A further elaboration!

 I orginally started this blog to keep my Mother and Sister updated on what was happening in my world. It was begun to showcase the hidden terrain of the High Desert, also known as the Sagebrush Sea. As time passed others liked the pictures and asked to be added. Some were friends that our paths had crossed at one time or another, the rest just came along for the pictures. The stories varied due to the seasons. Fall was training and hunting of the Hawks, Spring and Summer was different areas that I visited with my plane. I had always felt that my little insights into the Raptors and the terrain were worthy of your time to read them. Things changed with Karen's death. I no longer felt that I could risk my "critters" being left here in case I didn't come back from one of those trips, and of course I had visited all the "beauty spots" before and there didn't seem to be much to add. I quit the long flights, and stayed home. I have comptemplated discontinuing the blog as I didn't feel that there was much that anyone would look forward to reading. 

However there is one subject that could be expounded upon that may interest some of you. Those of you who know me personally seem to be more than a little surprised in my recent acquisition of a new mate. It little matters that it is probably amazement on most of your parts. I share that wonderment as well. Let me see if I can answer some of your questions.

Senior dating can be as fraught with peril as any exercise in human relations. I will explore some of my finding to you.

In the first place, I had a positive marriage to Karen, and the benefits of that was something that I wanted to duplicate if at all possible. The first step towards that was an attempt to find Brenda again. We had known each other since she was about 6 yrs old, and I knew that she had had some bad marriages's and was still interested in me. I didn't remember what her last married name was and the only contact that I had was a childhood friend in the same area that she had lived. He did not know what had happened with her, and was no help. So then the only recourse was dating sites.

I soon found that there was two different goals for women. The divorce'es were trying to relive their "glory years" and experience the things that they had missed by being tied down with their children and boring husbands, and basically looking for their Prince Charming. All were interested in travelling and having fun. 

The widows were looking for a stable life style with a guy that could give them some security and perhaps not be an asshole. However none of them were willing to live in SE Oregon's High Desert. Of course that was what I wanted and needed.

Brenda  knew that Karen had died, but waited three years before she thought it was appropiate to call me. Had she been older when I left WVa, my life would have most likely been different. 

If I had to guess,  I would bet that those of you who know me well are amazed that she would get rid of every thing and drive across country by herself to join me here in the "garden spot of Eastern Oregon". I haven't yet decided if that amazement is due to the country or that they know me so well?

Brenda's last husband died about 13 years ago, and she had lived alone since then. I sense that  those of you who know me well are a bit amazed that a woman such as her could commit to a life in the middle of nowhere with a man such as me, a veritable paragon of virtue and positive thinking. I can only attribute it to the fact that so far she has only experienced males that were the personification of "Masculine superiority" and by comparison I appear as a Loving Teddy bear. Lets hope that I can keep up the act. If all you have ever known is a physcopath, it seems to be normal.

Rock House ramblins

 Fall has apparently arrived, mornings are quite nipply, but the flies are still with us. They are bad enough that I am praying for a frost, just to get rid of the flies. There is lots to do to prepare for winter. The fifth wheel has only to get the water lines blown out, I am about to blow out the sprinklers. I have one trailer load of wood split. ( 2 1/2 cords). Another load will be ready soon. My wood splitter has blown out its last spark plug, so I have ordered another engine. The poor thing has served me for about 30 years. I picked the engine (a Fairbanks Morse ) out of the Railroad garbage dump. It seems that one can no longer get a "heli coil" that will fit the huge spark plug that it uses. I managed to spend most of the afternoon trying to find one for a 18 MM spark plug. All are now 14 MM. 

I am trying to get Bud back on the wing again. It has been fun, :-/ I of course need to reduce his weight, and the more that I do the more restless he gets. He was getting tangled almost daily, then of course he blames it on me. Its possible that I will need more bandaids soon. I had turned him loose in the weathering area earlier when he was fat, and decided that him hanging on the wire wasn't good, now I have turned him loose again, just to keep him from tangling up all the time. I had been using a total of four swivels on his jesses, and he still managed to tie himself in knots. If he ends the season looking like a feather duster- too bad.

