PapaCoyote's Journey: Visitng the Oregon grandchildren

All the Oregon grandkids are doing well and so are Mom and Dad. M has only a few days of school left and is looking forward to the summer vacation. He enjoys Scouts and is looking forward to Scout camp and another campout with the family in late June. He will spend a few weeks in August with grandma and grandpa. Lots of fishing and camping and maybe some huckleberry picking if they are still on. We have had a very cool spring--only 14 of the last 65 days have been above normal temperature and we already have surpassed our average annual rainfall. We are at about eleven inches. You Midwesterners are probably laughing, but we think we are drowning.

Thinking of Midwesterners---I see the Twins now must be the worst team in baseball. They dropped 3 of 4 to the Mariners and the Mariners really are bad this year, at least to date. Maybe they are going to start scoring some runs and earning some of the millions they are paid each month. I can only hope. Sorry, Troutbirder. I don't know how the Twins could lose 3 of 4---hmmmm, maybe something to do with a blown call at second that went in the Mariners favor? Could be. I can tell you that the Mariners have had far too many blown calls go against them so far this year. Speaking of blown calls. Did anybody see the perfect blown call at first in Detroit? Wow! Tough to umpire in the era of instant replay!!!!

Here is G enjoying a climb.

Even the two year old climbs--and does he ever climb. He scares parents of the the other kids. They are afraid they are going to see him fall and suffer a terrible injury and they probably think he is a horrific example for their own child. Some child development specialists say children don't learn risk assessment until they are about six or seven, but both E and G have an acute sense of risk assessment from the age of two. E just does what he knows he can do and doesn't even try stuff that he knows he can't do. He is incredibly strong, fast and has an unusual sense of balance. A cute little eleven year old girl said he was adorable and played with him for half an hour, then lost her interest when he filled his diapers with a smelly load. She could not believe he was in diapers.

Even the thirteen month old is into climbing. They all climb except the oldest.

Nice kids playground in Wilsonville, OR. Wilsonville is the home of several large hitech companies in the Silicon Forest.

When the shoes come off, you know the kid is serious about playing--IN THE SAND! Even dumped a handful in his hair and when you have hair like E, that is not good. Pick him up and turn him upside down, and the sand runs out.

A picture of the 4'x8' boxes R is building for their garden. There will be eight of these. I managed to build two boxes and the end pieces for three more after the deluge of rain on Wednesday. It can rain pretty hard in Western Oregon. But, we seemed to have brought the rain east with us on our return trip. The rivers are raging, there are warnings not to travel north on highway 95 from Weiser unless the need is great. I was up this morning at 6 to head out to McCall for SIMA's spring mushroom foray, but with the flooding, rock slides and threats of more, I am home doing this and tying flies. I need to tie several chironomids, damsels, prince nymphs, pheasant tail nymphs, humpies and several versions of caddis nymphs and adults. Whew! Overwhelming.

Best face of the week. Also a great carpenter's helper. I got a lot of work done for the kids with this five year old's good work. He soaped the deck screws and handed them to me so that we could move right along making the raised garden beds.