Unusual Critters in our Backyard

You will need to click on this picture to get the enlarged version. You then can clearly see a wood duck. He/She landed in late March (disregard the date on the pic). The mate was on the ground behind the fence. They stayed for 15 minutes or so and then decided this oak tree and the location was not appropriate for their nesting needs. Smart birds. Our neighbor's cat frequents our backyard daily looking for tasty morsels and quite oftens scores a mouse for his/her efforts. We are fans of the cat and cheer her onto victory. We also have a grey squirrel who has established a nest in the locust tree above the dog run. The squirrel seems to have trouble attracting members of the opposite sex. Yea!! Since the squirrel is entering his second year as a resident of our backyard, I am wondering if he has been exiled from the squirrel community for grevious wrongdoings. Out in the middle of acres and acres of wheat and onions would, me thinks, constitute severe isolation for a tree squirrel. We do have three oak trees that provide a plentiful supply of acorns. So squirrel food is not in scarcity. My Pennsylavania born and raised friends say I should encourage a robust population of squirrels because they make a very tasty meal. Their argument may make sense. We could benefit from the oak trees by feeding the squirrels and then reap the benefit of the oak trees at dinner time. Sure beats buying feed, feeding on a regular schedule, building a hen house just to have chicken dinner. I like the idea of no pain, no hassle for gain. Not sure if the wife would acquire a taste for squirrel, though. In fact, having thought this out a little further, I am sure she would not even attempt to acquire a taste for squirrel. I'll have to get grandson M over here for meals. I am sure he would like squirrel and be begging for more squirrel meals.

Well, got to go and tie some Prince Nymphs and JW Clouser minnows. They are very effective patterns in this neck of the sagebrush.


Happy hunting, CAT,
Papa Coyote

ETSY market in Boise on First Thursday

In Boise, Idaho the city has a First Thursday tradition. The art galleries downtown are all open and serve cheese, wine, cookies and other assorted goodies--all free. J, my wife, makes all sorts of things from fabric that people might buy and has a site on the ETSY website. That is a site where you may purchase handmade items from people around the world. Those who market on ETSY get together once in awhile, like first Thursday and display their items for sale. They have space provide at the Pioneer Tent and Awning Building on Fifth and Main which is pretty well the heart of downtown Boise. I have pictures.

The last two pictures show J set up with her various items displayed. She sold several items with the biggest purchases made as she was taking down at the end of the evening.

The second to last set of two pictures shows the Pioneer Tent and Awning Building.

The fourth picture is the Basque Center and is looking towards the Basque block.

The third picture is one of the original movie theaters in Boise called the Egyptian Theater. It has been completely restored. Some movies are still shown there plus some live entertainment. It is where J and I went to see The Godfather when it first came out.

The first picture is Boise's City Hall.

And today's bonus picture is that of a yellow breasted fly catcher. Click on picture to see this stately ariel artist in close up format. Fly catcher family returns every year to help us with mosquitos and other flying bugs that like to bug us.
Bugs--beware of the fly catcher swooping down from the heavens to end your pesky existence on earth. Yea! Go fly catcher. You the Man!!! or Woman!!! as the case may be.

Got to Go,

Later Alligator

First Day of Fishing This Year, Yahoo!

Can you guess where J and I spend a spring vacation this year? Yep, part of the vacation was a day at Death Valley. I can tell you it was pretty nice sitting at a picnic bench eating lunch at the visitors' center in late February in shirt sleeves and 70 degree weather. Weiser would be a month and a half away from 70. We had an unusually cold and dry spring. Not real terribly cold, just kept hanging about 10-15 degrees below normal for the longest time. I had to completely replant the garden this year and am looking at planting the green beans yet again. Darn. There is an old saying around here that one should not plant their garden until the snow is off Mt. Cornucopia. How true, but waiting until the middle of May seemed a little extreme. Mind the old sayings. Local wisdom is hard to beat.

The fellow pix above is a character in the finest sense of the word. Marv spent eighteen years guiding trout fishermen in Alaska. He has been invited to Scotland on some occaisions by his clients to fish for salmon. He loves to fish, smoke a fine Cuban cigar, appreciates 18-year McCallum Scotch, and can tell wonderful stories. And he can catch fish, tie flies and drive an 18-wheeler all over the country during fire season. Oh, yeah. And he is a really wonderful gentleman.

