Woke up this morning and found an e-note from Mary, New York Sister, asking how we had survived Portland’s great flood crisis. Huh? “Streets turned into creeks,” she reported. This Portland? I looked out the window. Traffic as per normal. No boats motoring down 14th. “When your phone went straight to message, I assumed your power was out.” No. Power just fine.

Turns out, of course, there was flooding, of the worst kind, that is, sewer lines overflowing. But we didn’t know, left our cocoon up here on the 7th floor, and drove to the farm, it being Wednesday.

Some storms down there, apparently, too. Check these photos out:

The odd thing is that we’d been looking for some fallen oak with which to make a fireplace mantle, or small tables, something from our own wood. So far, everything that’s already down was too degraded, but this was a healthy-seeming tree uprooted and upended by its less-sturdy neighbor. This, however, is way too high a price for a bit of prideful whimsy. Another 200 years to replace this fellow.

But the mission, this Wednesday, was the meeting with Jarod (F&W), Donna (OWEB) and Steve (Consultant). We set out cross country to show Donna our streams. She was proposing we may qualify for a $15,000 grant to help fence these streams.

We climbed the terrain West from the driveway and came to a spot I’d never seen before. Basically, a mini Grand Canyon carved into the hillside. Water rushed along the canyon floor — okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but the thing is really impressive. Donna apparently thought so too, as she turned to Jarod with the comment that perhaps we should be thinking about the larger, comprehensive grant. How big is “larger” we don’t know, but it’s clear that 15 thou isn’t going to tame that stream. Last week I said we’d named it the “Little Sometimes.” This course will therefore have to be known as the South Fork of the L.S.

We followed the stream to its confluence with the main channel, across the cow-trampled landscape. Treacherous going, crossing tributaries you could see and just sloshing through high water along the old sheep fence and down to Llewellyn. We didn’t hike clear down to Muddy, but did transverse the future vernal-pools site, across to the woods, up the hill and back to their cars parked halfway down the driveway. They left after the hour and a half walk, agreeing that Donna and Jarod would put their heads together. She’d like, she said, to bring an engineer out to the site to consider water gaps for the planned rotationally-grazed cows.

Jarod is a lovely young man. Very soft-spoken, bright as hell, and yet, every now and then, he’s so funny you can’t help falling in love with him. We walked together at one point, he and I, talking about the bluebirds we could see in the oak tree tops. They’re eating the mistletoe berries, he explained. I asked about placing the birdhouses, and he told me his thinking on the subject. You put two houses on fence posts, 7 to 10 feet apart. Not facing one another,of course. Then, if a sparrow sets up shop in one house, a second sparrow will not occupy the other. This space is now available for a bluebird, should she like the neighborhood, and apparently she likes sparrows just fine. But if two bluebirds each want one of the houses, that’s fine too. So this works out well. We’ll put Amy and Alli’s houses in one neighborhood, and position Charlie and Will’s houses in the next settlement. And if Andrew puts his together and ships it north, we’ll have quite the community.

Steve is also a wonder. He said he had this great idea while unable to sleep the night before. We could uses a system of damming the streams with a weir system. This will allow us to store water for the cows in the pastures not crossed by the streams, accessed with the help of a nose pump. A fairly infelicitous name, but self explanatory? And on the subject of “salmonoids,” my mistake. The word is salmonid, accent on the second syllable, referring in our case to cutthroat trout. He and Jarod both claim to see small trout and even salmon fry all the time in such waters, though Larry remains a fish-denier. A nice Ted Talk about the process how and why the fish leave Muddy Creek, stuff themselves with the flooded invertebrates, and go home large enough to deter the bass looking for lunch.

Backing up, Larry and I had wanted to start burning one of our slash piles in the morning, but were unable to get ignition. We’d started the project before the Agency folks arrived and were chagrined to discover that we had no matches. Nor had the builders. Our car doesn’t even have a cigarette lighter, which had been one bright idea. Into town to buy one of those propane lighter gizmos you use on your votive candles. Very flimsy, but it did the job of catching the paper on fire. Not so the oak. Hmm. Engineering required. Must build a better burn pile, I guess. That will have to be another day.

You see from the photos that the weather was sunny, albeit a bit chill. Today? Thunderstorm and deluge. The builders are putting up the siding on the house, so not sure how much will get done until this spell of weather breaks. Larry is very eager to climb aboard Buck-the-Tractor and git to mowin’ them weeds. Especially after having the green light from Jarod on that project. And now, see above, we have another vast job for the power saw.

A sweet letter from Ursel today (Hello, Ursel!). Who suggests that farmers rest in the winter. Guess we didn’t get that memo. But, rain? Can’t mow in the rain, so we do get to chill for a while after all.

December. Haven’t been to the farm in 10 days, and the last visit was just a fly-by on the way to Calistoga, CA, where we celebrated Thanksgiving with Peter and Jenny’s families. Missing David, but Hawaii too far for him and Caroline to fly for the days of the holiday. We brought bird houses for the grandkids to assemble, which they painted and decorated to be placed on the farm next spring.

So today was our opportunity. On the way south the sun joined us just south of Salem, and the colors of the blueberry stems, almost purple but not quite, the new greening grass fields, filbert trees a gentle nutmeg, all under a blue sky called for a poetry of description I don’t possess. I’ll just say we were happy to be alive, listening to the songs I need to learn for the upcoming “Adult Band Camp.” This is not as racy as the title suggests. Okay, it’s not racy at all in any way.

We unlocked the gate and drove to the house, anticipating our first look at the new siding. But wait! That’s not the color it’s supposed to be! Taupe?

“Just pre-primed,” Larry assures me.

Humph. Supposed to be gray. Well, never mind.

We’re meeting with Jarod and Steve and the woman, Donna, from OWEB on Wednesday to talk about a grant to fence off the streams carving their way to Muddy Creek. These bodies of water are marked on maps, but un-named. Therefore, we will name the largest stream The Little Sometimes Creek. (Have to tell you that “sometimes” is now, as I’ll demonstrate later.)

We’re also, providentially meeting with Matt Jones, Fence Guy, to sign a contract. He tells us they’ll start just after the first of the year. We’ll fence the length of the driveway and around the house, as well as the banks of the creeks. The idea is to keep the cows off these streams, and to plant willow and Douglas spirea to reclaim the habitat for birds and other aquatic creatures. In fact, we recently learned that a study of farmland waterways in the watershed claims that salmonoids have been found even in the irrigation ditches around the area. They will surely love our improved streams, even though Larry refuses to believe in their existence in Muddy Creek. He also refuses to believe in Santa Claus, so there we are.

Now I’m going to show you a photo, just to keep your interest: We’ll call this the “Before” shot.

We had work to do in the barn, so left the house and drove to the barn. Changed into our boots, found our gloves, and attacked the 6 cribs remaining to be cleaned. This is honestly a nasty job, but it feels darn good to have accomplished it. We’ll see if we feel like inviting more sheep in there to be shorn after all our hard work. Larry manned the tractor, shoving the crap out back of the barn where we hope the rain will turn it into fertilizer. Of course, it’s already fertilizer, but not in manageable form.

While he continued to putter, I decided to go for a walk to photograph all the lovely colors. Unfortunately, the sun had disappeared and the luminous green moss on the oaks was now just green moss on the oaks. Took a photo anyway:

And I just wandered, enjoying the small sounds of the water, the cry of our red tail, the feel of oncoming rain in the air. I found a new waterway, which I’ll show the agency folks on Wednesday. A buried pipe, a sink hole. I don’t know if this is good news or bad with respect to allowing the passage of water across the property to reclaim it’s natural course. Will learn more next week:

Close your eyes. Next year, or maybe the year beyond, this will look like this, the “AFTER” shot:

Just kidding! This is a photo from the VRBO in Calistoga where we spent our Thanksgiving holiday. But we really are planning on a swing.

“You’re back! Where’ve you been?”

I know. We were down in Ashland, and then up to Seattle, and

“So not much going on at the farm?”

Well, there is a lot going on, but it’s kind of boring to write about. Not much narrative thrust.

“Oh. Is this fiction? Do you need — what’d you call it, ‘narrative thrust’ in memoir, or whatever this is supposed to be?”

No, this isn’t fiction. Not really. Some fictional license, now and then. But, who wants to read about electrical and plumbing installation. Digging the septic system, trenching up from the well.

