Scenery And Wildlife

Well apparently Blogger has made some changes in how we make a new post, so all these photos are actually in backwards order.  But good thing it doesn't matter in this particular case.

We took a little drive and brought a picnic with us and I took a few photos along the way.

This is an outcropping along the side of the road.  It looks like it would be fun to investigate but it is on private property.

I had the zoom on for this one.  It's actually quite a ways away from the road.  This enormous house looks like it is two identical but separate homes joined in the middle by a big entryway.  I don't know if that's really the case, that's just what it looks like from the road.

 And just around the bend and below the above house is its private airstrip!

 A sandhill crane sitting on a nest.

Some cows grazing on the BLM land.

They're so cute!

MOOO!

We had our picnic near here.

A racer crossing the road.  Lucky for the snake that Hubby saw it.

And somebodies remnants from previous hunting.  We think it was a quartered elk that they left the skins behind.  Not too cool IMHO.

Back to "yard" work tomorrow!

Bluebird House

I had a few options of things to do today.

#1: Start putting primer on the hideous magenta walls.

#2: Work on the office.

#3: Build a bluebird house.

Guess which one I chose to do.

I looked on-line and there are a myriad sites on "how to build a bluebird house". I'm glad I looked at more than one of those sites because although the houses are basically the same, some of the sites had a little more info. For example: I learned that you should not use smooth wood because the birds climb up the walls of the house. If the walls are smooth they can't get a grip!

There should only by one house every 100 yards because bluebirds are very territorial. I should be able to make a few then, just making sure to place them carefully far enough apart from each other.

There were different views on where to place the house but they all agreed that the house should be placed on a 4 - 6 foot pole. I gathered that the bluebirds like to be near but not in the trees, they like to be in or at the edge of a clearing, and the house should not be placed too close to a pond (so the fledglings don't accidentally fly in and not out!).

I didn't have the recommended cedar board but I did have left-over plywood. To solve the smoothness problem I glued juniper bark on the outside and insides of the house.

I found an old 2 X 4 and put it where I hope is a good spot. It's far enough away from our house so the birds shouldn't get too bothered by us (after all they were on the deck yesterday).

The web sites say not to worry about the house being perfect. The birds need the gaps in the walls and floor for drainage and ventilation. In that case my house is perfect!

The next thing I'm going to make is a small hypertufa drinking station. That should satisfy the need for water for drinking and bathing, yet will be too shallow to dive into (and drown). Other birds can use it also.

Then since it was so beautiful today I took Star out for a long ride on the ridge and when we came back we galloped my loop a few times in both directions.

It was a glorious day!

Mr. & Mrs. Bluebird

We had visitors today. Mr. and Mrs. Mountain Bluebird came fluttering about on the deck. Perhaps they were looking for a place to build a little nest?

Mrs. Mountain Bluebird

Mr. Mountain Bluebird

I sure hope this was a sign that Spring is right around the corner. I'm so ready for it!

Drive To The Coast

Things have been a little slow in our search for a new home. When our realtor got back from her vacation after Christmas and before New Year's I gave her a list of properties we were interested in looking at.

One was pending, which I apparently hadn't noticed or it hadn't been listed as such yet; another would have to be a cash only deal because the only source of heating was with wood. The banks would not give a loan out for that one. And there was also something to do with the size of the house (small) and the price per square foot, even though it was a large property. I didn't quite get that part. But anyway, banks are rather fussy these days and we don't have that kind of cash! On the one I really wanted to see it turns out the owner had signed an acceptance to an offer just the evening before. So we did go to see the fourth property. It was built in 1936 and the kitchen had been totally remodeled. Unfortunately nothing else had been done and it would have taken a small fortune to fix it properly. We never even went out to look at the barns or other outbuildings because we knew it wouldn't work for us.

Our realtor sent out an email to a ton of area realtors describing what we were looking for. The hope is that one of them may have a client who has not listed yet and had been planning on it, and this way they might get a sale without having to actually list. We got one promising lead on a place where the new owners bought about 280 acres but they wanted to split the property and the split part would include the house and 80 acres. I had seen the place on the internet while browsing but it was a couple hundred thousand over our allowed budget. Now we are just waiting to hear back from the new owners on how they wanted to make the split, the price they would be asking (we were assured it would be less than our maximum) and when we might be able to look at the house.

We've driven by just about every other possible place so now we are waiting to hear about that property and hoping there might be some new properties coming on the market. We've heard from other people that have shared our dilemma and I may have said this before: If we find the property we like the house is totally unacceptable, or if we find a nicer home the property is too small or too expensive.

So yesterday we decided to take a break from it all and we headed for the coast.

We took Highway 38 which takes you by the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. There aren't always elk out but there were yesterday.

And of course there are always tons of Canadian geese everywhere.

We headed south from Reedsport to Winchester Bay.

Outside the bay the water looked like it would have been good to surf, if you knew how to surf, which I don't.

Inside you can see how calm and quiet it is. That's a lifeguard stand in the background and where I took the above photos from.

Growing oysters in the triangle breakwater.
Here's a view of the triangle breakwater from the Umpqua Lighthouse.
The Umpqua Lighthouse.

There are miles and miles of sandy beaches and of course the famous Oregon Dunes. Right now is a great time to go there because it's virtually empty. We were here about two or three weeks ago and we were literally the only people there. Of course it was absolutely pouring rain at the time.