Went trout fishing with five buddies from the Indian Head Fly Fishers (IHFF) club today. The fishing was fantastic. The catching, well, one never wants to start off with too big of a bang, you know. Don't want to ruin the expectations for future trips. Jim, Perry and I caught nothing. Marv caught 22 (so he says) and Mike caught a bunch and Jim caught a few. Perry called me later in the evening about some Little Theater business and was wondering if I happened to come across a little lost luck while cleaning out the pickup. Ya, right! Marv rode up to the lake with me and seems to have soaked up all the luck for the day. But, the day was wonderful and it felt so good bobbing around in my float tube on clean water and breathing crystal clear air.

I did have a really big fish on for about two minutes. Never could get it up off the bottom. It made one really big run on me and took me down to the backing on my fly reel. Then it broke off. Dirty Rack of Bricks@%@!#$$%&^!

The lily pads and flowers? In my front yard. The pond is doing well this year. The algae is under control and the gold fish are thriving. Maybe I should try fly fishing in my own pond. Might have better luck.

Weekend and Odds and Ends

Son, D and his wife, H, and daugher, G (L left home, sad) came to town Saturday afternoon. We all loaded into their car and went to a wedding of his boyhood chum, A held at the his family home along the Snake River. Beautiful place, perfect for a wedding. The big, bad rain backed off for the wedding and even sunshined brightly during the outdoor ceremonies. His wife is a very sweet young lady who just graduated from nursing school valedictorian.

D is re-establishing our wireless after several months w/o. You can kind of see the new office that J and I remodeled. The red fir floors which were original with the 1922 house have been sanded and four coats of Cabothane have been applied. Sanding between each coat was with a 220 grit sanding block so the floors are very smooth. A few parts were waxed, but can't do that in the traffic areas or these old folks who work in this office would be upside down in a hurry.

You can see our granddaughter, G, and her mom and grandma in these pictures.

I have been playing with the new camera.

The mushrooms are about four and three inches across. They will get bigger. I went to work and keyed them out and am pretty sure they are as labeled. They commonly grow on railroad ties, that is what they are growing on in my front yard, and have been known in the past to have caused train wrecks. They are said to be excellent eating. Being new at this game of keying out mushrooms, I will probably pass and keep looking for morels.

Sorry about the family pictures. I had to delete them because I had labeled the pictures with names. Ooops. I guess that is a no-no in posting blogs.

Will be fishing at Lost Creek Reservoir with several members of the IHFF tomorrow. Will take pictures and report on the results tomorrow.

Yeeooowwwww,

Papa Coyote

"Back in the Saddle" with a better camera

The government sent us old Social Security types $250 to spend in hopes of stimulating the economy. I have done my duty and came up with another $300 (sold my share of the canoe to my canoe-partner) and now have a Canon PowerShot G10. The camera specializes in macro photography and that is what I wanted. I can tell I will have to get a small tripod designed for macro photography.

Thursday, May 28 I and a few members of the fly fishing club helped Oregon Fisheries plant fingerling rainbow in the Owyhee River. We helped again on Tuesday the 2nd of June. In all we planted 126,000 fish. Mostly we planted the fish in nets with 20 pounds of fish per net. We formed a line like the proverbial bucket brigade to plant the fish. Some were flushed out of the truck through a pipe.

On the 29th through the 31st I attended the Southern Idaho Micology Association's Spring foray in McCall. That was pretty interesting. Found several mushrooms and learned the names of serveral that I did not know. Even got home with a few morels. Yummm.

The mushroom pictured is currently growing in our backyard. It is Psytherella candolleana. I identified the genus, but needed help in getting the last part. The wild flower is the Calypso orchid. I think it is the only orchid that grows in Idaho.

J has been busy sewing and attending bazaars. Currently she is sewing a dress shirt for AS who is getting married this Saturday. He is tall and thin and could not find a shirt off the rack that fit. How about having a tailored dress shirt for your wedding? How cool is that?

Papa Coyote loves you all

Yeeeeeeooooowwww

Bazaar in the Barnyard, Really

The above picture shows the highway side of the "midway" of the Bazaar in the Barnyard. The fall bazaar was dreamed up by my wife and our friend Jerri another retired school teacher. They approached the two men who own the Second Chance store on the corner of our lane and the highway. They thought it was a good idea and put in a quarter acre of grass for the occaision.

The above picture looks down the left side of the "midway" and you can see the red "barn" in the background. That houses the Second Chance store which has been opened a little over a year. The business has flourished and J has contributed many household items for consignment. She says she has made pretty good money. She also buys items from the store. I like the guys who run the store because we had an old sofa/bed that was just really heavy. J decided to try to sell it at Second Chance and I am thinking, "how are we ever going to get that thing out of the house and in the pickup?" Whoa, what's that you said? Oh, yeah. Todd and Darren came to the house with a horse trailer and loaded all of the stuff J wanted sold on consignment. How sweet is that? Another night after closing the store they dropped by the house (we live on the same lane as the store) and delivered this old, old paint chipped interior door. It is a five-paneled door and J has a thing about five-paneled doors. They take it out of their pickup and are walking up the stairs of our front deck when I meet them at the door with, "Who has authorized the delivery of that piece of junk?" That stops them cold for about two seconds, but these guys are very nimble of mind. Darren answers, "The Boss!" Young, smart alecky whipper snappers!

