Soon my clothes were washed and I had them hung on the line to dry in the quickly warming morning.

I stepped onto the porch and noticed this monster sitting on the side of the bug trap. It sat on the trap all day but is gone this morning.

I was REALLY curious about my pod harness and whether or not the full speed bar will go pulley to pulley as I couldn't really pay attention in the air during SIV. Thanks to the new sleeve on the line for my speed bar I can easily find it now and it DOES go full pulley to pulley. I am going to be flying my Evora and pod to day so wanted to make sure as I likely will be on a good bit of bar.

Got another quad shot of cucumbers as they are growing quite fast.

Thankfully a mild amount of squash.

We picked up a bunch of the Wyze cams so I spent mid day getting them installed around the farm. This one looks down at the coop door and they have color night vision now. The motion detection will be nice to have on the coop door since the cam will work like a game cam sensing motion.

The Fly Catcher chicks are not chicks any more.

They are nearly fledged. And grumpy looking. Though I would be too if I was crammed into a spot meant for 1.

Only a few days and they will be trying to fly it looks like.

It appears that there is a recall on the handle to my reserve container... Missing bar tacking on a spot, which means I have to send the handle off and I will get a new one sent to me... Problem is I can't be without my reserve for the next weeks so I went to my other front mount container and was able to use the handle from it for now. It fits really well and the handle points UP to make it easier to see and find. This will work perfectly until I get the new one.

Mid afternoon I hauled the boys down to the creek to go in the tunnel. That is the spot right in the top middle of the tunnel where I landed my accidental first flight from the property.

The creek is super low already and largely is flowing off the spring upstream of the farm.

These all have bugs in them and you could see them hanging out the ends dragging themselves around. Not sure which, maybe water skimmers?

I was looking to walk back up the tunnel when I saw something running along the tunnel. It was long and ferret/weasel shaped.

I was amazed that the thing didn't seem to see us and kept coming down the tunnel.

THEN a second one followed it into the tunnel.

But it was smarter and saw us and hauled ass back out of the tunnel.

Then it finally ran back up the tunnel and back to its den. A bit later with my hands full of raspberries as the boys ran up the tunnel one was in there and R saw it. It ran along the creek right next to me and I could see it was ALL BROWN. It appears we have a pair of MINK that live in our creek! The farm at one point WAS a mink farm, but that was 70+ years ago.

I knew the wild raspberries should be ripe so I tromped up the creek to the patch which has grown a lot this year.

They were all a really nice shape and size for wild ones. Though I could only hold so many.

They grow right to the creek edge.

I went and told the boys about them and that's when we saw the Mink the second time. They went tromping off to the berries and I took my haul to the house where I looked up the Mink. The boys were down in there deep.

Pretty happy that I managed to fit my bike in the trunk of the sled. Since the scooter is still dead I need this for transit.

Out to soak after having watched Levi get his personal best flight, he launched from Tekoa mid day.

This is his track log showing he landed in Superior Montana and got just over a 200km flight!!! 3rd best in the world for the day! Below is his flight report. I had been hoping he would be flying with me today but likely not after a day like that, plus the schlep home.

Frick. What a flight. Highlights...205km xc distance. Top ground speed 97 k/mh. 11,800 max altitude (over and over). 6.9 m/s sustained climb. Max brief was 14m/s! Almost ended the flight, rodeo'd it out and took a Pic of the most crazy tag team thermals I've ever seen.... Didn't Pee myself.

I didn't want scout to launch on a C wing, wind was way up. it was at the very top of my speed range on Boomerang 12 CCC wing. Got yeetes on takeoff but rode it out. I was going backwards for a bit on half bar. Had to walk my way out over Tekoa town, couldn't circle in themals on hill. Definitely a topside back rotor today! Early day Therms getting shredded in wind. First good climb out over lake cda.

Plan was to have scout follow, but he had a concert to go to @ 5... So I was going to fly to the summer camp on Hayden Lake again and steal Saylers car to get home... But climbs were strong and frikin cloud street to Montana appeared as I crossed the Valley.... So I sent it. Scout had joked about flying to MT, but it was monster day and made joke reality.

Superior, MT looked like a great town to call it a day. I saw 200km click over just as I got to hills around it. I tested the thermals over hill to see about crossing over towards Missoula, but it was 7pm and lots of trees between LZ options. So picked out big beautiful field and ended it. Wow.

Never had pre selected so many sketchy bailout LZ's... Most options were exit ramps or rest areas/ chain up areas on I90. Being at 10k most of the flight built some confidence, but +5m/s sink for minutes on end is a balloon popper. There always a moster thermal around with that horrid low tone... Trusting Max speed bar and your gut to find lift after sure feels good.

There were several make or break decisions where I had to go for a educated guess that a thermal would be there... Had to be patient several times and let the next thermal develop before making move across valley. Lots of blue holes, some I ran (into endless sink) others I dodged.

My biceps are shot from catching collapses on the rear risers... My legs are feeling pretty pumped after hours of full bar. Hope the excitement comes through in the post. Epic days make epic flights... Just hanging in there and making fewer mistakes than wins gets the distance. Posting a few pics in next post.

This was the most insane air I've ever rode. I was in A weak thermal a mile or so away and say this group of whips start forming.... So full speedbar through mass sink to get about a 45 deg in front of them.... Felt a big change in wing pressure... Speed bar pressure went to zero, rear riser pressure nothing and the whole wing just deflated and I was weightless falling. No collapse, just emptyness. Recovery was in a deep stall, wing still fully open, but no forward speed. I put it into backfly because I thought max lift was a second away and it'd shoot Hella hard... Took a few seconds to stabilize and when I let it fly the first time, left tip carved in and shot, caught it but the rebound spun my harness and oposite wing tip collapsed and crevated half of itself through lines. So back to backfly and it came out.... I u twisted in backfly.... Then I let it fly easier, and got an accidental heli out of my comp wing. I actually laughed and said "check that box" as I did a super cool 360. Let if fly out of the heli, into a spiral and it as a flying wing again. I remember looking away from wing about halfway through the excitement and thinking I had tons of altitude still to fix it... Then looked at my reserve handle real quick just in case.... I said fuck you to the clouds and turned back into them and got rewarded with a great max altitude and climb rate....

Today I am going to go fly at Tekoa and am very much looking forward to being in the air now after my SIV.

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