BY KAREN BOSSICK
A new geocache near Boxcar Bend has been touched with kindness.
Eight Girl Scouts from Troop 230 created the bluebird house geocache site in memory of Nolan Kreczkowski, a 12-year-old sixth-grader at Wood River Middle School who died in February 2014 when he and his father collided with each other while snowmobiling south of Bellevue.
It’s not your typical geocache. It looks like a bluebird house. And the girls had Hailey woodworker Bill Smith install a secret compartment that contains a little book listing acts of kindness the girls hope finders will consider doing for others.
“The girls tell me that Nolan was a really cool kid,” said Troop Leader Leslie Feltman. “He not only defended kids who were getting picked on but would give them a hug. He was the type of kid who was kind to everyone. And he even decorated veterans’ gravestones at the Hailey cemetery.”
The book describes Nolan as “a friend to many.” Suggestions to do in his honor include: Taking care of our environment by using reusable water bottles. Honoring Veterans by going to a Memorial Day celebration. Saying “Hi” to someone new. Inviting a kid who is alone to play with you. Buying or picking flowers from your garden and giving them to a friend.
The booklet also suggests ways to help mountain bluebirds. And it has a recipe for “Nolie Bread,” a French loaf prepared like garlic bread with olive oil, fresh garlic and herbs and sea salt.
The girls themselves have adopted the area around the cache site in Nolan’s memory. They just pulled enough knapweed there to fill five garbage bags and will plant wildflowers there in spring.
The Girl Scouts first honored Nolan’s spirit by building two bluebird trails providing bluebird houses offering nesting cavities for Idaho’s state bird.
One is in Greenhorn Gulch just south of Ketchum and the other along Nip and Tuck Road near Stanley.
They were inspired by 92-year-old Al Larson—“Idaho’s Bluebird Man”--who has built and monitored more than 300 nest boxes and banded more than 27,000 bluebirds since retiring in the 1970s. His work—and the work of others inspired by him—have helped bluebirds recover from precipitous declines during the 1950s, ‘60s and’70s due to increased competition for nesting cavities.
Part of the problem came from aggressive non-native species, such as the English Sparrow, which moved in on bluebird habitat, said Feltman.
“The Mountain Bluebirds are our state bird—and so beautiful,” she added.
The girls were cautioned not to be disappointed if few birds used the 80 bluebird boxes they built and decorated the first year. But birds took up residence in more than 90 percent of the birdhouses this past summer.
Most were occupied by Mountain Bluebirds, but a few wrens and chickadees moved in as well.
And Leslie’s daughter Maren Feltman received quite the surprise when she went to clean out one house along Nip and Tuck only to open the door and find a pika inside.
“Maren opened the door. She saw the pika and screamed. And the pika ran out looking like, ‘I’ve been had,’ ” Leslie Feltman said.
The girls cleaned bird poop and debris out of each bird house this past fall to keep the spaces livable. Bluebirds require a certain depth from the doorway to the bottom of the house so that they are not visible to predators and so that babies can’t fall out the hole.
The girls plan to extend the bluebird trails next summer.
“All the babies the birds had this year--if they make it--will want their own nests,” Feltman explained.
In the meantime all eyes are on the new geocache house.
“We understand two people found it over Thanksgiving and left some nice comments,” Feltman said. “My girls are really excited to go see what they wrote.”
WHO ARE THE GIRL SCOUTS? Troop 320 boasts eight girls—Maren and Sarah Feltman, Kaitlyn Hayes, Hallie Taylor, Paige DeShields, Adela Pennell, Geneva Depuis and Jenny Jordan.