Playing catch-up today. Here’s last week’s adventure:

Buck-the-Tractor had his first look outside the barn since arrival. A nice day, and we had time to do some actual work around the place. So the barn, or edifice we call the barn, is as clean as we can manage, and we’ve done some preliminary pruning around the old home site, the nearby blackberrys have been sprayed and lean brownly clutching an assortment of farm fences in an impossible thicket. Time to tidy up.

The appendage securely attached to the tractor’s back end is a mower, and Larry wanted to have a practice run with the machine in the relatively safe, flat space at hand. I had read somewhere that a responsible farmer will walk a field before mowing, discing, tilling, whatever, and while Larry familiarized himself with the controls, I began to pace the area between the cement slab which formerly anchored a garage and the barn.

We’d known that the derelict house had been party central to bands of high school or college revelers, and that various souls had camped inside the barn and garage, so had already picked up bins full of trash. But what we hadn’t seen was all the glass and metal debris under the weeds. Now in winter, the weeds are low enough to expose all the treasure. Broken bottles, bottles buried in mud, scraps of metal, shards of old bleach bottles, broken toys. Obviously we couldn’t just run the mower over this tableau of misery.

Ugh. Poor land. Poor souls who huddled here, the rain beating down (in my imagination). The old saying: Foul your nest and move west? This is about as west as you can get. Here’s a quote from Andy Warhol: “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”

So let’s make some art!

The tractor rumbled over the uneven ground and it does look better. Larry succeeded in grinding some blackberry canes along a cement trough, but didn’t yet attempt the larger mass I described earlier. Next time, maybe.

A lovely patch of daffodils bloomed in a lake of vinca and I wanted to take some home. The vinca is about a foot and a half deep, covering what I had recently learned to expect, but I waded cautiously over to the flowers and cut a nice handful. As much as the glass and metal, I was concerned about slumbering snakes, but if I trod on any, they didn’t complain. Vinca, by the way, is invasive, non-native, and will have to go!

This brings me up to yesterday. We had a meeting scheduled with Applegate Gates to discuss a gate for our driveway. It will have to be controlled remotely from the house, and from our cell phones if we’re away from the farm. Merlin was the expert who came to talk with us, and he certainly seemed to know the answers to all our questions. We wanted the gates to swing inward upon entry, but the drive slopes upward at the chosen point. To accommodate the rise, the gates would have to be mounted at a silly-looking height off the ground at their posts. Okay, so the gates will swing outward toward an entering vehicle.

My friend Molly suggested that I’d better get my camera situation straightened out because this project is much better when illustrated. With that in mind, here are Merlin and Larry discussing placement:

How far from Llewellyn may the gate be sited? Fortunately, Merlin has a contact at Philomath Fire who would be able to tell us. His brother, in fact. Always good to rely on local contacts, we find! It seems that the distance is determined by the ability of a fire engine to pull completely off the road before encountering a gate. Merlin will let us know what he learns.

Here are some of the daffodils that have decorated this little quadrant of the property:

Everything looks better contained by our lovely new fence, or so we believe.

We went up to the house to see what the builders have accomplished in the days since Saturday. Dick was there working to put rock on the little shed. I had mentioned Cactus in an earlier post, and he and Dick are the masons. Dick is Cactus’ father, and, amazingly enough, Cactus is a grandfather. This has to make Dick the oldest human still laboring at the very demanding job of masonry. Never retire! Do what you love! You can see their work on this photo of our back porch:

Guess what. Remember I said that the cows weren’t coming back? It seems that they are. Jarod, of Fish and Wildlife said that he would very much like to have the animals for another year, and Mark agreed to continue with us. His electric fencing is already in place, necessitating the use of the forked stick to get us over the wire. We wanted to amble down and check on Muddy Creek, and were a bit shocked to see a giant machine rumbling over the flood plain. What the heck?

Here’s Bob, who drove the rig which loads the giant. A fertilizer spreader, as it turns out. Mark, Cow-Guy has decided to fertilize the land the cows will graze. On his dime, of course, but still. One might like to have been notified?