Now this is a seriously good bazaar. Perry Kelley, one of the founding members of the local fly fishing club (Indianhead Fly Fishers Club), manned a booth and tied flies during the day and sold beautifully made flies (he is a true artisan of the craft) for five dollarsf or four flies. The proceeds from the sale of the flies is going toward a kids' fishing pond that the fly club is sponsoring to be dug in the town of Weiser.

The above two pictures are of J's booth. J and Jerri collected $25 from each participant and gave the proceeds to the local Rose Advocates chapter. Rose Advocates helps battered spouses and their children. Unfortunately, there is a need for such a charity in our area. J did not have a real good day of sales, but not bad. Many people did take her card so she may have some custom orders down the line.

The owners of the Second Chance store did not charge anything for the use of their property and coordinated an open house with the bazaar. They had hot coffee, chocolate and several types of cookies for visitors to the store. J reports that Darren and Todd were ecstatic about their sales for the day (Friday). They had a really big day. The bazaar is suppose to continue tomorrow--Saturday, but the forecast is for some really serious storms, rain, and high temperature of 60 degrees with wind. So, the fact is that the bazaar may be rained out. That is too bad, but the first annual bazaar was such a success that it is certainly going to get a rerun next year.

Does spelling really matter? J thinks so. In the first posting of this report I spelled bazaar "bizarre." J thought I should reconsider my usage of bizarre to describe their bazaar. Hey, kind of sounds the same, but I really did not see anything very bizarre today unless I were to count the time I got onto my hands and knees to help Perry set up his canopy and found that under the new grass was a bumper crop of goat's heads. That is a particularly loathesome noxious weed that grows in Southern Idaho. It is also known as puncture vine and the seeds really can puncture about anything. It is death on bicycle tires.

Here is barking in the bazaar to you,

Papa Coyote

On the Pacific Coast with Grandchildren

The two large light colored buildings at the center of the picture constitute the Rockaway Beach
Resort. We have owned three weeks of time share here since 1983. We have been vacationing there every year or have traded weeks to visit other parts of the U.S. and Canada. We feel that we really have received value for the money we spent on these. The resort is exceptionally well administered by the board of directors and managed by some very dedicated and friendly people. We could not be happier with this resort experence. The pictures show how wide and expansive the beach is. Most of Oregon beaches are very rocky and picturesque, but this is the only beach where one can walk for more than six miles with no obstructions.

This pictures the little village of Rockaway, Oregon.

The ever-present denizens of the beach out catching a late-in-the-day snack.

Picture of Manzanita and Rockaway Beaches taken from Oswald West Park. This is a great vantage point for watching whales swim by in the spring.

The Twin Rocks off the coast of Rockaway.

Looking north on the beach toward Oswald West Park.

M dressed for crabbing at Brighton Marina. Unfortunately, we were unable to catch any legal size crabs. Two years ago at the same time of the year and at the same place, we had great success and fun.

Brighton Marina looking into the Nehalem Bay. Even the salmon fishing was slow that week.

G dressed for crabbing. Children under 12 must wear PFD which the owners of the marina provide free. E is strapped to his mother's back and he really likes life from that position. We had a wet walk on the beach Thursday afternoon and that is the manner in which he walked the beach.

J and I had beautiful weather from the day we arrived (Friday) through Tuesday when S and the grandboys arrived. That Wednesday it rained and we went crabbing. Thursday it rained even harder, then the day we left (Friday) the weather turned beautiful with temperatures even hitting the low 80's Sunday. Wouldn't you know it!! The grandboys had fun each day in the indoors swimming pool at the resort. Oh, yeah, they liked the visit to the Tillamook Cheese factory. Pictures of that visit to follow soon. My daughter and I took off Thursday morning for a breakfast at Nehalem while J and the boys entertained each other. We had fun. Oh, S had just found out that she is pregnant and will have her second natural child making four children in the family. She has two adopted boys.

J and I spent the weekend in Newberg visiting with S, R, the boys and S's in-laws and daughter. The in-laws just returned for a month in Scotland visiting their granddaughter and grandson. More on that visit in the next blog.

Until later,

Papa Coyote