Every Silver lining has a Cloud

I am sure that I have mentioned the lack of rainfall here in the desert many times before. I mean after all it is a desert, but every thing can be overdone. With an average of 4.5 inches it doesn't take much variation to be noticed. In 2006 when we arrived here, it was pretty green outside. Of course that green was primarily weeds, but what the heck, it was still growing and green for a while. There were plenty of game birds and critters. It has slowly been drying up. Last year all the ponds and springs back up in the hills totally dried up to dust.

Our winter precipitation was a total of 1.25 inches from October to the middle of May. Between the fires and nothing growing it was looking pretty bleak. The patterns here are really quite interesting. You know they always show precipitation in percentages. Well if you lived here you would understand completely. It of course means that the rain will cover a certain percentage of the area. Most generally what that means for us is that it rains 6 miles north of us for about a square mile or two, and the entire visible desert about 15 miles south east. Nothing here. It is apparent that some formation to the south of us splits the clouds and moves part of them to the North West and the rest of them to the South East and comes back together about 15 miles north East.

Last week something weird happened, and it rained on us. A lot! Almost 2 inches of rain fell on our little bit of Desert over a week. It was a nice gentle rain for the most part. No real flash floods or other destructive behavior for a change.

                                           Note the Patch of Prickly Pear in the fore ground.

 This is about as high as I have seen the creek.

 It soaked in, and refilled some of the little springs back in the hills. We even had a little bit or run off as well. All good!

https://vimeo.com/128531834     password - owyheeflyer

Of course with such a rare phenomenon, things were bound to happen. Spade foot frogs came to the surface, to make their calls for mates. Flowers grew like there was no tomorrow, and the weeds again dominated the landscape. Russian Thistle ( Tumbleweeds) and Yellow Mustard being the dominate species. The air of the evening is fragrant with the subtle perfume of the Evening Primrose calling any and all to pollinate. Pack rats and Mice have flourished, and all come visiting.

The first flowers that came up was the Mallow.

                     The silver lining there is that Josie has come into her own as a Rat killer.

 Jessie has discovered that Rats and Mice are tasty. The rabbits and game birds seem to be taking advantage of the windfall. The Cloud is that the food is so good that Jessie has made a scrape and has a brand new egg in it. The only bad part about that is that it stops her molt dead in its tracks.

Of course now with all that growth the fire load will be out of sight when the lightening flashes in July and August.

As a precaution I went over to the ranch and borrowed a tractor with a brush hog on it and mowed our weeds far enough back to give us a fire guard in case the worst happened.

                       If we can keep from burning up, it promises to be "A very good Year".

2015 trip to Leslie Gultch

Sandy Morrison stopped by on her way back home from visiting her son in California. She had never see Leslie Gulch, so a trip was in order.

It was a cloudy day that eventually went in to a light drizzle. My only disappointment was that it didn't rain hard. We had a good day in spite of the weather. Both Sandy and Karen are rock collectors, so the car was quite a bit heavier going out than it had been.

This entry is mostly pictures. So click on the first one and each click will bring another pile of rocks for your viewing pleasure.

The lighting was a bit washed out and I had to really "saturate" this photo to enable us to see the Steen's. The light got better as the day wore on.

I liked the Juniper growing out of the soil that had blown in to the rock.

These are Choke Cherry bushes

The Indian Pain Brush is a little darker red this year.

Their were Chukars every where.

A Kestrel was sitting on the highest perch he could find.

This rock reminded us of Jeff Dunham's dummy Walter.

This poor rock was only a shell of its former self. Apparently a victim of drinking too much.

The lake is starting the year as low as it normally is in the late fall. It is down to 29 % of its normal level. This is the original stream bed.

We looked in this hole twice trying to see what if anything was nesting in it.

 With a bit of manipulation you can finally see Mama Horned Owl and a nestling in the back.

The rather amusing part of these trips into Leslie Gulch is that one never sees it all. There is always a new feature to the rocks. Its never the same.

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!