Terrys Commute

I thought you might be interested in commuting to work with Terry this morning. Terry rides his little scooter about 1/2 mile to the warehouse where he picks up his company truck and any supplies he may need and then he makes the 17 or so mile trip to his park. This is one of the views of the road that takes him to his work. It is a little hazy this morning because of some fires burning on the West side of the state, but it still is quite nice as he gets to watch the sun creep over the hill and illuminate the river. On this particular morning he sees some familiar faces in the "traffic". A large Mountain Sheep ram is walking along the road fairly unconcerned with the passing cars. The ram is almost a full curl and is quite impressive to look at. Also this morningfrom across the river Terry spots a sow bear with two cubs enjoying the temperate morning before the sun comes to its full strength today. (But it is too far to get a good picture, sorry) Yesterday the temperature was in the 90's and more heat is expected today. I hope that you all have a great commute to your work this morning!

Cougar is spotted at Granny's

Hey all,
It's been a month or so and been really busy around here. Got most of the house painted, still working on trim cause we also changed out a couple of windows. You all know how home repairs go!!! Great story to relay to you all. (Subtitles for names and such will be provided) This morning at church mom (Dixie) said she had a good wild animal story to tell everyone. We are sort of goofy around here for wild animal stories, good, bad, made up ...it just doesn't matter, we are a captive audience. Anyway, mom (Dixie) says: "I went up to Moms's (granny's house) this morning to visit and check on granny." (Jo (Dixies sister) had come over from LaGrande for the weekend and mom(Dixie) had been out of town on Saturday and had not had time to visit). And Jo had let her little dog Scooter out of the house when Mom (Dixie) went inside. The little dog (he's a terrier) began to bark at the fence out by the gate. It was a weird kind of bark so they went to tell him to hush and when they looked out to see what he was all excited about, there was a cougar about 6 feet away on the other side of the fence. Of course the cougar is fairly intent at staring at the dog at this point and is just sitting there. So everyone crowded around the window from the inside of the house and watched...but Jo was concerned that the cougar might think that Scooter would be easier on the palate in place of the ears and called softly for Scooter to come inside...Well, once the cougar heard voices he high-tailed it out of there. Mind you this is all in broad daylight and Mom (Dixie) had just walked up the hill not 5 minutes before they spotted the big cat watching them. A little freaky even for us folk who live on the edge of the wilderness, but a darn good story on Sunday morning!! For those of you who are wondering, the picture of the cougar is just copied off the internet, no one got a pic of the cat before he left.

Lots of Berries

After two days of picking. The final count was approximately 5 gallons of Huckleberries and an extra 4 gallons of Blackberries (we pick the blackberries from the rivers edge on the party boat)
The close up picture is of the huckleberries. Pretty little things aren't they!

Oops! We got a flat.

The beautiful productive berry picking day ended with a hot dirty road side struggle. Luckily we girls are all pretty competent and durable so we all jumped out of the truck and started gettin' r' done. Road side hazard insurance on tires is a must in this country.

Duck Lake in the Eagle Cap Mountains

This is a picture of Duck Lake in the Eagle Cap Mountains. It is about a 25 mile drive from our house and has camping (the primitive kind without electric hookups and satellite tv!) We drove up here to pick berries.

Berries are on!

This past weekend the girls came home from Boise on a mission to pick berries. First we got up at 5:30am to head to the high country for the elusive huckleberry. We had heard of reported sightings and were going to bag us a couple gallons. Unfortunately while picking huckleberries you have to go to some of the most beautiful country you could ever imagine. It was very difficult to concentrate on picking those luscious little purple orbs when all of God's beauty and splendor sits right in front of you!! Somehow we managed. The following pictures are of us in the woods, and our friend Jenny (she shares the same birthday and birthday year as Emily) came along to bag her a gallon or so as well. Notice how purple stained our fingers are as we pick...but equally more impressive is how purple stained our mouth is NOT! No premature munching is allowed. (i confess that i had one or two while picking...but don't tell).

Hummingbirds at the feeder

I've been feeding the wildlife on the deck. This year we have about 12-14 resident hummingbirds that come for the free meal (refilling this small feeder twice a day). They are not as aggressive at the feeder yet because they are nest mates and get along for now. Later in the summer they will begin to be more territorial and I won't see such large groups feeding together. We have Rufus and Black chinned Hummingbirds.