My Birthday Week

 My birthday is on Halloween. That was a big deal when I was a kid. Not anymore. We don't live where trick or treaters visit. And our kids and grandkids live in different states. So Halloween is what we make it. But for the last two years, our oldest grandson (Kevin and Jessica's son) has driven down from Washington and cooked us a full Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings... on a weekend before or after my birthday (he's employed full-time during the week. Last year he was still in college on my birthday). Ian is an excellent cook. He learned from his mom. His partner, Kellin, does meal prep and is learning to cook like Ian. So we celebrate when Ian and Kellin arrive, loaded with fixings for food, plus gifts, beautifully wrapped, from parents Kevin and Jessica; and delicious desserts from Jessica. 

Although I am notorious for taking photos of everything and everyone, I apparently took only one while the kids were here... just Ian by the stump with a scat on top that I set a trail camera near to try to find who had left the scat. There are two stumps high above Agency Creek, where we sit and look at the creek... or that's the idea whenever the weather cooperates. Here's Ian with a stump... and just a sliver of his partner Kellin behind... 

 

And here's the stump with scat...

Later, I retrieved the trail camera card and saw the scat deliverer... an opossum. Opossums, I read, love to deposit their sign on stumps to claim their territory. The camera was upside down when I retrieved it... apparently the opossum rearranged the furniture.

 

Here is the photo upside down with the opossum right side up:

 

The kids left on Sunday so Johnny and I had my birthday, Halloween Thursday, to do something "fun". Since it was my birthday, I got to choose. I chose driving up Agency Creek to look for Dippers. I love Dippers. 

We didn't find any Dippers, but we did find lovely fall colors and rushing water.

 We came home and heated up some of the turkey and dressing Johnny had frozen from Ian's weekend feast, opened more cranberry sauce, and enjoyed my second birthday dinner... with more desserts from Jessica... on my birthday. Then we watched the Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night. Our California family called that evening and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was a good day.

But for some reason, I grew sad the next day that no one on facebook had wished me a happy birthday, as people always do when facebook tells them it's someone's bday. Son Kevin poked around on my page and discovered that I had, years ago, set my birth date to private. So he changed it for me and suddenly I had dozens of Happy Birthday messages. (Have I mentioned before that technology is not my strong point?)

So, now... I have embarked on my 79th year around the sun, well-feted and well fed. Happy Halloween birthday, indeed!

 

 

A DAY OFF THE FARM

 We did chores very early on Thursday, October 17, so we could get up to Hood River to visit old friends we had not seen in ages. And to get home again the same day to milk goats and feed horse and dog and chickens and cats. Our friends, the Greenwoods, have a daughter who lives not far from us and volunteered to do evening chores if we were delayed. Their daughter, Autumn, feels like part of our family as she spent much time here as a youngster when her parents went hunting or just because we had a farm that she loved to come to. I have since learned that young Autumn (named Kerry by her parents but she chose Autumn later on) jumped out of the second story hay loft with our young sons. I'm sure there are many things those kids did that I would be glad not to know about. As would Kerry/Autumn's parents.

Fortunately, everyone survived. However, in my memory Autumn's younger brother, Tim, was not sent off to the Fink Family Farm as often as his big sister had been, so perhaps parents Ron and Lorna decided that the farm was not such an idyllic place for small children after all. Autumn recently told me that Tim remembers doing science experiments with our sons, Kevin and Steve, and launching mice over the barn. I guess I have shut those memories out. Autumn/Kerry insists that both she and Tim (2 years younger) spent many summers on our farm. I am old and my memory is lousy so I'm sure she must be right. But in my defense: Kerry is quite the extrovert so it's hard to notice anyone else when she is around.

 Autumn still loves the farm life and has her own farm now with goats and dogs and various other critters. Luckily, she married a guy who seems to enjoy that life, too.

We had not been to Ron and Lorna's home since Autumn/Kerry was married, however many years ago that was. Ron had been a forester, like Johnny, and attended the Univ. of Illinois School of Forestry with Johnny. That's where I met them both, at the Univ. of Illinois,... in the early 1960s. As I said, we are OLD friends. Ron met and married Lorna in Oregon, when he was a Park Ranger in the Columbia Gorge. Our families had many adventures together over the years. But we all have grown older and averse to traffic so we only see them when they come down to visit daughter Kerry/Autumn. ...Until this past Thursday...

Ron grows prize winning Dahlia's. Lorna sews beautiful quilts, cans, dries or freeze-dries everything, and goes kayaking regularly. She was always the youngest of the four of us and years have only intensified that difference. I can only remember having that much ambition and energy.

Luckily for Ron and Lorna, their son Tim lives on their property and helps with upkeep and is now the primary gardener. I did not think to get my camera out of the car until we were ready to leave. So no photos of the beautiful trees Ron has planted over the years or Tim's garden or much of anything else. I grabbed my camera before we left for home and took a few photos...

One of Ron's dahlias

A basket of dahlias a neighbor friend picked while we were there. She was taking them to a local flower show, where Ron's dahlias have won many ribbons over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

The five of us... (their Dahlia picking friend took this for us)...

From the left: Johnny, Ron, Lorna, me, Tim

 

 Ron and Lorna's dog, trying to get to the rabbit hiding under the deck...

 Tim's dog... both dogs were friendly and well-mannered...

 

 

 One of their escaped rabbits, tasting a Dahlia...

 Lorna fed us a delicious lunch and sent us home with freeze-dried goodies. She makes lots of zucchini crackers! 

Traffic in the Portland area is always awful, I gather, and it was this day. But we took time to stop for supper in Lafayette before driving home toward the sunset. 

 

 We only milked and fed an hour or so later than usual. The animals were none the worse for the wait (although they might disagree).

