Hoy invitamos a H y T para celebrar el cumpleaños de H. Durante muchos años H y E han mantenido la tradición de cenar juntos para celebrar el cumpleaños de cada una. Solían ir a restaurantes pero recientemente han preferido celebrar en casa. Este año E ofreció hacer una paella y H aceptó. Okay. Es verdad que aquí en Corvallis no es fácil conseguir el arroz correcto para paella, pero habíamos pedido varios elementos de una tienda online. La tienda, que se llama “La Tienda¨ esta ubicada en Carolina del Sur y los dueños son Americanos, no Españoles. Pero sí tienen un surtido interesante de comidas y utensilios de cocina procedente de España, incluyendo jamones Ibéricos que cuestan entre 100 y 200 dólares cada kilo. Afortunadamente, nuestra cocina is mas vegetariana que carnívora. Whew. Teníamos mas interés en arroz para paella, aceitunas rellenas de anchoas, y un tipo de bombones de higo que se llaman Rabitos Royale.
En nuestro cena de celebración empezamos con lomo y manchego (que sí son fáciles de comprar aquí) y continuó con paella y ensalada. Después había un poco de helado y al final los Rabitos. ¿A todos nos gustaron los Rabitos? Oh yeah.
Sidra espumosa para la homenajeada y vino para los demás.
H entre paella y bonbon
Martes, 16 de mayo
Estuvimos muy ocupados con varios recados y citas, pero también paramos unos momentos para disfrutar del muy buen tiempo. “Spring has sprung,” como se decía en tiempos antiguos. En esta época, nuestro jardín está lleno de iris y peonias.
¿Mencionamos citas? Citas dentales, por ejemplo? En una oficina dental que solía ofrecer cupcakes gratuitos a los pacientes, un costumbre que terminó cuando empezó la pandemia? Pues, hoy en la misma oficina E estaba encantada de encontrar una clara señal que la pandémia había terminado.
Miércoles, 17 de mayo
Por la mañana estuvimos ocupados preparando para ir de camping en las montañas Cascadas. Ibamos a pasar solo dos noches y debía ser fácil de preparar, pero resultó difícil. Siempre hay tantas cosas y decisiones. Salimos de Corvallis a la una and llegamos al Camping Trout Creek un poco después de las dos. Este camping–cuyo nombre significa ‘arroyo de trucha’–es un lugar que hemos pasado docenas de veces por la carretera sin pensar en pararnos. Parecia demasiado cerca de Corvallis con un clima no muy diferente. Pero en esta temporada nos pareció que podría ser un destino interesante para pasar un par de noches. Más arriba en las montañas haría frío con mucha nieve.
Acampamos al lado del Río Santiam del Sur en el sitio 13. Elegimos el numero 13–a pesar del riesgo de mala suerte–porque tenia su propia playa rocosa y una pequeña cascada estacional al otro lado de rio. Como es normal en esta temporada el río corría alto y rápido. También era ruidoso. E dice que hubiéramos dormido mejor con tapones para los oídos.
Jueves, 18 de mayo
Hoy nuestro proyecto fue una visita a los Lagos Gordon. Estos dos lagos pequeños se encuentran en un sitio bellísimo más arriba en el lado sur del cañon. Un lago está a 150 metros del otro y también está a quince metros más arriba. Hay un hermoso riachuelo que desciende del superior al inferior. Los lagos no están muy lejos de nuestro campamento,–no más de quince kilómetros en linea recta. Pero también están a 650 metros más arriba. Otra cosa es que había mucha nieve este año y no sabemos la condición del camino, que es nada mas que un camino forestal. Con todo eso, sabíamos que el proyecto no estaba asegurado de tener éxito. Sin embargo, con temperaturas en los 80’s (F) y mucho sol, fue fácil imaginar que fuera possible. Subimos a la camioneta y conducimos por la carretera hasta que encontramos Forest Road 2044. Allí giramos a la derecha y nos dirigimos hacia arriba.
El siguiente problema fue localizar el camino particular para Lagos Gordon. Después de seis kilómetros en Road 2044, lo encontramos y giramos otra vez a la derecha. Yes! Al mismo tiempo, también hemos notado algo más–pequeñas islas de nieve al lado del camino estrecho. Hmm. Pero estábamos viajando directamente en dirección de los lagos. ¡Adelante!