So here’s my take: I’m sad to see how the cows damage the land, and a little resentful that it’s being fertilized artificially. But just how naive can I be? The depths have not yet been plumbed. Of course Mark will act to maximize the growth of his animals. We want to use his animals, but he’s in his business to succeed. If we improve the land for forage, well and good, but meanwhile? Let’s just fertilize the thistle and tansy while we’re at it. I don’t know how this will balance at the end of the day, but per Andy Warhol, we’re trying!

Enough for one post! Time for dinner.

But we need the rain!

Yes, of course. And we’re Oregonians, so we don’t complain. A little funny, though, that Benton County said we could burn all day. Irony pinches, doesn’t it?

So we have traveled to the farm on Thursday this week to meet with Mark, the Cow Guy, but more about that later. First, we have many questions for Tyrone about the plumbing fixtures we’ve been working so hard to choose. At last we’ve found someone at George Morlan’s who seems equipped to manage the entire system of bathrooms. She tells us what faucet won’t come in what finish, what valve we must have in order to select which shower head, and what finish our choice won’t come in.

And so on. We arrive at the farm, in the deluge, duck into the now warm house and find Tyrone. Seems we need answers to certain plumbing-related arcana before we can proceed. Larry has the list, and we start in the upper, right-hand corner of the attic bedroom, determining which shower drain will fit which appliance. Who knew these things aren’t universal?

It’s fun to be in out of the rain, admiring the new shelves in the kitchen pantry, the moldings around the windows and doors. For a mysterious (as yet) reason, the upper guest bedroom has a regular cemetery of departed flies on the window sill, the floor. Why this room? Maybe one of our families will learn the answer when they visit us.

Our list checked off, we decide to take Bob-the-Truck out for a spin, to encourage the batteries. We’ll have our picnic lunch (that was an optimistic plan when I made sandwiches that morning). Forgot something back in the car, so Larry puts Bob in reverse. Bad idea.

Dennis, Excavator-Person, has been telling us that our “autobahn” was poorly constructed. And in fact, soft spots, ridges, torn barriers, seem to support his opinion. Apparently there should have been “dirty” rock chosen that will compact and become interlocked. Our rock slithers around, won’t join hands with one another, and thus, when someone, like one of us, veers too close to the edge, it’s up to the axel with Bob. The rain has provided a muddy trench into which we slid. There would have been no exit, were it not for Tyrone and Eric.

Tyrone’s giant claw has lifted the truck, and Eric and Larry man the shovels to create a gravel path back onto the road.

Tyrone looks like this is the most fun he’s had all day. Yep. Boys! But we love these guys and can’t imagine how we’ll run the farm without them when they pack up and leave for another job.

About that picnic?

Here we are at the Corvallis Les Schwab. Got the batteries tested and gave the Schwab people a hearty laugh at our expense. Of course we needed both batteries replaced. “When did you get these batteries, anyway? Government junk pile after the Korean War?” Ha ha.

Back to meet with Mark. Well, he’s not interested in working with us under the new scheme. Not enough pasturage for his animals. Hmm. Sub-text, he’s no fan of Fish and Wildlife who, I suspect he suspects, has stolen a good chunk of private land in the pursuit of conservation. Mark is a good guy, and needs to do what he does, which is fatten cows to feed our relentless appetites for beef. So, okay. Got it.

I’m surprised to find myself a little relieved. Guess I resent what the herd had done to the property last year, with too many cows (my opinion about the correct number of cows per acre, which would be about one per). Still, what now? Checked in with Steve, our consultant, but haven’t heard back. Plan B, I guess. Yeah, I like this development, though I admit I enjoyed the picturesque quality the cows provided.

Tomorrow we revisit George Morlan and, we hope, complete the dreary task of choosing plumbing fixtures. Hooray!

“A tone poem? And that would be what?”

I think it’s a kind of musical composition such as you might hear on your Pandora “Meditation Station,” minus the throaty bamboo pipes. But I’m thinking about it in terms of color. And it’s probably not best to blog about color when I can’t show you my photos.

