Two months and 55 pounds

 We got a new neighbor!

His name is Willow.

He too is just a baby.

In fact he is only 4 and a half months old. 

Just two months older than Chessy.

Two months and 55 pounds different!

Yes, Chester is at 19 pounds now. Willow is 72 pounds(and growing)

 I am sure that they will be great friends some day soon...When Chester is not eye to knuckles, maybe.

 For now Chester's new friend seems to remind me of the abominable snow man in bugs bunny. "I will hug it and squeeze it and love it...Poor Chess has no chance against those "seemingly" soft blows from those plate sized paws.

 Yes, those paws are incredible...

 Matthew was very protective of Willow's new friend. 

 Don't look now but there is a horse running at you!

It is a good thing Willow loves kids! He will spend the next phase of his life surrounded by them.

After the kids left Willow and I hung out.

He finally held still so I could capture his divine beauty and cuteness.

Just look at those paws, holding a tennis ball...

He is only half way grown too.

Yes, Willow!! My camera will be seeing more of you.

Can  you tell how crazy my life is by my frequency of my posts? I think my blog suffers the most when my life gets busy. 

Matthew only has 14 days of school left and I am floating between being incredibly horrified at never setting foot in the elementary school again, and the dog days of summer(literally!)

Welcome to the hood Willow! 

Yes, I will put a dog door in your fence(that might be kind of a big door) so you can come visit anytime:-)

Where it all began

 It is no lie that my life has been...well a little fishy lately. Yes, even Mother's day was a fishing extravaganza?!?

Well, I asked my father in law if he had any old photos of Mike's grandfather Clair fishing. A little while later I received an envelope in the mail...

When I held the 50 year old slides up to the window light I immediately wanted to cry. I love the power a photo has.

These photos have not seen the light of day in many years, and yet here they were telling ME the story. Mike did not even exist yet, and here was his grandfather doing something that would be passed on to his great grandson. 

 My father in law was quick to let me know that this was before "catch and release" existed. This was also before the movie "A River Runs Through It" came out. 

However, you would swear that it was from the movie. 

And this young man was Cal. He was Clair's brother in law. He was an amazing architect. In fact there are many of his creations all over Montana. He was the one who taught Clair how to fly fish soon after meeting Clair's beautiful sister, Pat. She was beautiful too, inside and out. She was an incredible artist and one of my favorite things I own is a silk print she made for Mike and I. 

I know I tell people all the time, but you just can't put a price on photographs. Dot told me that Clair always complained that no one ever wanted to see his photographs. It is really a bummer that my love for photography happened after Clair passed away. I would have had him drag out boxes and boxes of photos.

Matt's best day ever!

 Matt's whole goal in life has been to simply catch a trout on a fly rod. Okay, that may not sound like much but let me tell you fly fishing here in Minnesota is a lot tricker than Montana. I can honestly say after watching Matthew and Mike fish hours and hours over the last few weeks that if you can catch a trout in Minnesota you can catch a trout anywhere. They spook way easier and they are super picky at what they strike at. 

We went out again on Sunday to try and get Matt his first trout. If there is one thing he has that I don't have it is persistence. I would have given up hours ago. Not Matt! He wanted to catch that trout so bad. 

He checked out a book from the library that told us lots of great places to fish. We had no idea how lucky we were to pick the spot we did.

Shortly after arriving I noticed a fly rod sitting up on the shore by a little cabin. I said hey Matthew, I think there is another fly fisherman here. Right about then I saw a fly fisherwoman step out. She walked over to say hello and I recognized her. The Hiawatha group had told us all about her. Her name was Marlene and she is praised greatly among the group. Claron has told us all about what an amazing teacher she is and also how she has a beautiful cast. She spent the next couple hours helping Matthew perfect his cast. She was an amazing teacher. I have to say I was so impressed by her. She was so kind in asking if he wanted help. She even taught me a lot and I don't even fish(yet...according to her) 

 I just have to say as a Montana girl. Minnesota streams are so beautiful. They seriously look so perfect you would swear you were standing in a diorama. They have these bright green wavy plants under crystal clear water. Water so clear in fact that you can see the fish you can't catch!

 I just can't get over how beautiful it was out there. The concrete block sticking out of the water on the left is where Matt was standing when we first met Marlene. Mike had gone to the other side behind me to fish. 