Pero no por mucho tiempo. Las pequeñas islas se hicieron cada vez más grandes.
Dejamos la camioneta y empezamos a andar
Estábamos pensando que los lagos podrían no estar demasiado lejos, pero lo estaban.
Después de caminar dos kilómetros por el camino cubierto de nieve, decidimos que seria más prudente dar la vuelta.
E odia no llegar a un destino. En este caso echa la culpa a la nieve. Primero la pisotea…
…y luego la patea. Nuestros estimados lectores comprenderán que M tiene cuidado de no interponerse entre E y sus objetivos.
Incluso sin ser pateada, la nieve en el camino está en peligro mortal. Se está derritiendo rápido. De regreso a la camioneta pasamos por este tramo, al que llamamos Calle de los Cuatro Ríos.
A media tarde estábamos de regreso en el campamento. Aquí E encuentra una manera de relajarse junta al río.
Viernes, 19 de mayo
Esta mañana nos despertó a las cinco y media un ruidoso arrendajo de Stellar justo afuera de la ventana de nuestra tienda. Los Stellars son pájaros vulgares pero bastante guapos.
(This photo courtesy of the internet. Our jay moved too fast for our photographer)
¿El pájaro nos inspiró a salir de nuestros cálidos sacos y comenzar un día nuevo a las cinco y media de la madrugada? No. Por fin nos levantamos a las siete y media, y a las nueve y media nos dirigimos a casa.
Sabado, 20 de mayo
No sabemos cómo sucedió, pero hoy nos encontramos comprando aún más plantas para la jardín. Ahora tenemos más trabajo para plantarlos. ¿No tenemos suficiente trabajo? Locura.
En cuanto a los espárragos, esto is lo que tenemos después de dos años y medio…
Domingo, 21 de mayo
El viernes pasado nuestra amiga J tuvo una cirugía de reemplazo de hombro. Está recuperando en casa. Tiene cuidadores que vienen en turnos para ayudarla durante los primeros días. A E le tocó un turno hoy y mañana le tocará otro. Afortunadamente J se está recuperando bien.
M plantó cuatro patatas y dos pimientos dulces. Estos y los espárragos son los únicos cultivos alimentarios que tendremos este año. Admiramos a los jardineros que producen alimentos saludables once meses al año, pero sabemos que no pertenecemos a ese grupo.
We had H and T over for dinner today to help celebrate H’s birthday. About a week ago E had offered to either take H out to a restaurant of her choice or to make a paella. Paella was chosen, so E has been preparing to produce one along with a few accompaniments. But to promise someone paella, you really should have paella rice, which is not easy to find in Corvallis. It’s easier to go on-line. Fortunately we had recently put in an order to La Tienda, a place in Williamsburg, South Carolina that specializes in imported Spanish food and cooking utensils. Being half vegetarian, we passed on their Ibérico style hams, of which they have a good selection and for which they charge between 50 and 100 dollars per pound. Instead, we got rice, anchovy stuffed olives, and a much too small box of eight Rabitos Royale. These last are bonbons made with figs and dark chocolate.
We started off with some locally procured lomo and manchego, continued on into the paella and salad, and then had a little ice cream before finishing with four of the bonbons, which turned out to be awfully good. Shoulda ordered more of those things.
There was sparkling cider for the honoree and wine for the other guests.
Here is H smiling, even before she had her bonbon.
Tuesday, May 16
We were busy with chores and appointments, but also managed to notice that the weather is warm and spring has sprung. The back yard is bursting with iris and peonies.
Did we mention appointments? As, for example, a dental appointment? At a dentist’s office the used to offer free cupcakes but stopped doing so when the pandemic started? Well, E was overjoyed to find this definitive marker that the pandemic is over!
Wednesday, May 17
We spent the morning packing up for a little camping trip into the Cascades. We left at about 1:00 and got up to Trout Creek campground just after 2:00. It’s a place we’ve passed by dozens of times without ever thinking to camp there. Too close to the Valley, with an altitude just 1,000 feet higher than our house in town. At this time of year we thought it should be good because spring would be well along there, unlike the higher places where the snow lingers into June.