“What about that new tractor? Doing anything with it?”

Okay. Let’s start with Dennis, the Excavator-Guy. Remember him? He’s very fictional, except he’s real. Jolly. Quite overweight, brass voice. And he’s just a genius with his road-grader/bulldozer thing. Not sure what he would call his equipment, but he can snip the whiskers off a dime with the massive thing and make mud look like a Japanese meditation garden.

Drove up the other day and asked if we were raising coyotes now, as he’d seen two of our herd down along the drive. Funny. We told him Larry’d gotten his tractor, but that we were having difficulty managing the brush hog attachment.

“Simple,” he says. “Momma’s got to learn to drive.”

Fast forward to yesterday. In the barn, shoveling out yet more — um — fertilizer, only using the tractor blade this time. Momma learns to drive. And it was pretty fun. I mean, the thing just has levers and pedals and you learn which is which and out the door with you.

But then, the brush hog. We had to get it connected in order to move it out of the way. This thing is HEAVY. You don’t just pull it along manually. You have to back the tractor up to it, exactly in line, then attach the power take-off and branch arms. None of this is easy, and it simply doesn’t work if the tractor is not perfectly lined up. Here’s the visual. Me, driving the tractor. Larry, behind, waving his arms and shouting above the engine noise to “go a little left.”

I get the thing in place and we attach the PTO, but the arms won’t both attach. Out of alignment. Much backing and forthing. Have to disconnect PTO and try again. Now Larry is just behind the huge tractor wheels, trying to hammer the arms home, asking for a little to the left, and I’m at the wheel of a massive, powerful machine. This, people, is scary! More than mindful that my dad died prematurely as a result of a tractor accident, I am.

But, finally, we did it:

For all that, it was the barn which drew first blood. There are 4-by beams supporting the roof, and they stick out beyond their lateral beams about a foot or so, just at Larry Viehl head level. Of course he knows they’re there, and usually ducks, but, one time he doesn’t. Yells and swears, blood streams down his face. In a rage he finds his power saw and saws off the offending projectile. And me? I have this overwhelming, psychopathic urge to laugh. It’s NOT funny, it isn’t, and there I am, fighting back laughter. What is wrong with me?

Well, we wipe up the blood, pack the truck with the bags of tansy we’d “harvested” this summer. As I pull a bag away from the wall, a snake emerges! Yikes! I squawk — just a little yell, honest. The thing was 18 inches long, seriously. First snake, and I’d been hoping our farm was a snake-free zone. Apparently not.

I calm down and we and go to lunch. Then out to the dump, where we pay $17.50 for the privilege of depositing our so-called yard debris. “Next time, we burn it,” says my husband. His mood has not been lightened by the morning’s injuries. But we haven’t been able to burn, not for days, against the low clouds. County rules.

Now too late to do any further work, we head back for home, I driving so that his weary, pounding head can rest. And tho we planned to use a voucher for a free dinner at Toro Bravo, neither of us wants to shed the barn clothes, shower, and go out again. Fortunately, I have in the freezer, one more casserole of turkey tetrazzini, truly miraculous, restorative ambrosia. If you want the recipe, email me and I’ll share.

The geese are flying these October days, and so I wonder. Geese fly south in the winter, don’t they? A quick trip to Google and I learn that yes, they do, but for many birds, the Willamette Valley IS south. The vast majority in the winter flocks are Cackling Geese, followed by Ganada Geese, Snow Geese, and so on. They circle around our property, heading, no doubt, for the Finley Refuge a few miles south. Cackling Geese? Yep, you should hear them!

But it seems that these fellows are not so welcome in our agricultural county. “Ten geese will eat as much as a cow,” says an area farmer whose wheat fields become home to thousands of the birds every year. And here we are, planning, with the help of USF&W to build vernal pools on our wetlands, to attract water fowl. Wait a minute! The situation is complex, having to do with hunting, a river delta in the tundra in Alaska, an international treaty, and the geese’s preference for Oregon over California.

Maybe Larry will have to add a shotgun to his list of farm equipment, and I’ll have to learn to cook a wild goose. Just kidding, of course, but obviously, we’ll have to dig a little deeper before we launch our conservation program.

Which is stalled at the moment anyway. I picture harried government workers hunched over their desks or investigating streams and swamps and hillsides all over Benton County, having little time to get on with Steve’s wonderful Conservation Plan. Meanwhile, we wait for the fields to green up — so that they may be sprayed, unfortunately, to eliminate the invasives and make room for the natives. Hard to be patient when we see all that has to be done. Example: Steve told us he was walking one of the fields and saw tens of mice or rodents of some ilk scurrying before him. What? Where are our raptors?

Let’s move!

The house is proceeding apace, though. Photo below:

On Wednesday, we met with the electrician, doing the walkabout necessary to place light switches, in-ceiling cans, plugs, etc. Details for which we have now become responsible. Determining to avoid the mistakes in our present home (by which I mean digital controls which are complicated and malfunction often), we will without a doubt create new, unforeseeable problems and learn to live with them. A shout-out here to Gordon, who gave us the benefit of his experience and smarts. Everyone should have a Gordon in his life! (And a Vik as well, who has been holding my hand throughout this project!)

Met with the cabinet maker, conferred with the plumber, with Rod, our talented architect, with the butcher — (ha! just seeing if you’re paying attention.) And when it was all done, hands shaken all around, Larry and I were free to go. Guess where. Yes! Pepe’s, which is the John Deere dealership:

Just look at those little beauties! Larry had been told he might benefit from a “grapple” instead of a scoop in order to pick up all those piles of downed branches, berry vines, firewood. Great idea. Would require the purchase of the 48 horsepower model instead of the 32, in order to have front-end hydraulics. And how much would that cost? I’m sure you can imagine. So, no grapple. Much head-scratching and anguished brow-furrowing later, he wrote the check and walked away the proud owner of his very own tractor. It will be delivered next Wednesday when he’ll be given a tutorial on site. Don’t worry, Tyrone told him, he can teach him what he’ll need to know. (Tyrone is kind of a genius who can apparently do anything.) A new tractor has to be a real guy-magnet. I’m sure Eric and Doug would also stand by, except those guys (along with Moise, who may or may not be interested in tractors) work really, really hard. No time for kicking tires and offering advice.

First job: shoving the crib-cleaning detritus from the barn floor out into the back field. Where, with the rains coming, it may become rich fertilizer to work into the orchard next spring. You think? It’s a theory.

We go tomorrow to clean out more cribs (only 14 left), and because we’re promised a sunny day, and there’s no golf game. And Larry wants to saw and I want to rake over the trench dug through the forest and what could be more fun?

“Saw a skunk walking along the woods,” Eric tells us on Wednesday last. “He’s just strolling along, don’t know where he’s living, but he’s definitely set up housekeeping.”

This is lovely news. Larry is about to work on the stack of large limbs left by the arborists. And where is that skunk likely to be nested? Woodpile? Seems possible.

Undeterred, Larry cranks the saw. He’s determined to prove to his skeptical wife that he can muscle the oak around by judiciously choosing his targets. And seems to be succeeding when I notice that he’s working right on top of our little friend. I wave my arms to get his attention and call him over. We watch as Skunk waddles out of the pile and off into the oak woods. And, as he’s absolutely left the neighborhood, and the danger is over, Larry keeps on sawing. I’m very impressed, though still a little concerned. Peter, when you read this, let me know when you can come back!

Later, Dennis-the-Excavator appears to discuss the location of the drain field, and timing of the work. Dennis is the definition of local, so I ask him. What about the skunks around here?

“Bad and good,” he tells me in his singular voice. “We usually don’t mind about them down here because they eat the yellow jackets, which prey on the honey bees. But you don’t want them under your deck.” Dennis is not given to understatement, so, no, we don’t want ours under our deck. “Can trap ’em,” he says. “But I wouldn’t bother. Yellow jackets’re a problem. Got a dog?”

No dog. So we’ll see.

On Friday, Vik and Gordon came down to check things out, give us some help on thoughts about furniture, lighting, and art work. To our surprise, there is quite a lot of space available for art, which we hadn’t foreseen when looking at the plans. We planned on a picnic, but with the workers crawling about, decided to take our sandwiches up to Marys Peak.

