Barbara and Millie's Birthday Celebration

We spent the afternoon at Barb's celebrating Millie and Barb's birthday. Just before we got there Millie's ten year old son had his fingernail partially torn off. That resulted in a trip to the local Doc in the Box, but William did well with the injury. Halibut, Bryan's salmon that he caught in the Boise River, steamed clams and hamburgers were had for dinner. Lisa and I even managed to beat Chris and Jason at a game of Corn Hole. I think the underdogs got lucky. I left immediately after claiming victory scuttling any chances of a rematch. Great Partner that Lisa!









































S likes these big, plush green table grapes. She had to take several breaks from the kiddie swimming pool for a handful of grapes.

I did a pretty poor job of getting pictures of all the participants. My apologies if I have offended anyone. I was tired that afternoon and not functioning on all four cylinders.

Got to go and see what I can do about cleaning up the pond. Truly a yucky job. Oh, and smelly, too.

Papa Coyote LUA

Busy Saturday at the Community Pond for Free Fishing Day

Nathan came over to learn and to practice on four separate occasions. His ten year-old brother, Ryan, tried once and did quite well, then Dad decided to have a go after watching a couple hours of lessons. Dad did real well. Dad decided to send the boys to the 4-H day camp on June 29th so that they can learn to tie flies and cast. The Indianhead Fly Fishers will provide the instruction to ten boys and girls between the ages of ten and fourteen.






The Indianhead Fly Fishers assisted the Idaho Fish and Game who brought their trailer of rod, reels, tackle and bait to the pond so that families could enjoy and learn fishing. The pond was stocked earlier in the week. Families were having a great time on a beautiful 75 degree day with a mild breeze. Perfect!


Saw this little guy when I was out looking for morel mushrooms. Since the Middle Fork of the Weiser River road was closed due to the flooding last weekend, the mushroom hunt failed. Bummer. I think it is time to turn my attention and efforts to fishing

Hanging out in with the granddaughters and their Mommy

L looking into the pond. She is about to lead me on the mushroom tour of her property. She knows I like to find and try to id mushrooms so she has all the mushrooms located before my arrival. She is a great mushroom scout. We found several varieties.





D and H and the girls built two garden boxes last Sunday. J and I spent the day helping H and the girls build the raised strawberry bed. D and H chose redwood lumber which looks very pretty now, but it will weather to gray in a year. But, redwood will weather very well and should give them a lifetime of use. They will eventually build some more boxes in the future, but for now strawberries, tomatoes and possibly herbs are planned. H has started many types of tomatoes and Alpine strawberries from seed and the plants are ready to be planted. Our neighbor Susan bought 8 tomato plants from L who plans to put the money in her piggy bank. Last month she tapped into her bank (she is a fanatic saver skimming whatever pennies she can find to put into her bank) to buy with the help of Mom and Dad a bicycle which she rides around with the aid of training wheels.






Above you can see my scout checking the amanitas. Very poisonous. May be the Amanita ocreata or the Death Angel. It has the volva and veil on the stipend are apparent in the picture below.




Checking out a huge flush of Coprinus. I have not identified these yet, but there are hundreds here along with polypores attached to the rounds of cottonwood trunk.


Grandma helping the girls get some water in the swimming pool. We have not had but a few, very few, days of 80 this year and it did get into the 70's on this day. So the little one just plopped right down in the pool diaper, pajamas and all. Grandma got the clothes off and she was a happy camper.


G checking out the water before sitting in the pool. She might be checking for spiders. The girls can find the most minute spiders. L and I took a picture of a tiny green spider with my macro lens, but then I inadvertently deleted it. Bummer, it was a great picture that I would have liked to have posted.


Helping Mom transplant some seedlings to sell to Susan.


One of the best parts of transplanting seedlings is that you get to get your hands dirty!


