Summer Mail Call!

 I know, I know... it's October and I'm just catching up on summer mail now. Sheesh! First up is this post card from Rocky Mountain National Park.

It's from Little Fox... they had some great hiking!

And then another one from LF... this time from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in South Dakota. Cool! I wonder if they stopped in to visit with Jerry & Ben?

More hiking... that is one lucky fox!

Thanks for the post cards Little Fox!! And for hosting the mice for such an awesome summer (and spring... and winter)...

Finally a card from Jerry & Ben!

They wrote a long note! And sent a Starbucks card!

They picked it up in Thunder Bay earlier in the year and just liked the look of it. It is beary pretty...

Thanks for all the mail!

An Adventure and Back-Alley Fish!

Hullo! Today we are doing a little hike to check out another potential swimming hole on Haslam Creek. If you'll recall from a few weeks ago, the one spot we have been to on the creek was a definite "NO" from Rose... but this spot looks like it has more "civilized" access...

First... we hike this stretch of logging road behind a locked gate.

There are lots of pretty flowers out.. These are pearly everlasting and we picked some.

This is tansy... don't let your cows eat this...

And some pretty bracken fern!

The Scotch Broom is in full seed pod mode. One plant makes soooooo many seeds!

There's some fireweed... so pretty and if you have a fireweed meadow... you would get amazing fireweed honey from bees!

Finally (well, 15 minutes later)... we reached a locked gate across a bridge. We are going to deke to the left here...

Although we had a peek over the bridge... hmmm... the water is beary low...

On both sides... there might not be much swimming options here at this time of year.

But let's check it out. Rose and I had seen folks with coolers coming from this area soooo... where there are coolers... there must be water! Or so the logic goes.

Scramble over this berm...

Follow the trail through the woods...

Almost there!!!

And here we are!! There's the bridge... the water is nice and cool... but it's certainly not super deep.

But it's a pretty spot.

Maybe it would be better earlier in the year when the water is higher... we'd have to check.

And then... back home... we are cooking up some dinner that we got in a back-alley... well... back-RV deal! Friends of ours were driving across Canada and unloaded some frozen fish onto us... but not just any fish!

Frozen halibut!!! Mmmm.....

It's not salmon but this little bear isn't choosy...

And some potato wedgies...

And cucumber salad with fresh dill from the garden...

While the fish cooked we hung up our pearly everlasting to dry...

They make beary nice dried flowers...

mmmm... it's ready!!!!

Can you smell it???

Dinner's served!!!

And no, there weren't any leftovers... although... other friends of ours brought over some more frozen halibut... it's good to have people with fishy connections, you know!