Fishing the Pere Marquette

This week I did a guided float trip on the Pere Marquette river .  It was a great time and the salmon were running full force.  It was hard to believe how many salmon were in that stream. This video shows me landing a large male .  I took it while fighting the fish,my first fly rod fishing.

Unexpected Pleasures

 Ever have something that you keep around but are not quite sure why ?  My cactus plants are like that.. just green and thorns.
Well this one gave us a big surprize today.  We had no idea.
Sometimes the best things come from un-looked for places. 
This is one of them.  Must be my birthday gift.  How thoughtful.




Side view
More flowers on the way.

I finally came to appreciate all the rain that we have been getting. Last night  Ginny says , "oh I think that I saw a morel mushroom in the back yesterday".   WHAT! So we get our rain jackets on and head to the back. Sure enough it was morels.  I have never found this many before and am beside myself with pleasure.  Check them out.

         These (below) were so beautiful that I had to take a photo.  I don't know if these are good to eat so we let them be. They may be , I have to look it up in my mushroom guide book.

 This is how many we ended up with.  We not only searched our orchard but found a bunch at a nearby woods.  I would like to look around again today if I can get into some more of the neighbor's places.

Hunting for morels brings back good memories of mushroom hunting with my dad when I was a kid.  He hunted for a lot of different kinds but morels were the "holy grail" .  Sometime he would spot one and stop to see if I could see it.  Never did.  They were so hard to see he almost had to put my nose on it for me to see.  So last night we had a lamb chop,morel mushrooms and mac and cheese for dinner...and all the while I wished that my dad was here for the feast.  Good meal,good memories.

making spaghetti

142 meat balls browning.

two pots of sauce ready for the meatballs

A hike after the recent ice storm.

     We had a good ice storm and everything was covered with a smooth thick covering of ice.  When I got home the sun was shinning so we took a walk to the far neighbors.

 I recently purchased a new camera and couldn't wait to try it out and this was a great opportunity.  (click on images to enlarge)

 Ginny walked with me testing the trail.  The top of the snow was ice and sometimes we broke thru, which made Gin make all of these funny noises .

   I couldn't capture all of the glistening ice that was everywhere.  It was beautiful ! 

   The ice on this pine looked fake..as if someone had decorated it.

 Our neighbor's horses. 

   The only hint of how it looked .  I need to work on this and get the image just the way I want it.  Now that I have a good camera I need to make it work for me.    Get out and walk in some bad weather...it does a body good.

This is a little out of focus but it shows a little of the sun shinning on the branches.

Caught on camera this winter

These are from the back "yard".  I had dumped some apples in the back to get rid of them and noticed that something was coming to see .  This is some of them.

  A lone coyote kept coming.
Rabbits lilke crazy.
Coyote again, maybe looking for the rabbits.
Possum

Winter passing by.

I have been busy working so my blog time just doesn't get done. Sorry.
I have been baking a lot . Here is a blueberry creamcheese thing I made. It turned out pretty good too.
Breanna was over to get some sewing done. I thought that it was great that Gin was teaching her how.
See was into it too.

Making Pizzelle cookies

Macy and I made some Pizzelle cookies recently . It was a good thing to do on a winters day to keep her occupied for a while. She likes to help and I like the cookies. We only make these around Christmas for some reason..... I guess the cold weather has something to do with it.
I let Macy time the cooking part..about one minute..with a kitchen clock and a tiny tea cup to mark the starting point. She also was in charge of moving the cool ones to the stacks. I kept her hopping and she loved it. Some more time well spent.

My other little guy was over too. He likes keeping me busy as he empties the cupboards . BTW I got this buffet at the auction last year at a great price. Nice.