The O-Zone

Despite losing badly this year in the rodent wars, the fruit plants are starting to produce ripe fruit.  This morning when we went down to harvest fruit, we discovered that the ground squirrels had demolished the cucumber plants.  Boo!  So all we have left are onions and potatoes.  Hopefully they’ll leave those alone but not really holding out much hope at this point.

Black raspberries, red raspberries, cherries, and gooseberries picked this morning.

Mishkin says he just happened be laying there in the sunlight, next to the bowls of fruit, and he was there all the time.  If there was ever an innocent looking cat, this is one.

Air moving out of the north and west brings some interesting sunsets to the skies.  No fires near us, this smoke is all coming down out of Canada.

This really doesn’t capture how bright blood red the sun was last night.

Dan saw a drama play out a couple of days ago.  He had gone out to the greenhouse and a red squirrel hot on the trail of a baby ground squirrel zoomed past him as fast as their little feet could move.  Then he realized the one in the rear was a weasel, and not a red squirrel.  A much more interesting race!

The weasel jumped on the baby ground squirrel and they proceeded to fight, a losing fight for the ground squirrel.  An adult ground squirrel came to the rescue and the weasel left the scene.  But as soon as the adult turned his back on the baby, quick as a flash the weasel was back on top and trying to take down his prey.  This time two adults came to the rescue and the weasel didn’t like them odds.  He left the scene of the attempted murder.

Dan wasn’t sure the baby ground squirrel was going to make it, laying on his side with his feet quivering, but a few minutes later the baby was sitting up and yelling.

No food for the weasel.  Dang it.  We were most definitely voting for the weasel given the damage the ground squirrels are inflicting on our garden this year.

That’s another story.  We have all winter to figure out how to thwart the rodents next year on the continuing saga.

Yesterday an idiot who lives immediately south of us decided to start a brush fire. Had he had a brain, he might have noticed the wind rustling in the dry grass around his brush fire, and not started the fire in the first place. Hopefully he enjoys the large bill he gets from the State or County, whoever is in charge of extinguishing forest fires.  Gotta hand it to the local fire fighters.  They jump right on top of a small fire unless they are overwhelmed by huge fires as happened a couple of years ago.

We had planes and helicopters flying around the mountain for hours, basically until it got too dark to fly.  And the fire department still has four trucks on the scene today, making sure that there aren’t any hot spots hiding out.   We saw the trucks when we went out this afternoon to see exactly where the fire was, but it was too far off the road for us to get a picture. Scary! We were in a direct line with that fire and if the fire department hadn’t gotten it out as fast as they did, I kind of shudder to think what would have happened. Actually I’m not going to think about it.

Since we couldn’t actually see the fire damage, we went for a drive and made a 30 mile loop, up the drainage where the fire was, over the top of the mountain through forest service lands, and back down the other side.  We looked at scenery and flowers instead. We’ve talked about making that particular drive since we moved here 11 years ago. Amazing place – there are Western Red Cedars up that drainage! I love cedars but they like a damp climate, and it’s too dry where we are.

We’ll have to go up that road again next spring and see what birds we can hear calling. It will be different birds, to some extent, than we have on our drier side of the ridge.  It is a really rough road.  We should probably take the tire pump, and electric chain saw with us.

Wild Tiger Lilies were all along the side of the road.

Dan grew up with these flowers so he was very happy to see them.  They also prefer a damper climate.

Lupin carpeted the forest floor anywhere there was a break in the canopy.

I love this color of blue almost shading into lilac as the flowers fade.

Scarlet Trumpets were in rocky areas with bright sun.

These are so bright, the hummingbirds must visit them.

Along our road are lots of Clarkia, named for the Clark of Lewis and Clark fame.

These are common some years, and rare others. This year they are growing all over the place.

The baby hummingbirds are out and about, finally.  Our feeders are going to be the party place soon but right now there are wild flowers everywhere and the adults are busy teaching their babies which flowers to go to for the best nectar.

We went for a walk this morning to try to beat the heat of the day, and can smell smoke in the air from a forest fire, one a long way from us. There was a stiff wind out of the north, bringing the smell to us. So, it must be summer. We were getting rather fond of all the clear skies. Oh well.

