Calendar Note: Visit the Artrain this weekend!

We drove to Calera to see the Artrain at the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum. The 4-car museum contains artwork by Native Americans, a couple of working artists, and a tiny gift shop. The art was beautiful and thought-provoking. The only disadvantage to a train-based museum is that it's difficult to get far enough away from a few of the larger pieces. We also enjoyed wandering among the rows of train cars in the yard of the Railroad Museum.

Calendar Note: Artrain USA April 5-10, 2007

Calera, Alabama

The Artrain USA, an art museum in a train, will be at the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum. Presented by the Academy of Fine Arts of Shelby County, the featured exhibit is Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture. (Not open Easter Sunday.) We do plan to visit this.

Calendar Note: North Alabama Birding Festival May 4-6, 2007

Decatur, Alabama

Picked up a brochure for this activities when we visited Natural Bridge. There will be talks, classes, field trips and an expo. Most require pre-registration--except for the expo at Rhodes Ferry Park, which is open to the public and free. Much as I would love to, I can't go because of end-of-the-year concerts at work. If you go, please let me know what it is like.

Great Backyard Bird Count, North America

Today is the first day of the Great Backyard Bird Count.
Alabama has wonderful birds and this event is a great way to begin learning about them.
As their website says, "It's fun, it's free, it takes as little as 15 minutes--and it helps the birds."

I participate in Project Feederwatch, counting birds at my feeders two days a week November through April. I see a minimum of 20 different species of birds! My relatives in Colorado are very jealous. (When I was a stay-at-home mom and needed an ego boost to compete with the supermoms, I would say I did volunteer work for Cornell.)

The GBBC is a great family activity. My children participated to earn scout badges--and still recognize most of the birds they learned about. I like to participate because I can count anywhere, not just my designated Feederwatch area. One year, my daughter and I were in Gadsden for All-State Orchestra during GBBC. I had a good time trying to identify and count the waterfowl there.