Category: Nature

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Trip to the Museum

This late winter dump of snow put a stop to regular day trips. However, the La Pine Library has passes to local attractions so you don’t have to pay the entrance fee…cool.

Started in the early 80’s, the High Desert Museum serves as an educational center to “… explore the historic and contemporary relationship between people and landscape.”

Burrowing owls

The permanent exhibits are fine (but ‘been there, done that). So, we take a stroll by the Hollen Atrium to see the porcupine and bobcat. Then we head into the Desertarium, where the desert tortoise and burrowing owls reside. Depending on the time of day, there are also wildlife demonstrations, though we seem to keep missing the river otter feeding. That’s a priority for our next visit.

Nevada Bumble Bee by April Coppini

Once we’ve checked in on the critters, we can spend some time with the “changing exhibit.”  This week they just installed ‘The Beauty of Wild Things: Charcoal drawings by April Coppini.” Coppini is a Portland based artist that does exceptional gestural charcoal on paper. We really like the bumble bee series.

It’s called a museum, but they have more than a dozen sites along a meandering system of trails that take you into the environment. The Raptors presentation, Otter exhibit and Birds of Prey center are all really interesting, even encased in a layer of snow.

 

 

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Geological structures

In Central Oregon you are at the mercy of winter’s weather whims.

Sun-filled days are broken up with snowfall which makes road trips unpleasant. Right now we are in the middle of a February snow-dump and have spent the last week close to home. When the roads, as well as the sky cleared, we were ready for an excursion.

East of La Pine, about 40 miles on the Fremont Highway (State Route 31), is according to our trusty Oregon Roadside Geology book,  a “garden of volcanic oddities.” Big Hole, Hole-in-the-Ground, The Devils Garden and Fort Rock were all formed about 13 thousand years ago in and along an ice-age lake that became Silver and Summer lakes. Basically, at the same time Mt Mazama was making Crater Lake.

Geological spectacles are usually enough to pique our interest, but just a few weeks ago we discovered that Fort Rock State Park was also a destination for birders.  In particular, you’ll find falcons and eagles using the unique structures of Fort Rock to launch hunting missions across the prairie and farm fields to the east.

 

The state park at it’s northwestern edge is the starting point for a series of trails that take you into the ring of volcanic ash and around it’s outer perimeter.

This scouting mission didn’t align with optimal birding times, but we saw a couple of bald eagles and a few falcons soaring in and around the rock faces.

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A record snow fall

In a five day period, La Pine, Oregon received 48 inches of snowfall. 12.5 of those inches fell in one 12 hour period.. This closed schools, shut down airports, blocked roads and generally inconvenienced everyone in Central Oregon for the past five days.

Being retired made a huge difference in how we felt about the current blanket of white.

It’s beautiful.

It did mean shoveling out walks and driveways about three times a day, for three days. However, even that was done at our own pace.

Growing up in Montana shoveling, driving and living with chest high banks of snow was normal. It was also 30 years ago and we’d not seen this much snow since.

 

But this is not to curse the winter weather, quite the opposite. This winter dressing is great. Like most of the other things we enjoy about living in Central Oregon, the snow is on that list.

Shoveling isn’t my favorite thing, but it’s done in bursts. It presents time to chat with neighbors, and as stated, is done on our time with a hot cup of tea waiting on the other end.

The other and perhaps bigger issue with this MUCH snow is that poor Tip can’t really get into the woods to do his duty. But even he seems to love racing through the powdery cover, that is until it comes up to his chest.

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A week for weather

It’s been one of those weeks. By that I mean, we have had weather patterns that make it difficult to get out and do much more than just a daily walk.

Snow and rain, alternating with cold snaps, mean roads are difficult to navigate or should I say, passable only if you need to be somewhere. So why bother.

However, we can’t just sit, read, and do the crossword. Well, we can…but for a change we drive north 15 minutes to Sunriver. At the height of the season, Sunriver’s network of trails is clogged with families on bikes, making walking with Tip problematic.

Once late fall comes, Sunriver presents a nearly ideal walking location, with it’s paved walk ways (except immediately after a snowfall) which are plowed and mostly free of ice.

There are 40 miles of paths in the resort, and while most of that is around and through housing units, apartments, and condos, there is a great loop of trails branching out from the Nature Center. A nearly 4 mile loop takes you across marsh land and fields, eventually dropping down to the Deschutes River.

We also have been spending time watching the water fowl that winter over on the pond beside the Nature Center. A Trumpeter Swan, Canada geese and a heron are regulars here. So on weeks like this one, we do our walking in the relative comfort of paved paths.

 

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Summer Lake on a winter’s day

In 1843, John Freemont discovered a valley with an alkali lake. On a December day, Freemont’s survey team clammered down a snow-covered cliff they would name Winter Ridge, into a temperate green valley.

Fed by a small spring, Summer Lake has been as long as 15 miles and 5 miles wide.  However, demands from irrigators and dry Oregon winters have left a much smaller lake and large stretches of muddy shoreline.

Like the Klamath basin 80 miles west, Summer Lake valley is home to a wide variety of migratory birds. This was one of the reasons we drove down Highway 31 past Fort Rock, Silver Lake, Summer Lake and finally to Paisley, Oregon. That day there wasn’t an abundance of birds but we were treated to awesome views of the valley. It was a gorgeous day, kind of summer-like.