Camera Ruined: Devastation

Folks, I won’t be posting a for while. I just got my new telephoto with cleaning kit and when I went to clean the lens on my imperfect, but beloved Fuji S7000, the top came off the cleaning fluid and it all ran into my camera. I’m just too heartbroken to think right now.

Winter is Here: Happy Solstice!

4 foot Icicle

I’m feeling for the folks in the valley. They are all frozen and snowed in with four to six inches of snow in Portland. I listened with a new sense of humor to school closures last week as Gene went off to school through the snow. Here, it’s business as usual. Snow is a fact of life out here in the winter and in fact, we are still way short of what we ought to have. The views with snow are absolutely stunning.

Scene from our backyard

Fox Valley Winter Scene

The Animals have found me, the crazy lady who puts out food for them. Although I have not seen the crafty quail or turkeys up here yet, I’ve had quite a variety of other creatures.

The East Side Bird Cafe

The Niger Feeder is busy.

The deer aren't shy

And Geno got to ride in a Hummer: for good reason. The mayor uses this to transport people when the roads are bad. His wife, a teacher, drove the other teachers to John Day for a required (snow or not) workshop. The teachers were taken aback when I took a picture, but when I told them people drive these things to work in the valley simply because they are status symbols, they shook their heads in disbelief. Hummers and Ram trucks are really working vehicles out here and are not used frivolously. Amazing concept eh?

Gene takes a Hummer Trip through the snow

School Play A Success!

I have just spent two solid weeks designing and sewing costumes for the High School holiday play. Yes, thanks to dear Geno, who happened to know I couldn’t say no, my seamstress skills were revealed. It was challenge from the word go, I must say. First off, my machine apparently needs a tuneup and it bucked and kicked the entire time until at the 11th hour, it flat refused to sew. Thankfully, one of the women in town, who doesn’t “do clothes,” but sews quilts, lent me her lovely little White to finish off the girls dresses and make adjustments.

When I started sewing the costumes for “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” most of the students were your typical, unhelpful, unwilling, teenage participants. It was rather like training cats to sit/stay. Lots if figurative slash marks, nasty noises and general teenage mayhem. Of note were the outliers: Asia, who was my costuming assistant, Chi, the exchange student playing Woodstock and Ivy, the girl playing Snoopy. All very helpful and thankful. So, I had strong misgivings about the play coming off at all. The other adults think that it was the costumes that I made that turned the tide. But turn it did, for the play went off very well with only a few stumbles and no major costume failures. Snoopy, Woodstock, Lucy, Violet, Freida and Sally looked a lot better on, than on the hangers. Now, I am a hero of sorts and almost every mother in town has made a point to thank me, along with the apologetic “I never learned to sew.” What is this world coming to? We used to all know how to sew. At any rate, here are some pictures of the event.

A Charlie Brown Christmas in Long Creek

The Charlie Brown Gang

The Finale

Snoopy was super cute

A big shout out to my mom, who provided about $60 worth of material and sewing supplies. Thanks Mom! And, of note is that all of the students thanked me and were simply angels the night of the play…

SNOW!

Apparently, it only took putting snow on my blog to encourage real snow to fall from the sky.

Greenman welcomes snow

at first, it was rain, but it was cold and soon, snow fell in silent sheets. We had friends Rich and Silver over for beans and pie.  They had a good laugh at me as I bounced from front door to back door taking pictures.

snow covers the ground

It didn’t take long to cover the ground and by the time our friends left, it looked like winter for the first time in our experience here in Long Creek. This morning, the dogs were pretty excited to explore the new medium. The goats, on the other hand, are not nearly as excited. They are happy to stick close to the barn.

Dogs explore the snow

The Birds

A cold and hungry scout

I’d given up on birds coming to the feeders. If you will recall, I figured out that the deer were sucking my feeders dry every night and moved them to much higher spots and waited for the birds. Then I waited and waited some more. Finally, I gave up. Three days ago, one shivering single goldfinch showed up at the tube and positioning himself out of the wind, he proceeded to methodically chew on sunflower seeds. I thought the poor guy got left behind and they were all over the mountains. But later that day, once the sun thawed everything, the yard became a flurry of activity. A flock of goldfinches arrived.

The troups arrive for grub

They were joined at times by a purple finch. It was a veritable feeding frenzy there for a couple of hours.

It was highly entertaining, although I remained on task, working on Gene’s computer while I kept one eye on the window. Such lovely company for the dry work that I was trying to complete that morning.

Hunger leads to fearlessness

Later in the afternoon, I headed towards the school to meet up with the folks involved with the school play and there was a Downy Woodpecker at the front feeder. How exciting!

