Blog Archives

A Horsehair Potter

Posted on by Lorie Palmer / Leave a comment

When I first heard the term “horsehair pottery,” I had a vision in my head of ceramic pieces wrapped in long strands of chestnut-colored horsehair, a bit like swathing pieces of thin rawhide around a vase. But the actual process turned out to be nothing like I expected, and the result like nothing I had ever seen.

I had heard about Jean Anglen of Cottonwood from a friend who said she made “beautiful horsehair pottery pieces.” I was skeptical. The idea of hair-wrapped ceramics didn’t really float my boat. But as a reporter for our local newspaper, I figured it didn’t really matter what I thought. Visiting with Jean might provide a nice feature story at some point, so I called and traveled the seventeen miles to the home she shares with husband Eldon. Continue reading →

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Ice versus Fly

Posted on by Ron McFarland / Leave a comment

When I arrived in Idaho more than forty years ago, I swore I would not allow myself to fall prey to the allure and blandishments of fly-fishing enthusiasts. I would not yield to the mystique. I felt the whole business was too darned precious, a tad too hoity-toity. Also, fly fishing would doubtless require a pricey set of waders, a costly fly rod, a broad array of feathery insects (not cheap), and exotic volumes of arcana dating back to Sir Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. If I were to “get involved” with this ostensibly fair maiden, it could prove risky in various ways. Instead of the reliable, stationary, bank-fishing mistress I’d courted over the years, I would find myself incessantly rambling along the banks of rivers and creeks, splashing across snot-slippery rocks in icy mountain streams. I would fall head over heels, and not necessarily in love. I would need to access an entirely different langue d’amour having to do with everything from tippets to matching the hatch, from roll-casting to where-the-hell-did-that-willow-come-from? She seemed out of my league. I could imagine myself whispering regretfully one evening as the mayflies hatched and I tied on a Light Cahill with my newly-mastered clinch knot, “This is getting too complicated.” Continue reading →

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Umming a Song

Posted on by Steve Carr / Leave a comment

Good father that I am, I accompanied my family to Easter church services. My calls to hurry echoed back through head cold-induced swollen sinuses as I hustled the girls to the car. I returned to the bathroom, where I stuffed cotton in my ears.

We arrived early enough to claim the back row. Families trickled in with scrubbed faces and pasted cowlicks. I surveyed the hubbub of familiar greetings from my muted throne. Continue reading →

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All-Around Royalty

Posted on by Loy Ann Bell / Leave a comment

I spotted the creeping car before it pulled into our farm driveway. A pleasant-looking young woman slowly climbed out, looked at my pinto mare grazing in the pasture, and started up the walk. On that summer day in 1952, I had no idea that this young woman would change my life forever.

“My name is Ina Hadam,” she said when I answered the door. “You rode in the Jerome Rodeo Parade last week, didn’t you?”

Perplexed, I nodded.

“I recognized your horse. I’d like to start a girls’ 4-H horse club. Would you be interested in participating?”

Would I! My face must have revealed my excitement, because she grinned. Continue reading →

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Tetonia–Spotlight

Posted on by Joyce Driggs Edlefsen / Leave a comment

A tiny town with a hearty heritage, Tetonia gets its name from the Teton Range that dominates the sky to the east. Growing up in the Teton County seat of Driggs in the 1950s and 60s, I imagined Tetonia, seven miles north, as a rough and tough hellion of a town with old buildings and quasi-skyscrapers that held grain. Back then Tetonia was mostly a mystery to me with its unpaved streets and gritty rural feel, a couple of bars on Main Street, a church, school, post office, service station, and not much else. Talking to folks this winter, I found I was not alone in my thinking, and that many people from Tetonia are proud of their town’s renegade reputation in the valley. Continue reading →

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May 2015 Map

Posted on by The Editors / Leave a comment

IN THIS ISSUE! Bruneau, Coeur d’Alene, Coolin, Cottonwood, Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, Garden City, Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Island Park, Moscow, Prairie, Snake River Birds of Prey Conservation Area, Tetonia This content is available for
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Sound and Light at Grays

Posted on by Kris Millgate / Leave a comment

You can turn a lousy dinner of cottage cheese and crackers into a delectable dining experience if you crack open the portable packaging at the right time, in the right place. In this case, it was Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge at sunset.

My colleague Jay Krajic, a videographer, reminisced with me recently about our evening shoot there. “Sitting on the edge of the marsh eating dinner was cool,” he recalled. We had used every hour of daylight to capture the natural beauty of Grays, only stopping for a few minutes to eat at the edge of a pond. All the bugs and birds serenaded us with a symphony of their own sweet sounds. Continue reading →

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Mystery Solved

Posted on by The Editors / Leave a comment

A while back, IDAHO magazine posted this photo on our Facebook page. It was taken by Robert Ford, who came across the old stone cabin beside the river in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, about eleven miles north of Grand View. “An interesting homestead,” he wrote, “but not sure of its history.”

Later, we received a response to the post from Steph Baldwin, who wrote that a man named Eric Jacobsen grew up in Grand View, where his family has lived for generations. Steph knew that Eric was familiar with the history of the cabin, but he said Eric didn’t use email. It was to our surprise and satisfaction, then, that we eventually did receive a note from Eric. Continue reading →

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The Birdman

Posted on by Les Tanner / Leave a comment

On a warm summer day in 1995, I was on my way back home to Caldwell from a two-day fishing trip to the South Fork of the Boise River.

Rather than return by way of Mountain Home and the Interstate, I decided to take the more scenic, and definitely more bumpy, road that goes up the hill from Danskin Bridge to Prairie and eventually to Black’s Creek Road. I’m always on the lookout for new waters to test with rod and reel, and my map showed there was a tiny creek off to the west of Prairie.

As I approached the area, I saw a glint of water through the thick willows, and was surprised to see that it was more than the mere trickle the map had indicated. I turned up the next dusty lane I came to, guessing correctly that it paralleled the creek in the direction of its source in the mountains not far to the northeast. Continue reading →

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