Snow and Sun

Dogs Playing Hard

The biggest surprise about Long Creek has been the frequent high winds this winter. I don’t know yet about summer, but this winter, they’ve been busy pushing another pile of clouds over Long Creek Mountain, across the valley floor and down through Monument or up over Ritter Pass and on through the high mountains highway 395 snakes through.  The sainted Geno is on day four of a field trip with all of the high school students. He’s driving a 12 passenger bus, no less. I talked mother into coming over the Ochocos from Bend to help me stay focused on my many tasks. I’ll tell you, mom is a strong, energetic taskmistress. I am exhausted! But, we got a lot done and still had time to do a bit of shopping and play a few games of Scrabble. My family has a long standing and aggressive competition in Scrabble.  This time, mom put me in my place with a really tough game almost completely on the right side of the board. You gotta watch mom. She

makes these brilliant little boxes of three letter words that net her huge benefits.This time, it was zap/mop that garnered her a big 37. She beat me 265 to 220. What a game.  Mother left this morning, so, now I sit in a lull between her departure and Gene’s arrival. The weather is typical late winter into spring for Eastern Oregon. That is freezing, snow, wind, ice to brilliant sunshine, snow melting like a dream, and water dripping. And that’s what I’ve seen just this afternoon.

Dogs love snow.

Kismet stays comfy on the dog bed inside.

The next morning: Long Creek Mountain glistens in the sunshine