I talked Ralph into kayaking with me Friday night after work - the lake was beautiful, and the geese had their babies out! 

One of the reasons we chose last weekend for the trip to McCloud was so we could see the dogwoods in bloom along the river, and go mushroom hunting.  Since is has been such a cold, wet Spring, neither happened.  We managed to find a few dogwood blooms, but no mushrooms.  

This dogwood tree had just started blooming - the flowers were still a pale green.  (Credit for this photo goes to Leona...).  The McCloud River Trail has tons of dogwood trees, so in a couple of weeks, the walk will be even prettier.

The manzanita bushes were blooming though...

The willows were turning red....

An lots of wildflowers on the Pacific Crest Trail....

Back on the ranch, we did find one dogwood tree in bloom.

  
And a few wildflowers, but we were mostly in the treed area looking for mushrooms - not a lot of flowers there, and no mushrooms either.

One old, gnarly apple tree was starting to bloom.  This tree is just off to the side of what's left of the brick fireplace of the house that Leona's mother grew up in.  Margene and I want to try out the apples from it this year....no telling how old the tree is - it may have been planted when the house was built.  Leona said it has been there as long as she can remember, but would check with her Mom.

Out in the field, by one of the water ditches, there was a sandhill crane.  I've never seen one before - their coloring is beautiful!  (I was quite a distance away, so this is really zoomed in.....)

Leona also had a woodpecker that posed for me - right outside her back door.

Saturday, after our walk/hike up to Middle Falls, we had a bit of lunch at the house, and then went to Squaw Creek trail, and hiked up to the Pacific Crest Trail.  Here's Squaw Creek:

This bridge is part of the Pacific Crest Trail - an offshoot that runs to Castella.  Our trail lead up to it and joined it at the bridge.

The trail needs some up-keep from winter - lots of trees are down on it.  We turned around on the trail when we came to this....

We stopped on the way back for a photo op......

We rewarded ourselves with pizza and beer at the local brewery afterwards - not the best idea we ever had.  The pizza was barely acceptable, but some of the beer wasn't even close to acceptable. Mine was 'okay' but Margene's was horrible - they had moved the keg that day, and still served it.  It was so full of yeast that hadn't settled after the move that it was a murky brown......we headed back to the house for lunch leftovers and wine.....a much better idea!

This weekend, I ran away from home...at least for a little while. Margene and I spent the weekend in McCloud at Leona's family ranch, and got in some good girl-time, some good walks, good food, and fun!

We left Saturday morning (almost) on time...I had to gas up or we would have made it to Leona's at 8:00, right on schedule!  We stopped in Dunsmuir for breakfast - a delicious 'truckstop omelet' for me, with a huge cinnamon and pecan roll split between the three of us as a starter.

After that breakfast, we went to Leona's "cabin" (a newly remodeled 2-bedroom, 800 sf house) and unpacked, and headed for the McCloud River Lower Falls to walk off some of that breakfast.

The three of us at the falls....

Then a nice leisurely 2 mile walk/hike up the canyon....

To the Middle Falls.  (Yes, there are Upper Falls as well, but Leona said they weren't as pretty as Lower and Middle, and were another 2 miles up the river....so we didn't hike them.)

And the three of us at the Middle Falls...

And back down to the Lower Falls for one more selfie.... 

My bad again.....I didn't post for a bit.  I was busy!!  Last weekend, I did the range portion of my CCW class - 5+ hours at the shooting range.  Boy, am I glad I did it in April!  It was cloudy and cool in the morning, but getting warm in the afternoon.  I can only image taking the class in August!!!

Book Club is this week - a week early, which left me scrambling as well. The book is Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.  I will admit - I literally skimmed through the middle of the book.  The ending was great - the middle, not so much.  

The first sentence of one of the chapters is "Freedom is a daffodil in Spring,...." So - I did a daffodil......(the pattern is here)

Here they are pinned out drying

And the final bookmark:

April 1st was the bank anniversary for one of the ladies in my department, so I got her a card and a nice plant.  Unfortunately, I got the plant the day before, and left it overnight on the table.....and Indy found it.  He chewed up a few of the leaves.......so sorry!

It was a beautiful weekend, and I made it out for the first time to the pistol range - trying out my new 9mm.  I didn't do too bad!  The range is beautiful in the Spring.....

I had to laugh at myself though - last night I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, and wondering why my upper body was sore. Then I realized it was an 'upper body weekend' for me - Kayaking and lawn mowing on Saturday, shooting on Sunday, and then I washed the RAV after shooting (right before dinner) - no wonder my arms were tired!  Luckily I'm not sore - just wishing for a longer weekend!  Too many fun things to do!

First kayaking trip of the year!  The weather was beautiful, if a bit windy.  Dave came down for part of the weekend, and I took him out on the kayaks.  I think he had fun - he was a little worried about not being in shape for paddling, but we didn't go very far.  We went out of Oak Bottom Marina - not my favorite, but Brandy Creek was closed  for a murder investigation.  I need to check out Whiskey Creek Marina too - I heard it is very nice.

And I wonder why I'm sniffling.....this was my car Thursday morning: