Jay Richards

Found out today the test I had done for Lymes disease came back positive. The first test I had back in late June was too early after I got bit, most likely, to show a positive. Not sure. Either way, was good to get on doxycyline last week versus waiting for second blood test. I guess the disease can linger in your body and you don't know it and once a bunch of stresses add up (like doing bike races etc) it attacks. It doesn't surprise me this happened as I am out in the woods pretty much every day from when the snow melts until it falls again and I don't use any bug dope because I feel using that repetetively is worse than the risk. Anyways, hopefully things clear out like they should and can back to normal. On this med for 30 days. Definitely feel the best I have in a month or so after the antibiotics have been kicking things out and feels good to work 12 hours and not be totally wiped out.

Bruce Adelsman and I will exchange photos from time to time of neat and unusaul things we see out and about in nature. Bruce takes a ton of pics that never make it online and he sent me these two pictures he took last week when fishing and the story below. This defintiely tops the list. Pretty wild.

"Went out Friday evening just before a storm rolled in. I caught two nice bass, one about 2.5 lbs, another 1.5 lbs. The second one was caught during the rainstorm. I kept them to bring in and show the kids but was going to release them. I left them tied up to the dock while we got the camera. Came back down and got the fish and snapped a few photos and let the kids check them out. Then I went down to release the fish. The way I had them on the leader, I needed to release them one at a time. I set the larger fish back into the lake on the leader as I released the smaller one first. I pull on the leader to retrieve the larger fish and he seems to be stuck under the dock. Maybe pinned between the other boat and the dock? I pull a little harder and then scream out in horror... a huge snapper turtle had been lurking under the dock and in the 30 seconds I had that fish in the water he attacked! Margaret and the kids came running out and snapped some photos. I felt really bad about the fish. The snapper was incredibly bigger, I tried to measure the shell and came up with around 20" in length (the state record is 22"). The bass was toast, so I let him eventually swim off with it."