 We had taken Chester with us and I wanted to share this picture. When Charlie was little he spent his first two years going to work with Mike everyday. He spend a lot of months curled up on Mike's lap like this. Chester reminded Mike of what it was like when Charlie was a baby. Matt's lucky that Chester is still here this morning! 

 After we left Marlene we took a break to grab some dinner and then we decided to try the spot that we started at two weeks ago. Mom had suggested we call it a day but Mike and Matt said...one more try. 

I was going to stay in the car with Chester but not more than 5 minutes after we arrived Matt hooked a trout. Lucky for mom he did not land it. It was for sure my motivation to get out of the car. Chester and I played while the boys fished. In fact, we were quite a distance away when I hear Matthew screaming "I got one" I think I had to half way drag Chester to run over to Matt and Mike. 

Sure enough Matthew had landed his first trout. A beautiful Brown Trout. I have to say trout belong in a Minnesota stream. 

 Not bad for your first trout on a fly rod Matt! 

 Here is dad helping get the fly out. I should mention too that the fly came from another fly fisherman that Marlene knew. He was walking out and stopped to give us some information. He said the fish were really biting on a "Skinny Nelson" and he gave Matt one. 

I have to say that Matt has learned so many lessons from the fly fishermen he has met. I totally get that it is bigger than fishing. They are all so kind and willing to help him. I am sure that if we would not have run into Jim and Marlene Matthew would not have caught his first trout. 

 Two casts later he caught his second! 

What a wonderful sight.

Meet Chester

We have a new addition to our family.

Matthew finally got his puppy. We have been putting it off for quite a while.

Matthew has had a name picked out for over a year in fact. 

I wonder...

if this little guy knows how lucky he is. He was truly loved before he was even born.

and if I am crazy!

Most of you see a cute little furry face, but I see Matthew's first broken heart. Dogs have taught me so much in my life about love and seeing Matthew parent his little puppy makes me smile. It also makes me feel like a grandma babysitting right now! 

I should also tell you were this puppy came from. Matthew's best buddy from school had an uncle that had puppies. Someone stole the mommy dog!!! They puppies were orphaned at 5 weeks old. Lucky enough they had just started eating puppy food. Chester is a very young puppy. In fact he has tried nursing on Charlie a few times. Charlie finds this incredibly horrifying. 

Well if nothing else I have some new material to photograph! 

My kind of conservationism

 Matt and I spent another day with our Hiawatha peeps today. They were doing a stream restoration project. Matt really wanted to help but due to the chainsaws and giant nail gun Ray suggested we help with lunch. This was a perfect idea. We showed up at 11:45 and grilled brats and dogs for all the guys helping. I loved making lunch and getting everything ready. We also cleaned up everything after they were done. 

 I was voted the new cook of Hiawatha. I would rather cook any day than run a chainsaw.

 Matt used the lunch break to show everyone the flies he has been tying. 

 I love this picture with the bunkers in the background.

These are the bunkers they are building. These are seriously impressive. They build these boxes and they  bury them on the sides of the banks. They put large rocks over them and it creates a cave for the fish to hide in. These become natural nesting grounds and the fish population grows...as well as the size of the fish. 

Matthew was talking this guy's ear off about how badly he wanted to fish the stream they were working on. 

I believe strongly in conservation. I think what Matthew is seeing is something that will make a real difference in the streams he will fish in years to come. He does not even realize it but what he did today(although, it was a small part of the day) will make a big difference for the fishing he will do at this stream someday. I was very proud to be a part of it. 

Tick Reservoir

 Fishing fever hit our house pretty hard on Sunday...well to be fair it hit Saturday.

 Knowing our pond was still a little under the weather for fishing we decided to give the Reservoir a try.

I warned the boys that the ticks were in season. They called me crazy. There are no ticks in Minnesota in March!

 Matthew's first fish was a BASS! His first on a fly rod. This made his day.

 He gave it a good study before throwing it back.

 Yep, he has become quite the little fisherman.

 Like his safety glasses? Ha! Mike rolled his eyes when he saw the pair I grabbed. 

 The boys caught 21 fish between the two of them in a little over an hour. 

 Oh, and four ticks! I caught 3 of those. I guess laying down in the tall grass during tick season is a bad idea. You have to do what you have to do to get the shot.

Here is a short little video of him catching his first Bass on a fly rod. It was kind of the back end of the catch. I was setting up my camera to video him and before I could finish he had caught a fish.