But we were stopped by a ranger before the summit. Seems they’re logging there, and it’s closed to the public, of course. We may, however, have lunch at the little park just down the way. And surprise, there’s a nice clearing, couple of picnic tables, restroom, and the added amenity of a young man with a guitar. Music while we dine. We find a flat rock to serve as a table in the sunshine, open the wine. Nice! But here comes the forest ranger. He writes up a couple of notes on two cars parked there, and we prepare to abandon our wine.

Not necessary. Because this is Ranger Bob. Maybe 65 years, a full beard, by no means full set of teeth, a good belly. He’s quite gorgeous in this way. And, as it turns out, hilarious.

“How long have you been a ranger here?” we ask.

Ah. Good story. He was a heavy-equipment operator, but woke on his 55th birthday and decided to quit. Too hard on the butt, he explained. And decided to go to college. Study biology and forest management. Well, he didn’t decide that right away. He’d give it a semester, and with that in mind, went off to his first class. Got there early to be sure of a seat next to the door to facilitate his exit. Announced that he was there for the parties and the girls. Told us he had to take statistics three times before he could graduate.

Unfortunately I didn’t get his photo. A pure study in not judging based on appearance! A college man, he says he’s embarrassed by the Forest Service’s lack of grammar skills, as exhibited on the signage for Marys Peak. Someone has painted in the missing apostrophe, to which I have earlier referred. Ranger Bob claims that the Service is not allowed to attribute ownership to any governmental property. Thus “Mary’s” Peak has to be “Marys” Peak. I have no reason to doubt him, and it does clear up the difficulty.

We spent the night in Corvallis, after dinner at Del Alma. The White-Davises went off to Eugene to see their grandkid, Jordan, a freshman at the U. The next afternoon, our grandkid, Amy, along with Allison and another mom-daughter pair arrived after their tour of the UO campus for a tour of the farm. While we could wish for a longer visit, it was a lovely 17 hours! Fingers crossed that Amy may decide to come to school in Oregon!

And to close this report, I’m attaching a view of the house seen from the driveway:

We’re heading back tomorrow to chat with the electrician. Not that exciting, but you never know!

Eric wanted me to be sure to explain exactly whose truck was doing the charging and whose truck was being charged. Of course you already know, but for the record: It was Eric’s truck over to our Bob.

The plan that day was that I should drive the truck closer to the stack of wood I meant to load while Larry continued power-sawing. I know how to drive a truck, but it wouldn’t start. Had to ask Larry to come and help. Ah, dead battery. Curses!.

After going into town to acquire jumper cables, and after considering AAA, Larry thought maybe the SUV could power up the truck. Which perhaps it could, if we could locate the battery in the SUV. Nothing for it but to ask for help, and Eric was happy to oblige. We learned, however, that Bob has two batteries. Not sure why. Eric’s truck has but the one. He says he apparently didn’t pay enough for his. (He is funny!)

That was last Wednesday. Today is the following Thursday:

This morning, I lie on my back on a bench hoisting weights toward the ceiling, my eyes closed against the fluorescent lights. I lunge up and down the room, carrying weights. I make like a board, doing planks. (Really hate those planks.) I can’t say I enjoy this, but Aaron is sweet and smart, so I get through the hour. On the way home, I wonder about the equation: I’ve used energy to move my body, and created energy, I think, in the form of heat. Circular. But what exactly is the point? Sure, I need to exercise, I get that, but wouldn’t it be better if that energy were directed toward some result more positive that heating the gym?

So, work. Physical work.

“Oh, I see where you’re going. Don’t pretend that this whole farm adventure is about getting out of the gym or something,” I imagine Larry saying here.

“No, but come on. Wouldn’t you rather lift heavy oak logs into the truck than push weights up to the ceiling? Shovel out the barn than lunge up and down a cold, stupid gym room?”

“You had me up to that bit about shoveling the barn, but yeah. I like to work, too,” Larry might say.

In fact he likes it so much that he went to the farm this Tuesday without me!

Don’t imagine that it’s all inspirational, though, the barn smelling sweet from straw and absent horses.

Here’s one pile of limbs stacked by the arborists when they took out half of the homestead tree. Our objective is to retrieve the fire-place wood from the tangle of branches, the tangle to be consumed in a bonfire later when the fire danger is passed this winter.

