Miscellaneous

One of our favorite friends, Laura, was married in Massachusetts on July 9. We wish you the best of luck in your marriage and that you have a wonderful life, henceforth. Life sure has been good so far because of your wonderful parents and your great work ethic, talent and compassion for people. Well, probably better give sister Lynn some credit, too. She is pretty special! With your MA from the New England Conservatory of Music, you are well prepared! Go get 'em, girl!!
Bring your new hubby back to Idaho and we will get him into the mountains at 9,000-10,000 feet and see if he can keep up with you.

Laura on a poster announcing her Senior Recital at the Univ. of Washington. She was sooooooo good!

Laura fixing dinner at Baron Lakes, Sawtooth Mtns

Laura, father John, and Lynn on a horse packing trip into the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho 2002. Laura and her Dad actually climbed over those peaks and onto the other side after this picture was taken. Papa Coyote and Lynn lazed around a lake at the base of those peaks and sent encouragement to those two by mental telepathy.

I sat down to update this blog, but decided to check to see if there were any comments made on any previous blogs. Troutbirder commented which caused me to take a detour to his blog which I always enjoy reading. He has a great post about memories which has given me an idea for a future post about Harry Zanks and our oak trees. Well, after making some comments on a few of his posts, I had to check the comments others had made to his posts. That got me off on another tangent to Connecticut where I was sidetracked into making another comment. An hour later I am back to the task. Not having to prepare lessons, grade homework or tests, figure grades, or contact parents leaves time for these enjoyable little detours in life. I am even learning about some birds around the country.

I don't have pictures, but I have been tying flies. I have learned from Indian Head Fly Fisher members about using CDC. That is the feather that is found on the ducks waggle tail. The duck preens those feathers to get oil that he can spread on to other feathers. At least I think that is the correct fact. Anyway the feathers are known to be super bouyant and able to keep a dry fly on the surface much longer than other feathers. I have been tying mayflies and caddis patterns using CDC and there is a learning curve here. I never liked curves much because they were so hard to hit when I played baseball, so, I became a pitcher and learned to love the curve. I don't know what that has to do with learning to tie flies with CDC feathers, but I thought I would throw that bit of biographical information in just because the reader can now know a little bit more about me. I had a pretty good 12-6 curve that I could throw at two different speeds and a devastating slider that I taught to my pitchers during my coaching career. Six of the seven kids that I coached that were drafted by Major League teams were pitchers. Not bad for a school of about 350.

What else? oh yeah, I am stupid. Well, that is not really a revelation, but I just spent $306.96 to buy seven yards of red-dyed bark to be delivered tomorrow morning. That means I will have this load dumped on the apron of my garage and proceed for the next few days (in 90+ degree heat, we don't have much humidity in Idaho--whew! I use to live in Indiana until I graduated from high school and I don't miss that humidity at all) to carry, by wheelbarrow, all seven yards to various points in our yard to spread over those areas that I have covered with weed barrier cloth. I have removed the old bark that I spread nine years ago (it had really broken down and made a great compost for various flower beds and under the Ponderosa Pine). Now this is going to be a lot of work (hopefully I will lose some poundage because son D is finding some time away from work to accomppany me hiking into some mountain lakes next month) and I am going to lose out on some serious fishing time and I still have not caught a fish this year. Geez! I really am dumb!

J and I have really got into reading James Doss books so I have put in an order with Amazon for six more Doss books. I can hardly wait. I just finished a J.A. Jance mystery. Might not have been bad if I had not just got done reading three of Doss's books. That was a mistake. Should have read Jance first. Now, I don't think I will ever read another Jance book. Just too cookie cutter. Characters are not developed well and the author does nothing to create a reason to really care about her characters. At least that is my point of view, not that anybody probably really cares.

Until the Amazon order arrives I am reading a biography of the Arapaho Chief Left Hand. He was a remarkable human being faced with a terrible crisis as his people's way of life was destroyed by the onrushing white people. I try to think how I would have dealt with the problems people faced in the biographies I read, (Walk a Mile in Another's Moccasins) but I don't know how I would have managed. I have great admiration for the leaders of the various tribes during the late 1800's. Well, even now. They still have huge problems with which to deal.

Gramma Jane came and closed the door on me sometime ago so she could get some sleep. Guess I had better go read a chapter about Left Hand and get up and get ready to haul bark---one wheelbarrow at time. Man, what have I done!

Love you all,

Papa Coyote loves you all. Yeeeeeeeeoooooowwww!