Tag Archives: retirement adventures

December 31, 2018 · 10:34 pm

Well. That was 2018.

This is going to be one of those yearly summary posts–some good, some bad, some whatever. 2018 has been another one of Those Years. You know, the sort where you’re flailing about at everything, trying to get things going and stuff just keeps happening…and happening…and happening. I made some book sales, found some cool new fans as well as kept up contacts with old fans, did stuff with the horse, and etc.

Not that it’s been a particularly bad year…it’s just been one of Those Years. Crappy moments and shining moments, all wrapped up together.

Part of the reason (besides politics which is absolutely horrific, horrible, crappy, ick, and I’m totally back in fretting about apocalyptic scenarios–well hey! I’m writing an apocalyptic book right now and the next fantasy book will also be apocalyptic in tone so I’m right on track here!) is that I think I really started kind of feeling my age this year. The area that has suffered the most has been this blog. Writing-wise, I’ve been chugging along, though not as faithfully as I would like. I think the sales of Pledges of Honor are finally slowing down…but I’m not going to gripe, because it has been selling steadily over the past three years, ever since I published it back in 2015. Sales still occasionally pop up for the Netwalk Sequence series, though no one really seems to go too far with it. I…have plans to do something about that.

Pledges did earn itself a Semifinalist position in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. I had hopes for higher, but c’est la vie. A review is supposed to come out for it next week from one of the reviewers.

So let’s look at Joyce’s Year in Writing, Horses, and Health.

Writing:

I published two books and edited an anthology, for starters.

Challenges of Honor, the second book in the Goddess’s Honor series, came out in the spring. It hasn’t sold as well as the first book, but you know, things can change.

Blurb and linkage for Amazon here.

Linkage for Books2Read here. (Apple, Nook, Kobo, etc)

Klone’s Stronghold, a contemporary fantasy featuring a mix of supernaturals, cryptids, and family issues in the isolated Bucket Mountains of NE Oregon, came out in the summer. It’s not done as well as I had hoped; nonetheless I’ve got some ideas for a sequel to it.

Blurb and linkage for Amazon here.

Linkage for Books2Read (Apple, Nook, Kobo, etc) here.

I’m currently working on a rewrite of a previously published novella, Seeking Shelter at the End of the World. The new title is Beating the Apocalypse. It’s not going to look much like the original. I’ve added two viewpoint characters, eliminated at least one and maybe two deaths in the course of the book (though I do kill others), am at about 20k additional words, and am making it a MUCH more complex book.

I also edited a themed anthology, Pulling Up Stakes, (includes my Oregon Country story “To Plant or Pull Up Stakes”) and am working on a second one, Whimsical Beasts (which will include my story “The Wisdom of Robins”).

Pulling Up Stakes Amazon details here.

Short stories also happened this year. I wrote the following Goddess’s Honor tie-in shorts:

Return to Wickmasa (post-Pledges of Honor) B2R (includes Amazon), Cleaning House (post Challenges of Honor) B2R (includes Amazon), and Unexpected Alliances, B2R (includes Amazon). I’ve decided not to mess with loading short stories directly to Kindle but will load them into Kindle via Draft2Digital.

I wrote Going Gently for the Netwalk Sequence universe. B2R (includes Amazon).

“The Cow at the End of the World” came out in Well, It’s Your Cow, edited by Frog Jones. Amazon.

I have two new stories in circulation (“A Quilter’s Stellar Sandwich” and “My Woman Left Me, My Dog Hates Me, and There Goes My Truck”). I’m also marketing a novella, Bearing Witness, which is a weird alt-Western set in a universe I’m now calling the Vortex Worlds. I was originally going to self-publish it but decided to try my luck with the trad pub market so far. I’m underwhelmed, so it may go on the publishing schedule this spring.

Then I started playing around with Medium. I’m not very diligent about posting essays there yet, but I do have a few up. I’m also toying with writing a poem a week and posting it on a separate blog page. I plan to switch hosts in this coming year, and have temporarily set up a site on wordpress.com. I’ll be transferring the whole domain at some point here. Just works better for me than what I’ve been doing.

Horse:

Mocha turned 18 this year, and is fully a mature, opinionated mare. But we achieved a bucket list goal by winning a show series buckle in the local show series in the Ranch Horse division. So I now sport a genuine, honestly-won, silver belt buckle.

She was pastured up by the east moraine of Wallowa Lake this summer, so we spent some time riding the moraine and doing Real Trail Horse stuff. She loves it. One day she was edgy and energetic so I sent her straight up the side of the moraine (actually a fairly steep climb), with plans to sidehill it if she encountered problems. She didn’t.

