This week yielded subfreezing temperatures for a couple of days, followed by rain late in the week.  Our weather this spring has been maddening!  It seems that we’ll have a couple of warm days and a couple of subfreezing days, and then rain, and then a repeat, almost weekly.  Occasionally, when it warms, we’ll see butterflies sipping nectar from the flowers near the house.

After church and Sunday school, we drove to Quarry Park and “collected” Jerry and Karen for lunch at Chen’s in Mountain Home, followed by a tour of the James A. Gaston Visitor Center in Bull Shoals-White River State Park–nice, but worth $5 million in tax dollars?  A short hike through Gaston’s Nature Trail rewarded us with many birds, including a new “year bird” for Jerry and Karen; both have over 300 species for the year so far.  We also saw lots of butterflies, including these.

With some daylight left, we drove to Buffalo Point where we saw a bald eagle and Jerry and Karen got to see the high river bluffs first hand.  By the time we finished, dusk had begun to set in.  We returned them to their RV at Quarry Park, having completed a full day.

Kay had a couple of medical appointments Monday morning, so I prepared breakfast for Jerry and Karen.  Upon Kay’s return home, Kay, Jerry, Kay, and I drove our favorite road in the Ozark National Forest and along Leatherwood Wilderness, stopping to view the short “hole in the wall”.

We then drove to Blanchard Springs and quickly walked to the spring’s exit from the cave before touring Blanchard Springs Caverns.  The caverns are one of the top 5 exhibition caves in the US, and overwhelmed us at every turn with magnificent formations.  We were all hungry afterwards and stopped at Cody’s in Fifty Six, AR, where Jerry and Karen treated us to an early dinner.

I’m really our of practice preparing heavy breakfast, having been dieting for the last 18 months, and the breakfast yesterday for Jerry and Karen was substandard.  Tuesday morning I made biscuits, sausage, sausage gravy, and scrambled eggs for them and it was good.  Jerry really likes sausage gravy and probably won’t get anymore until they return through here this fall on their way back to the RGV.  Kay and I both had appointments in the middle of the day, but prepared dinner for them in the evening–pork jambalaya, asparagus, salad, and French bread, with Karen’s Key Lime pie for dessert.  Yum, yum!  

Jerry and Karen were leaving on Thursday, making their way slowly to Wisconsin where they spend the summer.  They returned to our house Wednesday eveing for a farewell dinner, preceded by bird, deer, and turkey watching.  I prepared shrimp creole, and we accompanied it with salad and French bread.  It was sad to see them go, but we’ll visit again perhaps in the early fall, and then over the course of the winter in the RGV.  I have learned a great deal from them about birds, and am thankful for their friendship and our time together. 

Friday and Saturday were quiet days for us, but we did attend a Sunday school party at the Burr’s despite rain in the morning and a chill in the afternoon.