Up date and Trip to Salem

My friend, from my days as a OSP officer, Glen Smith came over to scout for Antelope. He spent his career as a Game Cop, as I should have. I encouraged him to draw a tag here in the White Horse Unit as I know it pretty well and it has some nice Antelope in it. Unfortunately the drought has dried up almost all of the obscure water holes and he will be very lucky if he gets a chance to shoot at any of them, much less a trophy. My bad! Any way he spent three days scouting and we did find some water holes that will likely escape the attention of the other hunters that have drawn tags for this area.

The last day of his visit I noticed another visitor. This one is a lot less welcome. Bobcats are the bane of my existence here. I have had numerous visit from them, much to the detriment of my Chicken population.

 We were eating our breakfast and "Bob" decided to take a stroll, in the middle of the morning, across the field as if he owned it.

  Quite frankly I would have been better off if I had just shot him, but I decided to try to scare him badly enough that he would not want to come back for a chicken dinner. I put a 4000 feet per second 22-250 bullet in the ground under his chin, most likely throwing dirt on him and this was his reaction.

Oh well, I am a bit tired of each day being an Easter Egg Hunt, so if he gets them all I can start anew next year with some Chickens that are more compatible to my lazy lifestyle. So I left him to his ignorance and will hope for the best, which means that he will be a lot harder to kill later.

Connie spent a couple of days with me after Glen left, and of course she brought her cat, Chili. Since I have to take Tiger with me, we have decided that each will drag their critters wherever and when we go overnight. Chili is getting used to it and it helps with the freedom that he has here at the house.

 He, like most cats, likes to explore, and the ability to get on the roof was new, so he checked the chimney for me. Then a nosy Say's Phoebe came by to object so he left.

Connie got a week off so that she could go to Salem to get veggies to can, and to visit some of her friends. We decided to take the fifth wheel for a place to stay. She contacted one of her friends, Debi and Raul, and they graciously moved her horse trailer for us to park and stay there. They had a fenced perimeter which would allow the dogs some freedom while we were running around. At least that was the theory.

The first thing however was some new tires for the truck. My current ones were 9 years old, and its time for a change. I opted to get them at Les Schwab in Burns. It was on our way, so I came to Connie's place a day early and got my tires.

Burns has Deer running around all over the place. Some of them have some very nice racks, but they are feral and in every bodies yards and every thing else . This one came to eat some apples from Connie's neighbor. 

We made it to Salem with no problems, parked and chatted with Debi and Raul for a bit, and then retired for the night. The next morning we decided to go to breakfast. I optimistically left the trailer doors open for the critters, and we happily trundled off to breakfast. Before our food arrived I had a call from the service that monitors the chips that I had put in the dogs just in case they were ever lost, telling me that they had gone visiting. I am sure that it was Brick that had gone looking for someone to feed his desire to be petted. It turned out that they had just gone up to the neighbors. Debbie talked to them and convinced him to take them back down to the house.

The next time we left, I put their collars on and gave the controls to Raul. Every thing was fine this time. It probably didn't hurt that Raul was there for Bricks addiction. It all went so well that I begin to believe that the first time was just a fluke and every thing was established. Home was the fifth wheel, stay there.

They have Squirrels in their yard, and Chili was convinced that he could whip one. He just didn't take into account that they can climb a bit better than he can.

Connie tried to talk him into coming down, but of course he wouldn't. We went back in the trailer and he came down by himself.

 Chili guarding the truck.

Tiger checking the corrals.

Both cats did quite well, but there is a little miniature burr that grows there that each animal got into. It was no big deal for the dogs or Tiger. Chili however was a different story. His long hair was filled with them, and he was all teeth and claws when you tried to get them out. (Connie had his belly shaved yesterday.)

Things were working out quite well, so we made a trip to buy veggies. Every body was gone and since things were seemingly OK, we left the gate open when we left. This time they went three neighbors down. Brick got caught and tied up, Josie came home to the trailer. This one put it on face book. Raul caught it and got him rescued again. This of course left me with a serious case of remorse that my presence had caused so much inconvenience to every one. I can just imagine what my reaction would have been if the shoe was on the other foot, yet Raul and Debi were so gracious about it that the embarrassment was even worse. I will try to find some way to make it up to them.

I did get lucky at the very last however. As I was pulling out of the drive way to come home, I checked the rear view mirror and found that I was about to take out his mail box with the rear of the fifth wheel. I stopped in time however from making a complete fool out of myself. Thank you Jesus!

Every thing was working well and we had just left Bend, on our final leg, and the truck motor went to idle. There was a gravel turn out so I whipped in there and stopped. I got out and found that although the throttle cable was still attached it would not influence the engine speed at all. I called AAA and we sat there in the heat for three hours till a tow truck could come from Burns to drag us to Burns.

The bolt that activated it had snapped in two. Of course none were available, so the guy welded it and I trundled on home the next day. I will have the new one installed when it arrives.

                               The smoke is still here, hopefully it will clear before the fly-in.

Connie gathered up all her canning equipment and came back to the house this evening. Chili is doing much better with the car rides. It has almost become normal for him. He of course wanted out of the car when she arrived, so he went happily out to explore.

We forgot about him until it had gotten dark, so I went looking. I found him and of course he wanted to play "catch me if you can". Connie tried to head him off while I went to get a laser to distract him. He eventually screwed up and forgot where I was standing, so I grabbed him by the handle, (tail) and the game was over.