MAY 19-25, 2016 Bald Eagles, Pizza Hut, Hot Tubs, Electronic Spiders, and More ...

Try again ..... I just lost the entire blog when I hit the wrong button!  Grrr!  So this is my second attempt.

Scott loves putting together models and puzzles.

We got this one in Nevada but Susan and Scott are just now putting it together.

Naturally, you spend money on toys then the kids have more fun with the boxes they keep the toys in.

Scott coping with another rainy day!

Susan's birthday was this week.  We'd planned on going to the hot springs but the weather had different ideas so we compromised by renting a motel room for the night.  The major requirement was that it have a heated pool and a functioning hot tub.  This one also had tubs in the bathroom so we could take hot soaking Epsom salt baths.

Susan decided to buy this remote control spider for Scott instead of getting something for herself.

Scott was delighted, of course, and couldn't wait to try it out while we were at Pizza Hut for dinner.

It moves pretty fast!

Our endless rains left the creeks and rivers running with their banks full.

Scott sitting on the deck railing at his Uncle Tristan's house.

We did some yard leveling last year with the tiller.  This section grew a bumper crop of thistles which Susan is digging out with a trowel.

I've had a ground squirrel tormenting me for about a week now.  Every time I got lined up for a shot he'd go down his burrow.  I waited patiently in a light rain for him to show himself again but after about twenty minutes I went back inside.  On the 30th Susan stayed on the swing outside and talked to Odie when the squirrel showed up.  He didn't notice me getting into position.  It was his last mistake.  

Supper time!  Most of the veggies in the stew were grown in the garden.  The meat came from a deer I shot.

Our neighbors had some visitors in their field.

Close-up from the photo above.

Meanwhile a mile down the road we saw another feathered visitor.

It was one of the largest eagles I've ever seen.  I really need to begin taking my better camera with us.  It has a much better telephoto lens on it.

May 5-14, 2016 - On The Home Front

Unfortunately we do not get to spend all of our time camping and having fun.  Sometimes we have to get a few things done.  Of course most of my work anymore seems to involve the IRS and it's myriad of forms and reports to complete but we still have domestic duties to stay up on.

This is the first year our lilacs have had a full display of flowers/blossoms. We were just a bit disappointed since we expected purple!

We made a trip into Kalispell to get some things done and stopped over at our Daughter and SIL's place for awhile.  Of course we had time playing with Scott's younger brother too.

On the way out of town we spotted this car hauler at one of those "Park-N-Sell" lots.  We've been watching for one just like this in the paper and Craig's List so we were happy to find this one.  We contacted the owner but it was too late to go to the bank so we came back in the next morning to pay for it and pick it up.  Now we have something we can haul the ATV's on when we take them along on our excursions.

Scott working hard at playing in the sand.  We have a real sand box for him but he prefers the sand around the tether ball.

Susan getting some mowing time in before it gets so tall we have to bale it.

A trip to Columbia Falls to see another daughter meant we also stopped at Whitefish for Scott to play on the playground there.

We also stopped at the Burger King in Columbia Falls.  Scott has grandma cornered in the play area.

Scott needed his immunizations caught up so we went to the pediatrician.  He was joined by his little brother who delighted in throwing rocks in the puddle.  Scott had a good observation point in the puddle.

We decided to use some rubbing compound of the van to spruce it up a bit and get rid of the dead paint.  Susan was working the front part over but stopped long enough to take the photo.

This is just to show the before/after contrast.

We are clearing out a lot of our excess stuff.  Here I'm working on a small compound bow that's going to one of Scott's cousins.

Scott and Hanna (cousin).

More cousins and Scott playing in a Lilac bush/tree.

It's still a bit chilly in the mornings here.

We made a trip into Libby (the county seat) to get the title for the van and license the van and car hauler.

They have a Pizza Hut so we partook of the lunch buffet.

I was just commenting to Susan that week that we hadn't seen any moose for several years then we had one show up in our yard.  I used this photo to give a size reference to compare the moose to the whitetail deer standing behind it.

It walked out of the brush long enough for a decent photo.  Looks like it's shedding it's winter coat.

