The word is that fishing is poor this year. The State has placed all kinds of limits on both size and number of fish this year. A few days ago this week Brian and Rennae went fishing for a few hours and came back with a nice catch. I ended up doing the cleaning and packaging. This represents about 4 meals for us .

We left on May 30 in 90 degree weather and a day later ended in snow country. Yellowstone was still cold. We also had to dodge buffalo that roamed the roads with us. Camping was fun and it was nice to have some grass under our feet. It was nice to see that the house was still standing. None of the trees had any leaves. Most of the grass was green and there was no ice on the lake. we did some repairs and got some vehicles running again. Our garden will be our first task. We'll wait for some warm weather.

We left Saturday May 10 and arrived Tuesday late afternoon. the trip was uneventful, but still seemed long. To update this blog, we still have to go to the local library located in Detroit Lakes--about 12 miles away. The weather has been poor--rain, cold, and wind and cloudiness all day. After days of repairs and getting things started again we have made our lives livable. I finally have a boat in the water--so now we can enjoy our cruises (because of bad weather, we have only been on the water twice) Memorial Day week only gave us one nice day. Our garden is in, flowers planted, and some vehicles are running. Our satellite is up and we can get our TV working.

Just now when everything is starting to bloom, it is time for us to go. We'll load up the dogs and the bird--Yes he's been with us for over 15 years as you can see from the picture. We're planning to leave tomorrow and should be in Audubon in 3 days. The last few days we have been getting this house closed up --it is not an easy task because there are so many small things to take care of.

Here are some of the wildlife that we observed in or near our yard. None are harmful and are more afraid of you then you of them. The roadrunner was actually going after the snake since he is a meat eater. The coyote was running through the yard--there were actually 3 of them. If you click on the picture, you will enlarge the image. The little quail usually run along the ground and are in groups.

Brian's visit was not all play. We helped one of our neighbors and also updated our irrigation system. Brian's turn to cook produced these delicious grilled meal. That's my roto-tiller for my future garden.

Brian and I took a ride into Death Valley (about 128 miles) It was a windy day, but the scenery was great. We were able to see the whole valley from this vantage point.

Brian came to visit for 9 days and for excitement we had planned a trip to a mine about 168 miles away. Mostly what we did was dig in a pile of rock to find pieces of turquoise. We brought back about 3 bags --mostly small samples which still have to processed. Although this was not our mine, this is what it looks like.