Visiting with the Idaho Granddaughters

Life has really been busy for both J and me. We have not done any traveling of late, but with J's business and my scrolling, fly tying, fishing, gardening and looking for mushrooms the grass has not been growing under our feet. Thinking of grass, yeah, did have to mow the lawn once already and probably will do so tomorrow. I have more pictures of recent activities so will get those on the blog soon.



This little girl loves to dance and show her happiness. She is a delight.



We had a great dinner cooked up by or son and daugher-in-law. Here is the grill master.




Grandma loves watching her Grandchildren.



Put a puzzle in front of the girl and she gets a puzzled look on her face. She put the puzzle together four times. I learned a few things about four year olds and how they go about solving a puzzle that I will put to use in making the next puzzle. I also got some ideas from the scroll saw club meeting about making a better state puzzle. Really, I learned a lot from those experienced scrollers.



Playing with Daddy is the highlight of any one year old's day.



Catch her unaware of the camera and one can get a normal face. Pretty cute thinks this Grandpa.





The youngest likes to make faces into the camera. Even though she is only one, she likes to see the monitor of the camera to see her picture after I take it.

Puzzle and mushroom hunt

Spent part of the week making an Oregon puzzle. Also planted a row of potatoes, two rows of snow peas, a row of beans (may lose them to frost, but taking a chance), a row of spinach and have already planted lettuce. I have radish seed and carrot seed to put in, but the day turned cold and very windy. Forecast is for light wind and temps in the 50's so will probably try my luck on the Owyhee River tomorrow. We had planned to do that today, but decided the wind was too much.

The levy's passed in both Fruitland and Weiser. I think that is good. Fruitland's money from the State will be $1.2 million less than last year so the $475,000 approved by the voters will help. The Governor crowed after the session how the legislature held the line and did the right thing by not raising taxes and cutting budgets. Well, how can it be argued that the legislature did not raise taxes when all they did was to pass the buck on to the school boards and the school district patrons to raise the taxes? Am I not to regurgitate when the legislators campaign this fall about how THEY held the line and did not raise our taxes? Hah!



Here are the mushroom hunters in action. Still too much snow in the forests where we are likely to find morels.



But we found this



We were looking for this but did not find it.



Finished another puzzle. Michael is in the 5th grade in an Oregon grade school so maybe he should know his counties in Oregon. I know much more about Oregon counties now than I did a few days ago.

Got to go tie some flies and see how the Cubs are faring agaist the Braves. Hope the Twins slap another big loss on the Angels. The Mariners appear to have another anemic offensive team. Could be a long season. Maybe Cliff Lee and Eric Bedard will hit top form by mid-season, then the losses will be 1-0.

Papa Coyote moving on,

Resume posting on April Fool's Day

Pictured below are some of the puzzles I have been scrolling. Read blog for explanation.













This is the puzzle with the letters put in place. I added dowels dyed red in the holes of the letter like the "a" and "o", etc.




Below is the latest puzzle. This took about sixteen hours to complete.




Resuming posting after two months hiatus on April's Fool's Day is rather ominous. Kind of like the snow Mother Nature laid on us today for a few hours before noon. Only about a half inch accumulated and it was gone by the noon hour.

So what have I been doing that would cause me not to post for two months? Well, for one I bought a scroll saw and have been trying to learn to have the steady hands needed to become an adequate scroller. So far, I have been sticking with puzzles because the interlocking pieces are forgiving. I would like to graduate to making bowls and baskets and then intarsia, but having just scrolled a piece of red oak last night, I can see I will be making puzzles for a while longer. That hard wood definitely is more challenging than the the pine that I started with (the finished pieces break too easily) and the poplar which works pretty well, but lacks the grain definition to make really beautiful pieces. While scrolling takes time, the sanding and finishing takes a lot of time. Yesterday I finished an apple alphabet puzzle that took about sixteen hours to complete. I intend to make a couple more because as I complete a puzzle I immediatedly have inspirations how I can make some modifications and have an even better finished product. Look at the pictures to see what you think of these two puzzles?


I have purchased a few books with patterns from Woodcraft and get other patterns online. I take the books down to a local copy shop to get copies of the patterns in the book. The patterns usually have to be increased in size. Sometimes I take a finished puzzle so the lady who owns the shop can see what becomes from these patterns she copies for me. I have had three offers to buy my puzzles from customers in the shop. I tell them that the time it takes to make the puzzles precludes even the thought of trying to sell them. But, I am having second thoughts. I could never recoup my hours even at a dollar an hour, but I might be able to charge enough to cover the cost of materials and be able to buy materials to make two more just like the one I sold. Hmmmm. Might think about that for awhile.

I also have been tying a lot of flies, attending seminars about fly fishing and will even be attending the Western Idaho Fly Fishing Expo in Boise tomorrow and Jane and I will attend the banquet Saturday night. I also have been reading quite a bit about flies and fly fishing. Right now I am reading Gary LaFontaine's book about caddis flies. Pretty good. Unfortunately the author is deceased--Lou Gehrig's disease.

And, I have been reading quite a bit and have been doing research for an endeavor my son is involved with and research on the Native Americans of this area because I have to prepare a display for Fruitland on the Native Americans of this area for this fall when the traveling Smithsonian display called Journeys comes to Fruitland for six weeks.

The presidency of the Indianhead Fly Fishing Club in Weiser and membership in the Southern Idaho Mycological Association is also keeping me busy. Reta and I have to scout out the Mann's Creek drainage Monday through Wednesday of next week to determine if there is going to be a flush of morel mushroom large enough to warrant our members who are mostly from Boise to come out for the weekend of the tenth.

Oh, yeah, there is a Powwow in Boise on the tenth and eleventh. Guess I will just make the eleventh this year. So, yeah, things are really busy. Good thing I am retired because I really don't have any time to be working.

More about flies and visits with the grandkids in Newberg on the next posting.

Yippeee, Yeooooowwww,
Papa Coyote is back