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We took a drive today on our wildlife loop. We drove about 25 miles from our house and we saw the below listed animals. The numbers are estimates as it's hard getting the animals to stand still while we counted them.

First we saw deer. About 50 total as we traveled our driving loop.

2nd we saw about 150 elk, mostly in 1 herd with a few in another small herd.

Lastly about 100 wild turkeys in several small groups. Wild turkeys are more common than you might think. We see them in town tromping around in the traffic.

We were about 25 miles from our house and all animals were near Loveland.

Leonard

Here at the house in Idaho we see turkeys every day - about a dozen on a good day. We also have deer - sometimes none and sometimes as many as a dozen. Other than that we also see a metric ton of California Quail, higher numbers in the spring (with a lot of chicks) through late fall.

Last week we had a moose running around - eating willows and checking out the other nibbles here and there. Houses are pretty scattered out here and so there is a lot of pine, fir, willow, tamarack and such to provide good cover for sleeping in the daytime. Just yesterday I was watching 5 deer grazing on new grass shoots where the snow has melted 20 to 50 yards from the house.

Folks will often feed the deer corn in the winter and that creates a problem for them called Foundering. The carbohydrates in the corn (and the molasses in "wet" COB cattle feed) COB being Corn, Oates and Barley specifically creates a very painful problem and the painful, awkward gait deforms the hoves which results in curved hooves sometimes 6 or 8 inches longer than usual.

https://www.buckmanager.com/2008/10/10/ ... iled-deer/

That's a lot of wildlife Leonard - this time of year everything is out here too. We don't drive at night, way to many deer. Turkeys are in abundance down here.

Yesterday, Diane and I drove up to Raging River to a favorite mining spot that is located a couple miles away from the small town of Preston, WA.

It was a spontaneous adventure made without any advance planning except to pack a lunch. From our home a dozen miles east of Seattle it's just a short drive to this river location, a short drive about twenty miles east and north off of the Interstate I-90 highway. Many years ago we found this pleasant and scenic spot just a hundred feet off a back country road that leads down a gentle slope to the river's edge.

Forty years ago I'd take an occasional break from my daily routine (work) to enjoy some prospecting with Diane or a couple of close mining friends. We had favorite places in this site to mine within the easy to reach gravel bars, and I (we) always found some color (float gold) in our pans at the end of our day's efforts. Not a lot of gold mind you, maybe, collectively, a fraction of a gram at best. And matter how deep or where I dug I never came across a deposit nor did I ever uncover the elusive bedrock. Friends told me that gold here comes from nearby Rattlesnake Mountain while other experts dispute this theory claiming it was ice epochs that brought this gold here. The large granite boulders found plentiful around hear are claimed to have migrated al the way from Canada and were carried within glaciers. Who know's?

Back in the 1980s I mined here and also explored the river's headwaters located about ten miles away but I still only found some tiny pieces of color. Under magnification all of the recovered gold in the Raging River appeared to be well "hammered". A geologist i know claimed the gold was carried here in the glacial ice that covered this region during many long-ago ice ages.

Diane had brought along a book to read while I walked alongside the river recalling long ago trips here when I went panning with a couple long-passed friends. Ah...memories of a younger time in our lives. Powered mining equipment was not permitted back in those days nor is it today. Only a hand-held sluice box, pan, shovel and classifier was the extent of our mining gear.

We had packed a picnic lunch and the clear, fresh air and hiking made the food taste like a gourmet feast to this older (nearly eighty) aging miner. I also discovered some additional limitations that limited my riverside hiking. After spending a few hours here we drove home and I promised myself to return to this site for more future exploration. If I don't well the memories of long ago days are a treasure in themselves.

Liberty Dave

Here's a picture I took from way back.

Leonard

Most excellent Sir!

Joe S