Actually having him loose is a bit easier for me. He still hates the thought of a hood, so weighing him is a real pain in the butt. Now I don't have to weigh him. If he isn't hungry enough to come to the fist, he isn't ready to fly anyway. 

I spent most of the afternoon trying to find out why my drone wasn't working. I finally plugged it into my computer and found that the battery wasn't making a full contact. ( two hours lost) The battery fits so tight that I have to use a knife to wiggle the battery out of its slot. I put it on the sander last night to free it up a bit. :-/  Obviously I succeded! 

Bud wouldn't come to me earlier, but the sight of me trying to get the drone working drove him to distraction. He is somewhat difficult, but he knows that the drone has food. When I finally got it corrected, he came to me. I had set the upper limit to restrict the drone to 125 feet. When I turned him loose he didn't seem to be able to get up that high. Apparently he is really out of shape, so he screwed around at low level until it started to come down due to the battery getting low, then snatched the lure off at about 15 feet. Looks like we are off to a "roaring start".  I am not sure if I am even going to try to fly Hope. I haven't seen a Rabbit for some time now.

Brenda and I are still trying to get our stuff blended, between all the other stuff going on and trips to town its been a bit slow. We went to Burns friday to take my wood trailer to the guy who cuts wood for me, and to take Brenda's dog Charly to the vet. She has some trouble with one of her eyes. I also needed to renew my drivers license. I thought sure that they would want to see me drive since I am turning 78 years on my birthday. Then we had to drive to Eagle Idaho to get a prescription yesterday. Ah the joys of living in a remote area during a Biden administration. Its still worth it! 

We are beginning to get some nice sunsets again.

 

16th Annual Rock House Fly-in

The dwindling number of Kolb Flyers once again met in the High Desert of S.E. Oregon. As usual the ones attending had a great time. Again as seems to be the norm, the weather was good, but smoky from the fires in Northern California. The smoke rolled in on the exact date schedualed for the first arrivals, and left the day after every body went home. It never got so bad that we couldn't fly, as long as you had a GPS. The landmarks were pretty faint. The food was good, the company even better. 

Mike Markers Carbon Cub, Mike Armstrong's Kolb Mark III, Roger Hankins Firestar I, My Firestar II. John Bickhams, Bear Cat parked on the tiedowns on the hill.

This year I had some help and things went much smoother. A childhood sweetheart from WVa called me and for a change we both were alone at the same time. She came  for a visit and we decided that it was time that we join together for the rest of our lives. She loves the area, and has no problem with the solitude or the work required to make our lives comfortable. 

 

August 12, 2022

 Well I have been pretty lazy as you might have noticed. With gasoline that is way too expensive and the hot weather I haven't accomplished much more than survival so far this year. Airplane gas is $6.40 locally and it just killed the fun of flying. I had a fuel leak somewhere in my fuel system, and after replacing every thing else, I broke down and ordered two new 5 gallon gas tanks from the Kolb Factory. 

https://vimeo.com/739154369  password if needed -   Owyheeflyer

I had changed my routines with the high prices, and was concentrating on exercising and attempting to lose a bit of weight that came way too fast while I wasn't looking. With the gas cost, I stopped flying the first thing in the morning and began a walking regime for the dogs and me. Josie this year was 12 and really getting crippled with arthritis. I recently got some Hemp Oil and that is helping her get around and restored her quality of life a lot. Both of us needed to get as much exercise as we could get. Of course after walking the runway it would be getting pretty hot, and the wind comes up by about 10 AM. As you know its easy to get in a rut, and excuses are easier than doing..

