Week 50
First, a creepy tale for Halloween.  When we arrived here last November, the Walmart had an infestation of black birds (grackles, starlings, or a combination of both).  The trees were bare of leaves, but full (about 100 per tree) of birds.  They made a horrible racket, swooped and darted, and in general made going to Walmart at night horrifying!  When winter came the birds went away.  Well, about a month ago they started coming back, and they are now here in full force. If you've seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, you have an idea of how awful this is.  The noise is almost deafening, and the way the birds fill every tree and fly around is, again, creepy!  This is the only thing that makes a coming winter look good.  I don't know where they spend the day, but these birds are faithful Walmart shoppers by night.  This picture was taken several weeks ago at dusk--there are many multiples of this many birds now.

On a happier note, this is the start of homecoming week at OSU, home of America's Greatest Homecoming Celebration.  I'm not sure who hands out that designation, but apparently it's official, and reading about the activities planned for the week, it just may be true.  They expect 80,000 alumni to come to Stillwater for the events. The work at each frat house constructing the framework for the Walk-around is growing feverish.  Each structure has to have a moving part, so those are going on now.  On Friday, the paper pompom art will be attached, and the displays will be up for a couple of days.  Tonight the fountain by the library was dyed orange--hope it stays orange so we can see it tomorrow.  (The other tag line here is, "America's Brightest Orange.")  We joined in the fun last night by going to the Cowboy Stampede--an honest to goodness rodeo!  It featured the OSU Rodeo Team and teams from several schools in OK and Kansas.  Here's what we saw:  bareback bronc riding, tie down calf roping, breakaway roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, goat tying, team roping, barrel racing, and bull riding.  This is the 70th year of the OSU Rodeo Team, and they take it seriously.  It was a lot of fun--between the contestants, crew, and audience, I've never seen so many cowboy hats and cowboy boots in one place in my life.

There's only so much a phone can do in the dark and with lots of fast action, but here is Kerby's attempt to capture a little bit of the rodeo.

Pistol Pete stopped right in front of us for a minute

National Anthem, bareback bronco on left, Pistol Pete and calf roping on right

Barrel racing top left, steer wrestling bottom left--bull riding on the right

This will be a somber week for many in Stillwater.  It was at the homecoming parade last year that a woman deliberately drove into the crowd, killing four and injuring 46 people.  Today's paper had a story about one of the injured who has had more than 2 dozen surgeries and had to re-learn how to walk.  There are many more hard stories, but lots of stories of people coming together and supporting one another.   The first responders to the tragedy last year are going to be the parade marshals this year.

Today was ward conference, and all of the meetings had a wonderful spirit and important messages.  I really think our stake president, President Bowman, is a powerful leader.  He never fails to give uplifting, edifying talks.