The hills are aliiiiive...

While we were in Boise last weekend, Anna and I spent a lot of time exploring around my mom's new house. She lives up in the Boise foothills now, which I could not possibly love more, because you can literally walk out her back door and you've got access to the endless hiking/mountain biking trails that Boise has become famous for.

There are many horse-ranches in the area, and of course we had to visit all of them!

Near one pasture, we saw a killdeer doing its "broken wing" trick. I explained to Anna why killdeer do this and we looked around for her nest. Turns out, killdeer aren't exactly brilliant when it comes to finding stealthy hiding spots in which to protect their eggs.

In the photo above, you can see her sitting on her nest just below and to the right of that fence post (and about 5 feet away from Anna). Look how well the eggs are camouflaged though:

Once she realized we were more interested in the horses than in making an omelet from her eggs, she settled down on her nest and let us get right up next to her.

View of my mom's house from the ridge up above.
The day after the party, Anna and I went for a hike. It was a really windy day and the higher we climbed, we could hear this really weird, almost creepy noise. It sounded almost like "AAAaaaaAAAaaHHHH"...like a VERY enthusiastic crowd cheering at a baseball game. But I knew we were too far away and it was too consistent. I said "It almost sounds like sheep", but Anna thought it was much more likely to be aliens. She was beginning to freak herself out and I could tell she wanted to head for the comfort of grandma's house, but I reminded her that there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, and no, that explanation did NOT involve aliens.

Finally we got up to the top of the ridge and as we gazed across the Boise foothills, waaaay off in the distance, we saw this:

It looked like the entire hillside was moving, and it was sheep! Lots and lots of sheep! Anna was SO excited; we stood and watched as they got closer...
and closer....
and closer....

until they were literally in the exact field in which we were standing! The sound of approximately 300 sheep BBBAAAAAAAAing is almost deafening.

This baby was my favorite. Don't you want to just pinch his little cheeks? Something tells me mama wasn't going to let that happen.

You can see the Basque sheepherders down below. I'm sure they thought we were nuts for taking a million pictures of SHEEP. But I am so glad I happened to have my camera.

This was such an incredible experience for Anna. I had told her about how, when I was her age, we lived in a cabin in Garden Valley. Every spring and fall, the sheep would be moved from their winter grazing pasture to their summer grazing pasture, and back again. We would be outside playing or whatever, and one of us would hear the tell-tale bbaaaaa-ing of sheep and the ringing of cowbells and we'd yell "They're coming! THEY'RE COMING!!!! " and everyone in the family would stop whatever we were doing and race down the long gravel driveway so that we could stand and watch as hundreds of sheep filed down the road, followed by a couple of Basque sheepherders and a couple of Border Collies. It was magical. Once we moved to the city, I didn't think I'd ever get to see that again.

That I got to, and with Anna? Just made the entire trip for me.