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February 1, 2026January 31, 2026

Backyard Habitat

Winter has settled in around us. At the moment, the snow has melted, replaced with a bitter cold and freezing fog shrouds the mornings.

The snow will eventually fall, as will the cold snap break. It is full on winter in Central Oregon.

As I look up from the keyboard to watch morning replace dawn, there is a new addition to the courtyard . . . just beyond the office window.

Between an aspen tree and the house is a bird feeding station. More to the point, an 8-foot metal pole twisted into the ground and adorned with various means of offering food to the local wildlife.

Up to this winter, we have not been feeding birds at this house. At previous dwellings, we had multiple feeding stations. What changed?

In time we took note of our surroundings and started to look more closely at the space around our small home.

This past summer we made additions to the pergola over a southside patio. This turned in to more time spent sitting outside.

Then this winter we started opening the window blinds in our office space. A trio of thirty foot evergreens screen a small courtyard from the alleyway.

An offset of the garage wall from the main house makes up the other two sides of a semi-private space. There is a 20-foot aspen sitting about six feet away from our office window.

This grove of trees offers resting perches and homes to a variety of small song birds. They were joined this fall by a pair of Scrub Jays, who added to the frenetic display.

As we spent more time looking outside, we noticed a couple of large gray squirrels carting whole shelled peanuts from a neighbor’s feeding station.

Hour after hour they scurried across our yard, over the road, and into the wooded lot to the east of us. It just seemed like a good time for us to get in on the action.

Maybe it’s an old age thing . . . but watching little balls of feathers dart from branch to ground and back is relaxing.

Plus , we’re keeping them fed when food sources are scarce. and temperatures dip. It feels great to help our backyard neighbors.

December 6, 2025December 6, 2025

Weather or Not

Weather front moves in from the Columbia River, near Biggs, Oregon

The topic of weather is covered in this blog nearly as much as fishing.

Both are important, though when you’re mostly outside, conditions and changes in weather are important facts.

Cursing the rain is pointless, so mentioning what it’s like outside is observation rather than rant.

Low hanging clouds drift along the Deschutes River Canyon

One of the main reasons we moved to the east side of the Cascade range was to get away from gray wet winters.

From December to March, on average, Portland has a 25% chance of clear skies. In Bend it’s more like 40%. In that same period, Bend gets half as much rainfall.

Portland skies can stay gray for weeks on end. However, here the snow may pile up. but it’s usually only a day before the sun is back.

Frost glazes the ground cover along Hwy 97 near Shinako

Living under that blanket of grey wasn’t helping our mental health . . . more fishing has helped as well.

Salt Creek Falls, Oregon’s second highest single drop waterfall

Nearly forty years ago we migrated to Oregon, drawn by the Pacific Northwest climate.

For a while the lush green was enchanting, but the precipitation that growth required wore thin.

Sun breaks through forest at Sherwood CG on Hwy 35, north of Hood River

We’re in our high desert mode these days. Sage steppe and Ponderosa pine forests are our preferred environment.

These Central Oregon winters aren’t as harsh as what we grew up with in Montana and are tempered with continued assurance of clear skies to come.

Another positive aspect of high desert weather is you can see it before it get’s here and long after it’s moved past.

Near the base of Winter Ridge, Lane County, Oregon

The weather app is nearly as important as our bundle of USFS maps. Weather can’t be avoided, but knowing what’s out there is the goal.

And often, it’s a weather front that has us setting up the tripod.

November 16, 2025November 16, 2025

Books and Bookstores

Besides roaming the high desert, our days are spent reading. There is always at least one piece of reading material within arms reach.

Since retiring, we’ve moved away from non-fiction reading (no more textbooks) and have been enjoying fiction and history.

Reading requires sources of material. While many of the walls in our house hold overloaded bookcases, the local branch of Deschutes County Library is a constant and reliable source of reading material.

E-books and audiobooks have become an inescapable part of reading. It’s nice to have a few dozen different books in hand .

Though an e-ink screen is convenient, slipping a bookmark between pages is an irreplaceable part of reading.

Bookstores and libraries, are critical outlets however, technology has forever altered that experience.

Our first visit to Powell’s City of Books is etched into memory. Something about the air in a bookstore; paper, ink and dust, if it’s the right kind of store.

Yes, a lot of our reading material is captured via a hold place through the library’s online website . . . then downloaded to an e-reader or picked up on weekly stops.

But one still needs to occasionally step into a good bookstore.

Book searches via keyboard are efficient, but nowhere near as fun as rummaging through shelves, craning your neck to read spines, and pulling an interest prospect.

The website may offer a brief preview, but that doesn’t compare to turning to a table of contents, running a finger down the index or reading random pages at will.

Online you scroll through known authors or subjects, while at a bookstore you are immersed in a genre and exposed to unknown works.

Reading research is very different in a bookstore . . . that is why we never miss the opportunity to push open the door when we come across one.

November 9, 2025November 8, 2025

It’s Already November

Looking back over journal entries I realize this rainy weather coupled with a few ‘poorly’ scheduled appointments severely restricted our travel.

Chores got done, JQ was occupied with baking projects, and lots of pages have been turned on sci-fi and mystery books.

But really , , , we didn’t get very far from the house.

An apparent break in the rain got turned into a trip to the Sunriver Nature Center to check in on the swans.

They are doing well, however that foul weather pause did not include a lull in the wind, nor rise in temperature. It wasn’t wet, but it was a cold walk. Tip did enjoy himself.

Tasks finished and weather forecasts looking clearer this coming week, we should get more exploring in. For now, it’s a warm fire, hot mug of tea, and a good story on the e-reader. Not a terrible way to spend time.

September 21, 2025September 20, 2025

A Patio Visit

It really felt like fall this week. We managed to get in a fishing trip, as usual, but the majority of our week was spent getting a start on winterizing.

Red Rudbeckia, aka black-eyed Susan, was a big success in this year’s garden.

Central Oregon winters can be fickle weather-wise, but there is the guarantee of one good snow dump. For that reason, you need to button up the exterior.

Petunias, a favorite of mule deer in our neighborhood

We’ve transformed the patio from a basic BBQ spot to a retreat, complete with a host of herbs and flowers. This has been a great place to share a morning coffee or evening cocktail.

The patio gets crossed by neighborhood cats and there is a resident family of chipmunks that skitter across. The chipmunks seem to be using the bottom of our grow towers as watering spots.