And here’s the wood, neatly settled into the cribs in the barn. Seventeen cribs on each side to be shoveled out, by the way. About the cribs: Hard to say, but most dairy operations, says Google, sell their male calves to be raised for beef. Still, it’s pretty undeniable that these cribs weren’t used for any humane purpose, and we’re glad to “repurpose” them. (Brave new world, it seems to be possible now to breed selectively for female calves. We’re not surprised, are we?)

As you see, the barn is hardly charming, but the good news is that we will be getting barn doors soon. The roofing metal for the house is being ordered, and while the builders wait for that, there may be time to mount the doors. Then I can begin my campaign to clean it out this winter, perhaps when rain prevents us from doing anything outside. Find a way to clean the walls, put down some fresh
straw . . .? Hmm. Maybe at that point, the gym will start looking better?

This Saturday, we’ll go back. Work outside for awhile. Then we need to take a measuring tape and imagine the furniture we’ll be needing. How big should the table be? The sofas? Where will we want reading lamps. And what about a TV for the living room? There will be one upstairs in the — well, let’s call it the lounge space — but evenings when there’s a good movie or football game and a fire crackling on the hearth?

Not much to report on the conservation side. Steve says he will be meeting with Jarod and we’ll have the completed plan in the next weeks. Good thing, because we’ll be starting to spray the blackberries soon, and it would be good to have guidance on that subject! We have the bid for fencing, and need input on that subject as well. So, we wait.

I sit at my desk, working through the conservation plan draft Steve has asked us to address. It’s late, we’ve been at the farm all day, but it’s clear nothing will happen until we get this document edited and back to Steve and Jarod.

“I’ll do it,” I tell Larry. Among his skills, please do not imagine typing with any proficiency. He claims it’s the result of being left-handed, and when I’m not convinced, adds that he’s also color blind. These two things are true, if, in my opinion, unrelated to typing. But the administrative work of this project should be mine anyway if it’s he, for example, who will do the sawing and weed-whacking.

And while we wait for governmental approval and assistance, sawing and weed-whacking are about all there are to do on the farm just now. So, after sowing the clover seed in the orchard, a task of about 10 minutes total, Larry straps on the harness and attacks the weeds growing alongside the driveway.

So what am I supposed to do? I walk down to the barn from the house site, and the fields are beginning to show the first green. Birds are busy, but as yet no sign of turning color by the oaks. The berries are spent, now, and it occurs to me that my job today should be to take care of Bob.

Bob has become a de-facto rolling storage shed, the back seats cluttered with everything from a screwdriver to the weed-whacker itself. There’s a very bad smell, suggesting a mouse body somewhere in the upholstery.In the bed of the truck, bags of left-over mulch, assorted sprays and oils, shovels, etc. Okay, this situation definitely needs attention, but we can’t keep everything in the new shed up by the house while it’s still under construction. I think about the barn and the small stalls. I fear they were used for raising veal, but Shirley, Mike-the-Sheep-Guy’s wife, says no, they were used by a dairy operation.

We all know that dairy cows need to be “freshened” periodically to keep the milk flowing, the by-product of which is a supply of calves. They keep the girl-calves, or some of them, but the boys? I haven’t been able to determine their fate, but it can’t be happy. Anyway, the little stalls apparently housed these babies for some portion of their lives.

The stalls are carpeted with 3-4 inches of cow poop and straw, settled together over the course of years into solidified sludge, which I propose to remove. I’ll turn them into storage for our tools!

This is not easy. The “stuff” is heavy and the shovels I have to use are not suited for the task. There are perhaps 15 of these little stalls, and while they are the most-thickly compacted, the entire barn floor is similarly carpeted. The walls and windows are thick with sheep wool clinging to spider webbery, dead insects, and the detritus of years. I don’t know what it will take to clean these walls, but the broom I have to hand is certainly not adequate.

Nevertheless, I make my slow progress. Gather all the tools and whatnot into the bed of the truck to be sorted. We have purchased some plastic bins to contain the small things like gloves, instruction manuals, clippers, and, very importantly, a supply of toilet paper, paper towels, soap, sun screen, plastic glasses and silverware. Just collecting these items in a designated bin has improved Bob’s burdens impressively.