Another sign of summer is sunsets with this particular shade of clouds. Probably influenced by smoke in the air, now that I think of it in those terms.

Really pretty clouds. The sun is slowly inching south across the western horizon, as far as where it sets.

I looked at the blog from last year to get an idea as to when we might start seeing fruit harvests from the garden – middle of July I wrote that I was drowning in fruit.  Oh-oh.  I’m hoping it is a bit later than that as I’m really not ready.

Tonight the sun will have traveled as far north along the western horizon as it’s going to, and will start moving back to the south again.  The Summer is beginning here with warm temperatures in the forecast for next week.  We really need to put the shade on our greenhouse soon.  Maybe tomorrow.

We’ve been seeing this fawn since June 11 2017 when he was just a few hours. The first time we saw him, he could barely walk, tottering along behind his mom on tiny unsteady legs, and he was no taller than the joints in her legs.  Mishkin was fascinated by the tiny fawn and just stared at him intently.  I’m sure Mish had bad intentions in mind, but the fawn was completely safe as far as the cat was concerned.  Poor kitty 🙂

Amazing how fast fawns grow. This little guy seems particularly cute since we’ve been seeing him so often.  He really likes being on the lawn because he can run really fast and bounce in the air.

Now at 10 days old, he’s about doubled in size. So his cuteness quotient is also doubled 🙂

Yesterday they were coming up towards the house from the garden, traveling along the wide path Dan has made to the garden, so walking on all short grass.

The doe was grazing her way up slowly, nibbling on this, that, or the other plant, and the fawn was running laps around her. He would zoom past her at full speed and get about 15 feet away. Then he would come to a screeching halt, look around at everything, turn around zoom past her again at full speed and get 15 feet away and stop! Repeat!! He made at least ten trips while we were watching. His mom would glance back whenever he was behind her, on the downhill garden side, to make sure he was staying within the boundaries she’d set. Good baby. He never got further away than 15 feet in any one direction. It was just so fun to watch. Pretty soon, she’ll simply park him by our house and he’ll run laps around the house. Every year we’ve been here we’ve had that happen with fawns. It’s just a hoot.

She sniffs the air carefully, and he just looks around at things. See how tall the grass is behind them? Down by the garden it’s a lot taller than that. Reminds me of the grass in India where tigers like to prowl.

Today he was still sticking close to mom and at one point she decided he needed a bath, so she licked his face and ears all over until she was satisfied. He was making faces but putting up with it.

Cuteness factor off the charts.

As a reward she let him choose the direction and when he left her side and started walking she just calmly followed after.

He is still small enough he can run under her without ducking. And she’s used to that already.

He wanted to go downhill, towards the solar panels. Lots of brush for his mom to eat, so that was totally fine with her.

Here he is starting to head down the hill. He still won’t go farther than 15 feet from her side. It will not be long at all, and that invisible leash will get a lot longer as he gains confidence.

Saturday we finished planting the greenhouse. We planted a couple of varieties of Anaheim style peppers, Jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, basil, carrots, beets, lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, and slicing cucumbers. The herb bed is doing well, except for the oregano plant which didn’t survive the winter. Dan dug that up the oregano plant I replanted in that space one of the varieties of basil. Everything is labeled because I’ll have forgotten what went where within a few weeks.

We planted carrots and beets in both these center beds, two kinds of each.

A different kind of tomato plant. We like to experiment every year and see if we can find a new favorite eating tomato.

Two cauliflower plants.  These are called Veronica and we loved them last year.

Between the Veronica and this whole long row of tiny tomato plants is one variety of basil seeds.

Herb bed. The sage, chives, and thyme are all doing well, and I planted another variety of basil in the blank space.

Spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, marigolds, and a ton of baby volunteer dill plants.

The entire south wall is pepper plants. And the west bed next to the peppers is slicing cucumbers.

Sunday the plan is finishing the garden planting.

We hauled a bunch of stuff down to the garden in the Ranger. So useful year round.  The grass is almost up to the top of the tires.  We keep scaring deer out of the grass whenever we go down to the garden, these days.  It’s like a jungle down there.  All the extra moisture in the aspen grove is going to mean super tall grass this summer.