We camped next to the South Santiam at campground site # 13, which–on the plus side–has its own rocky beach and a little seasonal waterfall just across the river. These days the river is running high and fast.
The minus side of site #13 was that the river was noisy; E wished she had brought earplugs for the nighttime.
Thursday, May 18
Our main project for the day was to see if we could get to Gordon Lakes, a charming spot up high on the south slope of the canyon. The two lakes are about 200 yards apart and the northernmost lake is maybe 50 feet higher than the southern one, which makes for a lovely tumbling stream that links the two, the outlet of one and the inlet of the other. The lakes weren’t far away from our campground, probably less that ten miles away as the crow flies. They were also 2,000 feet higher than our camp and we’d had a fairly heavy snow year. So yes, getting there was going to be an iffy proposition. But with the temperatures in the 80’s and lots of sunshine, it was easy to imagine we might make it. We drove up the highway to House Rock, turned off on Forest Road 2044, and headed steeply upward. We found the unsigned turn on the nameless road that leads to Gordon Lakes. But already we were seeing bits of snow in the shady spots–first little bits and then not so little bits.
Just because you can imagine a clear road to your destination doesn’t mean you’ll find it. We parked the truck here and decided to see if we could walk the rest of the way.
We were thinking that it might not be too far, but it was.
After walking about a mile and a half up the mostly snow covered road, we decided we had had enough. A disappointing result but not a disaster. It was nice up there and we managed to find a dry spot to sit down to lunch.
E hates not getting all the way to a destination. She seems to have found a couple of ways of expressing her feelings about the presence of so much snow. First she stomped it…
…and then she kicked it.
Even without being kicked, this snow is in trouble; it’s melting fast. At one point, about a mile from the truck, we found an almost clear area of road. We named it Four Rivers.
By mid-afternoon we were back in the campground. Here E finds a way to unwind by the river.
Friday, May 19
We were awakened at 5:30(!) by a noisy Stellar’s jay, who seemed to be just outside the window of our old “Hobbitat” model REI tent. The Stellars are considerably handsomer than the Western scrub-jays that we see in our yard, but their vulgar behavior seems similar. Despite the bird’s best efforts, we did not get up at that time. It was around 7:30 when we made a multifaceted breakfast of cafe mocha, instant oatmeal, yogurt, trail mix, orange juice, fruit and a Clif bar. After that, we started packing up.
Once packed, we started up the truck and headed back out to the highway. Before turning west toward home, we made a brief stop just across the road at the start of the Walton Ranch Interpretive Trail. That turned out to be an easy quarter mile zigzag up the north slope of the canyon. At the end of the trail there is a viewing platform from which you can get a look at the site of an old ranch on the south side of the river. The information at the viewing platform says that the ranch house was a popular stop in the 1890’s when the Santiam Wagon Road crossed through the area. The sign also says that “European-Americans first settled the area in the 1980’s.” We’re pretty sure one of those dates is wrong. The ranch house and barn are mostly gone and the area is now managed as elk habitat.
On our way back home, we had to pass through the town of Lebanon, Oregon, which is home to Hazella, a Scandinavian bakery that we had never visited before. We picked up a few treats for the weekend.
Saturday, May 20
We don’t know what possessed us, but somehow we found ourselves at Shonnard’s, buying more plants. Now we’ll have to find time to get them into the ground. As if we didn’t have enough to do harvesting our suddenly productive asparagus patch. When did M plant asparagus? It was so long ago we don’t remember. Probably about two years ago. And now suddenly here they are, We don’t have too many spears, but enough for us to notice that when they decide to pop up, it doesn’t take them long. We’d swear they grow several inches an hour. Keeps you on your toes.
Sunday, May 21
Our friend J had shoulder replacement surgery on Friday and is recovering at home. She has caregivers coming in shifts to watch over her for the first few days. E had a shift today and another tomorrow. So far J is doing well. M worked in the yard and planted four Yukon Red seed potatoes and two sweet peppers. As far food crops go, that will be it for this year. We admire gardeners who are able to produce great quantities of wholesome veggies ten months of the year, but we know that we are not they.
