A Needed Cleanse, Etc.

 

We received some needed and abundant rain yesterday, and the earth is clean.

This morning, the earth is also cold because we also had a light frost overnight. 

I'll take both.  

It's nice to see true and brilliant fall colors no longer hidden by layers of dust. Plus, it was fun to walk on dry, firm ground during my morning walk with Bridie.  

We have a few remaining mud puddles, but those will be gone by afternoon thanks to a dry day ahead. 

And, so after a rain break, we'll go back to enjoying this amazing fall, albeit a bit cooler. 

This was a view on Forest Siding Road yesterday.  The horses needed a new supply of grain so I went to Co-Op, picked up a couple of sacks and dropped them off at Roxane's which is on this road. 

This is the cleanest rose hip I've seen in several weeks. 

Yesterday I saw this promotion on Twitter after I had already published my post, so I'll post it again today. 

Practice for SHS girls basketball squads will begin in less than three weeks, and, as with any team effort, some extra funds will help their cause throughout the season. 

So, mark Tuesday evening on your calendar, and plan to eat dinner at Sweet Lou's where I'm pretty sure you'll also meet the team and the coaching staff. 

It's a win, win situation.  

The best candidate will have the best chance to win an election. 

And, what's so wrong with that?

Don't we always prefer the best?

Think about the Olympics this past summer where athletes from different countries ran or swam in preliminary heats so that when the finals came, the very best competed for the medals. 

Imagine if only athletes from certain countries were allowed to compete in the preliminaries. 

Ridiculous, right? 

And, hardly representative of a worldwide sporting event. 

I see it the same way with politics.  In the general election, I want to choose the best possible candidate to win.  

If that candidate has already been barred from moving forward, thanks to strategically planned obstacles from a political party, it seems like a mass of voters lose out. 

I'm stubborn or ornery enough that I've never really wanted to affiliate myself with a political party because I consider myself an independent thinker.  

In fact, I have often voted on both sides of the aisle throughout my adult life.  

Heck, in some elections, I've even voted a protest write-in vote because, in my mind, neither party offered a choice that I would support. 

Like so many other voters, I prefer to vote for the best individual candidate, not the party. 

With open primaries, we can once again have this option in Idaho.

Whichever party offers the best candidate---that person should win---not the party. 

Simple as that. 

Besides, what's the big fear in offering every voter a choice?

Or, could it possibly be a concern about losing control?

Let's get back to primaries that mean something to ALL voters so we can ALL participate. 

Plus, if the best candidate does have a chance to win, that individual also takes on a bigger responsibility to represent a broader constituency. 

So, we not only win as voters but we also win as constituents. 

Win-win with a Yes for Prop 1. 

On an Autumn Day

 

History happened on a portion of South Center Valley Road yesterday. 

Interstate Paving brought its equipment and its efficient crew and laid down some pavement. 

The job, on a road which almost always presents spring thaw problems, is nearing completion.  Bill was told that this portion of the project involved 2,200 feet. 

All day long a pilot car went back and forth leading traffic through the project, which seemed to unfold with amazing precision. 

The last layer of four layers will go down when weather permits.  I don't know if that will be today because it rained all night and will continue to rain until early afternoon. 

As I've mentioned before, the paving project presents a double-edged sword.  

It provides the potential as a speedway for some drivers, but for those of us living here and dealing with never-ending dust from spring to fall, it's a Godsend. 

It will be nice to have true colors remain true rather than looking at times like Mt. St. Helens had blown again and distributed ash all over the trees. 

Dusting time in the house will more than likely be diminished and mowing time outside should be much more pleasant and clean. 

Overall, it's great to see the pavement.  I just hope drivers will be careful with their speed. 

We had company yesterday afternoon, and I teased them that the five or six deer which suddenly burst onto the north lawn were performing on schedule just for the kids. 

Not so, but it sure seemed that way as they darted this way and that way and then raced right past us toward the woods. 

Such a nice surprise the visit with this family has been, first with a phone call out of the blue from a student I had for three straight years back in the early 1990s.

First, Matt was an honors English student, then journalism and finally Cedar Post editor. 

