To Jack!!

A tidbit of great news from Brandon and Abby. Congrats!!

Jack Bradley was born on Thursday, March 25th at 6:01 pm. Abby tried waiting patiently for Jack to arrive, but when he was four days late, she decided to get the ball rolling. Jack weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz and 20 ½ inches long, which was actually much smaller than they told us he was going to be!

We have already had a bunch of visitors over in Reliance, including his cousins Kellen (3 years) and Claire (7 months). We have decided that Jack could be the luckiest little grandbaby around because he has two sets of wonderful grandparents to spoil him… hopefully not too much ;)

Brandon

They're Back!!

After a couple month leave of absence, the turkeys have returned. We're not sure where they've been, but we're happy to have them back. We noticed a couple of months ago that the bunch of turkeys that always hung around were gone, all but one of them anyway. Pretty soon there were none. Recently though three birds returned, two toms and one jake, and then the other morning I found these seven. Four more hens showed up, and the boys were puttin' on a show near the lodge. The jake was keeping his distance but was doing his best to shake what he was given. I'm hoping that I can see the two big boys throw down some day, but I'm not sure it will happen. I'm a little afraid that this group is abstinent and they're just a bunch of pretenders. Time will only tell.
Cordie and I were unsuccessful in drawing our Lyman County spring turkey tags, but we can pick up an archery tag, which is what we hunt anyway. The season opens April 10, and it looks like it could be cool and soggy. These birds will most likely remain safe unless we get real desperate.

Golf Anyone?

Pictured is Hole 4 at the Medicine Creek Golf Course. For those of you who are familiar with the Course will notice that the creek is much wider than normal. The teebox is in the foreground where you must hit over the creek. Usually the creek is not much to worry about since most golfers shank it right out of bounds over th road. It might be a little bit more of a distraction now, but the course probably won't be open for a few more weeks. The slightly warmer temperatures are finally causing some snow to melt and the rain that we received last week are dumping quite a little runoff. The creek has risen quite a lot causing local flooding, but many areas of the state are getting it much worse. The White River, which is Lyman county's southern border has had several large ice jams and is flooding many area farms and ranches, homes, roads and bridges.

Cordie: John, you sneak through the culvert and hide behind the dam grade until we come around from the South.

John: Sneak through the culvert? Under the Interstate? Hide behind what?

How many of you have heard that before? Pictured is the culvert that runs beneath the Interstate that many of you gun-toting pheasant hunters have traversed before. If you plan on doing it now, I hope you brought your kayak. I'm assuming that most of the pheasants that are normally in this little honey-hole have found higher ground, but they will return once the water recedes and the cattails provide them cover once again. We'll hope the culvert dries out for the next lucky hunter who gets put in the sweet spot.

All the runoff is also causing Brakke Dam to run over its' spillway. I haven't checked for a few days, but Cordie reported that even more was spilling over a couple days after this picture was taken. There's still a little snow to melt and we've got a chance at some more precipitation on Thursday and Friday. Once things calm down and begin to warm up the pheasants will be ready to start their yearly breeding and nesting. With all the moisture the cover will be good for raising lots of little chicks. Things are looking good.