Things!

The summer is slipping away, and I cannot be sad about it. Its been a pretty rough one. It is drier than a popcorn fart here. Almost all of the ponds and dug outs have dried up to nothing. The pond that I caught those beautiful Trout in, has dried up totally.

 I guess I should have caught more of them. It would have been a quicker death than what they suffered through. Its been a really hot summer, lots of days in the 104 range. I broke down and put another air conditioner in. Thanks to Connie, who had an extra.

The feral Horses are crowding the Sheepsheads and making the water situation much worse for the wildlife. The studs dominate the water holes and make a mess for every thing. The range is carrying many many more than it can sustain. The ranch next door, who lease the graze in that area, have brought their Cows in because of them. They cannot haul enough water for all of them.

A friend from my days in Klamath drew an Antelope tag for this area. I scouted for him and managed to locate three water sources that he could hunt. He came over two weeks before the season to look at things on foot. We went to one pond that I was sure that no one else would find or hunt, and we decided that it would be his best chance to hunt an area that the car hunters would not interfere or find. By the time he got back it too had dried up. That left two ponds with water in about 30 square miles.

I was surprised to only see one other hunter myself, and they saw only three. So apparently the hunters for this area either gave up or are bunched some where else. Glenn and his Son in law got their last Antelope yesterday. Both are quite nice animals, and I am both happy as well as relieved.

Hope finally ate on the fist this morning. I have been cutting her back for at least a week or more. She has had her freedom from restraint since Christmas, and she decided that she liked it a lot. I have been flicking her little tidbits for several days and she would still not get closer than five feet from me. Today she really needed to eat. I gave her a couple of tidbits and just sat down in the gravel and stuck my fist out with some Jack Rabbit in it. After a lot of false starts she began to grab at the food trying to rip it out of my hand. After three tries, she gave up, got on the fist and ate her food. Another week or so and it will be "Rabbit time"!

I was over run with Thistles ( Tumble weeds) this year, and I somehow got behind. I spent all of the cooler morning pulling thistles and hauling them off down in the field below me. Long sweaty day, but it looks better.

I am beginning to get ready for the fly-in. This will be the first without Karen. I will scatter her ashes on the first day of the fly-in, so she will still get to participate one more time.

Leslie Gulch

We took a day off after the Steen's to rest up a bit. Then yesterday we drove to Leslie Gulch. Leslie Gulch was discovered by Hiram Leslie in the 1800's. He had ridden there from Silver City, Idaho to prospect for minerals. I have no idea how long his journey was, but it was about  60 to 100 miles. He paused on the lip of the ridge to rest his horse when a lightening bolt killed him on the spot, thus becoming the inspiration for the first "flying fickle finger of fate" award. It is an area of awe inspiring rock formations both colorful and beautiful.

I should mention that my nephew, Jerry, has been a friend since our childhood. We are only 4 years apart, but when we were kids that age difference pretty much left him at my mercy. In my defense however, he seemed to enjoy being my "crash test dummy", and since he has no real scars other than his trust issues, I couldn't have been too mean to him.

 This one to me looks like the Dragon in "How to train your dragon"

The surprising part to me was that we didn't see another car on the road and only found one camp down at the river.

After coming back out and of course stopping for an ice cream cone at Jordan Valley, I stopped at Jean Babtiste Charbonneau's grave site in Danner.

Then we stopped at the Lava tube known as Rattlesnake Cave. I however if anyone ever saw a Rattler there, but I understand the inclination to call it that. This picture is from an earlier visit.

This morning they packed up and headed North to see other sights. I truly enjoyed their visit very much, and would have liked them to stay for a while, but I understand the need to keep moving.

Trip to Steen's Mountain.

My Nephew, Jerry Ray and his wife Wanda came to visit from North Carolina. We are only four years apart, so we spent a lot of time together when we were young. We had a lot of fun together and he has forgiven me for all the times that I used him as a Guinea Pig for my various "projects". He doesn't show any adverse signs of those times, so I guess its all good.

We rested Tuesday, and in spite of the smoke from the California fires we met Connie at French Glen, had lunch and then made our way up the mountain. I was braced for a rough 28 mile ride to the top of the Steen's but I was pleased to see that it had been graded and we were able to make the ride to the top with no discomfort at all.

As we climbed the mountain, I was telling every body about some experience that had occurred to me the last time I was there when we heard a loud pop. First thought was a tire or a rock hitting the bottom of the car. Upon further examination it was a bag of Potato chips that couldn't take the change in barometric pressure of 9000 feet.  Jerry and I ate the cleanest ones off the floor of the rear compartment. I will bring in the puppies to finish the "clean up on aisle 3" later. I'm sure that I can depend on them to be thorough.

 Our first stop was at Kiger Gorge. Even though the visibility was cut way down it still pretty spectacular. As you will see I was determined to not skimp on the pictures this time.

Connie was convinced that if we had enough time we would be able to see some Bighorn sheep.

The mountain is very dry. The willows are quite dried up, and of course the flowers are well past their prime. The ones that are still visible are very small.

We had walked out to the very end of the road up to the antenna farm at the West end. The road was pretty steep, but the biggest problem was the round pebbles that seemed to cover the road. It was quite a feat for all of us old folks to keep upright coming back down.

As we were driving down the mountain we found a Sage Grouse Hen standing along the road.

We didn't bother her or look for more. It was just nice to see one.

At the bottom of the hill we decided to look at some of the things connected to Pete French, a local legend from the early settlement of the area. There was a fire tower that is now being used as a roost for the Buzzards.

Connie left us at this point to go back home, and we started our trip back to the Rock House. On the way we stopped at Pete French's round barn. There the Histerical Society had put up info boards that recount the events that lead up to the Death of Oregon's first "Cattle Baron".

 This was our sunset as we pulled into the drive way at home. It would have been nice to be able to see the Mountain without the smoke, but it was still nice.