When we hike, we always like to have a small piece of chocolate and a little nip of something to finish off our lunch. You can imagine how stressed we were to discover that one of our two drink cups was badly cracked. We couldn’t just replace it from where we got it (Taco Time) because that source has switched to environmentally sound paper cups. Much as we applaud that change, it left us high and dry when it came to wee dram sized cups. What were we to do? We checked online and found that we could get either 125 cups for $2.55 (just over two cents per cup) or 2,500 cups for 27.99 (just over one cent per cup). Clearly, the large order would be a better deal. But what would we do with the 2,499 extra cups? How often do we go hiking with that many friends? Hmm. Fortunately, one of our local supermarkets has saved the day. E noticed that the store was giving away tiny samples of super expensive cheese and that each sample came in its own 1-oz. translucent plastic Solo cup! Whoopee. Now we have three good cups, the oldest one being slightly yellowed but still in good working order.
Old set on the left; new on the right.
Saturday, May 6
Lots of yard work today. E replanted a succulent that hadn’t been doing well and also worked to keep her Russian sage from being smothered by the weird, super prolific blue flowered plants, the ones that go crazy this time of year. Here are some of them trying–hopefully in vain–to strangle our red rhododendron.
Sunday, May 7
M went out and tried again to drive between Harlan, just south of Highway 20, and the Falls Creek fish hatchery, just north of Highway 34. He had tried it from north to south last time but came out in the wrong place. This time he tried going from south to north, but didn’t get anywhere at all because Falls Creek Road was closed just three and a half miles in. He found some consolation by driving up into the Alsea Falls area and discovering a new way to get from there to Dawson.
Dawson, by the way, is home to the old Hull-Oakes lumber mill. For a long time, Hull-Oakes was the last steam powered sawmill in the country. It’s not primarily steam powered anymore, but the mill continues in operation and has an old-timey feeling. The steam power system is still in place ready to start up again at a moment’s notice. (Or maybe a day or two’s notice, but you get the idea.) There’s a nice video about Hull-Oakes here. You can follow the process from log truck to log pond, to cutting bed, to lumber yard. Incoming logs are hand measured and nothing is computerized.
E took a long walk in our little forest close to home and later worked on re-reading The Lincoln Highway, which is up for discussion in her book club this month.
Monday, May 8
We went on a tour of an area managed by Greenbelt Land Trust, our local land protection organization. The tour took place on a protected area of four hundred and four acres along the Willamette River about twenty miles south of Corvallis. It’s called Harkens Lake and is the result of conservation easements purchased by GLT from the owners, one portion in 2011 and another, smaller one in 2017. Both sections are former agricultural land that is being restored with the aim of re-creating a natural riverside forest that includes backwaters and seasonal wetlands. GLT estimates that this will not be fully achieved for another 150 to 200 years, but they’ve got a start.
In this satellite photo the conservation area shows up as a large, roughly triangular shape in the middle of the picture. Near the bottom of the photo, where two rows of trees come together to make one point of the triangle, there is a gate that now blocks the road. There were about two dozen of us on the tour and we all parked our vehicles in a wide space just in front of that gate. We had a brief introduction to the project from our GLT tour host, who then introduced Jim Cassidy, an OSU instructor, farm manager and soil scientist, who had agreed to come along and give us some information about soil: soil in general, local soils in particular, and the changes in soil that result from transitioning agricultural land back to natural forest.
Then we started off, walking around the gate and heading northeast paralleling the river. The small light colored area on our left was the most recently acquired easement area and had been replanted with native species just three or four years ago. Our road veered left, away from the river. Soon we came to a restored area from the oldest easement area. The horizontal line in the center of the photo marks the border between the old and new sections. The plants and trees in the older part are darker green in the photo.
At several points on the walk, we stopped to get mini lectures on various soil related topics. The basic nature of Willamette Valley soils is that they were deposited in the valley by gigantic floods that occurred at the end of the last ice age, from 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. These floods were caused by the collapse of ice dams that were up to two miles high. When one of these collapsed due to warming temperatures, a lake the size of Lake Superior would suddenly be released and go rushing westward toward the Pacific Ocean, carving out some incredible geologic features along the way. The floods eventually came down the Columbia Gorge–creating the Gorge as they did so–and most of the water and debris went west out to sea. The floods were strong enough to carry massive boulders along with them and it is now possible to find large pieces of stone from Montana and British Columbia on the ocean floor fifty miles west of the current mouth of the Columbia River.
