The Grandparents

Laura and I can't thank Sandy and Dick enough. Sandy stayed with us last week and cooked all our meals, did all our dishes, had some Lyla time, laundry....etc.etc.etc. She was elevated to "Greatest Mother-in-Law in the whole wide universe." Dick is staying with us this week and has large shoes to fill, but is doing a great job! We are keeping him supplied with coffee, and he is doing well. Thanks Dick and Sandy!

First few Days of Lyla at Home

Mom happy at home.
A nice gift basket from the Dean of Students Office.
Learning how to do belly time.
First sponge bath.
Flowers from Great Aunt Sharon, Uncle John, and cousin Julia.
Drying off after bath.

Lyla in the Hospital

Lyla's first outfit.
The Blowers family came to visit us in the hospital. Here's Lauren.
And Sarah with Lyla.
So peaceful while she's sleeping all swaddled.

Announcing the Birth of Lyla Rose Ballou

Born Friday, June 5, 2009, 12:04 p.m.
8 lbs 8 oz., 21.25 inches long

New York Letterbox Hiking Challenge Patch Info

Announcing the New York Letterbox Hiking Challenge! The NY Letterbox Hiking Challenge is a fun way to encourage hiking for letterboxes to improve health and spend more time in the great outdoors of New York. By logging miles on the trail while letterboxing in NY, we hope you will have fun finding, planting, and maintaining letterboxes and find more of our NY’s natural treasures.

The incentive? A beautiful 100% embroidered patch to commemorate your achievement. Patches will be released in 25, 50, 75, and 100 mile delineations, with 25 being the first launched at the end of April. Design for 25 Mile patch is pictured here.

The guidelines:
- Each foot mile you hike in NY while letterboxing counts. You keep track, and this patch is on the honor system. We won’t challenge your numbers, but you should challenge yourself. We recommend that you only count miles on the trail to and from letterboxes in NY, NOT miles driven to letterboxes…this is a “hiking/letterboxing” patch. We also encourage participants to make hikes that are at least one mile or more (i.e. 0.5 miles to a letterbox, and back)…yes, this is also a “challenge” patch. Miles can be counting finding, planting, and maintaining letterboxes.
- Challenge Patches will be available for both residents and non-residents completing a challenge.
- Start date for counting begins today, April 2 2009. Hikes while letterboxing before this date should not be included.
- Patches can be ordered by sending an SASE to Jackbear for a $3. Payment can be via paypal, cash, check, or money order. Your SASE can be mailed to John Ballou, 200 Hillside Ave. Rochester, NY 14610. Patches will also be available at gatherings in NY attended by Jackbear, Scout, or Sahalie.

Is this like the Treasure Hikers? Yes, this was inspired by the work the Treasure Hiker groups were doing in other states, and we are very grateful for the great ideas they came up with for such a challenge. Scout, jackbear, and Sahalie decided to go with a patch for New York instead of “pathtags” after a poll indicated that 3 out of 5 letterboxers preferred to earn a patch over a pathtag.

Again, our primary goal is to have fun and encourage hiking and letterboxing together! We hope that you will challenge yourself to get out and hike more this year, and enjoy what our state has to offer.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Jackbear, Scout, or Sahalie and keep and eye out for more challenge patch designs as we release them in the coming months.

Now get out there and get letterboxing!

Baby Ballou

Well, I haven't updated my blog in a long long time. Well, I finally have news to share!

Laura and I are having a baby! Here is the ultrasound photo we got yesterday.

To answer your questions:
1) Due date is first week of June.
2) Gender will be a surprise.

THANK YOU Muckrace Sponsors!

A big THANK YOU to all our friends, family, and sponsors who helped the "Three Muckateers" birding team raise so much money for the Montezuma Wetlands Complex this year.

I am pleased an honored to announce due to your generous support, the Three Muckateers was the team that RAISED THE MOST MONEY!

Here is the email I received today:

Anyway - TATA!!! Your team was the top fundraiser, with $1430.20. Congratulations. The Capitol Cuckoos, came in second, with $1316.00, and the NYSDEC Crane-iacs came in 3rd, with $645.90. The FOTMWC matched the $3392.10 our three teams raised raised, and the total for the Muckrace was #12,286.50, well exceeding our $11,000 goal.

So I am very proud and very pleased, and we couldn't have done it with out all of you! Thank You!

Muckrace Fundraising Results!

