The blog of November 30, 2008 told of Schake family Thanskgiving events with birds and books. Christmas Holidays will feature the same. Sheryl and Aaron Meskin along with their son Ethan will see their first copies of On The Wings of Cranes: Larry Walkinshaw’s Life Story. This volume is dedicated to Walkinshaw’s eight great-grandchildren, Ethan among them.

Ethan’s Schake grandparents will also give him one of four birds Lowell carved, his first, for his four grandchildren. The inspiration to carve birds came from Dr. Larry Urie, a Battle Creek, Michigan k-12 classmate of Wendy’s, who visited us earlier this year. Dr. Urie, a Battle Creek dentist who acquired many of Walkinshaw’s patients, is a world class carver. Lowell’s two Kirtland’s Warblers will be given to his granddaughters and Whistling Ducks to his two grandsons. Ethan’s Fulvous Whistling Duck appears below. Ethan, a first grader, will first see it while we play together on Robin Hood’s Bay in England on the North Sea.

Ethan thinks his duck was his “best” present.