I help myself to some nails from the house site, and using a mallet Larry has found somewhere, find a way to hang some of the garden tools and saws. This thing is looking pretty good!

I know, “good” is relative. Let’s just say better. And, the storage must be temporary until Tyrone can get to the barn doors, which can happen only after the house is closed in. I’m newly sensitive to thievery after discovering Saturday morning that someone bashed in the rear window of my car, parked in the Crane Building garage, and stole some of my music electronics, my pick-up mic, pre-amp, and all the cords. Didn’t take the amplifier itself, probably too heavy, but it’s all a reminder that tools in an open barn are surely tempting fate. Remember what I said about not being stupid?

So I take my photo, disassemble my little tableau and go to watch Larry. Mike has arrived on his little Gator to herd his mama-cows and calves into the correct field. A passer-by has stopped to tell Larry that these 4 have been seen wandering along Llewellyn and we must do something! “Something” means calling Mike, of course.

But this interruption has been enough for Larry to quit for the day. Mike has said, in the kind way he has of not appearing to be telling us what we ought to know already, that we should just spray the road-side weeds. Well, yeah. If we had that tractor, the spray rig, the . . .

We don’t care. We like to go there and do our small chores. Happy Labor Day! P.S., I never found the dead mouse.

Larry standing atop Marys Peak on his 76th birthday!

Fun facts about Marys Peak: (Note the absence of the apostrophe)
At 4098 feet, it’s the highest point in the Coast Range.
On a clear day, you can see the ocean from the summit. And on most days, you can see the peak from our farm.
It’s surmised that the peak’s name comes from proximity of Marys River. (Also no apostrophe)

So who is this Mary, and why no punctuation of possession? Not the mother-of-Jesus Mary, apparently. Two stories: 1. The name honors Mary Lloyd, said to be the first white woman to cross the river. A little thin, I think, as it must be hard to document exactly how far west white women had penetrated at that time, and to thus celebrate Ms. Lloyd’s accomplishment. I’m choosing to go with Story #2. Adam Wimple, early settler, named the river after his sister Mary. In a tragic turn of events, Mr. Wimple was hanged in 1852 for murdering his wife, also named Mary. So a memorial for the decedent Mary? And the missing apostrophe thing? Maybe back in the day, women weren’t allowed to own rivers and peaks.

That was Tuesday. We’d stayed overnight in Corvallis, had dinner at Sur Alma, and got back to work on Wednesday. First objective was the orchard. We got our Dutch clover seed, but perhaps you’ll remember that we were supposed to drag the surface before planting. No tractor, so it was pick up the rakes and do it the pioneer way. Half an hour in, though, the rain got serious and we had to quit.

But I’d noticed a lot of insect damage on the leaves of the cherry trees. Up close, I could see little slug-like creatures on the leaves. Slugs in trees? Well that’s a nightmare. Next I suppose someone will tell me that snakes climb cherry trees, too.

We decided to stop by a near-by blueberry field for the winter’s supply of the fruit on the way home. Check. Then on to a roadside stand for some local honey. This was more picturesque, as the sign announcing items for sale was hand drawn, and the transaction managed by the honor system. Eggs, $3.00 a dozen in a beat-up old refrigerator on the driveway, and there were the chickens, obviously enjoying organic worms and grubs. Not sure I’m brave enough for that bargain. The honey was less of a bargain at $6.00 for 8 oz. sealed in a nice glass jar with a cute label. Should be fine, don’t you think?

On to Shonnard’s, who confirmed that indeed those creatures eating our cherry leaves are slugs, and the remedy is an application of diatomaceous earth at the base of the trees. Apparently these slugs like to overnight back in the soil, so have to cross the diatomaceous powder in order to get to bed. Like having to cross glass shards, in human terms, so if you feel tender about all living creatures, you wouldn’t want to kill slugs in this way. My sensitivities have been adjusting, though, and I say, bring it on.

The rain having stopped, we returned to dose the trees and continue raking the orchard. As we were leaving, we stopped to visit with Tyrone, and asked him for a recommendation for lunch in Salem. In case you read this, Tyrone, Acme was great! Hooray! We loved it!

Rain! Huge cloudbursts on the way home. Fine. Light a fire, read a book, go to bed. A perfect day.