I have been "flogging" myself over becoming a hermit, with little success, but Hawking season is not too far in the future, so I guess its time to get off my butt. Its been another losing proposition this last year, with the drought affecting the Duck Hawking and the Jack Rabbits have crashed as well. I quit very early last year because the populations of Jacks was so low that I was afraid that I could possibly slow the recovery by killing any of the few rabbits that were still around. The water had all dried up in the back country, reducing the amount of Ducks that were available to hunt as well, so better to quit altogether.

I am beginning to see some sign that there might be a few Jacks around by the "scrapes" (Territorial markings and dust baths) along the runway.One of the ways to locate hunting locations is by the trails that they make in the weeds. There is a tall lite brown early grass that covers a lot of the ground here, and the Jacks will make paths about 4 inches wide through it. The more paths, the more Jacks using them. They can be seen from the air and if you are close enough to the ground, you can scare them out of hiding.

So the search for some decent rabbit populations was enough for me to finally break my inertia, and get the plane in the air. Plus with my fly-in in on the near horizon, I need to be at least proficient enough to at least go along on some trips.

https://vimeo.com/739326938  Password    Owyheeflyer

This is the first of two video's of this trip and consists mostly of low level scouting of the areas frequented by Jack Rabbits.

https://vimeo.com/739292601   Same password. This one explores an old Lava flow along Jordan Creek and some of the possible Duck ponds in that area. I have never been desperate enough to have to travel that far to find Hawking possibilities. Now I am!

I learned quite a lot on this foray. The first is that its going to be pretty "tough sledding" as far as Jack Rabbits are concerned. However the Duck Hawking should be good, I have at least five more ponds that I can hunt on. Now if Bud had his head screwed on straight then all would be well on the western front. However although he is a striking looking boy, its gonna take more than just good looks to put a Duck in his feet.

As you can see, he is about done with the molt. Just four more covert feathers on the wing that I can see. Nothing missing that would affect his flight. Done or not we will begin our training to hopefully be on the wing for opening of Duck season.

On a personal note, I have a new Lady in my life. Her name is Brenda. She is from the same little rural community in WVa where I grew up. I have known her since she was 6 years old. Our parents visited and fished together a lot. Their Church was one of the Churches that my father ( a Methodist Minister ) served on his circuit. She was always as "cute as bug", and grew to be a beautiful woman. However our paths diverged before she was old enough to be be able to date. My path took me to Calif. where I married Karen. The next time we met was at my fathers funeral, in 1968. She had married the only kid in my child hood that I truly despised. Apparently she concurred in my opinion of him as the marriage only lasted a couple of years. Her second husband died 13 years ago. We had been in contact over the years via computer, but lost track of each other. After Karen died I attempted to find her again, but not knowing her last name, it proved impossible. She called me this spring and was still interested so we arranged a visit in June. The attraction was still there so we decided that she should come here so that we could share the rest of our lives together. She is now on her way here with the few things that she doesn't want to do without in her car, and a U haul trailer. She mostly gave away most of her stuff, or traded it for help in clearing out her home. She asked me if I needed a big screen TV. I told her that I had one already. She began her drive West yesterday. My TV died this morning. :-/

As you may know I had been seeing a lovely lady named Connie. I had hoped to someday convince Connie that life with me wouldn't be all that bad, but living with me was not in her plans. I understood that condition from the start and accepted that it would be that way, so it was not a surprise. I always enjoyed Connie's company and her spirit. She helped me more than I can relate. Its been tough to have to learn to live without Karen, but with her help, I can now do so, however I want a partner to share what ever days I have left.

 

25th of June,2022, Interesting times!

 It has been interesting to say the least, very troubling would be more accurate. Covid was a mess, but I, and all the ones that I care about escaped it. The political situation however has impacted all of us more than necessary, with the blunt club of "Climate change". In an attempt to force all of us to change to electricity, which the infrastructure cannot support at current levels.  I am sorry that I even have to mention politics, but it has affected all that I do.  Gas for my plane currently is $6.45 a gallon. I can only quote "Lets go Brandon!"