Today we planted bush beans, pickling cucumbers and more slicing cucumbers.  We already have growing peas, Walla Walla onions, white keeping onions, swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, and potatoes. The potatoes are just now starting to come up – we were a bit worried that we might have planted them a bit too too deeply this year, but it seems to be ok.

The first potato plant is up, and it looks really good. Several others are peeking up now. It won’t hurt to have them a bit behind when they usually get ripe because it is a little early to start trying to store them until late September.

The onions are starting to look better than a few weeks ago. The cold weather seemed to hold them back from prior years.

The peas are almost ready to start blooming. We be eating those before the end of June.

All the fruit plants are doing well, flowers all over the place, except for the blackberries. The winter was too cold for those plants. What wimps!!! The canes all died back down to the roots again. So… rats!!! Dan had to dig those all up and I want to replace them with flowers, even though I know they will probably get killed by rodents. I have delusions of having flowers in the garden, so I’ll try it anyway.

It looks like our peach tree is going to survive the rather brutal haircut and transplant process.  That’s totally exciting. That would be so cool to have our own peaches, so we have very high hopes. Five years from now we’ll know if it is going to work, or not.

Our peach tree is about 18 inches tall, and showing signs of life! Yay!!! Dan said it reminded him of Baby Groot, so that’s what we call it now.

Lots of blossoms on the larger of our two apple trees. This year we’re going to thin the fruit to one apple per clump of flowers. That should do good things for increasing the size of the fruit.

This is the small apple tree, and it has a lot more blossoms this year. They are so sweet smelling.

Dan pruned the big cherry tree and it doesn’t have as many blossoms as last year, but we should still have plenty of pie cherries for the freezer.

This is the small cherry tree and the way the fruit grows is very different from the big tree. It’s just starting to put on serious growth.

One of the gooseberry plants is ten feet across again, because Dan didn’t give it a haircut this spring. And it’s taller than me!! Ok, so that’s not really an impressive statistic, but still it’s weird to look up to see the top of the plant. And the red currants are also taller than me.  The gooseberries and josta berry plants all have fruit already forming, thanks to the legions of bees happily buzzing around the plants.

This is the Poorman’s Gooseberry plant and it got a huge haircut this year. Most of the branches are now upright, which is going to make picking a lot easier. You can’t see the wicked thorns hidden in among the leaves.

This is the other gooseberry plant, and it’s a monster! It’s also completely covered with flowers, and the bees have a splendid time with this plant.

Kind of hard to believe, but these red currant bushes have way more flowers this year than they did last.

The black raspberry canes easily top the eight foot tall garden fence. They aren’t blooming quite yet.

Lots of flowers on the red raspberries, and they’ll be open next week, for sure.

The josta berry plants are already setting fruit. Due to the heavy pruning this spring, we won’t have as many of these fruits to deal with this year, but next year should be amazing.

This is the rhubarb plant AFTER we took out half the canes.

The low bush blueberry plants are completely covered with flowers this year.  They certainly didn’t mind the very cold winter.

Much as we love blackberries this climate is simply too cold for them, so Dan dug these up and I’m going to replace the with flowers of some description.

Newly planted strawberries, destined for chocolate covered strawberries. The plants are looking really good so far, and I’m looking forward to playing with them.

The other strawberry bed isn’t doing so great.  The plants weren’t protected by the snow because the wire cage kept the snow off the plants, and as a result a great many of the plants died.  Oh well, the remaining plants will send out tons of runners this year, and repopulate the bed with new plants.

The chocolate mint is coming up really great this year, and that’s wonderful, even after transplanting those plants to make way for the peach tree.

Two chocolate mint plants, moved over next to the gazebo.  A better place for them to live; they were in danger of getting stepped on previously.

Then it’s just a matter of weeding and watering, and picking stuff starting at the end of June. First to be ripe will be the peas and lettuce and spinach.

The bee balm plant is spreading a bit. The hummingbirds love this plant, which starts blooming fairly late summer and continues until it freezes very hard.

Outside the garden fence is as old lilac bush which is getting ready to bloom.