I think this is a Downy Woodpecker

And, just yesterday, I heard a turkey raising a commotion down the road and there was a wild Tom chewing out one of our ranchers driving his quad back to the ranch from coffee at Priscilla’s. Meanwhile, his harem was scurrying for all they were worth into the safety of bushes along the road. It was hilarious.  And finally, yesterday, as I came down the Beech Mt. Draw to Mt. Vernon, A mature Bald Eagle chased an immature across my path and down the draw. My bird manual notes that it is common for Bald Eagles to chase each other. I am thrilled, as this is a second sighting. The first, Mom and I saw a pair of matures in the same area while we were on our way to Baker City last month. I am guessing that this is a family unit as the immature eagle’s markings matched that of a first year juvenile. My book also noted that eagles in the west often feed on roadkill deer. No wonder they live right there.

Someday, I’ll get a picture of this group, I hope. If not, Twinkle will have to come over in the spring when she gets home and try to capture these beautiful birds on camera.

Thankful for Family

We had a great Thanksgiving last week. I spent some time earlier in the week consulting for the Corvallis-Benton Chamber Coalition, Gene rode over with another teacher and we zoomed to Bend to have Thanksgiving with my mother. The weather was beautiful and the view of the Three Sisters stunning. Of course, a new blight to the landscape just across the road. Not one, but two Mcmansions. I see no solar in sight and cannot imagine heating either dwelling. No pictures for y’all of the actual feast to protect those who overdid. It was a little tough on me because Randy and Dana put together a family feast at the last minute, so my heart was with them too and I missed seeing the Lettkeman Clan. And I was missing Twinkle so much. On the bright side, we had such a lovely time with Mom.  At least now, I can find my way around Bend by myself. We took mom out the next day to get her Christmas Tree.

Mom insists on bringing in her own tree.

Gene, Mom and Buck

It was another beautiful day and as you can see, we all, including the dogs, got into the act. These were taken right at the gate on the old McKenzie Pass. It’s one of Mom’s favorite places.

Pax and Quinn search for their own tree

I love the holidays! Mom and I with her tree

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA

Hallelujah

Congratulations President-Elect Obama

I am so grateful to be alive to see this day

WE WON!

Now, let’s get to work

Sunday

I miss having breakfast with friends in Corvallis on Sundays, although I don’t miss the place we met. I also miss the Sunday Oregonian, which the Oregonian does not deliver anywhere close. Maybe they should call themselves the “Western Oregonian” if they aren’t going to serve Eastern Oregon! Evidently there is an Eastern Oregonian, but go figure: they don’t deliver down the 395 corridor either! I guess this means we are really “out in the sticks.”

As far as I know, the nearest movie house is either Baker or La Grande, both two hours away through the mountains. So Gene and I don’t get to go to the movies anymore for a date. Instead, we are starting to spend Sundays exploring the area. Last week, we sort of fell into exploring, so I didn’t take my camera. I won’t do that again. I missed a shot of a Ruffled Grouse, a first sighting for me. This week, we set out to find a ranch we are visiting after dark later in the week, then explore some of the other county roads between Long Creek and Monument along highway 402.

Dropping down to Monument

Around here, the rule of thumb is don’t drive after dark. There’s good reason for that. First, there are many more deer and elk moving around and they move farther to get to water. Then, there’s the fact that the roads are all narrow with little or no shoulder and finally, all of the roads out of Long Creek to anywhere are mountainous. The drop to Monument from Long Creek is 1,170 feet. That drops occurs in two little three to four mile twisty descents with sheer drop offs and incredible views. I once drove a small motor home down this road, but I was younger then.  We found the place we were looking for on our first county road, and along the way, stopped to gather some Juniper branches with their gorgeous blue berries. This season, the trees are so loaded, they look blue on the hillsides. Of course, now the ranchers are all thinning their juniper because it is taking over and it drinks a lot of water per day.

Juniper

Gene says they’ve gotten out of control from the clear cutting of the other conifers. Now, ranchers around here are taking steps to re-balance their forests, so most hill sides are a mix of Pine, White and Douglas Fir, Tamarack and Spruce with some Juniper thrown in. Juniper is hell on chainsaws unless it’s dry and does not burn well unless it is completely dry. There is one fellow out in John Day that is building an entire log cabin out of it for somebody in Florida. The logs are streaked with blue nearly the color of the berries and it is really beautiful, but for the most part, it appears to be good for nothing except fence posts. Speaking of fence posts, I’ve noticed that the ranchers keep their junipers along the fence lines. This is because they attache their fences to the trees. The ground is either really great or really rocky, so often, fence posts can’t be sunk in the ground. Instead, they are either nailed or braced to a juniper, or they are braced with an extra post or an anchor of rocks.

