Controlled burns

In the past week, the National Forest Service, National Parks, and other agencies have been involved in several controlled burns of forests in Arkansas. The largest is in the National Buffalo River wilderness area. Since we are just a couple of miles upriver of the confluence of the Buffalo and White Rivers, we have observed a lot of smoke from the fires. Evening and night we were able to observe the actual lines of flames as they climbed up and down the mountains - actually a pretty impressive sight in my opinion - and I love the smell of a good leaf fire!

Bluebird morning, turkey afternoon

With the recent spring-like weather, we have been able to hike around our acreage (and others), paint/place our bluebird houses, and monitor the wild turkeys that have been frequenting our yard lately. We have discovered that sometime in the past, a very large area of this development was utilized as a "Commercial Game Bird Shooting Resort" as identified by the several dilapidated signs that we have located hanging on trees on the outer borders. We will have to do a little research into this and hopefully get the full story.

Back of our house from rock garden below 

 We had a fun time painting the bluebird houses before mounting them on the posts in the field

Beautiful Tom



Tom (x4) along our driveway - picture taken from our bedroom window

Derek and Janell in Arkansas

One of the most recognizable and talented artists in the fly fishing world is Derek DeYoung. We were pleasantly surprised when Dally's fly shop arranged from them to spend a week here fishing and a day of painting at the shop. Derek's work appears on covers of the top industry magazines and articles, and on many of the products on the market. His passion for fishing matches his passion for his art, and it shows in the final works - what impresses me the most are the vivid colors that are captured and are reflective of the beauty of the subjects. The talent is obvious, but what is especially notable is the fact that Derek and Janell are the nicest young couple you could hope to meet. We have been impressed since first contacting Derek relating to Trout Unlimited fund raisers, his taking a day off to take us fishing for grayling in Montana, and visiting with him and Janell here in our neck of the woods. And we hear they could make a return trip next year! As soon as we win the Powerball drawing, then one of the first acts will be to purchase some original works :)

 Janell and Derek