On their way to the Pacific Ocean, the floods passed the mouth of the Willamette at what is now the city of Portland. At this point a small portion of the flood waters spread south down into the Willamette valley. This small portion was enough to carry so much silt and gravel that when the last flood receded, the original landscape was covered with a hundred or more feet of new soil and the formerly rugged terrain was dead flat. So the first thing to know about Willamette Valley soil is that it all comes from somewhere else. “See this?” asks Jim, holding up a rock he just picked up from a ditch bank. “This is metamorphic rock and the nearest natural metamorphic formations are in British Columbia.”
The small red pin in the photo marks the spot where we stopped and watched as Jim dug down about ten inches into the soil and brought up a shovelful for us to examine. To examine it properly requires running it through your hands to feel the size of the granules and get a sense of the relative proportions of the basic soil components of sand, silt and clay. To get a really good idea, you need to put some in your mouth and feel it with your lips and tongue, as he demonstrated.
Jim is a wonderful scientist and teacher, but he also has another gig. Before he went to college, he was a bass player and founding member of the band Information Society, which had a string of hits in the nineties and which has continued–in various incarnations, all including Jim–to make music unto the present day. That’s Jim in the middle of the photo below.
Tuesday, May 9
Partly cloudy today with highs in the 60’s–very different from yesterday’s cold and damp.
Wednesday, May 10
Lots of garden chores these days, much of it involving unwanted grass or removing unwanted length of grass.
Thursday, May 11
Tertulia, exercise class, gardening, all that stuff. But also, we took E’s wedding ring to the jeweler’s to have it rebuilt: new half shank, restored mill points, and restored flower design to the extent possible. It may not be done in time for our anniversary, but that’s okay. This has needed doing for a long time. The ring belonged to M’s grandmother, Hazel, so it has sentimental value in addition to its good looks.
We got a take-out dinner from Kahlo Naser, the new Syrian restaurant. The food was delicious, plus we didn’t have to worry about their disorganized service and we could comfortably have a beer with dinner. Nice.
Friday, May 12
Ack, more gardening. The weather is getting much warmer. We work only in the mornings. It’s too hot in the afternoon. And the forecast for Sunday is 90. Yikes. Fortunately, we’re planning to be at the coast on Sunday; and the forecast there is for just the high seventies.
Saturday, May 13
With the continuing warm weather, we have to transition to summer mode. Part of that is getting the patio into shape. We took the cover off our big umbrella and raised it up to where it needs to be. The mechanism is stiff from injuries stemming from a fall last year, so it wasn’t all that easy, but we persevered, in spite of our resident hornet who makes her nest in the top of the umbrella post. E also uncovered and cleaned the patio table and chairs.
For lunch we went to visit our friend J, who recently suffered a broken shoulder from a fall of her own, which happened while she was dog walking. She’s having shoulder replacement surgery next Friday and is going to be one-armed for quite a while. We took her a deli lunch and sat with her in her back yard in the shade. She has two big old black locust trees that are just now leafing out. Beautiful to look up through. If we had some actual trees in our yard, we wouldn’t have to mess with our cranky umbrella.
Sunday, May 14, Mothers Day
In the morning we went off to meet A for a Mother’s Day brunch at Local Ocean over in Newport. As we neared the coast we realized that the weather was not getting any cooler. Au contraire, at 11:45 in the morning, it was 92! So much for forecasts. This is close to the all-time record high for Newport. It’s definitely warmer than either of us has ever experienced there.
But Local Ocean was comfortably cool. And the food was awesome as usual. E and A shared a big bowl of LO’s famous Brazilian seafood stew with the coconut milk base. M had ling cod fettuccine with andouille sausage slices and melted manchego. Ooof. We had fun talking about Ze Frank and his True Facts videos, which we had all just discovered. The videos are very funny and very informative, occasionally too informative, showing you more than you might want to know. If you are not familiar with Ze Frank’s work, you should become so immediately. But do NOT begin with his video about hippopotami. Try owls instead.
