It has been over a month since my last blog. We have been pretty busy and I have been lazy getting around to sitting down in from of our PC and hammer out a blog.

Well one of the first things we did in June was going to a fish farm across the valley about 5 miles from where we are. But not any fish farm but a sturgeon fish farm. One of the largest in the world.   It is located on a cattle ranch that has a great supply of cool fresh water. If I remembers the number correctly it has 3,000 gallons per minute and the temperature stays between 64 and 68 degrees year round. No matter what the outside temperature or drought conditions and has for as long as this rancher and his family has owned the ranch. His family settled this area in the 1870s and has raised cattle and I can guess he had some Indian problems early on. Finally about 20 years ago the rancher convinced UC Davis he had this water supply. UCD found it hard to believe he had this volume of water with the cool temperature up here in the high desert.

Now why does he raise sturgeon? For a non-connoisseur of high end eats, like me, sturgeons are used for their caviar. He receives the sturgeon when they are about 200 pounds. This is when they can tell the girls from the boys. Of course he only gets the girls. When they reach 800 pounds, about 3 years later, they are ready to harvest their eggs and meat. The caviar retails for around $80 per ounce. An 800 pound sturgeon gives 80 pounds of caviar.   The ranch does not own the fish. They are owned by a company in San Francisco. He provides labor, water and the land. If the caviar is “gold” caviar it is sold to Royalty and goes for several thousand dollars per ounce.

Here as some pictures of Sturgeon swimming in circles against the current in their penin the 250 to 300 pound range.

Fish Food

 

We also were visited by some astronomers. Here is one of their telescopes. Literally people come from around the world show up here because of the clear skies and very little light pollution. Last year they had a group from Sweden. The furthest astronomer in this group was from south Texas next to Big Bend National Park. Next week we have about 25 people coming in to look into the heavens.

In June I also received a care package / retirement gift from a golf buddy from Pittsburgh. Pro-V golf balls, T-shirt and Tasty Kakes. Below you will see he had the golf balls personalized. Robin is my nick name in our annual golf match we play. My team mate is Batman so you can figure out we are the Dynamic Duo. His golf team is the ADG, as in The Apple Dumpling Gang. The Tasty Kakes did not survive long enough for a picture. He gets a kick that I am a goose poop picker upper.

Also in June we had Father’s Day so I posted my Dad’s picture from his Senior Year yearbook on Face Book. He and his best friend always said they graduated 31^st and 32^nd in their class. Well their class at West Lampeter Vocational High School in 1927 had 32 members. I can honestly say I did my best to keep this tradition intact.  Dad is in the upper left.

We also went to a rodeo in Reno, NV. Now Reno is about 3 hours south of us but it was well worth the trip. Something to see how these young men and women become one with their horses. We really enjoyed this.

Back Stage

Bronco Busting

Calf Wrestling

Three Teams pulling a wagon.  It was amazing how he moved his wagon around the arena including backing it up.

Some youngsters with their moms parading around.

Later on in June we took a trip to the Fort Cook Museum in Fall River Mills, CA. FRM is a 2 hour trip from Likely. We traveled south and then west going to FRM. We went by a horse ranch that had over 100 horses running loose. We also saw a flying helicopter with a fire bucket under it. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of either.   But here are some pictures of the museum. This kind of stuff really interests me and you can find them almost anywhere in the US.

Fire arms from back in the day.  I would guess some of these would be worth some real money.

Different types of fences that was used.

Sheep hearder’s wagon.

Of course we went to the Alturas 4^th of July parade. Now you have to remember Alturas is a town of around 3,000 people and only have one fast food restaurant – Subway. But I really enjoyed it.

Sherriff’s Posses.  The Sherriff is on the right.  We played golf with him 2 months ago.

Gotta have some Cowgirls

Fire is a BIG thing is this neck of the woods.  This is a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) truck.  One of the firemen plays golf down at Likely.

Alturas’ fire truck.

Of course we had Smokey the Bear.

And we were in the Likely Place annual 4^th of July golf tournament held on the 5^th. We did OK coming in 3^rd out of 6 couples in the mixed division. It was a Stapleford format. If as a team you birdied a hole you had to move back a tee. If you boogied a hole you moved up a tee. Also on the par 3 drop hole, my favorite on the course, you had 7 different flags to shoot at. Vicki was 2^nd closet to the pin. We almost came out ahead with our winnings less our entry fee but we had to have some grape juice at the the 19^th hole.

Why is my name second when all the other teams have the guy first?!

Well that is about it from Likely Place. Here are a few interesting pictures from this past month.

I think this is a Red-tailed Hawk Sadie, Buster and I saw on one of our walks.

Larry the Lizards from Likely that was under our trailer this month.

Quote for the Blog:

Let your mind wander back a bit-

When times were real and true.

To a land that was conquered with guns

And spurs, branding irons, and a good lasso.

Andy Devine