The Mysterious Light

Over the New Year's weekend, Johnny was up north visiting kids and grandkid while I held down the fort, er farm, here at home. On Friday, after feeding horses and milking and feeding goats, I filled the goat water buckets behind the barn. This is usually Johnny's night time job. It was dark out, of course. It's dark in the morning when I go out to do morning chores and dark at night when I do evening chores. I will be *so* glad when the days are longer.

When I walked over to the faucet to turn off the water, I was startled by a very bright light coming from the direction of the orchard and horse barn, which I had left not half an hour earlier. It was not defuse, like the horse barn lights would have been if I'd left them on. It was a single bright beam of light, pointing right at me. Someone, I felt sure, was in either the orchard or the horse pasture. I stepped toward the barn and the light went off.

Was someone trying to steal one of my horses? Now this seemed a bit ridiculous, since we live way off the road and where were they going to take the horse, past the lit-up goat barn, me and my big white livestock guardian dog? No, probably it was someone spotlighting deer and they'd leave when they knew they'd been discovered. I took my dog and my flashlight and headed out toward the orchard. My big dog stayed glued to my leg. This is the dog, about the size of a small bear, who bravely ran off a deer in the orchard a few weeks ago.... but stayed behind me when a real bear was in the orchard. I decided to go no farther than the pond. Whoever was out there could see me but I couldn't see him. The horses were making no commotion so I decided whoever it was must have left. And if not, what was I going to do if I found him?

I was, um, shall we say, nervous as I walked back to the house. I left the big white dog out on patrol, locked the back door, and then tried to figure out what to do about the front door. It doesn't lock. It's a big sliding glass door into the greenhouse/jungle room. Johnny says we don't need a lock because my plants are so overgrown they would strangle anyone trying to get through there at night. I wasn't about to rely on that. I pushed Johnny's big, heavy, reclining chair against the latch, then added another chair so if a person managed to get the door open anyway, they'd make a terrific racket pushing chairs aside to get in. (I considered spreading jello on the floor, like Bill Cosby said he did as a child to trip up monsters when his parents left him alone, but decided against it.)

My bedroom door locks, so I locked it after moving into the bedroom anything I might want to take with me if I needed to leap out a window during the night. I slept in long johns. The motion sensor light in the back yard came on once before I was in bed and I dashed to the kitchen to look out the window: it was McCoy, the big white dog, walking by. Every little sound woke me up that night. The dogs never barked or I probably would have crawled under the bed.

The next day, New Year's Eve day, was a busy one for someone with so little sleep: a trip to town for an eye appointment, then a visit with friend and author Bonnie Morse. I bought her latest book, Bedlam's Child, but knew I should not start it until Johnny's return. Bonnie writes very well but her books are suspenseful. They're also impossible to put down once you pick them up and this would not be a good time to be reading a scary book all night.

As I sat at the computer before heading to the barn on that last evening of 2011, I looked out the window and saw that the loft light was on in the goat barn. I might have forgotten to turn it off the night before. But wouldn't I have noticed it that morning? Was someone lurking in the loft? If so, why did they leave the light on? And how did they get past McCoy, the big white dog who *is* brave around his goat family?

With my flashlight in hand, I braved the dark night and headed for the barns. No one was hiding out in either the horse barn loft or the goat barn loft. I finished chores except for watering the goats. I could not help but glance toward the orchard while standing at the faucet as I had done the previous night. The bright light was there again! I walked toward the barn and it went out, just like the night before. Hmm. I walked back to the faucet, looked toward the orchard, and the light reappeared.

Slowly, it dawned on me that the light might be a reflection from somewhere. I turned off the back barn light and walked again to the place where I had seen the mysterious light. It was gone. I turned the switch back on and checked. The light had reappeared. With the back light off again, I shone my flashlight toward where the mysterious light had been to see what a barn light could possibly have been reflected on. And there it was: the new goat barn under construction has a window from its milk room to the barn area. The back light of the old barn was being reflected in that window... and scaring the bejeesus out of me. I had not noticed it before because 1) Johnny does night watering usually and 2) the new goat barn window is, well, new. Here it is during daylight.













And here is the light bulb that caused the illusion. It looks pretty innocuous when it's off.

I felt a little silly. And very relieved. I slept much better that night... until the midnight revels began. I sat bolt upright as gun shots exploded around my house. Then remembered it was New Year's Eve, and that's how some of my neighbors celebrate it. I went back to sleep.

But I still didn't start Bonnie's novel until Johnny came home Sunday night. It's good, very good. But not something I'd want to read when I'm worried about bad guys outside in the dark.

Today Johnny showed me an article in the newspaper about a guy arrested in Southern Oregon for stealing and sacrificing goats right before the New Year. I am so glad I did not read that last week.

My Favorite Photos of 2011: part 2

My Favorite Photos of 2011: Part 1

The Ups and Downs of Christmas Week

Holiday traditions change over the years, none more so for us than this year. One constant until three years ago was Christmas with my dad. Now that he is gone and our children grown and living many miles away and not always willing or able to come here, and with us tied down with critters to tend, the most constant tradition has been our good friends the Millikans, who are always game for a holiday dinner at our house. This year, however, because of their schedules, dinner was two days before Christmas, leaving us with a weekend of no company. So we commandeered Tillamook friends, whose children also live far away, to go out to dinner with us on Christmas and then go birding. A new tradition may be in the making...

But I'm getting ahead of my story. Stories.