“Problems?”

YES. I took my fancy Lumix to the farm in the hope of getting better shots, and now can’t load the results onto my computer.”

“We can call Miles.” (Computer Guy.)

Yeah. Tomorrow. Meanwhile, here we are. At the mercy of the written word.

Okay. We’ve been engaged in the challenge of finding the nice gray color that we (which means I) have been imagining from the beginning. I’m sure you all have experienced the inevitable frustrations at the way color changes itself from one moment to the next, from the Miller Paint store to the parking lot outside their shop to its final destination. The real problem, however, is existential. Gray, my friends, does not exist. A little tutorial: (Light is one thing, but we’re talking about pigments.) So “a red pigment is a material that absorbs all colors but red. Likewise a blue pigment absorbs all colors except blue. If you put enough of the right pigments into something it will appear to be black, as it absorbs all colors.” Thus sayeth Google.

So then, gray would just be the black you created plus a measure of white. Right? Apparently not. The minute you add the white, some one or other of the component colors will emerge, and while the paint chip at the store looks gray, be sure that when applied to a wall, for example, it will become blue, or green, or brown, or lilac. And ghastly.

So what’s wrong with a nice blue-gray, or whatever? Nothing. Unless the dark gray standing-seam roof you have caused to be installed on your new home turns out to be a nice blue gray. Fine. Unless the lovely gray sandstone you selected for the exterior wainscoting has proved to be, upon its application, a nice brown-gray. Neither of these features, the roof nor the wainscoting, can be changed. So. Blue roof, brown stone. And a “gray” that will lie happily between the two? Non-existant.

Enter Cactus. This is he who is putting the stone on the house, piece by piece. Good name, huh? He observes the seven swaths of color we’ve applied to test sections of the siding and sums things up. “The blue roof will reach into the stone, find the darkest shard and pull it across the intermediary field of color represented by the fourth-test brownish gray of the siding. This is the one you should choose.”

It doesn’t look gray at all, it looks brownish, but he seems to be right, and we give up. We will have a brownish house.

We finally arrived at the farm on a day when the county will allow burning, and began the life-time job of burning the slash oak on the property. Larry stood, rake in hand, shovel near by, in a meditative state, perhaps hearing a tone poem in his head, nurturing the small flame he could achieve with the wet wood, a happy man. I, more restless, roamed about gathering wind-blown pieces of plastic from the construction, and stumbled upon a little grotto in the woods. Insert photo here: sunlight on figures of collapsed wood entirely dressed in the greenest of moss. The gnome-like creatures arranged in a circle under an opening in the canopy, luminous against the drab of winter forest. Magic. I made Larry come and see the little people, but he was eager to get back to his fire. Hmm.

Somewhat enchanted on the ride back to Portland, absorbed in a book on Audible, we were embarrassed by a phone call from Gordon. “Where are you guys?” We’d forgotten we had a date to meet them for dinner before the play for which we had tickets that night. How dumb! How could both of us forget? I mean, we’re at that age, and all, but we don’t usually experience simultaneous fog. At least so far.

But we got back in time for the play, and it was great.

“Which do you like better?” I ask. “Mucking out the barn and shopping for drawer pulls?”

“That question can’t be answered. You can’t put an “and” in the middle of an “or” question.”

“Yes. I know that. I am an English major, remember.”

“Who didn’t graduate,” Larry whispers. If I could change the font on this blog, I’d type that in tiny little letters to indicate sotto voce. “I heard that,” I say. “I was tying to make a point that we have to do both, and the funny thing is, we’d both rather muck out the barn, which . . .”

We are driving home from San Diego and are tired. Been at “Adult Band Camp,” or I have, that is. Larry, dear kind Larry just schlepps me here and there on banjo related stuff and we drive because I REALLY hate to fly, which, of course, is the only way a person or persons should travel to Adult Band Camp.