It has been an interesting spring. We had no moisture other than the snows that caused a few interesting days. It didn't snow all that much, the wind just rearranged it in interesting patterns and places. Then in May it began raining. Not hard, just continued to lightly rain most every day. It did wonders for the country, the grass and mostly the weeds grew like crazy. Not hard enough to fill all the ponds in the back country, but it helped at least get some water in them. The entire month of May as well as the first part of June were cool and rainy. I cannot see any fruit on any of my Apple or plum trees. As a consequence of the weather, I have read more library books than any winter I can remember. Bless the "Library of Eastern Oregon", an online library. Now it appears with the fuel prices, I will again be reading a lot of the time.

During one of the "cool" nights, I found this guy out in the open to try to recharge his system in the weak Sun. A very hansom and robust specimen of Horned Toad.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=oregon+horned+toad&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=oregon+horned+toad&sc=1-18&qs=n&sk=&cvid=ACAEDE2FFE8E471EB51D8C6EFB0EB0E8&ghsh=0&ghacc=0

They are a bit hard to see.

Just as I got the weeds cut down in my garden and rotor tilled it so that I could put in some plants, The Mormon Crickets made their first appearance here at the house.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=mormon+crickets&qs=HS&sk=HS3&sc=8-0&cvid=D1890871820445F193F774895F10CDD8&FORM=QBLH&sp=4

According to the above link they can take up to five years to hatch, but I have not seen them here, and I have lived here since 2006. 

This is something that you have to experience, words cannot convey how many of them there are. They turn the roads brown just from the squashed bodies. They seem to tend to travel in the same general direction, so my hope is that they will move out of my area soon. On my walk this morning they were all walking North. Since the creek is only about200 yards to the South of me, perhaps they will soon move out of my garden.

I did go fishing for the first time in last week. The trail down to the River was really rough as could be, but the fishing was good. The water was low enough that there was a strip of land to stand on. I took my fishing buddy, Sue, with me. No one had fished the spot that I like, and it took no time at all to have more fish than we needed on our stringers.

I kept enough for three meals out and buried the rest in my garden for the plants that I intended to put in the garden.

Thursday my friend J.Bickham, arrived with his two grandkids. They had been to a fly-in in the Idaho back country and were on their way back to New Mexico. It was nice, but they didn't stay long enough.

Its likely to be a quiet summer! Hopefully yours will be better.

The first decent day all year

 Mike Armstrong, a pilot that I helped in 2020 ( I believe) called me and wanted to get an idea of the weather on the Alvord. He had a friend with a T Bird ( Lite sport) plane that he wanted to learn to fly. Well the weather was miserable for the next three weeks after that. He called again last Wenesday and upon checking the forecasts, he decided to come this weekend for their attempt.

I have not flown since September due to my need to fly Bud. While he didn't manage to kill anything, he was at least sticking around, in fact on one of his trips he flew a big circle around the outside of the Ranch for about 30 minutes, then went home. Leaving me out in the field like a spurned lover.

 Starting a Falcon is not at all like starting a Hawk. A Hawk will be hitting on all cylinders within  a month or it will never be worth anything. A Falcon takes at least three years to reach its full potiential. I was content that Bud had stuck around for his first year. Actually a long time out would be beneficial for both of us.

 By then I had burned all the nonethynol gas that I spockpiled when Biden was installed in office, so my incentive to fly was almost non-existant. In Sept all the junk in my left eye had broken loose and my vision was miserable. I couldn't see a falcon anything over 400 feet in the air. There was no question that I wasn't fit to fly.The plane gathered dust all winter. I had a gas leak somewhere and it was dripping off my tail boom. At the last fly-in, Roger helped me take the tanks out and inspect them. They seemed to be ok, so we re-installed them. I still had the leak! The only thing left was a "gascolater" that was supposed to seperate the water from the gas. I had built it from PVC fittings, and glued it together with standard PVC glue. I assumed that it was seeping gas through the seams. Well, it did not. It appears that one of the tanks have a small crack somewhere. So in essence I really didn't care if I flew or not. I find that a unsettling thought.