Working hard at printing the names of the tomatoes on the popsicle sticks so Susan will know the name of her tomatoes. This is pretty hard work and takes a great amount of concentration when one is only four and writing on little popsicle sticks. She stuck with it and got it done. When L and I drove to Home Depot to buy some lumber and supplies for making the raised strawberry bed box she was telling me the importance of having a list when one went shopping. (We had a list that her Mom had given us of what she needed at Home Depot) I agreed and asked her if she made a list when she went to the grocery store. I was just kidding and was surprise when she told me that she did. She was pretty firm about that answer, so I am thinking okay, whatever. At dinner that night I found that she did indeed make the grocery lists when she and her Mom went shopping. Her Mom would spell out the item and L would write it down on the list. The current list was posted on the refrig and J commented about H's nice printing, but was told, no, that was L's printing. Wow! L really does make a list when she goes to the grocery store.


Enjoying a Rocky Road ice cream cone after dinner and a hard day of mushroom guiding and building.


How about an ice cream cone for this cutie? If you overlook the fully clothed plop into the swimming pool, she has been a real good girl today.


No, this is not racoon vomit. This is another form of a fungi known as slime mold. It really is slimey--just touch it. No smell.


Studying an Agaricus. Agaricus campesteris has flushed out all over the Weiser golf course after the recent rains. Agaricus campesteris is the better tasting wild version of the white mushroom sold so prevelantly in the super markets.




Papa Coyote has to go call some wood working pals to try to solve a wood working problem.

See you all later,
Papa Coyote

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.




She is pretty happy with herself since she got a taste of mom's strawberry yogurt smoothie.




Another face. Seems like my grandchildren make really funny faces.


Got to go tie some flies.
Love you all,
Papa Coyote

Busy May

May has been really busy with the last meeting of the Indianhead Fly Fishers before the summer break. I have been doing a lot of work getting ready for the Smithsonian traveling exhibit hosted by Fruitland.
And I have been working in as much time as possible looking for morels. Sometimes I have threatened to retire from retirement in order to get some relaxing time.


Karen and Bob looking over the 100 morels we found on Saturday. We were suppose to be fishing on Oxbow Reservoir for smallmouth bass, but as we sat in Buckey's in Cambridge eating breakfast we decided it was too cold for fishing. I suggested a morel hunt. Karen and Bob had never done a morel hunt and were game. Bob found the first two. They decided it was a real good day and took 67 morels home.




We found some oyster mushrooms on Saturday and then again on Wednesday. I just ate the last find tonight.




Debbie and Jim and I collected 137 morels this past Sunday.




One hundred mushrooms.




Mushroom hunter taking a hiatus to Italy at the highth of the morel season. Tsk! Tsk!




First time I have seen a tree frog. Reta gave a scream when she almost stepped on it and it jumped to this hole for cover.







Some morels. We brought home 100 morels or 3 pounds and 12 ounces.




We found several of these in a patch of 54 morels in an area about 10 feet by 15 feet. Quite a find since we had been walking for hours up and down some steep hillsides finding only groups of from one to about five or so.




Here is a picture of a boy catching a seven inch trout that would have been planted last year.




The fish are brought from Bend, OR. Most of the fingerling were dumped into the Owyhee River--about 30,000. The rest--about 7,000 were put into a net impoundment at Bully Cr. Res to be held overnight until, Ray, Al Sillonis of the Indianhead Fly Fishers in Weiser, ID and me showed up to dip them out and into a tank mounted on the pickup. We started this job at 8 in the morning and ended at 6 pm. It was a long day on some really rough roads that sometimes were only a faintest of traces across the desert. Since it had rained in the past few days, we were concerned about being able to make this trip in what can become Eastern Oregon gumbo, but we did find.

Here is Ray making notes on the condition of the reservoir. The water temperature was 61.




Here you see the first lake we stocked. Most of these lakes except for Littlefield can be fly fished from the shore and cover all the water. Pretty small.




This typical of the desert reservoirs that I helped Ray Perkins, Eastern Oregon Fish Biologist, stock on Friday. We stocked seven with 7,000 rainbow fingerlings. Only one of the seven can be found on a BLM map. These are very remote, but some people find them and the fishing can be spectacular.




Lots of these clumps of sweet pea.






The Eastern Oregon desert has been well watered by Mother Nature this spring so there are a profusion of wild flowers for our viewing pleasure. I was somewhat surprised to see an occaisional Indian Paint brush in bloom. We were at about 4200 feet in elevation. We saw lots of lupine, phlox and clumps of sweeet pea. I was surprise not to see arrowleaf balsamroot which is in bloom throughout the desert of SW Idaho right now.