Christmas cards 2017-William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge

This year we did our Christmas card shoot at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in Benton County. If you don't have this place on your bucket list, you need to add it. It's protected land in the Willamette Valley near Corvallis, Oregon. We've been here a few times over the past year and there's always something to see each time we go. We've seen a lot of wildlife up close and it's a great opportunity to see them in their natural habitat. This year is the first year that we've decided to blog about our Christmas card shoot and it's also the first year that we have decided to use our Christmas cards as an outlet to talk about all of these great places we visit too.

There are several buildings on the refuge land, but we chose the John Fiechter House to use for our Christmas photos this year.

The house was built in 1855 by John Fiechter. He used Douglas Firs from his own land claim to build the house and carriage house that sits off to the right of the house. In 1860 an addition was added onto the back of the house to accommodate the growing family-seven children-and John Fiechter's father-in-law, Abiathar Newton supervised the construction of this addition to the house. Bricks for the fireplace and foundation for the home were made of clays found on the property and actually fired and hardened on site as the home was being built. John Fiechter's success in the California gold fields helped finance the materials and labor to build the home and it was the first lumber and brick home built in the area.

Picture of the house as it were-(circa-late 1800s)

We took all of our animals-minus our goldfish, Berry-to the refuge with us to be in the picture this year. We were looking for a serious picture, but one with a slight be of humor to it. Ducks are just funny. It doesn't matter how serious we tried to be, Rosey and Happy-the ducks, made it humorous. -Side note on Berry-the goldfish: The Bean won Berry at this year's Strawberry Festival that took place this past June. The festival is in celebration of the abundant harvest of strawberries here in the Valley. Hence the name "Berry," as in straw-"berry."

The Bean dressed in his Berdan's Sharpshooter Uniform from the Civil War era, but of course his black Converse don't quite fit the scene.

The Mr. went with dark pants, a collared white shirt, period jacket, and a top hat. He also used a period cane and a silver pocket watch to get into character.

Straight-faces were common in older photos. Higher class families would keep a straight face because it was said that if you smiled you were poor, lewd, or just plain drunk. So in that time period if you wanted to be seen as upper class and as a person of good character you just didn't smile.

Trying to capture just the right photo. Hardy (PITA) looking left...

...Looking right. And then we noticed the leash was showing the whole time.

Once we had a good poition, people started watching us as if we were putting on a living history moment.

This is the photo we took for the cards, but decided it deserves to be framed instead.

We all agreed that this picture was the one for the Christmas cards. We even fit in a hidden "easter egg" into the picture. Do you see it?

What is an "easter egg?"

By the time we had a good shot Rosey and Happy were ready to stretch their wings.

We took a few photos of just the house and the land that it sits on.

The carriage house.

William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1964 to help protect the Dusky Canada Goose winter habitat. Parts of the refuge are closed at certain times during the year when the Canada goose flies in. We saw at least three groups of 100 in a flock during our photo shoot. We were hoping for a glimpse of an elk, but not this trip.