Silver Creek Camping Trip

Mike, Richelle and I went camping this past week. I love camping, especially when we go somewhere new.

This time, we went to an itty-bitty campground so small, so out-of-the-way that there's no fee. There's no water or garbage service, either, but it does have two vault toilets. All that didn't matter to us because we brought Mike's parents' trailer.

There's a small town on highway 31 in eastern Oregon called Silver Lake. It's more a marsh but "lake" sounds nicer. South of Silver Lake is Thompson Reservoir. A little north and west of there is a tiny marsh named Silver Creek Marsh and this campground is on the north edge where West Silver Creek flows out. Only highways 27, 28, and 31 are paved. All other roads are gravel, cinder, or dirt. The pick-up was filthy by the time we left for home.


Just to the right of the Ponderosas is a stump with a log leaning against it that looks like a small animal peeking over. On the other side, there's another log with a lot of branches that makes it look like a giant centipede sneaking up on the peering rodent.
A pretty good-sized fire swept through here a few years ago. The brush has come back well but there's lots of snags among the trees that survived.


There were two other trailers in the campground but we parked far enough away that we couldn't see or hear them. Instead, we saw and heard pine squirrels, wind in the Ponderosa tree tops, the cold, chuckling creek, the whine of mosquitoes, pine cones dropping with a soft 'thunk', blue jays arguing, the scream of red-tailed hawks, and the frequent slap of someone smacking a mosquito or biting fly.


Our peaceful camp site.

The first evening, Mike took us hunting for what I've heard called sage rats, prairie pups, and squeakers. They are grey-brown rodents about 8-10 inches long with a short, furry tail and they burrow around in fields. Farmers welcome them with the same enthusiasm that gardeners welcome moles and gophers.


Mike brought his .22 and .17 rifles and he and Richelle did most of the hunting. Richelle preferred the .22 because it didn't have the weight of a scope. Mike preferred the .17 because it has a scope and he's 50 years old. Even without using the scope, they both saw rats that I couldn't. A lot of it is because I've never hunted (you can't count the one feral cat I took care of) and my eyes aren't trained for it.


Mike: "Richelle...see that tall tree? Right down in front of it is a clump of sage. Look just a little to the left of there. Do you see him?"
Richelle: "Yeah, I see him!"
Mike: "Shoot him."
Me: "Where are those binocs?"


Richelle nailed the first one she shot at. She stooped over it, gloating, and then said wistfully, "I wish I could take it home with me."
"How about I take a picture instead?" I suggested.
She took a couple more pictures of the up-close and gruesome kind but I'll spare you the sight.


This is a view of Sycan Marsh from the east. I climbed part way up a big pile of rocks to get this picture. I only climbed part way because I started hearing rattlesnakes ahead of me and I have a policy of giving rattlers all the space they want.

These next two pics are taken from the top of Winter Rim at Freemont view point east of Thompson Reservoir. There used to be a no-longer-in-use fire look out up here that the Forest Service would rent out at $20/night but it burned down in the fire I mentioned earlier.


To get a good idea of distance, you really need to click on the picture above and see the buildings located just left of center.


We're looking down on Summer Lake. The blue is the present size of the lake, the white is alkali and shows the size of the lake at its fullest. It's a very long lake but quite shallow so it shrinks and swells with the seasons.


Fishing. The creek is through the brush...I think they're some kind of willow. The creek isn't very wide and not more than a couple of feet deep but it moves pretty quickly and is refreshingly cold.


We didn't keep any fish we caught. Richelle is a true fisherman. She caught a little 8-incher and by the time we were talking the day over at supper time, it'd grown to almost thirteen inches.

We used worms. I HATE fishing with worms. You have to pinch off the amount you need to begin with and then they wriggle and squirm, shorten up and stretch out while you're trying to impale them on the hook. My "ick" factor is set pretty high but putting worms on hooks comes really close to tripping it.


Hager Mountain has a fire control look-out on its peak and there are roads with signs showing the way. After driving about four miles on cinder roads, we came to a locked gate with a sign "Authorized Personnel Only". We were only about a mile from the top. We found a spot where we could see out but it wasn't as spectacular as what we would have seen from the look-out. We were facing roughly northeast with -is it Grassy Butte?- in the distance. Highway 31 runs along the base of it.

Beautiful country and wonderful times make for good, lasting memories.

