The Willow Creek Fire

Yesterday afternoon our neighbors arrived from their Utah home. Their route had taken them along Highway 89 and they told us of encountering heavy smoke and firefighters as they neared and traveled over Salt Pass. The night before our friends Becky and Fred had gone to a dark sight to view and take pictures of the Milky Way. They had seen and photographed the flames from thirty miles away. Yesterday, after Pickleball we could see the huge clouds from the smoke and last evening heard that Salt Pass and Highway 89 were closed. The news was good and bad, Good in that the firefighters had prevented the fire from jumping over the highway and bad in that the fire had grown in size to almost four thousand acres, (about six square miles). We don’t live in a forest and should be safe from this fire, but we are less than a mile from National Forest land and are surrounded by unmown grasses and fields filled with hay. There are no fire hydrants in our Rv Park, that we know of, and so we decided we need a plan in case of a prairie fire. We once saw a prairie fire in a field in Gillette and how quickly the flames grew to over eight feet tall. If the flames are over two feet tall, a person cannot stop the fire. At over eight feet even equipment must flee, and the fire can’t be fought, Gillette was lucky that day as the wind died down. People had gotten out their water hoses and were standing and waiting out the flames. It wouldn’t have worked. The best thing to do was to evacuate. So, we discussed what we should do. Evacuation is the safest thing in a fire, before it’s too late. To prepare we need a emergency pack with our papers, passports, and insurance information. The vehicles need to be gassed up and ready to go. What we really need is a good soaking rain, something we have not seen for almost two months…… And so we pray for rain and not for clear skies. Ps we are not in any danger and thirty miles from the evacuation area, but now is the time to prepare for future fires

Hummingbird Wars August 2025

The Aztecs God of war was a hummingbird or sometimes depicted as an eagle. His name was Huitzilopochtli.

If you ever have had a hummingbird feeder, you may have seen a hummingbird war.

It happens when a dominant hummingbird, like a male rufous guards its nectar source. The male perches in our white lilac bush and attacks any other hummingbird that dares to try and feed.

Each hummingbird needs to eat half its body weight per day just to fuel its rapid flights, (a hummingbird weights about the same as a penny). It’s no wonder our feeders are emptied in about three days…..

One year we even found a dead hummingbird, after the fight had moved to a ground feeder. The nectar source is so important as the hummingbirds are in a state of hyperphagia, which the bears are also entering now, and they need to put on fat for their southern migration. Clear skies

Fly fishing with Jen and Renita

The weather here has been hot and dry. Jen had driven down from Montana to visit us for five days of fly fishing, hiking in Grand Teton National Park, shopping, and seeing our new Park model, (think tiny home). She has spent a lot of time on the water and is an accomplished flyfisher woman. Her goal here was to catch two of the four species of native cutthroats in Wyoming, working on the Wyoming Cut Slam award that Renita and I both earned years ago. On the first day of flyfishing we drove to Salt Creek and attempted to catch Bonniville Cutthroat Trout. Despite our best efforts the stream appeared to be devoid of any catchable fish. She did manage to catch several other small fish but no Bonneville.

Heading back over the Salt Pass we next drove to a public area on the Salt River. Working along the shore we finally found a spot with several active cuts, and she caught her first Sanke River Fine Spotted Cutthroat, (she had caught one another time but did not have a good picture for submission. The river was full of people drifting on innertubes but as soon as they passed the fish would start rising and we were frustrated that we couldn’t get any to take our flies).

The next day we decided to fish the Greys River. It’s the longest undammed river in the longest forty eight states. It was another frustrating day as the fish seemed to have lockjaw but at one of our spots Jen hooked a large Snake River Cutthroat. She fought it for quite a while before the hook pulled free about the time I got there with my net……. We also fished the Little Grey, a tributary, and there we both caught small cuts. I caught and released three on the lower stretch and Jen caught several. Deciding to take it easy we did not cross McDougal pass and pursue a Colorado Cutthroat. The next day we took a day off from fishing and went on the hike, which was the previous blog entry. On the following day we decided to float the Salt River. Wyoming Game and fish requires invasive species stickers. Thank goodness we could purchase them online, so we loaded the kayaks into the truck for a four-hour drift.

Renita and I dropped off our truck at the takeout point, and when we returned Jen told us she had already caught and released a fish. A guide boat started their drift, just ahead of us, and it’s never a good sign to have a guide boat just fishing in the water before us. I took the water temperature, and it was sixty-one one degrees so we could safely release any fish. Storm clouds started to build but we still were able to fish, and I caught and released a nice cut. We ended up catching five fish before the had to stop fishing and paddle quickly to the takeout point

At the first rapids I read the river wrong and got stuck on a shallow rapid. Jen easily floated by me, (I have been dieting and have lost thirty pounds in the last three years but still got stuck). It was the first time she had attempted to fish from a kayak. She had brought her inflatable float board but was glad she wasn’t using it while fishing on the fast river. She was already ahead of me, fish wise, and caught several more cuts before I finally had some success. Storm clouds started to build but we still were able to fish, and I caught and released a nice cut. For the day our total was five fish before we had to stop fishing and paddle quickly to the takeout point. Taking the kayaks out, we loaded them into the truck and had just finished loading them when we got hit with a deluge. It’s always a good day when we are fishing and Jen made the day special. It was the first time she had tried fishing from a kayak. It’s a lot more difficult while drifting than being in a drift boat,(or raft). Jen and Eric are thinking about buying a raft for fishing on the Bitterroot River in Montana, (near their house). Thank you, Jen, for the visit and for making more memories, we had a great time during your visit. Clear skies, and love... ps I do not use AI as you can tell from my mistakes....Renita opted to be the offical photographer.