     And we will always have good memories (and a few photos) of a rare day away from the farm, visiting old friends.

Agency Creek in October

After my usual morning brush cutting for the goats, I walked (and rode my EZ Go) to Agency Creek, searching for the juvenile Dipper I saw yesterday. Here is yesterday's photo:

 

I had not realized that juvenile Dippers, after leaving home, have white in their wings for a short time. In all my years of monitoring Dipper nests on Agency Creek, I had never seen this plumage before. That's what I get for not monitoring after the young ones are no longer being fed by parents and have to go face life on their own. There must be a short period for this juvenile plumage before they molt into their adult outfit.

Although I found no Dipper of any plumage today, I did find lovely fall colors on our portion of the very shallow, thanks to our extended dry weather, Agency Creek.

 We have never had Dippers nest on our portion of Agency Creek. But I always hope...

What we do have is a Rattlesnake Orchid, or Plantain, which appeared out of nowhere last year in our Qi Gong grove next to Agency Creek. This year the little snakeskin-leafed plant appears to have a very little one coming up next to it. Maybe the original will bloom for us next year! There's always something to look forward to along Agency Creek.

 

Farm Projects

Between PGE crews clearing dead trees from near their power line and our efforts to cut brush back from our driveway, the goats are getting plenty of browse delivered to their field. And Johnny is putting up lots of firewood for winter heat... presuming we are ever allowed to burn wood again. Oregon is burning up too many live trees currently. We have lucked out so far in western Oregon but we keep working on the brush to make it easier to contain any fires that might start. The weather is still dry.

One tree that PGE cut was huge, although young. They left us big hunks of the trunk that looked to us like perfect seats for enjoying the view of the creek that runs through our property. So today Johnny loaded them into the bucket of his tractor and drove them down to the creekside area where I often sit and watch birds... and fast flowing water (at least it's fast flowing in the winter) ... and deer... and whatever else wanders by. 

Naturally, I took photos of the operation. Here are two of the prospective seats...

Lightning struck this tree when it was young, as Johnny explained after seeing the scar that ran from near the center (youth) of the tree to the outside

The view from the new "seat"

 

Johnny pretending he has binoculars

 

The view from the second seat

Johnny modeling the second seat. We will have to put something over the sap-oozing lightning wound

 Then Johnny went off to do his thing and I went off to do mine... which was cutting blackberry vines and tansy that had escaped me earlier in the year from the flower meadow. I was so sure I had dug and pulled all the tansy but, alas, I was wrong. Whether the Himalaya blackberry vines had already sprung up from where I had cut them off early in the summer or if I missed this patch, I cut a big EZ Go load for the goats. The tansy is bagged for the fire pile whenever it is safe... and legal... to burn it.

Most of the flowers in the flower meadow are done blooming and have seeded out. But happily, the Hall's Asters are in bloom now. What they lack in height, they make up for in numbers.

Also blooming are blue Douglas Asters. They can be seen on my Wildflowers blog under "The Flower Meadow".
 

Maybe next year I'll remember to take photos throughout the summer as the various flowers bloom. Or maybe I'll just sit by the stream and enjoy our new log seating.

The day after the new log seats were in place, I checked back and found that someone else had discovered our seats and left its mark on them.

It was full of blackberry seeds. I suspect a Gray Fox. We have seen them here and their scats are always full (this time of year) of blackberry seeds. I set up a trail camera to see if the visitor returned, but so far, it has not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odd Birds

 I'll be glad when all these juvenile birds get their adult feathers. Seeing them now when they're no longer in the begging stage with parents around, I am often perplexed by what this strange bird is. The juncos look like song sparrows... white in their tails rarely visible. The towhees are beyond description, every one different, some with gray heads. The juvenile rufous hummingbirds are brilliant green with rufous only on the sides of their chests. I have to look at photos on the web to be sure what I am seeing. I'll attach a collection of downsized photos I took today. Can you identify these birds??

 

 

An Odd Garden Year

 We all have seen photos of beautiful, neat and tidy gardens. Well, my garden is nothing like that. I planted late, some things didn't come up so I replanted. I didn't use strings to make straight rows so they're not straight. And I only hoed between rows once. The weeds are mostly ground cover type so I let them go. My garden is a jungle. 

 

Friend Mary gave me seeds she had saved from a squash she bought at a farmer's market. She said it was the best squash she had ever eaten. Of course, there's no telling if it was carefully kept from other varieties so could have hybridized. Who knows what it will produce. All I know so far is the plants are huge and taking over their side of the garden. There was a path between them and the tomato plants-in-tires. The path has disappeared.

 

But the truly weird plants are the birdhouse gourds. I planted seeds that I dug out of birdhouse gourds I had bought and made into bird houses last year. (The swallows love their houses.) But the seeds did not come up last year. They were biding their time, apparently, and are up in profusion this year. I had never seen birdhouse gourd vines before. They are climbing over our high garden fence between garden and goats. Usually, the goats eat everything that peeks through the garden fence. But they are not touching these vines. I don't know why. A friend said birdhouse gourds smell odd to her so maybe it's the smell.

 Weirdest of all on these weird plants are the flowers. I have never seen squash flowers like these. Or any flowers like these. They very quickly add miniature gourds to the flowers... that very quickly become bigger. I have no idea how big they'll end up.

 

 

The raised beds are a little more under control. But their plants had a late start, too, because of our unseasonably cold (frosts nightly through June) then broiling hot in July weather. Peas finally were able to bloom and fruit in July and are going strong still now -- in August.

Here's hoping we have a long fall so we get some corn (it's just now knee high -- some of it) and pumpkins and cucumbers and beans and ripe tomatoes and all the other vegetables that we are usually overwhelmed with by August.