Dreaming on Rainy Days

On rainy days here in Oregon I find myself dreaming of Arizona, practically Buckskin Mountain State Park. The park is shown here in this photo I took while staying there in November of 2005 on a trip across the southern states. The park is an attractive green oasis located on the banks of the Colorado River on the western boarder of Arizona. This park is where we will be spending our winter this year as volunteers. I will be doing volunteer trail maintenance and leading nature hikes. Jeanette will be volunteering in the registration office and gift shop.

Busy Beaver

As the daylight hours grow shorter, and the rain seems more persistent, I seem to get more sluggish. But here is a guy that has been busy at work,----Mr. Beaver. I don’t know if he plans on eating the whole thing himself this winter or what. Although we often walk along his stream, Elk Creek, this is the first time we have noticed his handy work.

A Day With My Son

Yesterday I spent the day riding with my son on his cheese deliveries. He has just started his own company, Northwest Artisan Cheese Cellars. We drove to an unimaginably long list of customers, in an equally unimaginable variety of locations, to deliver, --- you guessed it, an unimaginable amount of cheese! We where in locations as diverse as the rural hills of Yamhill County to deep into the busy streets of downtown Portland, crisscrossed with modern suburbia of Washington County and country farms along the Columbia River. Thank goodness my son is very adept at using the map application in his i-phone. It was a long but very rewarding day.

Sweater Time

This morning while we were getting ready to go on a hike I noticed that Buster seemed a little lethargic. My best guess was it was a little too cold for him, so I dug out his argyle sweater. That seemed to perk him up, and he had a great day on the trail. He is shown here at a viewpoint on the Eel Lake Trail.

More Grapes

We worked again yesterday and today helping with the grape harvest at Anindor Vineyards. At this time of year in Elkton it’s a kind of “all hands on deck” kind of situation with everyone pitching in. I am shown here yesterday afternoon dumping a bucket of Pinot Noir grapes into a half-ton tote.

Camera Found

Late last night I got a call from a guy named Bob who said he had my camera. My wife Jeanette is a person that thrives on a challenge. She had jumped on my lost camera situation with all her vim and vigor. One of the things she did was post on the Lost & Found section of Craig’s List about a lost camera offering a reward. I met with Bob this morning, he handed over the camera, I handed over the cash. He had found it at the base of the pedestal on Mt. Pisgah, with the battery popped out, and no recorded photos. With a closer examination I realized that the data card was missing. Hoping it had popped out and would still be laying on the ground I made a trip to the top of Mt. Pisgah again. Thirty minutes of searching turned up no card. I got a new card at the camera store, so I am now back in the business of taking photos.

Missing Camera

We went for a hike today at Buford Recreation Area, just south of Eugene. It was a great hike, the last of sunny days. We explored new trails, took lots of photos, and eventually got to the top of Mt Pisgah. While visiting with a fellow hiker with a nice black lab, I set down my camera on the memorial bronze pedestal and mistakenly walked away leaving the camera. A mile down the mountain I reached for my camera to take a photo and discovered no camera. We immediately turned around and raced back up the mountain to the summit. No camera. We hurried down the mountain to the headquarters, no camera.

Hairy Manzanita

We planted some Hairy Manzanita today. We have a dry bank area that has not been a good location for boxwood that we had planted, too much sun and needs too much watering. In thinking about something native that might work in that location, Hairy Manzanita came to mind. It’s a shrub that we enjoy seeing when hiking, and it seems to do well with lots of sun in rocking areas. It turned out to be hard to find any one who stocked this plant, but finally found them at Wallace Hansens’s Northwest Native Pants in Salem.

Grape Harvest

We are back home in Elkton with cool foggy mornings, and warm sunny afternoons. The grape harvest is now in full swing. Jeanette is shown here emptying Gewurztraminer grapes into a tote while working for Anindor Vineyards at the Elkton Vineyard of River's Edge Winery.

Change In Weather

There seems to have been a change in the weather, the summer temps are gone, snow has fallen in the high Cascades and in the highway passes. Pine needles have been falling like rain for the past several days here on the Metolius. We will be pulling out of Camp Sherman today for a couple of days in Salem/Dallas for various things and then on to Elkton on Friday afternoon. The Santiam Pass shows no snow this morning on the road cam, so it’s the day to head over. We feel like we have milked the last of summer out of a very pleasant stay in Central Oregon. Our timing seems perfect; all the sites in Black Butte RV Park were we have been staying will be taken starting tonight with hunters.