Frontier Homestead

One of the things that I enjoy so much in traveling in the S.E. part of Oregon is the obvious fact that things have been very different in the past. Of course there is the rugged beauty that is here today, but it is also apparent that it was not always what we see now. In this area the volcanic activity in the very early times formed the land to what we see today, but it is obvious that not too awfully long ago the climate was very different as well.  Perhaps that is the reason that I have a problem with the portion of the US that thinks that we are the main cause of "global warming, or climate change", which ever you want to call it. Sure we have a part in it, but me thinks that in the grand scheme of things we are pretty insignificant. So far!

Connie again came to relieve me of my solitude, and as a reward I took her to one of the old Homesteads here that is off the beaten path. The weather was quite nice yesterday, not much wind and the temp. was in the mid 70's, so we took a couple of drinks, closed the dogs and cats in the house and hopped on the quad for a ride out to Rattle Snake Creek. I tend to believe it was named that due to the winding course of the "creek", since we didn't see a single snake, and I never have. The flowers are just beginning to show, so there weren't that many of them either.

Again I am amazed at the persistence and hardy nature of the people that lived here, to find the little spots that had the basics to sustain life. With my little plane I can wander around till I blunder into these little spots of water in an otherwise empty landscape. How long did it take for this guy to find his little utopia, and make a home there? Only this one no longer had any water. It used to, but its dried up now, and I wonder at the type of woman that would have the strength to make a life there. Connie looks at the view and thinks it is beautiful, but how many women today would ever have that thought if that was where she was destined to live her life. Thankfully there are some, still. Its obvious that the weather was different then without the influence of our human intervention, other wise there is no way that anyone could have survived long enough to build a stone house there.

The house is located in a small declivity or if you tend towards grandeur in your speech, Canyon, that is not visible until you are right on top of it. The area is other wise flat and unremarkable from all the rest of the Sage covered land. The beginning and the access that I used to get there is a cut, merely 50 feet into the ground where a now dry creek bed once flowed through, with apparent vigor. The drainage is from the Hills to the S.E. towards what is now Nevada. While they sometimes achieve 4500 to 5500 feet of altitude they are not all that spectacular, merely "High Desert".

This rock and many around it are pretty good size and all are scored by what must

have been a lot of water over a long period of time. This stuff is very hard basalt, and not your

usual rhyolite that the wind and water can shape.

The area  now serves as drainage on rare occasions, that blends with Crooked Creek, that I now live on. Crooked Creek is an artesian flow that goes underground a short way below my house and eventually surfaces about 6 miles from the house, flowing on to the Owyhee River and thus to the sea via the Snake, and the Columbia.

The gables of the house are beginning to tilt a bit, but it is still in surprising condition

considering that only mud was used to hold the rocks in place.

There was obviously some modern comforts available at that time as there are "milled" 2X8's inset into the rocks to supply lintels for the windows and coat and hat racks on the walls. As well as nails to hang them from. The well consists of a pipe driven into the ground from which a pump was "obviously" screwed into for water. The house is built with mud and lava rock. The walls are straight and the corners are square. There was obviously a dirt floor and a old early metal box spring that could have been added at a later date of course. The roof was obviously wood, but there is no evidence of any of it now, although those in the walls are in good condition. There is also what I took to be a grave marked by an outline of lava Rocks. It is a small one, that probably contains the bones of a child. I will do some checking with a local "historian" and see what I can learn about this spot.

There are Ravens nests at the top of each gable. Perhaps one is a "summer home"

steel bed springs

Fire place, now a Pack Rat retirement home.

Tucked down under the wind, and out of sight.