It's a Biggy

 This coming weekend sure is. Of course it's memorial day and as much as much as I'd like to redo our season of fishing kick off or maybe even to get invited to Nancy Lake for a gourmet weekend with Chris and Melinda , we can't, it don't work that way. But what we will do is go out to Fort Harrison and leave flowers for both MP's and my folks. We'll hike down to the farmers market and visit with our Hutterite friends. We'll watch the Indy 500 and most likely a Mariner game . We'll barbecue and I'll go fishing, alone . We'll plant the last of the starts in our garden that MP lovingly  has nurtured . And then on Monday we'll drive to White Sulphur Springs for soaking and supper at the Stockmans to celebrate this wonderful woman's 69th birthday, Ill give her a lucky 20 to play the Lucky Leprechaun with .  We'll get up Tuesday morning and if my neck can do it we'll golf 9 and have a walk and a talk...you see we do everything together, everything .

Mary Patricia Brown is definitely the key to our modest success in life. I had some wasted years, it's a long story . But , she said she saw something in me and we went to work, together . With our future secure and the stress of self employment over it's all the things she is that still amazes me.

She talks to the flowers and the birds like they were our kids. She talks to our kids like they are leading the world.  She's a master Gardener. She's a gourmet cook . She ends every phone call with family or friends with " I love you " . She can eat a lot of crab meat .  She's an artist, as Maria DaSilva once said ' a real artist '.....I had to prod a bit to get ny chalk board personalized .

She laughs and laughs. She keeps me motivated to not get  depressed with frustration on a few health issues. She does taxes . She researches before she votes . She fishes her ' own ' way . She likes movies .  She's an avid bird watcher . She watches PBS television , anything British .......and.....she loves me !  Happy Birthday baby, I love you.

As I type this the world famous Kenai River season is kicking off. People wonder why and how we got to Montana. Most of it was because we wanted to and a lot of it was because we had to. It's a good thing when your wants and your needs collide .   ADF+G has used a sophisticated sonar to measure the salmon runs for 40 years now, they start counting on May 15th every year. So today with 6 days of data just 6 King Salmon have  crossed the sonar.  Six .   And to think that in 1985 Les caught the world record on May 17th and now.....my goodness it's terrible. We found out the hard way that you can't run a Salmon sport fishing business without Salmon. the black line is this year and the others are the past 4 years.  For all of my friends on the Kenai, we're hoping all the best for you.

With this post of Mile 14 I expect to surpass 300,000 visits.....that's really something for me and MP. About 10 years ago I wrote a blog piece that went semi viral and had 25.000 visits in just a couple days. I subtracted that from my counter as it wasn't my steady readers, my friends, you guys reading now. To be completely honest I don't know what it is that makes ya'all come back and read my stories, especially now that the thrill of the fishing chase is...well a bit slower and of course, not Alaskan.  But having said that I'm so happy that you do like the stories, the songs , the pictures and perspectives. Thank you all for making a writer out of me.