One of the reasons we chose to go 402 to Monument was that the chickens are molting, thus, no eggs, and sadly, our little Long Creek store closed for good this week. Thank goodness for Boyer’s Cash Store in Monument. It sells literally anything we might need quickly, except for the Sunday Oregonian.

Boyer's Cash Store in Monument

They actually take cards now, but it’s been in the same family for two generations and they aren’t going to change the name now. It’s a very cool store that is important to all of us, so if you are in the area, stop in and spend some dough. After we purchased our eggs and a few other not so necessary items such as candy and Jones soda, we decided that it was the better part of valor to stop at the Monument Riverside Park to allow Pax, the dense-brained dog a chance to stretch his legs and me a chance to get a closer look at the stunning yellow poplars along the river.  It’s pretty clear to me that the folks in Monument really care about their park. It is a little jewel. Even the pit toilets are clean.

Pax adds his handsome profile to the scenery

But really, it was the scenery that left me snapping photos right and left. Pax was a good boy for a change and followed right along, even exploring the river a bit. I could not get him to actually swim without his competitive brother, Buck to egg him on. Still, it was just a beautiful day and every turn revealed a new wonder. I’d love to have a camera with zoom so that I could show you all the huge flock of wild turkeys calmly grazing across the river. Pax did not even see them, or he would have probably swam right over to investigate. It is really amazing to me to see wild turkeys as they were endangered when I was young. Now they are flourishing everywhere here in Oregon and give promise of an excellent food source if need be.

On our ascent, we took another county road I’ve been itching to go on. Co. Rd. #9 cuts south over the west shoulder of Long Creek Mountain to Fox. It starts out off of 402 through a well cared for ranch, then takes a turn through a section of the Malheur Forest. It is a nice mix and looks to be in fairly good shape, although there is some deadwood due to disease or pests; probably Bark Beetle, says Gene. We saw one creek with water and several running springs. That is pretty unusual this time of year, so the area looks to be well supplied with water year round. Once we began to drop into the valley, we started seeing “archeologically significant” abandoned buildings. The term, “archaeologically significant” was probably brought into existence to control people like my mother and I, who used to wander all over the countryside exploring abandoned buildings for interesting things. We being ranch folks ourselves, were always respectful, but those were different times and I’m guessing with many folks like mom and me running around on the homestead, ranchers and farmers just got tired of it.

A homestead on Long Creek Mountain

But there are still picture opportunities like the little homestead with gold leaved shrubs and a lovely little grove of crab apple trees we came upon on the lower southwest shoulder of Long Creek Mountain looking out over Fox Valley. I always wonder about the folks who built these now abandoned places. I imagine how they might have decided to have the door look out over the valley and how they might have stood there and watched the seasons pass in the crab apple grove or the clouds scud across the great expanse of sky cupped in the valley.  I wonder if they had to leave and if it broke their hearts when they did. It surely would break mine. Although, the people of this homestead may likely have offspring still working the area since these ranches tend to stay in families. The ranchers really care about the environment over here too. We came across a fine example just down from the homestead. There, we saw Fox Creek completely fenced off to protect it from the cattle and help with rebuilding habitat for fish. This is a pretty serious investment for ranchers, as fencing is not cheap or easy in these parts. I am truly impressed and challenge some of my friends in the Willamette Valley to pause the next time they are tempted to make sweeping generalizations about ranchers not being environmentalists! You can see pictures of this and other scenes in my photos. Just click on the link in the sidebar.

A Blustery November 1

At least, it is November 1 here in Long Creek. It’s November 2nd where my daughter is right now. Last night, we were treated to an old-fashioned Halloween…much like those of youth, only smaller, since the town is only 220 strong.  Parents from ranches brought their kids in, then went to visit friends and neighbors. One group of parents had the right idea. With permission of the school superintendent, they set up their portable fire pit in front of the lower school parking lot, fired it up, put out a bowl of candy and stayed in earshot of their kids while having a good visit. They told me it was a tradition. Sure looks like a good one.

Gene carved a pumpkin and we were able to get into the groove of the evening as well. All of the children, teens and adults were actually well mannered and most of them called Gene by his school honorific, Mr. Russell. A wonderful group of high school boys showed up as well and hammed it up for the camera. It is unbelievable how polite they are. Of course, since Gene is a teacher, that makes sense. All too soon, the evening was over and we were tucked snug in our beds by 9:30ish.  It was a beautiful evening, unlike today, which is blustery and rainy. Looks like our warm autumn has taken a turn. It is still pretty warm, so I think there is no worry of snow yet, but soon, I think.