The week began with Johnny and a friend finishing the fence to keep the horses out of the swamp. It is a lovely thing and effective. They even straightened up my makeshift white tape electric fence so it no longer looks like it was erected by a drunken sailor. Here are Nightingale and Jessie Anne looking depressed that they can no longer destroy things on the other side of the sturdy, high, woven wire fence. With luck, Jessie Anne will leave my newly straightened white fence alone, too.


That was Monday. On Tuesday we rode up into the Tetons (of Oregon, not Wyoming) with friend Rand, who surveys that portion of my sector of our Upper Nestucca Christmas Bird Count circle. I intended to take photos of the areas where Rand found Mountain Quail on count day. Unfortunately, I left the camera battery at home. We didn't see quail but we learned new areas we didn't know about and look forward to exploring them again... when I have the battery in my camera.

Wednesday was a day of mixed emotions. I had decided to restart the North Santiam Raptor Route that I drove with my dad in the last year of his life. I only wish we'd started doing that years earlier. His ranch is two hours from our farm and I visited him daily between my morning and evening chores as often as I could during those last seasons, except when Johnny or my brother were staying with him. Taking Dad on a raptor route through areas near him where he had delivered his Polled Hereford cattle over the years was a fun way to spend time with him. I did not drive the route again after he died. It was too sad for me.

However, I wanted to visit the cemetery adjacent to his property, where he and Mom are buried, and to visit the good friends who had been managing Dad's land ever since it became too much for him. Those friends bought Dad's place after he died, as per pre-arrangement with Dad. It's been hard for both Johnny and me to go back to Mom and Dad's beautiful Timberknoll Ranch after we had finally emptied their house and many outbuildings. The raptor route would give us the impetus, I thought, to do it before the rains were reported to be returning and before the Christmas weekend. But Johnny had a doctor's appointment and other obligations so I enlisted friend Nancy and we drove the route together. It was great to have her company and to reminisce. In spite of the sadness, it was also comforting. I hope to take Johnny on the route in January.

Nancy and I stopped to visit the Millers, who had not only managed Dad's ranch but were his best friends and had checked on him each time they came by to feed their cattle. They had emailed me the day before our raptor run that a small raptor had hit the west window of Dad's bedroom and killed itself. They took a photo and would show me when we arrived. Actually, they had the bird itself in the freezer. Their hired hand, who is becoming quite a good birder, correctly identified it as a Northern Pygmy Owl. None of us knew pygmy owls lived there. Too bad I can't count dead birds on my route. Nancy told me later she had a great time, but the best part was seeing the dead owl.

The only photos I took on the trip were of a singing American Dipper at Fisherman's Bend Park, where we stopped for a snack and the hope of seeing a Bald Eagle on the North Santiam River, as I had done there once before. I don't remember ever seeing Dippers on that river in the past, but this one was singing non-stop near the river's edge. Dippers, like bluebirds, seem to radiate good cheer.
We made it home before dark and all seemed fine until I was in our long driveway. The car jerked and acted oddly. I stopped but could tell nothing so drove on into the garage. I forgot to ask Johnny to check the car until Sunday morning, when we were about to drive it to Tillamook. We took the pickup instead. The car had zero transmission fluid. That mystery is yet to be solved but my planned trips to visit kids post-Christmas are on hold until it is.

Thursday was the usual frantic house cleaning and sorting and cooking in preparation for "Christmas" dinner on Friday. I also cleaned the greenhouse and strung Christmas lights out there... my only decorating this year. Without wee ones coming, I couldn't work up decorating enthusiasm. I was alternately sad about no family for Christmas and happy about a weekend free to ride the jump gymnastic I'd set up weeks ago in the arboretum for Mr. Smith. However, that night Mr. Smith apparently slid while racing in for his supper, landed on his side and twisted his right front leg. He is just now sound on it again. Here are the arena jumps I have high hopes of riding one of these days.
Friday was a fun day with Barb and Mark and Linnet and our neighbor Irv for dinner. A few of us made the requisite post-dinner hike, this time up to Irv's place to see his fancy baby chicks with the wild hair-do's. I went back on Saturday to photograph his beloved birds and spend time with our almost-82-year-old neighbor.














Not as fanciful, but just as impressive, were the critters we saw on our trip to Tillamook on Christmas Day. A herd of over a hundred Roosevelt Elk grazed the green fields around the huge Air Museum, a former blimp hangar.








After Christmas dinner at a restaurant, Barbara and John drove us to their birding spots where we saw dozens of Black Turnstones and one Ruddy Turnstone. Here is a Black Turnstone, at water's edge.


The turnstones also wandered up onto the grass next to the parking area. And that's when we spotted the very similar Ruddy Turnstone, second bird from the left in the photo left... and all alone in photo right .









Our Tillamook friends also located for us, along their raptor route, a pair of Bald Eagles, a Rough-legged Hawk, and a distant White-tailed Kite.... along with a Northern Harrier, several Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels. Then, before leaving for home, tiny Chestnut-backed Chickadees entertained us on their suet feeder.











Since we were driving the pickup instead of the car, we opted to stop at Munson Creek Falls on our way home. The last time we had hiked the falls was many years ago when the road was too pot-holed for our low-riding car. But now the road was quite good and the trail positively civilized. Munson Creek Falls is the highest waterfall in the coast range. The lay of the land prevents you from seeing the entire falls from any one point. The portion pictured at the top of this overly-long blog is about half the total length.




















Rain began just after we returned to our pickup. And so our Christmas week ended, but not so different after all. Like most of our holidays... and other days, it featured good friends and the great outdoors.