After lunch we went to Ona Beach and put our feet in the river to cool off a bit. Later in the day we met again for dinner at a brewpub in the town of Depot Bay. The bay itself covers only 6 acres and is said to be the smallest navigable bay in the world.
The boat docking scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed in Depot Bay.
After dinner, we took a walk to watch the sunset.
By the time we got back to Newport, it was dark and we had some trouble finding our hotel. Was that because we are old and easily confused? Well…yeah. But you know…at a certain point we realized that it wasn’t just dark, it was really quite dark. Was that because we had somehow been blindfolded by evil spirit pranksters? Well…no, it wasn’t that dark. But there was a problem: the power was out all along the seaside part of the city. So, once back in our room, we had the annoyance of no air conditioning for a couple of hours…
Monday, May 15
When we woke this morning and looked out our window, we found a different world: fog over the sea and no sun anywhere. The local temperature was fifty-five degrees. Now that’s exactly what we would have expected in Newport at this time of year. It made the previous day seem unreal, as if it had been a dream. Or maybe just a brief vision of the future.
In the morning M loaded his expedition gear into the truck. At 10:30 he departed on another trip to the wilds of northern Nevada. Three hundred miles later, he still hadn’t gotten out of Oregon. But that was all part of the plan. He spent the night in Lakeview, Oregon, where he had had the foresight to reserve a room.
E, meanwhile, had more important issues to attend to. She was having her annual birthday dinner with D, a friend and former colleague. She met D at their usual place, Dulce de Alma, where they could both order small portions of delicious things. But what to wear? The weather had turned quite warm, so E treated herself to a new spring blouse.
What do we think? Is it springy enough?
Wednesday, April 26
M left Lakeview at 8:30 or so, with the remains of the previous night’s Mexican take-out tucked into his backseat fridge. Unlike the Dulce de Alma in Corvallis, El Aguila Real in Lakeview specializes in huge portions of more or less edible things, so there was plenty left over. After an hour or two of driving, he was still in Oregon, but he had gotten as far as the Doherty Slide, one of his favorite places in these parts.
Oregon 140 is almost dead straight for many miles, but then comes to a one thousand foot high barrier. The road turns right and traverses up the face.
After another hour and a half on the road M was well into Nevada and ready to get off the pavement and find a place where he could stop and eat his lunch. On the map, there was a gravel route called Knotts Creek Road. It looked promising, although just what it promised was not clear. But down the road he went. Five or ten miles in he passed a very active cattle operation.
After that, the landscape got emptier. Eventually, he came to another ranch, this one not so active.
Windmill out of order.
Kitchen not up to modern standards. And anyway…
…the house is too small for the modern consumer lifestyle. But on the plus side: no noisy neighbors, zero maintenance yard, plenty of wire, and very small chance of having a tree fall on you.
Just a mile or two past the abandoned ranch, the road enters an area called Pearl Canyon. There M found a place to stop and heat up his chile verde.
There was a rushing stream down in that low spot.
Rushing this day…probably not so rushing a few weeks from now.
After lunch, instead of going back up Knotts Creek Road to the highway, he went farther into the boonies, turning first east and then north on Leonard Creek Road. This got him back to the highway, but at a point some 40 miles beyond where he’d left it.
Buoyed by this nifty maneuver, he decided to try a similar strategy to find a place to camp for the night. He drove a little farther east and decided to head down another gravel road, this one called Sod House Road. On the map, he could see that it connected to Sand Pass Road, which would take him into some likely camping areas.
As it happened, this was not a good idea. After driving for about an hour on a not very good road, M found that his Nevada atlas and his Nevada reality failed to sync up. Sod House Road did not connect to Sand Pass Road or to anything else. All he could do was to drive back the way he had come and start all over again, with not many hours of daylight left.
M ended up stopping for the night on a hillside, overlooking a very dry looking valley.
The sunset went on forever. The night was cold.
And what was E doing on this nice April Wednesday? She was off taking pictures of flowers, picking rhubarb from our garden, and making a pie!
Last week the fawn lilies were barely starting to unfold. Now here they are in full bloom.