How Not to Swing a Hammer

Mike is building a deck for his brother and one of the things needing to be done was to set paving stones where the steps come down. To do that without renting a packer for just a dozen stones, Mike would set one where he wanted it, hold a block of wood on top of it, and then pound the wood with a hand-held 3-pound sledge hammer with all his might.

He was setting the last stone and didn't notice that he'd shifted his hold on the block of wood from hanging onto the sides to holding it down with his thumb on top.

You can follow the natural progression that makes such good blogging material and disgusting pictures. He said it was fortunate that he'd already had one set of stairs in place or he may not have made it into the house. He did make it in, stretched out on the couch, and refused to let anyone come anywhere near except his mom to give him four Advil and a glass of water.

He came home about an hour later and I alternated Tylenol and Advil every two hours until late that night when it started bleeding and relieved the pressure.


He so thoroughly exploded every capillary in his thumb that it's a blackish color, still bleeding nearly twenty-four hours later, and the thumbnail is pretty much separated from the bed.

I was telling a teenage friend of Cameron's what had happened and remarked that this will be about the fifth or sixth time he's lost that thumbnail with all the carpentry work he's done. This Wise Guy, with a wicked gleam in his eye and grin on his face softly commented, "Must not have been all that good a carpenter..."

Fair projects

A month ago, Richelle had no desire to enter anything in fair. I told her that if she didn't enter, she didn't go to fair at all because of the entrance fee. With her as an exhibitor and me as a leader, we can get $4 bracelets that get us into the fair the entire week. I told her that I wasn't going to pay the entrance fee just so she could go when she wanted to...and she was planning to go at least three days at $12 each day.

Well. Now she's entered in not one, not two, but three areas; robotics demonstration, graphic design, and a display.

She's been working on a picture of a cat's face on the computer so she only has to finish that. She's pretty good with the paint program and even added a tiny splash of white to the pupils to show sparkle. Shading is the next item on her list.

Her display is of a two-story Lego house along the lines of a doll-house built for Lego people. She's almost finished with that after two solid days of building, dismantling, and building again. It looks pretty nice. The attic is authentically filled with the odds and ends you would expect an attic to be filled with - a raft, oars, life jackets, a medieval horse blanket, a wagon wheel (although that would more normally be found in the rafters of a barn), a door, etc. There's a rooftop deck with railing off to one side and a yard with trees and bushes in back.

Her demonstration grew out of a "wouldn't it be fun-" talk we had a week or so ago. As in, "Wouldn't it be fun if we had a Lego robot and programmed it to deliver breakfast to guests in their rooms?" So she built a basic robot from plans out of a book (the robot belongs to the 4-H club), modified it to carry a tray and added a sensor. Then she worked on a program so the robot would wait for the breakfast tray to be put into place, deliver it to the bedroom door (it has to be a mock-up because I'm not taking my house to the fair), and stop at the door saying "good morning" repeatedly until the tray is removed. It would then say "thank you" and return to base, wait for the second tray to be placed, and deliver it in the same manner.

Mike suggested loading the tray with milk and cookies and have the judges stand at the "guest room" end of her demonstration table. A little bribery, he says, goes a long way.

She's done a great job with the programming and it works. Now she just needs to fine-tune it and cut out unnecessary move blocks. In several places she has three blocks where one would do the same job. The judges look for efficiency in programming because the more program, the more memory used and more things that could glitch. She also needs to modify the platform for the tray because there's nothing to keep the tray from sliding off and crashing to the floor. Not good for the computer, the demonstration table, or the milk and cookies.

Auntie Mable

Auntie Mable was a wonderful person who seemed always to be smiling. At least, that's what I see whenever I picture her and others say the very same thing. Auntie Mable was my dad's older sister and the last of the four siblings to go. I often wondered in the past three years what it was like for her with all the siblings gone. She could have felt lonely, must have felt sad, but she didn't let it take over her life.

She didn't have a life strewn with rose petals and arched over with rainbows, either. What she did have was a firm faith in the God of the Bible and the ability to find those rose petals and rainbows. They may have been fewer than she wished but she enjoyed them to their fullest.

And her memory...! She knew your birthdate, six or eight special things about you, and what you're involved in at that time. She would greet people with with a personal question ("Why, hello there, Ken! I hear you've moved into your new home. How do you like living in the country?") rather than the generic "Hi, how are you doing?"

We love her, admire her and will miss her.

