Owyhee Watershed Field day

Each year at the end of April the Owyhee Watershed Council holds a field day at McGinnis Park at the base of the Owyhee Dam. There is every thing from Wild horse's to trapping, and even Falconry demonstrated to the various 5th grade classes around the area. There was even a bus from a charter school from Powell Butte, they had a 6 hour bus trip and spent three days total to participate. Quite a road trip. Of course there was education stuff as well, ODFW, Trout unlimited, noxious weeds, gold panning, Water safety, Rangeland ecology, soils erosion, Beef bi products, wildfire management, on and on. Sufice it to say every thing concerning the land and water of the area was covered.

The classes were cut down to about 15 kids each with a FFA volunteer as a guide for each class. They only spent about 15 minutes at each station, so it moved right along and the kids were exposed to every thing over the two days that they were there.

Jessie had been twisting her Jesses , so I had to untangle her.

This group ate their lunch while at our station. 

We ended up giving talks to 19 different groups of kids. That means we introduced about 300 kids to the Raptors of Oregon in general and Jessie in particular. She had to sit on her perch while they almost all lusted after and wanted to touch her.  Needless to say I had to unwind her jesses more than once. She was great though and tolerated a lot more indignities than should have been permitted, such as a cat invading her space.

All in all it wasn't a bad trip. Our pet sitter called in sick, so all the critters had to go with us. Three dogs, and two Cats. Karen had just returned from a week long visit to Wyoming on Sunday and had one day to recuperate and load the trailer. The only thing we forgot was matches and my Coffee. Oh, I screwed up the water tank and all the water smelled like the swamp at the black lagoon. Minor crap all.

The interesting part was the sleeping arrangements. The cats generally sleep in a dog kennel at home. This is to keep them off the bed with us. Nothing like a cat "purring in your ear at 2 AM. Frank (above) is currently on a regime of diabetes shots, that happens to give him the "shits". He and Tiger, our semi normal cat share the kennel. He also hates the smell of Frank crap! So very early in the morning Tiger is strumming on the kennel door to escape - very loudly!

The next night I decided to put them in the bathroom with their litter box. Tiger spent about 20 minutes trying to dig his way out, so I got up, locked him in the kennel by himself, and went back to bed. Once again he is strumming on the door like the washtub thumper on HeeHaw. Karen weakened first and got up to try to bribe him with some food. Apparently she was too groggy to lock the door, and some time around 2 AM he could be heard purring in Karen's ear.

The cats do quite well and apparently think of the fifth wheel as their alternate home. We were able to turn them loose and they never strayed far from the trailer. The dogs also are quite reliable and rarely give us any trouble.  Josie however discovered some really sweet grass that dogs apparently cannot resist. Of course she choose to puke on our comforter, on the bed. We however had another so no real harm. Then I took them for a walk, and they had a good time with all the new smells. I noticed Josie chewing on something, but it wasn't very big. We had a good run and every thing was going well. I was sitting in my chair reading when I heard Josie puke on the other comforter. Sigh!