to drink water.
After the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, we waited impatiently until we could buy more chickens at the farm store. This time, we bought one of each kind of layer they had. With these seven, plus Jane Wayne, our run will be full up.
If they all survive to adulthood, we will have …
Henrietta (the Americauna – dark stripe down her back)
Mesa Falls is located up in the northeastern area of Idaho. If you head due east from there, you’ll find yourself crossing the border into Wyoming and into Yellowstone National Park. It’s also near popular campsite Island Park, as well as near lots of hunting and fly fishing, well-positioned to attract people who are enjoying all the beauties of the region.
As you can see from the map above, Mesa Falls lies in part of an old caldera. The earth’s crust has moved, putting the fresh caldera under Yellowstone National Park. Hence the geysers that can be found in Yellowstone, and the eerie, sulfur-scented, brightly colored, deadly hot springs (which incidentally play a cameo role in my book The Strange Land).
This summer, I went up to Ashton, Idaho for a writing retreat. (What was I writing? That is for me to know and for you to find out!) Ashton is a relatively small, relatively remote town, but it’s touristy because of its proximity to hunting, fishing, and the Yellowstone area. I stayed in a mom ‘n’ pop motel consisting of camping cabins that have been there for ages.
On the way back from Ashton to my home stompin’ grounds, it would have made sense for me just to get on the highway and go south. But my husband has hike radar, which lets him know whenever he is within twelve hours’ drive of a good hike. This radar also works remotely, when someone he knows is in range of a good hike. So he let me know that I should go north instead, view Mesa Falls, and then head back. As it was a Sunday afternoon, I did so.
Mesa Falls is on a forest service road or something like that, so my paper map actually showed the road ending well before I got there. Thankfully, in real life it continued.
Here is proof I was there.
The hike was not at all demanding. There’s a capacious parking lot ($5 entry, envelope system), and then a series of well-maintained steps and boardwalks that bring you down to the very top of the falls, with many specially designed niches for selfies.
I did not bother to photograph the other falls-goers, but place was packed.
Now I’ll post some short videos I took of the falls.
The cliff opposite the falls was lush and green due to the permanent plume of mist that hits it.
This is an annual sort of Towne Faire event. As far as I can tell, all the little towns in rural Idaho have one. There’s a parade late morning, then booths are set up in the park until about 5 p.m. We have some excellent food trucks that come by, such as Angel’s Tacos and a Navajo Taco stand (Navajo fry bread with ground beef and the fixins!)
Of course, you have to get permission to set up a booth, pay a fee, etc. Luckily, we already had a good-looking booth that we had designed for the Medieval Fantasy Faire earlier in the summer. We added the banner this time, because previously people were confused by the fact that we were selling more than one thing. It was my son’s idea to call our booth Cosmic Tree. He got this from the fact that his paintings are hung up inside the booth, like fruit on a tree, and they are mostly starscapes.
I had also done some paintings of our farm country. Here are some mini ones that I sold. Turns out that farm boys like equipment. They snapped up the paintings that featured such things as grain silos and telephone poles. I like nightscapes (I’ll show you some on the blog later), but most people prefer sunsets.
We’ve been here long enough now that we knew many of the people who passed by our booth. We don’t actually live in American Falls, but we spend enough time there to be considered honorary residents IMO.
The rabbit came along with us to attract attention and to promote my son’s signature Galaxy Rabbit paintings.
These were taken back in June, but I thought you’d like a tour.
Salmon Sculpture.
Nice shade.
Now looking the other direction, we can see that there is a suspension footbridge over the Portneuf River.
Approaching the bridge,
if you will look to your right
and zoom in, you’ll see the I for Idaho State University marked out on the hillside. Those hills are across the highway on the other side of town. Here, at the south end of Pocatello, the canyon narrows, so everything is closer together.
Now having crossed the bridge, we look back across the river toward the park. We live in a desert basically, so there is a marked contrast between the green of the park and anything that isn’t watered regularly.
This is really boring for those of you who live in Pocatello.
Can we actually see the Portneuf River, you ask? Why yes. And here you can see that couples have put padlocks on the bridge to commemorate the moment.
There’s just some things that leave a man no choice
Like a compass needle needin’ its true No-o-orth
some country song
I didn’t know that choice rhymed with North, did you?
But they do! Once you have heard them in this song, you cannot deny that they do!
And those words will rhyme for you forever after.
This is my favorite kind of rhyme — unexpected, gutsy even, but once you hear it, it clicks into place and feels so natural.
Here’s my professional, I-used-to-be-a-linguist analysis of why choice and North do, in fact, rhyme.
Both have an /o/ followed by a sound that narrows the vocal cavity but doesn’t stop the air (/i/ or /r/, which is a liquid), followed by a voiceless fricative articulated near the front of the mouth (/s/, or theta).
In case you are wondering, the country song in question is Love You Anyway by Luke Combs, which is in the subgenre of Self-Pity (Male Singer).
Out of Babel Books 