Aha! I did it! Pretty proud of myself!

So, here’s Eric:

Doug:

Moise: Couldn’t get a photo of him, but if you use your imagination, you’ll see him at the top of a ladder somewhere, hammering something.

Inside the little grandkid’s room above the garage:

View of the Homestead Oak from inside kid room. Maybe this will be MINE instead. Great practice room!

Our new favorite hangout, The Longbranch Bar and Grill in Monroe, Wednesday special, the $5.00 cheeseburger basket:

Okay, now scroll down to read today’s earlier post, without illustrations.

With that steep roof over the living room it looks as if we’re building a little gnome home here in the Hundred Acre Woods. So precious!

So wrong! Seems the folks who build trusses missed the mark by two feet and those forms, for which we waited a couple of weeks, will have to come down. Another couple of weeks until the correct forms can arrive, so the carpenters have been quite busy on the garage. Tyrone not happy, with the rain coming and no roof over the house.

So let me introduce these carpenters: Here are Eric, Doug, and Moise. (NOOOOO! “An error occurred in the download, try again later.” Phone call to MAC Force. Miles not in until Monday. I try again. “An error . . .” So, once again, no photos.)

“Tell me about Eric,” I say to Tyrone. “Does he have a family? Is he nice. Is he funny?”

“He’s married, has two kids. I don’t know if he’s funny. Why do you ask?”

“Vik wants to know. How about Doug and Moise? Are they funny?”

“Well, Moise doesn’t even talk, but he’s a great worker. Doug’s a fisherman, and me and him talk about baseball.”

There you go, Vik. Best I can do for now.

We had a good meeting with Steve, sitting under the Homestead Oak. He and Jarod of USF&W have been at work, and came up with a scheme whereby they pretty much divide the property in half. They take the floodplain and wetlands, leaving us the savanna and woods for grazing, and for Monarch and Fender’s Blue Butterfly habitats. Also, we get to keep the oak copse.

This is not to say they literally will own half the property, just that they’ll undertake restoration of same. To include vernal pools in the wetlands. A vernal pool is an ephemeral body of water which contains no outlet, which dries in the summer and fall. Important for aquatic species such as salamanders and for wild flowers, such as lomatium and meadowfoam. Hmm. And mosquitoes, maybe?

Later in the afternoon, Larry was at work with the weed whacker when Mike (Sheep Guy) stopped by. The drums are beating for that tractor for Larry, and Mike contributed his share. You Have to have a tractor. You can’t run 100 acres with a weed whacker, Larry. There followed some technical stuff about shear pins, fuel lines, etc. But he just wanted to tell us, he said, about our pear tree. Did we know of it? He and his wife stop by every evening to feed “the girls” and their calves, and note that they’ve eaten all the windfall pears, as well as all the fruit within reach. Is that okay with us?

But before we get a tractor, we do have to get the doors to the garage in place. Mike says anybody could come by, jack up our truck and take the tires. We’ve been lucky, he says, that the only vandalism so far had been the basketball hoop and stand that someone left by the side of the barn. Upon hearing this, we’ve decided to park the truck up by the construction until it’s safe to leave in the barn. We’re naive and innocent, but we probably shouldn’t be stupid as well. That tractor will have to park behind locked doors.

Meanwhile, we think about our orchard, and with what to underplant it. Steve suggests New Zealand, aka Dutch, clover. We should rake out the plot, then wait on the first rain. Which is this weekend, you’ll note. Then we are to broadcast the seed, and use something to drag the soil across it. A used bed-spring is good for this, he tells us. He means, dragged behind the not-yet existent tractor, I believe, but get a visual of Larry hauling such a thing through the trees behind him. Am relieved that we have, in addition to no tractor, no used bed-spring.

But the clover should be good for the “lawn” area around the house as well, as it’s perennial, low growing, fragrant, green through the dry season. The bees love it, and they’ll help with pollination. (I’d been imagining a little bare-foot time in this clover, but the bees put a stop to that fantasy.)

The rains have come, we’ve learned where we can get the clover seed as well as the little whirling device which spreads the seeds, and feel well on the way.

This Monday, I hope to find Miles, resolve the photo-to-blog issues, and send you a week’s worth of photos. Fingers crossed!