Jay Richards

"When you have kids, the days are long but the years go by fast."

Snapped about 500 shots the past week, catching some of the action as we go in to the last week of school. This post will most likely get long. As I told John Sandberg at Cable last weekend, having this blog thing is nice to keep track of happenings as I would not likely do it in another format.


5th grade graduation for Jon. Next year we are looking at one in hs, ms, and two in elementary. These scenarios won't always be so Jonell and I are running the numbers often as we think about three years from now Jake will be graduating from hs.

Bruce Adelsman came up on the train Wednesday night for some tech training and a bit of fishing. Of course he would catch the bass big time on Friday before the season opened up and threw them all back. Fellow Maplelag bod's set me up nicely with a fancy new camera for my birthday so he was giving me some pointers and going over some other tech/Maplelag website stuff. Two days with Bruce is like two months of school. Thanks Bruce.



Jack has been putting in kayak time nicely, getting out pretty much every day. Even on the windy days. His goal will be to go all the way around the lake by end of summer. Loon in the background.


Jens has been nailing the sunnies pretty good. So far, no hooks in the back.
Jonell took a old grill and painted it "watermelon" pink and set it up in fine fashion with flowers.
Saturday morning, Matt and Steve Wenzel, Tom Clow along with Jake and I did a sweet ride from Maplelag, hitting local forest roads, atv trails, ski trail and some of the new Maplelag singletrack we started last Fall and have been working on this Spring. Awesome ride, beautiful day, doesn't get any better. Steve recapped the ride nicely.

Some of the atv trail we rode is a bit rough and raw but good skills training. None of the trails are marked or signed and come to think of it, besides Zigs, Jake, myself and now Matt, Steve and Tom, I am sure there haven't been any other mountain bikers on the Mary Yellowhead system .....which is pretty neat. Another nice thing is there isn't any logging going on. Seems like the last few times I have ridden in the CAMBA system, it is hard to find any sustained riding without running into logging operations. Within a 50 mile radius, there is some incredible mountain biking and hopefully one day I can find a nice loop that would make for a good point to point event. Thinking this is something to pursue more heavily when the kids are done with school.


Jake calls us "lazy birders" since everything has been coming to us but this Spring has been incredible for bird action. Red birds, blue birds, yellow birds, orange birds, black birds, grey birds. Lots of tweets. There have been two scarlet tanagers to stop by, we saw one on the ride which was interesting considering how far back in the woods we were.

Sunday we drove up to the "Icebox of the Nation", International Falls. Home of my sister and her four boys. Pretty much as soon as we got there, we drove in to Voyageurs National Park and hiked on the ash river trail. A gorgoeous afternoon and good way to burn off some energy.

If you are thinking this would be a sweet trail to flow down on a mountain bike, we were thinking the same thing.
Brain looking fungi along the trail.
Jens was thirsty so told him to drink some water from a spring near the trail but he said no way, so I took a drink to convince and couldn't pull him away. Best tasting water since Essex, MT.
Brought the blades along and goofed around in parking lot afterwards. Jake and Jon went up to the top of this long gradual downhill and raced down. Video clip below.
Happy Memorial Day. Boys are growing up fast!
Hard to drive more than 10 miles from the Falls to Becida without seeing a log pile. This pile was near Funkley. The Funkley bar waves a confederate flag and two miles down the road from Funkley is the resident with a big sign in the yard the states "anti-DNR". A lot of the piles are small time loggers, stockpiling for pickup. If you have done the drive from Bemidji to the Falls, there are tons of trees. If you like toilet paper, the walls around your house, paper to print off etc., go hug a logger.
Back in the winter I posted a few photos of towns that had a statue or figure relevant to the towns name. Blackduck tops them all with a nice blackduck. Even have the flags waving nicely. I think MN flies more Canadian flags than any state. From what I have noticed, I don't think Canada waves the American flag like America.





Jon drafted behind Jake than makes nice move looking to go outside but cuts inside to hit the line first. Stopped in Bemidji on way back today for supper etc. at T Juans. What a riot. Jens was ripping em' and Jack was falling down off his chair. Not a good scene when the parents should be taking control of the situation but instead are busting a gut. When we first got there we were the only ones in the middle of the dining room and filled up when we got ready to leave. One of those moments that you realize it is best to clear out because the kids were acting super silly and parents couldn't control the situation. Good times, great memories.