E also found that there were still trillium flowers around, both newish–the white ones–and oldish–the pink ones. E wonders why people can’t turn pink and pretty when they get old.
We’re pretty sure that she intended to share both the photos and the pie with M…probably.
Thursday, April 27
E started the day at tertulia with J and R, after which she attended the Zoom BBB (Better Bones & Balance) class. In the afternoon she did Laughter Yoga, and for dinner went with H and T out to Gathering Together Farm. E and T had oven baked fish with broccoli rabe and garlic herb mashed potatoes, while H had fresh pasta. Was it good? It’s always good at GTF.
M started the day by cooking bacon and eggs on his hillside and listening to a couple of meadowlarks. Then it was time to go into town to get some gas and start the homeward leg of the journey. The plan was to explore the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge with an eye toward spending the night somewhere therein. If that didn’t work out, he could always just go on back to Lakeview. What he discovered was that the reserve wasn’t exactly prepared for visitors. All the little roads to all the interesting places had suffered washouts over the winter and it was going to take time to repair them. There was no announcement about this and no one around to ask, so M had to find it out for himself by driving around and discovering the washouts one by one. That in itself was entertaining up to a point, but got old. Finally, though, he found his way to an actual place. It was called Gooch Spring.
Here’s a place where water seeps out of a hillside at Gooch Spring.
At some point someone figured out a way to get some of the seep to flow into a pipe and drip into a tank farther down the slope. By now the metal tank has taken on the colors of its surroundings.
M briefly considered camping at Gooch Spring, but there wasn’t much to look at once you’d finished with sagebrush and, at an altitude of 6,090 feet, it was likely to get pretty chilly overnight. M decided to head back.
The drive to the west provided another encounter with the Doherty Slide, this time going down the traverse instead of up. There are several YouTube videos of vehicles traversing the Slide. Here’s a link to one. The word “slide” in the name does not refer to cars or animals sliding over the edge and falling down into the valley. Instead, it probably refers to the large amount of eroded material found along the base of the ridge.
Friday, April 28
M returned home with a truck covered with dust both inside and out. Cleaning took hours, and even then the interior did not pass inspection. M got a piece of rhubarb pie anyway.
Saturday, April 29
It’s been warm for several days now–shorts weather–and flowers are blooming all over town.
Monday, May 1
Oops, it’s cold again. Time to put those shorts aside.
Tuesday, May 2
In the morning we went for a walk at the Finley Wildlife Refuge south of town. The pond on the Woodpecker Loop was as full as we’ve ever seen it. We noticed that the season has reached an important milestone: the poison oak is back! And boy is it healthy looking. One small consolation is that just when the poison oak leaves pop out, the wild irises come into bloom. They both seem to like the same conditions and are often seen close one another, though not usually this close…
Back at our house, a flicker has been coming around lately. He makes a racket by tapping on our metal chimney cover. Here he is at the feeder.
Wednesday, May 3
Lots of work in the garden today. E needed to repot her rosemary, which has been the centerpiece in her flower bed out by the front sidewalk. Last week she got a big new pot for it and today we made the change. Wasn’t easy.
In the afternoon we went for guided walk through a neighborhood that contains some of the city’s older homes. Most of houses featured on the tour were built in the period from 1890 to 1910. The oldest house, however, was the Biddle-Porter house, which was built circa 1856, making it one of earliest Corvallis homes still standing. Benjamin and Maria Biddle came to Corvallis around 1852 and had previously lived in Springfield, Illinois, where Biddle had been friends with Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer who also lived there. Apparently the friendship continued, as shown by the existence of letter from Lincoln to Biddle written in 1860 during Lincoln’s first presidential campaign.
The Biddles resided in the house until 1877. The house was then occupied by three different OSU professors before being sold to Jack Porter in 1925. It stayed in the Porter family until 2010. It is currently being restored by its preservationist owner.
Thursday, May 4
Tertulia today with J and R. Like us, they’ve been out looking at wild flowers. R has seen fairy slipper orchids (Calypso bulbosa) blooming at the Lewisburg saddle. After tertulia M worked on his drip irrigation network and pulled weeds. E did a one-hour exercise class, planted some candytuft in her old rosemary pot and then went off to the nail salon–all this well before lunch.
