Kootenai Falls One More Time

Bitterroot Mountain Morels

It wasn't easy pickin'.  Travis, David and Jon hunted 9 hours for these jewels and hiked to over 6000 feet.  They did bring home 8 1/2 gals. of mushrooms!  Yum!

This shows all but four trays that were in the dehydrator.  What a haul!

Ross Creek Cedars

What a peaceful place for a long walk.  It is so beautiful there.

Tree food

This one could have been a canoe!

Cabinet Mountains

Kootenai Falls

The next day we were on to Kootenai Falls.  Lots of water this year so they were spectacular!

Hmm!  Should I go up there?

Going to the Sun

We traveled Going to the Sun Highway as far as we could go.  The gate was closed just before Logan Pass.  They opened the pass the next day.  There were 10 foot high banks of snow!  It was a beautiful drive without going over the pass.

Lake Mary Ronan

The Three Cousins!

I think they are contemplating singing the, "Where are the Fish?" song.

We will eat mushrooms instead of fish!

Now what do I do?

Vacation Vacation Vacation!

Wow!  What a great time!  I took so many photos it's taken me three days to edit them.  Look out blog, here are the vacation photos!

Ben and his favorite girls!

A moment with Auntie Linda

Julie gets a baby break!

Fishing!  That's why we're really at Lake Mary Ronan!

Ok, where are the fish?

Firefighter On Site

It's official!  We now have a certified firefighter living with us for the summer!  Dylan has been to guard camp and has passed all the tests.  We are all waiting for that first fire call.

Weed War and Weather Challenge

The weeds are winning!  The quack grass in my garden is about 4 feet high.  I am harvesting it and if I had a cow I could feed it for a week!  It's going to be a challenge to grow a garden this year.  We had about 3 inches of rain while we were in Montana.  Tomato plants prefer warm and dry.  Hmmm.  Oh well, last year was a banner year for the tomatoes and peppers.  This year will be a banner year for broccoli and cauliflower and maybe cabbage.  There's always something to harvest.

Jon's dahlias are coming up and some of them look good.  My plants and flowers in the pots are finally starting to bloom so there is hope.

Time to rest up for tomorrow's attack.

Montana Morel Hunt

We traveled to Montana for a wedding and spent the next day hiking up what was the site of the Kootenai Fire to hunt for morels.  It started out as a very nice walk and turned into quite a hike up the mountainside.  We spent all afternoon looking for the tasty little jewels and it seemed many times that someone else was ahead of us.  We would see a boot print and the stubs of the morels.  We did find some though and had a very enjoyable day!

At about 5060 feet we decided we had gone uphill enough and started back down.  We found quite a few mushrooms on the way back down.  

It doesn't look very steep here, but we managed to find quite a few steep places.  We had to side-hill for a long time coming back down because it was so steep.

The firefighters on this job earned their money!

Looking across the Bitterroot Valley towards the Sapphires.

Sidelined!

Ewe!   An abscessed tooth.  I don't even like to talk about it, let alone have one.  I had to miss band practice and the entire day was shot.  I can really sympathize with baby Ben and all of his teething pain.   Dang, it hurts!   I would have given anything to have had some of Ben's "numbs it".   My dentist, Dr. Jim Lewis, is a really nice guy.   He didn't hesitate to have me come in on a Sunday.  After about 14 hours of sleep, I am now in recovery mode.

Hungry Birds

The hummingbirds love Jon's feeders and our flowering quince bush.  Jon has been refilling the feeders every other day.

Wine Bottling-Elderberry, Elderberry Cabernet and Pear Sauvignon Blanc

Dylan and I spent the day bottling last year's wine.  We did two carboys and 15 liters of the pear wine.  All three very different and tasty!

What the heck is going on?

 I have been doing things in spite of the rain!  Jon has picked many bags of coral mushrooms and we both worked on cleaning them and getting them dehydrated.  I now have a gallon jar of dried corals.  They are excellent in spaghetti sauce.  They are also quite tasty fried in a little butter and white wine.

After days of drying, they are in the jar!