So that's it for now!

Vicious Dragonfly

This morning as I was digging out a gopher hole to set some traps I heard a crackly noise and felt something land on my head. Of course the first thing I did was freak out (just a little) and brush whatever it was out of my hair.

Two dragonflies fell to the ground.

The larger red one was on top of the smaller, darker, blue one. At first I thought they were "in love" but then I noticed the bigger one had his jaws around the neck of the other one and he was not just holding on, he was chomping!

As fast as that the smaller dragonfly's head popped off! And then the red dragonfly took off with his prize, presumably to have a meal.

I went for a ride today and saw a little hawk swooping down and chasing two ground squirrels. He missed. And then as we were riding through a more enclosed wooded area another, bigger hawk flew up from about twenty feet away and landed on a branch. He watched us warily as we passed within ten feet of his perch.

Today was definitely the Day Of The Predators!

Grass Fire, Deer, And Turkeys

As we got closer to the coast yesterday we could see a plume of smoke rising from the area of Cambria, right for where we were headed! Uh oh!

As we neared town we could actually see the fire from the road. It was a small grass fire.

Fortunately it wasn't a big fire and it was put out in short order. There were two of these planes flying around the area of the fire until it was out.

Since my friend Vicki lives near the edge of town it seems there is a lot of wildlife that visits the area. Here's a few deer passing by on the road.

And there's always a few turkeys strolling by too.

I wonder if they realize Thanksgiving is just around the corner?

Vacation 2009, Edison Ice Cave

At the house we rented for the week (which was very nice, btw) we had an almost daily visitor.
It seemed she was fairly used to people so I think she may have been getting handouts from several people in the neighborhood. I'm not a fan of feeding the wildlife, but I let Wil give her an english muffin once. Just once! She would come around and if nobody came out to feed her she would meander on to the next location. Other times we saw her browsing in the areas between the homes.

A long, long, long time ago, when we first started visiting the central Oregon area, say about 20 years ago, or maybe more because I don't remember having any kids around, we once went to a little hole in the ground they called "the Ice Cave".

As I recall it was a small hole in a little depression in the woods off a dirt trail off a dirt road. It was about 15 feet wide and maybe 4 feet tall at the entrance and went about 15 feet deep. It was probably 85° outside and there were actually ice crystals inside the cave.

I decided one day on our recent vacation that I wanted to visit the cave again and take some pictures. We dug out the 30 year old Deschutes County Forestry map and set out to find it. Click on the map picture and you can see where it says "Edison Ice Cave" in the middle.

We found an area that may have been near and we walked and walked. Then we walked back and took another trail and just walked a little ways. I got my exercise for the day. Unfortunately we were unable to locate the ice cave. Over the years some of the streets have been paved, the trails had changed, trees grew and fell and we just couldn't find it.

We even went so far as to buy a new Forestry map which had totally different trails than the old map and the Edison Ice Cave wasn't even on the new map! Later, once we got home and did a little research on the internet we found a couple of sites that mentioned GPS locations. Next time we go back we'll bring our GPS and try again!

This And That

This week has been a busy one for me. I've been working in the yard and garden. I'm trying to get a few things done before we hit our projected temperature of 108° this coming Sunday!

Our gopher wars are continuing. Last week neighbor Dean shot and killed what we are calling the granddaddy of the gophers. That thing was huge! Then this weekend I managed to catch an equally large female in one of my traps.

We're calling this one the grandmother of the gophers. Look how big she is compared to my hands. And I have big "man hands" (remember that Seinfeld episode?).

The gophers have slowed down but they are still out there. And we are still after them.

Here is my little game I keep out on the table where we sit out back. It took me a while to see this but I knew something wasn't "right".

It's some kind of worm. Did it think this was a computer? (Bad joke.)

At the same stand where we picked up the delicious strawberries (not a bad one in the bunch, btw) we also found this potted Bing cherry tree. I've since planted it in its' predecessor's spot.
Tuesday I rented a lawn aerator and did our entire grounds, the front, back, "pasture", and the far back area between the ponds and the back fence. It only took about two hours and although it wasn't easy it was not as hard as I thought it would be. Today I spread weed and feed. Saturday I will overseed the middle yard with a pasture mix, mow everything and start watering the heck out of it all. Hopefully it won't take too long to grow and the animals will have some decent forage for a change.

I have a feeling we'll be spending most of Sunday inside!

More AZ Wildlife

As promised yesterday, the following are more pictures from our recent AZ trip. We'll start out with a few more birds and then get into the creatures.

Another picture of the red cardinal, this time contrasting nicely in the palo verde tree against the brilliant blue sky. A Gila woodpecker. Notice the red cap on his head.

The ever abundant miscellaneous finches and sparrows.

On the golf course just prior to sunset: a bobcat...

...probably after one of these cute bunnies. There were tons of them. They probably aren't making the groundskeeper happy though.

We all also took a guided tour of the desert. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. And guess what? It was a three hour tour. Only in the desert. Not in the ocean. Never mind.

We saw a big mule deer.

Just prior to the end of the tour our guides took out a few native creatures.

It's a broach...

A rose pink tarantula.

A gopher snake. We have those around here too. I wish we had more!! (Too many gophers!!)

A Gila monster. Up close they are are actually fascinating. It looked like it was made of beading or mosaics!

TOMORROW: The exciting world of cactus!