Training children

The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Lenin is supposed to have said, "Give me a child until he's five and I'll have him forever." or something along those lines.

I have trained my children to respond to two particular sounds I make. One is the piercing whistle which means, "Get yourself over here immediately!" which I use when they are far away and/or out of sight. The second sound is the hissing 'tsst' used to quietly get their attention when they're nearby.

The other day, Richelle and I were in a grocery store I don't usually frequent but it was on the way home and we were tired. I was about fifteen feet from the end of an aisle checking prices when I heard young men's voices coming from my left. For some reason, I looked up. Three young men appeared, meandering across the end of my aisle and discussing something fairly seriously. Two of the guys were strangers to me but the one in the middle looked somewhat like Cameron. I say 'somewhat' because he was nearly hidden behind one of the boys.

Do I call to him? What if it isn't Cameron and I look like an idiot? What if it is and I've ignored him?

Almost on its own, my mouth made the 'tssst' sound. The boy's head snapped around even as his legs carried out the 'walk' order and he disappeared from sight.

Pause...

Suddenly Cameron appeared, walking backwards, and a look of utter confusion on his face.

Yup. Training wins out.

Oh, the serious discussion? How to stretch $50 to cover food for two days.

Creative Children

Richelle made a few cookies like this in honor of Memorial Day. This one was her favorite because not only was it the best-looking one, the missing corner gives it an authentic "been in battle" look.

This was her project from start to finish. I gave help only by suggesting she use decorating tips and, when she ran out of white frosting for the stars, to use white sprinkles instead.

My children's artistic talents continually amaze me. I'm somewhat beyond the stick-figure and color-by-number point and several decades of experience has helped me but I certainly didn't have their ability to dream up some of the stuff they do at their age.

California Trip

Richelle and I went with Mom to California for convention last week. We spent the first night in Medford with Mom's sister and bro-in-law. A short hop for us, yes, but it was four hours longer for Mom. My aunt and uncle are showing their years and it's good to spend time with them. My cousin's daughter from Australia (their granddaughter) has been staying there since February to help with whatever. While we were there, she added changing the movement box in a wall clock onto her list. It was fun to listen to her Aussie accent and terms and to see pictures of their place in Australia.

The second day, we stopped in Alameda to visit my dad's sister in the care facility. She's in the final stages of congestive heart failure and it's only a matter of time before she's gone so it was a privilege to visit with her. She was very weak physically but still very alert mentally and we were able to visit for about half an hour. Two of her daughters were also there and it was special to see the surprise and delight on all three faces when we walked in. Not that we're all that special, we just weren't expected.

We spent that evening and night with my brother and sis-in-law in San Mateo. I'd not visited their home before so it's nice to be able to picture them with a background now when I think of them. We had a great time there. I got to play with his iTouch, Richelle went shopping with her aunty, another brother came for supper and we all visited well into the night.

Wednesday to Sunday we spent at convention where it started out hot in the lower 90s and got progressively hotter each day until it peaked at 105 on Sunday. Kinda hard on us poor folk from the cooler Pacific Northwest where our daytime highs were about the same as their overnight lows. I thought I'd kept to the shade most of the time but was evidently in the sun long enough to get a bit of color. It didn't seem to affect the local kids, though. They still spent time in the sun hunting and playing with the toads that seem to live under every bush in the garden.

My niece from New Mexico was there with her three children. I hadn't seen her in three years so it was good to visit with her and get to know her three very adorable children. I had a great conversation with her nearly-five-year-old. He'll probably never remember it but I will!

I love going to places where you have enough room to breathe deeply and swing your arms. I love the fields that start without fences to mark the boundary. I love the miles and miles of orchards. I love trying to guess what's growing (that only works when I have Mom with me and she can correct me). I love the rice paddies giving way to corn fields giving way to carrots, onions, tomatoes, grain, and cotton fields interspersed with miles of olive, apricot, nectarine and prune orchards, orange, lemon, and grapefruit groves, walnut groves, almond, and pistachio orchards, as well as fields of table grapes and wine vineyards. Makes a person hungry driving through there.

There's also mile upon mile upon mile upon mile of rolling desert with nothing but sage, sparse grasses, and alkali flats. Places where Mom said Dad would love to go rabbit or bullfrog hunting and spin cookies and such. Maybe that's why I love going there so much....it makes me feel a little closer to knowing Dad.