We are snappish. I’m sullen, to be more accurate. We don’t exactly have the same priorities, and I’ve been going on about improving the soil in the orchard. “We have to till in the clover, it’s green manure and we shouldn’t use those commercial nitrogen fertilizers because, and . . .”

What Larry hears is that I propose to till under the clover we lovingly planted this fall. Greening now, baby clover and she wants to just grind it up? And we’re going to rake the clumps again by hand? Don’t you remember how hard that was? The soil is just fine for the trees.

“I’ll do the raking myself, then,” I say, and sink back into my seat. Watch the Imperial Valley go by. Dead trees because there’s no water. Acres of newly planted trees. What’s going on?

But time passed, and yesterday, we spent the day working in the barn. I drove the tractor back and forth, impatient to actually try it outside. The new fence is up and it looks, well, see for yourselves:

Of course, everyone has problems. Bad Bob was at it again:

Dead battery. Fortunately, Matt, Fence Guy, was there with his truck and although it’s embarrassing to have to ask (what are these people doing with a tractor if they can’t even keep their truck running?) Matt was able to help.

Therefore, we were able to drive down to Shonnards and enquire about spraying the orchard trees with copper sulfate. It’s approved for use for organic fruit. “When should be be spraying?”

“Now!” says Shonnards. “But not until you’ve pruned. You’ve pruned, haven’t you?”

Well, no. But we were just going to. Absolutely. Get right on it. We do have the pruning book we acquired at pruning class last spring, so we will study it when we get back to Portland, and hope it won’t be too late for spraying. In the meantime, I bought a pressure pump and a little pot of the copper sulfate concentrate.

“How many trees do you have?”

“Nine.”

“You’re going to need a back-pack sprayer. When you’re up on a ladder . . .” Um, no. They’re DWARF trees, and if there are any ladders in the picture, Paul-the-Godsend, or similar, will be wearing the back-pack.

Larry has been waiting in the parking lot, engine running, and winces when he sees me arrive with the new equipment. “Look,” I say. “Why don’t we just say that I’ll be in charge of the orchard. You can mow and saw and fell and split and other manly stuff.”

“You’re the one who decapitated the first apple tree,” he says. “You need me.” Of course, he’s right.

Today, we shopped for drawer pulls. Ugh. “We are not going home until we have picked out every single pull and knob and faucet and shower head.” Somehow, we got it done.

We both prefer barn-mucking.

Now let us speak of furniture.

Yes, we do have to. Or I could tell you about my latest visit to the dentist?

No? Thought so. Okay, here goes furniture: Vik took me by the arm (at my request) and marched me off to the area furniture stores. See, I’d been imagining that on some lazy summer day Larry and I would amble around antique shops and find several charming pieces, one at a time, that we could refurbish, re-cover, and deliver to the farm. There we’d arrange them, layout-ready for the Modern Farmer photo shoot. (I love Modern Farmer. It’s where I got the idea about the alpacas, but more about that some other time.)

We all know the above was fantasy, day-dreams. Back to reality. Vik took me off and after a preliminary stop or two, we arrived at Parker Furniture in Beaverton. One look told me that this was not the place from which to furnish a little-house-with-apple-tree. Picture a long, curved, white brocade sofa, overhung with a crystal chandelier, picture the blonde creature who owns it, along with her precious little dog and elegant manicure, sipping Pinot Gris. “Aren’t you so inspired?” asked the sales person as we made our escape.

And yet. (You saw this coming.) Vik had spotted a “fabulous” chandelier made of white antlers . . . “we’d be crazy to pass this one up. Must take Larry to see it.” Says the patient Viki.

“No!!! No white antlers for me,” say I. “We are not building a faux ski lodge transported from Aspen.” Still, I hauled Larry along and guess what. Not white antlers. No, instead, brass sculpted branches interlaced with 8 to 10 small bulbs like all the winter lights we see around the city in this season of lights. It’s honestly quite beautiful and I can only suggest that the sweep of white sofa blinded me to everything else in the store.