It finally wandered off through the woods.

30 April, 2016 - Raking leaves, buying campers, firefighters, parades, and more...

It's been nice to be home!  We still had tons of unpacking to go and we're working on de-cluttering the place (which isn't nearly as much fun as cluttering it up in the first place!). Boredom hasn't been an issue lately!  The place always needs some spring cleaning so we got into that as well.

There were still some hold-out leaves left on the trees when we left last winter so we finished raking them up this spring.

Since we have no chickens to scatter our freshly raked leaves, Scott volunteered to do the job.

We took the newly acquired ATV's out for a spin as well.  Scott is sitting behind Susan on the big four-wheeler.

We bought a kit to take the film off the headlights on one of our vehicles.  Scott took it on as a personal project when he found out that we got to use the drill and sanding disk.

And we have lots of work to do on the garden area.  Our garden has suffered some neglect the last three years as we've concentrated on using up some of our stored food.  We still have plenty of food stores but are going to start bringing the garden back up to snuff as well.  More on that later.

We bought an 1988 Ford One-ton camper conversion van.  This is what we've been looking for the last several years.  Something that's easier to get around in yet still has the comforts of home (at least some of them!).  The body is in good shape and the motor seems to run fine.  It needs some minor work done but I can handle that.  The first thing that's going to go is the AC unit on top. (It's been taken off now and a roof vent put in it's place.)

The view from the center looking forward.

And from the center looking toward the back.

And Scott trying it out for comfort playing on his tablet.

The guy we bought it from was pretty honest about what worked and what didn't.  He mentioned that the back tank was about dry but the front tank was full.  Don't know if he forgot to mention or didn't know (we bought it from a dealer) that the tank switch didn't work so when the rear tank ran dry ... Susan made a trip to town to get some more gasoline!  I had a feeling I should have filled the rear tank before we left but I didn't.  The Onan generator starts and runs but they have the wiring so messed up I don't know if it actually generates electricity yet.  I knew about that before we bought it.  The generator is nice but was not a deal breaker. I have some other tweaking to do on it as well before it's pronounced "healed."  By the way, the front tank was indeed full of gasoline.

Part of spring cleaning is burning slash piles.  We only had three I was concerned with so we picked a day between rain storms to do some burning.  Unfortunately, before the day was over I had to make a trip the emergency room.  My asthma flared up and the inhaler I carry for emergency use wasn't able to knock it back. I didn't realize at first what was happening.  We were finishing up on colds we caught in Nevada so I thought the coughing was from the cold.  I just got tired and laid on the ground next to the fire to rest.  Susan couldn't see me then and came over to find out why.  So Susan got me loaded up and we headed for Prompt Care in Eureka (about 20 miles).  They got me breathing okay again (Susan said I don't look that good when I'm turning purplish/blue .. I kinda' looked like Papa Smurf) and sent me home with a nebulizer and $100.00 in prescription medicines.  I'ts been pretty good since then.  Hope it stays that way.

Scott's uncle Tristan is the assistant fire chief on the local volunteer fire department and offered to let Scott ride in the truck in the Rendezvous parade.  Scott, of course, thought that was a fantastic idea and couldn't wait to get suited up and go with them.

Of course all the guys (and gals) know Scott and were enthusiastic about him being there.  They really are a great bunch of people who regularly put their lives on the line and get nothing but a "thank you" in return (most of the time).

Ready to roll!  That little guy is so happy he's about to burst.

We had to rush to get back on the street to see the parade.  

We didn't get to see all of it because we had to pick Scott up at the fire station.  This is looking down main street in Eureka.  That's probably about half the population in this end of the county.  There was a new archery shop in town so I stopped there and bought another string server and some more broad heads for my arrows (Zwickey 2-blade).

Parking can be a bit of a chore in a small town.  This is the highway coming in to Eureka from the south.

Booths are set up at the lower end of town near the river.

We also had company coming so we headed home quickly after the parade and were just a few minutes ahead of Scott's mom and dad and little brother.

We needed to swap out the studded snow tires on Scott's mom's car so his dad and I spent some time doing that before we had lunch.