Watch yer step!

This, my non bird educated friends, is a Kildeer.

I just learned this after almost stepping on it

I also learned that this is perfectly normal behavior for a nesting Kildeer. Sticks, stones check, near Railroad tracks check.

Antique fair find

I found this in a bin at a local antiques faire a week ago. The cool part is the first baggage car, right behind the locomotive, is the baggage car we are restoring at NWPRRHS.ORG, seen here . By identifying the locomotive #21, which was  a number only used by the San Francisco & Northern Pacific RR, a predecessor to the Northwestern Pacific RR, we know that this was taken between it's build date of 1892 and when it was taken over by the NWP in 1907.