Inside the fence, sprinkled around, are wild Pansies.

Fun!

The outside of the windows are clean (at the moment), and I’ve been taking some pictures of birds out the window. Pretty soon, a couple of weeks, there will be fawns tottering around on spindly legs after their moms. I’ll see if I can get some good pictures of this years’ babies. It’s that time of year.

The hummingbirds have been hanging out at the feeders next to the house because, up to this week, the weather has been very cool, highs in the 40’s and lows near freezing. Way too cold for them to be thinking about nesting. This week it warmed up and the group of 20 hummingbirds that has been around the house has gone poof. Time to think about babies!

They have been going through a quart of hummingbird juice a day, so we bought a bigger feeder. It works so well we’re going to buy another one.

This year for the first time we have a pair of American Goldfinch nesting next to the house. We see both them regularly, landing in the Service Berry bush. They are such cheerful looking little birds.

The female of the pair. She’s pale yellow; the male is a deep golden yellow, very pretty.

This coming weekend we’re going to transplant our baby tomato plants, pepper plants, and cauliflower into the greenhouse. And then we’ll finish planting the rest of the garden. The fruit bushes are all loaded with blossoms and that means we’ll have fruit to deal with starting the end of June. Hard to believe that is almost here!

I took this picture a week ago; the plants are bigger now. Dan has to keep raising the grow lights to keep them the right distances from the baby plants.

I made a rhubarb/strawberry pie, and it turned out just delicious. The rhubarb is freshly picked and the strawberries are some I froze last year.

This pie is all gone. I have a Josta Berry pie filling already made and in the freezer. All I have to do is make the crust.

Here’s Mishkin in a crazy let’s play mood.

He loves it when I duck down below the back of the chair and then pop up and look at him. He leaps up and knocks the back of the chair back. A good cat game.

Doesn’t he look deranged? 🙂

Dignified cats don’t play with toy mice or lions, right? But…. I have pictures!

Speaking of cats, meet Poppy!!  She’s just come to live with my friend Jacki.  And even though she’s only 10 weeks old, she is already in charge of the household.   She’s just so cute!!!

She looks like a very happy kitten. 🙂

It’s been a couple of years since we went down there, since the thimble-brained yahoos staged their occupation. Our friend Brandon wanted to get a “we survived the occupation” shirt or cup at headquarters, but they didn’t have one. Probably too soon to see the humor in that utterly moronic event.

Malheur is our favorite birding place. It takes us eleven and a half hours to get to Frenchglen from home, which is a bit much on one day.  Definitely, we’re going to have to split that up into shorter driving times from now on, and take more days to get to and fro.  We’re toast today and we came home a day early because the idea of that many hours of driving was weighing heavily on our minds.

Friday was the day we left, and the weather gods decreed we were going to get up earlier than we’d planned, courtesy of a rock and roll thunderstorm on top of our house, that started at 4:03 AM.  We got off to a very early start, and it’s a good thing because it actually took longer to get there than we remembered.  And it thunder stormed on top of us pretty much the entire drive down.  Saturday, as predicted, the weather was rainy off and on, totally cloudy and extremely windy and it was 46F for the high, so it was cold all day. Amazing how the birds don’t seem to mind that sort of weather, other than they stayed down, and we didn’t hear Cranes calling from where we stayed.

Overall it’s very hard to take bird pictures, so I didn’t end up with very many, all things considered.  First the light has to be right; second they have to sit still; and third, they can’t be so far away you wish you’d brought along a spotting scope.  Really do need to remember to pack that in the car.  It’s hard to bore people with bird pictures unless you HAVE some.

Cinnamon Teal are just beautiful little ducks, and it seems like they are in every puddle.  The grass is just starting to come up; when it gets taller, these little birds will disappear.

Cinnamon Teal are the most common of all the teal on the refuge. We also saw Blue-winged Teal, but just briefly as they came in for a fast landing to a pond, behind heavy dead marsh grass.

I didn’t take any pictures of Mallards, or Coots. But I did get some other duck pictures.

I’ve always thought Gadwall are kind of nondescript. I’m sure they aren’t very impressed by the way humans look either.

Shoveler’s are pretty amazing looking. Look at the beaks on those guys and you can see why they have that name!

You can just barely see the hen sitting behind her boyfriend. She totally blends into the background.

Northern Pintails are a duck I remember very clearly from Alaska.  It was always such a treat to see them come back in the early summer.

The male was being shy, crouching down in the dry grass in front of his sweetie pie.

Sandhill Cranes are one of the highlights to see at the refuge and we saw a pair with babies that just hatched. They could barely clamber over the tall grass.  It was disappointing not to hear them calling.  It’s a very prehistoric sound that gives me goosebumps, in a good way.

A pair of cranes with their just newly hatched babies. One is near the feet of adult on the right and another is peeping up in the grass in the middle.

The baby on the right was sort of climbing up the bank of an irrigation ditch.  A very scary place to be, though I bet he or she actually would float if they fell in.  Still, yikes, climbing back out again might prove fatally difficult!

Same picture as before, just a closer look at the baby. So tiny!!

The other adult was staying low in the grass, next to the second baby bird.

And then poof, the babies completely disappear in the grass.  It’s hard to believe they will be the same height as the adults, and flying around the refuge, within a few months.

At the Headquarters we saw a Say’s Phoebe that was being cooperative in allowing a picture to be taken.

We have these at home, but they don’t usually sit still long enough to take a picture.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds were taking advantage of the feeders.

The first time I saw these was at Malheur, in the fall. We drove past a field of corn which had been harvested, and hundreds of these birds all rose into the air at the same time. It was spectacular. Well either it had been harvested or they had just decimated some farmer’s crop 🙂

A lone American White Pelican was occupying the pond next to the main offices, and all the rest of his cohorts were no doubt out on the large lake.

This bird’s punk hairstyle was due to the gale force wind blowing him around on the pond.

The highlight of the trip was a family of Great-horned Owls nesting in one of the volcanic craters at Diamond Craters. It was spooky walking up to the rim of the crater but we knew they were in there thanks to our friends Casey and Carmen who had been there the weekend before and told us precisely where to look. You can see the upright pale gray cone standing up on a rock? And then if you look closer, the parent is glaring at us from under a rocky outcrop.

This crater is a good 40 to 50 feet deep. If you don’t like heights, standing next to the edge is really frightening.  See the little pale bird perched on a rock on the end of the cliff?  He looks like an upright cone.

We never would have seen these birds, had it not been for Casey and Carmen.  Thanks guys!!!.  Until we we got around to see this particular wall of the volcanic crater, they were completely hidden from view but then viola!  Surprise!

Still all downy, no adult feathers showing, this owlet was studying us as we were studying him. Look down and to the right, and you’ll see a parent, glaring up at us.

A very safe place to raise a family.

A bit farther along we saw a Raven sitting on a nest in a similar volcanic rock cliff.  And in the middle of the Round Barn is another Raven nest.  We saw a Raven on that same nest the last time we were in Malheur two years ago, and it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if it wasn’t the same pair.  The Round Barn was also completely full of Cliff Swallows.

Here’s a complete list of the species we saw, in the order in which we saw them.

Redhead
Sandhill Crane
White-faced Ibis
Franklin’s Gull
Long-billed Curlew
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Willet
Kildeer
Red-winged Blackbird
Brewer’s Blackbird
Cliff Swallow
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snipe
Swainson’s Hawk
Common Tern
Western Kingbird
Yellow Warbler
Blue-winged Teal
American Magpie
Gadwall
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Harrier
Red-tail Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Common Yellowthroat
Common Crow
Brown-headed Cowbird
Western Meadowlark
American Coot
American White Pelican
Ring-necked Pheasant
Say’s Phoebe
Yellow-rumped Warbler – migrating through Headquarters, the trees were full of these guys.
Tree Swallow
Mourning Dove
Western Tanager
Ruddy Duck
White-crowned Sparrow
Barn Swallow
Pied-billed Grebe
Canvasback
Northern Pintail
Marsh Wren
Song Sparrow
Osprey
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Flicker
Loggerhead Shrike
Great-horned Owls – cool!!!!!
Rock Wren
Prairie Falcon – always a good trip when you can see a Prairie Falcon. This bird was on the telephone poles heading towards the Diamond Craters, and when we spooked it off it’s perch by stopping the car, it decided to take it out on a totally innocent Red-tailed Hawk who was sitting two poles farther down the road.
California Quail
American Widgeon
Lesser Scaup
Ring-necked Duck
Bufflehead
Sora
Empidonax Flycatcher.  This could have been a Gray, Hammond, or Dusky.
Common Tern
Trumpeter Swan
Robin
Merlin – this bird was actively hunting singing sparrows up on the Steens Mountain road we walked up on Sunday morning.
Horned Lark
Lark Sparrow
Brewer’s Sparrow
Yellow-breasted Chat
Black-crowned Night Heron
Ring-billed Gull
Common Merganser
Black-legged Stilt

Reading over our trip list, it’s really shocking to see how many species are missing. Never know what you’re going to see, or not see, at Malheur.  And no doubt I forgot to write some of them down, like Raven, for example.

Our cat and parrots were happy to see us (I’ve had a gray shadow all day), the seedlings on the table in the sun room are taller than they were when we left and there are more of them; and some other seeds have come up in the greenhouse.  We need to get busy and do more planting.

And the river is flooding, almost as high as we’ve ever seen it.  Another six inches higher and it will be the highest we’ve seen in the eleven years we’ve been here.   The flooding started overnight.  It was normal spring high water when we left on Friday morning; Saturday it wasn’t flooding, and Sunday it was – a lot.  Could be interesting around here if we keep getting the rain they are predicting for this week, and it doesn’t freeze in the high country.  There’s still a lot of snow in the mountains.

April 10th it snowed; and it did the same thing on the 11th. Then it melted on the 12th. And on the 13th we had a thunderstorm that dropped enough hail that it was still visible in the grass this morning. Must be spring.

For a while, it poured large flakes and they weren’t sticking to anything, but then that changed. Everybody we talked to that day was freaking out. It was actually pretty comical.

Had a new visitor in the yard, a hen Turkey. She was having a fit that I was taking her picture. She didn’t think that was at all called for, and she scampered up the hill, following the deer trail.

She had a fit when I opened the door and pointed the camera in her direction, running back and forth behind a screen of bushes between the house and garage, before she finally decided to skedaddle. I told her, “Ha! I took your picture!” and she just kept on leaving. She’d be appalled if she knew it was going to be posted on the net 🙂

This whole week has been taken up by bathroom remodeling #3. We replaced the floor with 12″x12″ tiles, and the bathroom vanity counter top with 2″x2″ both of which were used in the shower remodel we did late last year.

It looks so much nicer now!

No more funky blue tile on the counter top which I installed and didn’t ever finish because I decided I hated it shortly after I put it in.  Wish I’d decided that before, but timing is everything.

Just some sheetrock repairs to be done, and then we can repaint the walls. Yay! Another thing almost off my wish list of things to fix around here.

This weekend is all about the garden. We’re going to be super busy, but it should be tons of fun. Our peach tree is here and so are the potato starts.  And we’ll start seeds for the greenhouse – tomatoes, peppers, and veronicas 🙂

We had been wondering where the strawberries were and our neighbor Amy just brought a box which Fedex had “thoughtfully” left on top of our freaking mailbox on the highway.  And it froze last night.  No excuse for that sort of behavior.  Can’t believe they did that again.  Morons.

Not sure why, but Spring sure looks an awful lot like Winter outside our windows. Probably a good thing we didn’t go have the snowtires taken off the Legacy yesterday!

It snowed overnight, and then has been snowing steadily all day long. High temperatures are in the mid 30’s, so this is supposedly not sticking too much.

Yeah. Right. Not sticking at all.

Mish is totally into the whole Winter concept. He just wanted to know why I was flashing bright lights at him and disturbing his meditation.

He took a break from resting his head on the laptop power supply to soak up some BTU’s behind the cook stove. He’s had a hard day.

Terry out on her stand, and taking every opportunity to show off her one and only trick.  She has tons of pinfeathers on her head, but she has all her wing and tail feathers at the moment.

Wings!!