So, chandelier accomplished, we moved on to sofas of our own. By then, JoAnne, an in-house decorator, had taken us on. JoAnne with her curly hair and New York style and sense of humor. “Parker Furniture is exactly the right place for you,” she promised. “We do Little Farm House with the best of them.” She made a copy of our floor plan, arranged some little magnets on the copy and thereby determined what size living-room furniture would be comfortable.

Let’s move on to the blue velvet swivel chairs (isn’t “swivel” a funny word?) Vik noticed on the sales room floor. Studded with nails. I’m not kidding. We could sit in front of the window, turn to admire the bluebirds feasting on mistletoe berries, then swivel to admire the burning logs in the fireplace. Yeah, but blue velvet? These are chairs my parents might have chosen! Besides, what’s Larry going to say? “We have many fabrics from which to choose,” JoAnne gently reassured me.

Yep, swiveling chairs, albeit not blue. Check. Only things missing are the reclining mechanism and cup holders. I am kidding. They’re actually nice, and certainly comfortable. Little old-lady farm-housey, but hey.

Next up, plumbing fixtures. You know, faucets, drawer pulls, that sort of thing. Groan. But what’s all this to do with our conservation mission? Good question. We could have slapped up a nice double-wide, as one passerby suggested early on, and conduct our restoration project in comfort. I know. Who said we need nice furniture? I can’t defend it. I just know what I imagined that afternoon in the Honolulu airport when I began to dream of home.

Note: Today we have a guest author, a farmer of great skill and wisdom, plus, as you will see, an excellent and witty writer. His comments will be particularly helpful for those of you contemplating purchase of a tractor of your own.

“OK…let’s start at the top. That big thingy on the front of your tractor is referred to as a bucket–I mean we’re not dealing with ice cream here. And, as you have discovered when you’re working on level ground (or floor), it is hard to get a big bucket full because the material just moves away from you–a common problem. However, if you have a large pile (of whatever) it will be much easier although you will still have to shovel in the last few bites. When you have a large quantity of mulch and/or gravel (we’re talking yards here–I usually get 10 at a time–gravel or 3-5–mulch) delivered, try to find a spot with a slight slope to it and then work from the downhill side–life will be much easier.”

I’ll interrupt here to add an illustrative photo, entitled “Mamma drives.” This in response to the many requests you’ve lodged in the comments section:

“Now…on to the three-point hitch. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to round up the Rabbit (name changed to protect the innocent) to help put the brush hog on. Often I can do it by myself but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. So….I really would recommend that you look into a quick disconnect attachment. (You can find these at Pape). All you have to do is back the tractor up to the attachment and it clicks right on. Invaluable if Larry wants to do some work and Jane is not around. I don’t happen to have one of these but I wish I did.”

You’ll note in the above photo that we haven’t yet secured a “quick disconnect” attachment. Thus our little brush hog (the green thingy behind the tractor) follows us faithfully everywhere we go.

“And, while you are there, why not pick up a blade? I know you are going to have another course of gravel laid down in your driveway area. With your new blade and the help of your bucket you can spread it yourself to the never-ending admiration of your friends and neighbors. And what about a big ol’ snowstorm? Somebody has to plow the driveway.

“The forks, of course, can be used for many things. I envision that as you continue to clean up the dead trees around your place you haul the logs to a central location for bucking and splitting. If that doesn’t appeal then buy some railroad ties and move them from place to place–even if you don’t need them.”

We particularly enjoy the thought of buying railroad ties to move around, in the event that we ever, ever get through moving logs around. In last week’s edition I posted a photo of the latest set of logs to be moved. Unfortunately, due to the astonishing rainfall we’ve had in the last weeks, the pasture where it lies is deep clay mud, covered lightly by overgrazed thatch. Any attempt to drive the tractor to the log would probably result in a very embarrassing tilted, sunk green machine awaiting rescue come spring.

In closing, I’m posting another, very rare, photo of your author standing before Muddy Creek’s latest artistic tableau, Trees and Water:

Yes, that is a sock on my hand. I make no apology.

Huge thanks to “TED” for his enormous, enlightening, contribution to this post.

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?