Mike, I was sure, needed some support.  I needed to go to the Alvord! I of course had two choices, I could either fly the 80 mile trip, or I could drive, take three times longer and put in 160 mile trip. I chose the plane as I wanted to paint the pool while the weather was good. I could also see again, so a flight was the only thing that made sense.

Toby Parker had dropped by after spending the weekend at a Hot Springs about 40 miles south of me. He decided that he would stop by the Alvord as well before going home.

I forgot to charge the batteries on my Virb camera, so it quit on the return trip. I noticed when I edited the video, the Garmin program that I use for the main cut of the raw video has developed a twitch in its programming. I questioned as to whether or not to attach it to the blog, but even though you may have seen the same scenery many times before, some of you may be as forgetful as I, and enjoy it anyway.

  https://vimeo.com/710548610 I don't think that it requires a password but if it does its - owyheeflyer

After remembering to switch the gas selector to an actual tank, the plane roared to life, I warmed it up and departed for the Alvord. 

In the early years I had entertained the idea of buying a T Bird for my first plane, but decided that it wasn't sturdy enough or have the performance that I required. I am very glad that I did so. It was very flimsy and almost impossible to put together. The owner asked me if I was interested in flying it. I had no problem in telling him that I would decline.

                                                                                  Mike Armstrong

He had been taxxiing it but had never lifted off. This time he did manage to take it off the ground, much to our surprise and dismay. Mike's as well my heart rate went up quicker than the plane. He flew around for about 10 minutes, then, as he made a right turn the wing dropped, touched, which slammed the body of the plane down breaking off a wheel. Ending up with bent tail supports. He was unhurt, at least physically. However its tough to crash your dream. Mike had no problem at all with his Mark 3. I saw him safely in the air, and headed on home.   

I tried to fly over the plane with my virb to give you a picture, but the battery was dead, so this long range shot is all I have.

The boundry Hills on the East end of the Alvord

A departing shot of the Steens

I got all my stuff together and started spraying on the new pool paint. Imanaged to spray one coat on and after a bit roll a coat on the bottom of the pool. Of course thunder heads were building all afternoon. It did not rain however. I will let it dry for a couple of days then begin filling it for the summer.

Yesterday morning after an early morning walk, Josie was panting up a storm. I decided that it was time for her haircut. It looked like I had been shearing Sheep when I finished. I was thinking of quitting for the day as she was getting pretty tired of holding still, and while I was considering it, she had decided that I was finished, and left me standing there with the clippers.

Today, (tuesday) I took Nikki to Burns to the vet to get her spayed. I left her at the Vets at 8 am, went shopping, had lunch with my dear friend, Pat and her mother. Gathered up Conie's three cats, then Nikki and made our way back home. I may never get all the cat hair out of my car. One cat on my shoulder another at my right arm on the center console, the other under my feet, and Nikki in a cat kennel.

This particular post is a hodgepodge of a bit of every thing. Months of nothing at all, and with a little sunshine things go to overdrive in one heart beat. I dithered for a couple of days trying to decide if I wanted to bother you with all this. Still not sure its worth while at all.

May 11, 2022

 To say the least it has been a long, protracted winter. With a lot more inaction than anyone would want or need. While it did not get all that cold, only one or two days of below zero weather. Still it has been a constant misery.

I eventually had to take Hope out of the weathering area with Bud. He was teaching her bad habits that she didn't need. His habit of bating wildly at the end of his leash soon convinced her that I was someone to fly away from. The sweet girl that I had previously taken so much pride in, had changed to a bating pain in the ass every time I had to pick her up for a night in the shop. So I set about another plan to help her survive the winter winds of the High Desert. The current thinking is that Harris Hawks  are not able to survive the northern winters. I did think so myself, but am revising that assumption. I have always felt that it was wind that was the primary problem. Its true that their feathers are more suited to high desert heat, but with enough food for fuel and a way to get out of the wind, they should be able to manage.