I did something with Matt during those times that was rather unconventional.  I don't know if he realized it, but we actually team taught. 

His brilliant computer mind and knowledge was far beyond what I could ever comprehend computerwise at the time, so I extended him a free rein as the computer whiz in our journalism department.

And, I learned SO much from him about those Apple Macintosh computers which we used to produce the student newspaper, complete with ads and in-house production. 

One summer while Matt was a student at Sandpoint High School, he was granted an internship at Microsoft.  A highlight of our family trip to Seattle, came when Bill and I and our kids went to visit him at the Microsoft campus. 

That was a huge adventure at the time. 

While attending Stanford University, Matt worked on a project to create a high-quality 3D computer archive of the sculptures and architecture of Michelangelo.

Read more about it at this link.

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/digmich-eva99/

Nowadays, he works at Google, focusing on Google Maps. 

After receiving his unexpected phone call and knowing he would be in town, Matt and I agreed to get together here at the Lovestead so I could meet his family. 

It was a lovely afternoon, spending time on the deck reminiscing with Matt and getting to know his wife Vanessa and children Dominic and Jacinda.

Matt has reason to be proud of his family. 

As usual with visitors, the highlight of the day came with a trip around the Lovestead on the 4-wheeler. 

 I'm hoping they come back next summer when the horses are home so that Jacinda can enjoy a ride on Lily. 

Twas a great time, to say the least.    

Matt's kids gathered leaves from the maple tree, and before they left, some rather artistic collections were assembled in readiment for the trip home and for some more art projects. 

Hey, guess where we'll be eating next Tuesday night!

Hope to see you there, and I know Willie, his coaching staff and his team will appreciate your support. 

Striking Gold

 

We've seen it all dozens of times, but we may have never seen the area quite like it appeared yesterday afternoon.

That would be the Meadow Creek, Moyie River drive. 

Yesterday, we turned off HWY 2 northeast of Bonners Ferry and began our fall color experience on the road to Meadow Creek. 

My stepdad's mother taught in a one-room school house when there was a small town at Meadow Creek.  

Nowadays, a lovely Forest Service campground draws recreationalists to the area. 

Yesterday we saw four units filled with camping material and trailers or tents. 

We spent some time walking a trail down to the creek and just enjoyed a quiet, laid-back short hike with the dogs. 

Then, we moved on up the Moyie River where Bill likes to fish in the fall.  This year's fishing gave way to our recent trip, so yesterday he probably just looked and yearned for a few moments with his fly rod. 

I've been going to the Moyie River since childhood, and, like our experiences in Ireland, I never tire of the scenes and the beauty.  

Yesterday's gold added a special touch to pretty much everywhere we went. 

We also stopped at the Forest Service picnic area above the Moyie where big fish are out of water and seemingly swimming above land all over the area.   

It's actually an Interpretive sight with a sculpture surrounded by metal fish.  The sculpture is called Kaniksu Passage. 

You can learn more about the process used in creating the sculpture and the artist/blacksmith from Bigfork, Mont.,  who created it by clicking the following link. 

 https://jeffreyfunkmetalworker.com/project/kaniksu-passage-stone-process-sequence/

While we were visiting the picnic area, a construction worker, driving a roller, was packing the road and another open area.  We're wondering if the road will be paved. 

We moved on to Addy, which is about a mile east of Good Grief where the Moyie River Road ends at HWY 95.  

Bill let me out at the bridge so I could take pictures and, after turning around, spent some time at the bridge looking down in the water---probably yearning again. 

Our final stop before enjoying a dinner at the Bonners Ferry Mexican restaurant was Brush Lake.  

A lone fisherman stood on the dock as we left the pickup and walked a ways up a trail to get different views of the lake, which is surrounded by trees of gold.  

Bill says in a couple of weeks the larch will turn gold and add to the color. 

It was a pleasant break from all the projects around the Lovestead, and we knew we'd better take advantage of it before the rain and cold roll in sometime tomorrow. 

As a photographer, I know that the wealth of color will soon leave us and diminish my opportunities for what I love to do----until the snow flies, that is!

We live in a beautiful place, no matter what direction we go, and that makes it all the more fun. 

Happy Tuesday. 

Enjoy the photos.