Photos and more

It was a dark and stormy day............
This was taken a week ago or so - I tried to get a lightening shot with my point and shoot, but no luck. The clouds were pretty impressive, though.And then it started to hail - and it really came down for a while. With all the storms, we got about .6" of rain. Enough for the garden for a day.......
We decided to take a day off Monday and take the kayaks out for a spin - since we still hadn't taken them down from on top of the car from the last time we went out...............
We drove to Perry South Campground on the Metolius arm of Lake Billy Chinook. A relatively quiet little spot, but full of boaters. We put in and paddled up river - there are quite a few "cabins" on what I assume is lease land from the forest service. The places range from shed type cabins to ones probably worth 1/2 mil.
There is no power to the area, so most of the nicer ones have solar panels - and a cistern for water.
The gooses have found a home. I imagine the folks feed them when they're around.
This is one of the nicest homes we saw. Lots of great big windows, nice deck, several nice boats... Oh, the life! If you can see them.... there are a couple of Great Blue Herons along the shore. Right after I took this photo, they both flew off making quite a racket.
The river starts to narrow here and there are no more ski boats, only fishermen. Really, really pretty.Someone's nest high in a snag - eagle? osprey? heron?So, I'm traveling along, getting a lot of exercise paddling against the current (Dean was fishing)
and I come upon this sign
Presumably - it means motor boats, but I could see rapids right ahead, so I turned around and the wind started blowing - against me - erasing the benefit of the current. Oh, darn!

So, I mentioned that Dean was fishing - he had his pole in the water, anyway. There were fish jumping all around us, a hatch going on. He tried everything he had and couldn't catch one. I was hoping one would jump in the boat so he could "get a fish", but that didn't happen. It was pretty amazing, though, watching the fish come out of the water. And when I say "all around us" - I mean it!

This next series of photos need some explanation. The juvenile eagle in the first photo flew over my head and landed in this tree. He just sat there for a while and I took a few photos, getting a little close (in my kayak) for each one. Then another big bird (no, not THAT big bird....) came along and chased it out of the tree. In the middle photo, I thought I got both of them, but didn't - the lag time in digital cameras is too long for action photos......... The final photo shows the big one who came back and hung around for photos for quite a while. I don't think it was an eagle, but I'm really not sure. It was BIG!

















Thought for the day..........

Dance like no one is watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like no one is listening,
Live like it's heaven on earth.

-William Purkey

Today it's about the eagles

The morning walk was very cold. It snowed a little again last night, but the wind was blowing and made it feel like 20º. Abby went with us, even though we took the same route as yesterday - partly on the road. She was good, though, and sat by my side whenever a car passed - I think there were 3 or 4.........We cut off the road cross country to catch the trail again and were met by Bill and Bentley and the EAGLES. And this was the day I didn't bring the camera! I could have posted an image and wrote: "see that black speck - that's an eagle". There was a pair of Bald Eagles and several Goldens. The most I have seen at one time around here. They were amazing!

We had been concerned about Gary and Teresa (Gary is a long haul truck driver) driving in this weather, but got an email from them and they are fine - though they had to drive the Siskiyous in the mess. Gary's back is acting up - just like his Dad's - so he's taking a few days off to rest it.

Back to last spring - Dean is working in the "before" photo of the SW corner of the house. The "dirt" (no soil around here is really dirt) was sloughing off around the deck support posts a little, so he wanted to build a retaining wall to stabilize it.
And the "after" shot - nice job, huh? Bill had a Bobcat and was digging holes for fence posts, so he helped us fill behind the retaining wall with "dirt" from our septic test holes down below. Not long after I took the above photo, the Bobcat slipped on the slope and the bucket came down and took out part of the wall. Photo below is Joyce helping to dig it out. Within a short time, though, it was all put back together. The next photo is for Dean's brother, Larry - he complains that I put too many cold weather photos in here, so this ought to bring back warm memories. We have quite a patch of cactus that provides us with a more colorful landscape in the SUMMER
And now - drum roll..........
BUSHISM
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
2001 Gridiron dinner

Back to the building process (we're almost done!)

Look - a cooktop in the island, an oven and a microwave! Kitchen is happening!
Much later - New Year's Eve 2006 - Janet in the finished kitchen - readying for the BIG party! Had a few friends and neighbors over for soup and bread - Kansas style New Year's Eve - we were all in bed before midnight! Back to house stuff - Jim is helping Dean put in a walkway and bridge over the "stream" - which is the drainage for the rain chain at the corner of the house by the garage. Now it is rocked and looks much better.
Starting the garden indoors. The garden was a bit sparse this first year - gets bigger and better each year, though.
This is a photo of our baby eagles. We discovered the nest in about February before they were hatched and watched it regularly for sign of babies. One hatched, then the other a few days later. The nest was across the canyon and down from our place a couple of lots where the houses aren't as close to the river. Here you can see mom (or maybe it's dad - hard to tell with the Goldens) feeding the babies. The darker one, on the right, was the first born. We named them Junior and Missy. Eventually, only Junior survived. It is common for one to not make it - either because there was not enough food for both, or the bigger one killing the smaller. We prefer to think it was the former...........
This is the shed that Jim and Janet helped build the year after we bought the property in 1997. We had fixed it up pretty nice - it had a futon, kitchen (Coleman stove sitting on Dean's router table), and a porta potty. All the comforts of home. We spent many weekends in our little "bunkhouse". But it was too close to the house and Dean couldn't drive down to the lower part of the property, so he and Bill jacked it up and turned it around one day while Joyce and I had a garage sale. It was quite the entertainment for the shoppers.
For those of you who think that I don't exist, here is proof. Photographers don't like to have their pictures taken, you know. We went out for firewood with neighbors Bill and Joyce. Luckily, we picked a pretty nice fall day for the trip. Just to catch you up on today (Sunday, January 20th of 08) it is still snowing, but has warmed up a bit. Will keep you posted.