I am sure that there are few of you that actually understand fully the reality that Raptors are not pets. Their interactions with humans consists of need rather than affection. We keep them in peak physical condition to acheive their best results. To do that it is necessary to find their best hunting weight, and keep them on or near it when we are handling them. Each spring they need to molt their feathers, and to do that is dependant on the hours of sunlight and a heavier weight, as it takes energy to grow new feathers. More weight than what is required to be a "sharpset" hunter. They do not molt until they have the excess energy to grow these feathers and if they are deprived of food long enough to do that, the molt stops and the feathers get "ratty", leaving them unable to fly well enough to capture food. In essence if their weight is high enough to molt, that dependance is gone, and the last thing that they want, is have you messing with them. If the molt is interrupted by fright or border line starvation, it will take up to two or three weeks for them to start dropping feathers again. So it is my practice to not handle them any more than absolutely necessary during the winter.

I began with the mews by blocking and insulating the window in her chambers that faces the West, from which the wind always blows. I ran an electric cord to the mews and wrapped her inside perch with a 20 foot heat tape, then covered it with a felt cover, I also left a 12 inch space so that she could either sit on the covered tape or near it which ever she preferred. I also began feeding her all she would eat, as energy produces heat. I checked her each morning to see how she was faring. She seemed to be all right, even though she was spending the nights outside on her perch in the attached 6x6 weathering area.

                                        

Finally after finding her sitting outside when the temp was 4 degrees, I decided that I needed to do more. I clipped a 100 watt light reflector over the top of the perch. That seemed to do the trick. She would sit out till it got dark, then fly inside to the perch. She did very well all the rest of the winter, with the added bonus of being triggered to begin her molt earlier due to the 24 hour light cycle.

After getting my cataracts removed in December, the junk in my left eye did not change. It was like having several layers of plastic over my left eye. I began trying to get the VA to refer me to a specialist that could clear that stuff out. I use the VA for my health care, and it saves me a bunch of money, but they are convoluted and sometimes very trying to deal with. It took till April to get all the hoops jumped through, and on the 10th of May they finally completed the surgery. Basically they made three incisions in my eye, and vacuumed the crap out of it. When they closed they put an air bubble in the eye to keep everything in place and keep the pressure normal.( I am guessing at the reason)  The bubble got smaller and smaller every day, finally disappearing completly yesterday evening. My vision is now great, only needing glasses to read. It was pretty scary for me, but the results are worth it.

After spending a mostly dry winter, April and so far May have been really nasty. Wind constantly, sleet and icy rain. We had two snow storms yesterday that eventually melted off. So much that I had to sweep off the satelite dish. I am still burning fire wood for the first time since moving here. Glad I had extra. The bonus is that the grass and flowers have begun to grow. The hills are as green as I have ever seen.

Bud is doing well. He has begun his molt as well. He will be quite pretty when he is done, a bit darker than I originally thought. He still bates when he thinks that I might be coming for him, but will sit and watch as the riding lawn mower roars by his enclosure without batting an eye.

I did add a new critter to the menagerie. A little (now) bob tailed female kitten. I call her Nickie, and she is both a pain and a blessing. She has an appointment with the vet for the 17th to be spayed. 

She is as cute as they get, and still has frequent boughts of the "wild eyed rip arounds". Loves the dogs and they love her. She is very affectionate and goes every where I go, at least in the house.

Yes, she goes there too! 

The weather is due to clear up a bit next week, so perhaps I will be able to roll the plane out to see if I still know how to fly. Then I will have to try to figure out how to pay for the gas to power it. "LETS GO BRANDON"!