Just a quick note! I have all of the Three Muckateers birding team donations totalled, and I am thrilled to report that Dom, Dick, and I raised $1,455.20! Our goal was 1K, so we blew that away. Thank you to all our friends, workmates, family members, generous sponsors for your donations! Your donations will help migratory birds like the threatened Cerulean Warbler pictured above. All this money will be matched by the Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex if we are in the top three fundraising teams. Cross your fingers, and check back here!

Jackbear Makes the Headlines.....sort of....

The September 17th issue of CITY Newspaper, a free weekly alternative newspaper in Rochester, did an article about letterboxing that I was featured in. I think it turned out very well, and hope I did a good job explaining some to the writer the important and fun aspects of letterboxing. You can read this article online here.

Muckrace 2008 Results

Another fun Muckrace! Where to begin?

Before the Muckrace began we lost another member. You will remember that Chris and Amy couldn't make it this year, since they are honeymooning in Panama (and seeing amazing new life list birds). Then I got a call from our other Pennsylvania birder, Dom, that he couldn't come. His grandmother had some serious medical issues, and the situation was not improving. Our thoughts are with your family Dom. You were missed, but we carried on, so hope to have you back next year.

So Dick and I decided to keep going, and make it a recreational team instead of a competitive team (need three for competitive catagory). This was actually refreshing since we didn't have to push ourselves, and we could take the time to really ID some good birds. Not that it slowed me down much, I can't seem to stop once I get going.

Anyway, we got the the Audubon Center in Savannah and set up or tent in the drizzle. The rain stopped though, and didn't rain again until the very last few minutes of the race to our delight. However, it remained gray the whole time. We drank a bottle of wine, ate some pretzels and chatted. We did go for a little stroll, but didn't turn up any birds before retiring for bed around 11 pm. Most other teams were just getting started with their owls around this time.

We got up at 6 am, and made our way to Howland's Island. Here we picked out some nice birds, but really didn't see any great numbers of Warblers, which is usually the target bird in the morning. We did see our best bird of the day, a Hooded Warbler to both our delights. We also had fun exploring two-tracks we had not been on before.

Then we explored some other smaller wetlands in the Northern Montezuma Wetlands, before heading to Knox Marcellus Marsh for lunch. Here we met a large crowd of birders IDing lots of species in the marsh below. But before we could get to see a lot, a tractor drove down on the property ajacent to the marsh, and scared all the birds off. I think he was mowing, but then he also proceeded to do some chainsaw work as well. So Dick and I had lunch without watching many birds.

We continued on during the afternoon, and bumped into some tired grumpy birders who didn't seem to approach the Muckrace the same way we did. I asked if they were having fun, and I was told, "No, this is serious business." Perhaps this was just a sarcastic crack, but no on on the team was smiling and they seemed annoyed with us, even though we at the spot already, and they were the ones that come up to us. Different strokes for different folks.

Watching the other teams is just as much part of the day as is watching the birds. We watched the winning team zip by us many times in the search for the next bird. At one water hole we were taking our time trying to ID shorebirds we struggle with, and they pulled up, backed up, repositioned, pulled forward, backed up again, went ahead, moved out of the way, then back to the first spot, then backed up......you get the point....all in an effort to get the best view for their window mounted scopes. It was kind of funny to watch.

Anyway, our faith was restored by the end of the day when we encountered the 10,000 Birds team. We were approached a spot for one last look, and they were leaving, and they told us the location of a Black Crowned Night Heron at the spot that we probably would have overlooked. Now that is the spirit of birding!

By the end of the day, Dick was dragging in energy, and I had just finished an energy drink, so I was ready to find the last five birds of the day. I said...just 5 more Dick. So off we went to find a House Sparrow (all day without one), a Kestral (we watched miles and miles of powerline to at last find one in a tree), a Bluebird (yes Dick, I'm sure of it), and our Night Heron.

Well, we were tired, and we ended with 61 species. Not a great number, compared the winning 130 species, but we enjoyed our time, and learned a lot, confident that we were better birders by the end of the day.

Now there is one more mission left....to raise some money for conserving this amazing treasure know as Montezuma. There isn't really another place in New York like it. Where could you go and see 180+ species of bird in a single day. It is recognized by the Audubon Society as a critical migratory bird area for the whole world. So if you didn't yet sponsor us, please do. I need to send in our contributions by October 1st. Our team might have been the team that saw the fewest number of birds, but I think we could shock the mucklands by being the team that raised the most money. Thanks everyone for your generous donations!

You can write me a check, send me cash, or donote here with paypal: