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August 3, 2025August 3, 2025

Summer Storms

Early morning fog rolls off the Little Deschutes and filters our sunrise

We’ve moved into August and onto summer’s end.

These late summer days can turn from sweater-cool mornings to blazing hot afternoons. Thus, departure time and destination are carefully planned out.

Fishing has been good on the Crooked this summer.

Early morning trips to the river have been particular enjoyable this week. First, there aren’t a lot of people around before eleven, and second, the fishing has been good.

But equally as important as the quiet are the cool mornings. We’re still starting the day in hoodies and sipping coffee on the streambank.

We pack up around noon and are home for an early supper in the comfort of our climate controlled home . . . or under the shade of our patio awning . . . tall glasses of ice tea in hand

A new wrinkle has entered our summer afternoons . . . thunderstorms. About 3:00 pm the thunderheads, with their charcoal gray centers, push in from the southeast.

It starts with the distant claps of thunder and if you stand on the porch there are usually streaks of lightning marking the storm’s advance.

In fire season, we’re not keen on lightning rolling across tinder-dry Juniper and pine forests.

So far the storms have brought rain . . . torrents of rain.

The last one even brought small hail stones. By 5:00 pm the clouds have pushed past and no longer feature that menacing dark tone at their core.

After the storm pushes by our Aspen tree dries in the sun

These blasts of weather, especially the accompanying rain, are a welcome relief. The air is filled with the clean smell of wet pine while dust and pollen has been washed away.

Just before sunset, we arrange the deck chairs and sip cocktails on the porch. It is a perfect way to bring a summer day to a close.

July 27, 2025July 25, 2025

High Desert Mornings

Early morning light glitters across this expanse of river

The pace of our lives is not brisk and our days of multitasking projects is long past.

That’s not to say we’re idle. Quite the opposite, as summer gets up to full blast our weekly schedule fills up.

Along with more excursions, come early starts. It’s all part of getting into summer.

The High Desert in this season can be oppressively hot from noon to sun down. To counter this, we are out the door at first light . . . conversely, back in the house by mid-afternoon.

A young Western Kingbird sports a mix of juvenile plumage and adult feathers

This week’s trip to the river was highlighted not by fishing, though that was good, but by a proliferation of fledgling sightings.

A Magpie flock harassed this juvenile Osprey trying to enjoy his catch.

A young Osprey was getting a lesson in Magpie gang warfare.

There were moments when we thought the Magpies would succeed in getting the young Osprey’s meal.

In the end, he finished the fish and brought back another.

A Western Tanager dives down to catch insects mid-air

A group of Western Tanagers were also spotted. Likely a stop on their migration to either the Cascades or Ochoco range.

The sighting is a rare treat, not only because of their brilliant colors, but also they only spend a few days in the canyon on their summer jaunt to the mountains.

Black-billed Magpie

We also got treated to a family of Redwing Blackbirds.

It appeared to be flight practice. We observed the family hopping along the tops of willow bushes at the river’s edge.

Often these trips are filled with long stretches of sitting quietly, watching the natural world move around us. Morning hours seem to be a good time to get the most of that activity.

July 20, 2025July 18, 2025

Desert Gardening

June to September in the high desert are marked with mostly cloudless days.

Accompanying this is an upward trend on the thermometer. We have gotten pretty adept at direct sun avoidance, but it takes effort by the middle of July.

A Cottonwood Canyon trip cut short in 2023 by wildfire

An additional problem has been added. Incidents of wildfire are on the rise. It’s not just the threat to our home, but we’ve pulled up to some fire closed roads in the past. That can put a damper on anyone’s plans.

As days get warmer, earlier, we retreat to the comfort of AC. E-readers are kept well stocked for the blistering hot afternoons that will be here soon enough.

Before the full on summer weather hit, we managed to complete a few projects aimed at mitigation.

The side porch got sun screening. This makes BBQing a more pleasant task.

We also stretched out our gardening and landscaping. This was the first place we’ve lived that didn’t have some type of garden.

Oh, of course there were trees and a few pots of flowers. This year however, that changed.

JQ may not have a green thumb, but she has a gardener’s heart.

With concern about access to fresh greens, given current conditions, we set up a couple of small raised beds.

These got planted with hearty greens, garlic and onions. Once the gardening bug struck, it was hard to hold back.

Additional pots and plots got added to the mix. A space where a failed tree planting from the former owners got a crab apple tree.

More flowers were tucked among the rocky landscape and some “Fruit Snacks” columnar apple trees got put in containers beside the house.

A pair of Birch were put in the spot were an Aspen had been.

That seems like a lot, but most of the projects were part of cleaning up the area around the house.

We’re not sure how the edible plants will fare . . . this is after all a desert.

That said, we’re enjoying the patio along with additional visits from neighborhood birds and a squirrel that has taken to stuffing peanuts into the garden beds.

July 13, 2025July 12, 2025

Back on the Crooked

We headed back up to the Crooked River this week. We lucked out and found our favorite campground . . . completely empty.

That’s unusual this time of year. But as they say, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

For now, mornings remain almost cold. All too soon summer’s sun will beat back the chill.

For the present, we set up chairs along the river and settled in to enjoy our good fortune.

Fishing was good, I brought a few to the net. The willows nearly overpower the rivers edge, making it difficult for Tip to keep an eye on me or get a drink.

Checkered White Butterfly floats among flowering wildflowers

An abundance of butterflies danced across the leaves in the still lush riparian.

An Osprey surveys it’s surroundings from a very high perch.

Around noon we moved downstream to a new piece of shade and a different stretch of river. At this spot we found the kestrel’s tree occupied by an Osprey.

A lack of defensive efforts (on the kestrels part) suggested the brood has moved on. The osprey seems content in getting his perch back.

It’s already the second week in July, and summer is slipping away. We’ve not had to endure wildfire smoke . . . yet.

So these peaceful excursions are treasured times.

A shaded vantage point to keep track of everyone

All too soon the dog days of August will require more careful planning on where we might find patches of shade. We do have a few places in mind.

July 6, 2025July 11, 2025

Leaf Fossil Hunt

To a rockhound a cut bank rising from a road’s borrow pit draws attention. You might see a wall of stone, a tumble of gravel, or you may not even notice.

Rock pickers see these as a window to the past. The road builder has conveniently opened a portal into local geology.

Sedementary rock layers sitting exposed in a road cut

An important aspect of finding fossils and unearthing minerals is understanding time from a geological prospective.

Sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic are the three major rock groups. Knowing which type you’re looking at helps one understand what could possibly get chipped out.

Ochoco divide still recovering from wildfire

Understanding how the earth was formed is knowing a measure of geological time . . . literally millions of years.

This week’s trek took us to a road cut on the crest of the Ochoco divide. There we split apart sedimentary rock layers in search of leaf and twig fossils.

On the geological time line these layers are young, less than fifty million years old and likely encased in mud and sediment on an ancient lake bed.

Volcanic activity pushed these rocks up to form mountains, only to be exposed by a dozer cutting out a logging road.

Leaf fossils are one of the few types we’re allowed to collect . . . dig up some bones and authorities want to know about that.

But plant material is fair game. However, it’s not easy work. It’s a fragile dig. You need to carefully split layers of rock to reveal the fossil.

Most plant fossils are from impression fossilization. Layers of sediment and soil bury the plant material leaving an impression or copy showing a leaf in rather fine detail.

However, there are times when the plant material gets replaced with minerals and you get a cast fossil.

Often casts are with limbs or twigs and the mineral replacing the plant structure so that rather than a simple ‘image’ you have a physical copy . . . in rock.