It's A Firecracker Baby!

Talk about a celebration! She's early but she's here and doing well. Meet Josalyn Ilene Poore. Born on the 4th of July.

May Flowers

The Start Of Our Spring Garden

Happy Keester!

Can Spring Be Far Off?

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;

Today the glint of green is there;

Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;

I know no thing so wondrous fair,

No miracle so strangely rare.

I wonder what will next be there!

~L.H. Bailey

Taken this morning in our front yard.

From Point A To Point B & Back Again

The Scene of The Crime

This is all that's left of a beautiful pork roast.

THE ACCUSED!

Joel Practicing His Grandparenting Skills

A Rose By Any Other Name

Joel just brought these beautiful roses in from our garden.

Pennies From Heaven

The other evening the National Warning System sounded over the radio. Joel got all excited thinking about an impending thunderstorm. He waited patiently for the beeping to stop, the silent pause and finally the mechanical, computer generated voice stating a storm system was heading our way!!!! Be prepared, it said, for.........penny sized hail and............16 mile per hour winds! We were shaking in our boots...not from fear but from laughter. A warning like that on the great plains wouldn't even have elicited a raised eyebrow. There we were bombarded by baseball sized meteors crashing at blazing speeds with such impact they knocked down tree limbs the size of redwood trunks, making our lawns look like tossed salads of ruined perennials, annuals and tree leaves, accompanied by winds so cacophonous, it sounded like trains speeding by.

Walk On By

Joel and I were reminded again this weekend about what a beautiful part of the country we live in. After camping at Heyburn State Park which is the oldest state park in Idaho,



















we took the Lake Coeur D'Alene Scenic Byway Drive.

















We finished up with a 3.3 mile hike along what is called the Mineral Ridge which was the first recreation site developed by the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho. It's basically a "classroom in the forest". There are 22 stations along the hike that provide instruction on environmental education for the local school districts. It's accompanied by a beautiful, comprehensive, trail guide. Here is a picture of the view that awaited us before our downhill descent.

















Caribou Cabin...this is what remains of The Caribou Mining Company's unpatented claims.


















After a 2.3 hike upward on a path full of switchbacks, it was a steep, but beautiful trail down.

The Dog Days Of Summer

A few pictures of the best camping companions you'd ever want to hang with.