She went into the winter looking the best I’ve seen her in a long time, her back completely filled out around the spine and minimal sign of rib. Nonetheless, she’s getting up there in years so I’m not pushing her. She’s let me know that she really, really likes the idea of gaming as opposed to rail classes but OKAY WE WILL DEAL WITH STUPID RAIL STUFF IF THERE’S GAMING (keyhole and barrels are her favorites). As long as she enjoys the notion of “turn and burn” we’ll keep doing it. We did our first winter lope under saddle a couple of days ago (it’s been a not-so-good winter for riding outside) and she was full of energy, ready to go, and everything you want to feel with a mature horse living outside 24/7.

Health and Other Stuff:

This is the year that the teaching stuff has pretty much gone away. I substitute occasionally, and will be teaching a writing class in February, but otherwise–my long-term substitute gig abruptly ended at the end of the semester in January, and I’ve not been actively drumming up anything other than writing coaching business. I think it’s time to move away from K-12 teaching–I’m ready.

This year I feel like I’m really starting to get with it in quilting. I’ve made two small quilts and a bigger one as well as several small wall hangings. I think I will start working toward art quilt wall hangings for the science fiction and fantasy market. Other craft work is “meh”. I do have a few fans of my jewelry but not enough to put much energy into it outside of the occasional bazaar. Well…I might start trying the science fiction art show circuit again.

Health-wise, I had a real wakeup call in the fall of 2017 when I had problems hiking because my hips were too tight and I had issues. Plus I was having leg spasms bad enough that I could watch them go in waves down my right leg at their worst. Things were not good. I hurt a lot. Not the earth-shaking, major pain-killer pain, but that dragging soft-tissue coupled with arthritic pain that no traditional doctor takes seriously in a woman, especially if you can’t/won’t handle muscle-relaxants for the soft tissue stuff. And then there was the persistent shoulder issues.

Then I discovered a shiatsu massage pillow. That led to acupuncture and chiropractic work in addition to my regular massages because I realized part of the relief I was feeling came from adhesions getting broken loose. I also got smart about living in the world of ice/snow and bought hiking sticks and Yaktrak shoe chains to reduce the risk of falling (still happens but not as much). I started using a neck pillow for any drives over two hours. Additionally, I started using CBD and THC topicals, as well as oral CBD. Things aren’t perfect, but I can move again. There’s one troublesome spot in my right hip which has plagued me for thirty-eight-some years, thanks to a fall while jogging, but it’s much improved from what it’s been over the last ten years. What’s even more encouraging is that I have the urge to move again. I want to work out. My muscles are tight on a three-day cycle, but it is absolutely not the same sort of thing as I was experiencing before.

I’ve also gone back to using moisturizer and makeup. Part of it is that I have an excellent source of mineral-based makeup here in Enterprise–Wild Carrot Herbals has their company store here (as well as their warehouse/manufacturing headquarters) and they carry a nice line of makeup. I went back to my favorite Elizabeth Arden Ceramide-based moisturizers and foundation. It really does make a difference, and the moisturizer holds up to a lot of winter weather. I do need to find something different for hot summer days, though….

In any case, it’s been a year. I’m hoping to be more energized in 2019–if anything, that’s my goal for the year ahead. I want to advance my writing, perhaps expand my craft work into art shows, and otherwise.

I’ll probably put up another post about 2019 goals tomorrow. We’ll see.

 

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June 7, 2018 · 11:10 am

Working on the trails

Last Saturday I got to ride a mule as part of ongoing volunteer work to open up local trails in the Wallowas and Hells Canyon. Alas, I don’t have pictures, except in my mind.

I’ve been wanting to ride a mule for some time now, so when one team leader said he had an opening for a mule rider, I jumped for it. The mule in question was Bat, female, a half-Belgian sorrel mule from a Belgian draft mare and a standard jack, trained to drive, pack, and ride. She stands about 15.2 hands high (that is, 15 hands, two inches), probably weighs about 1300-1500 lbs, has big bones, and is an older mule.

We went up the Wing Ridge stock driveway which is on the east side of the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The trail is not meant for most hiker use–it goes straight up a steep ridge with only a few switchbacks. As it were, we stopped frequently to let our party of three mules (two ridden, one packing, all mature older equines) and one horse (three-year-old gelding, big and stout, working on getting wet saddle blankets and experience) catch their breath. And trim a few annoying branches here and there as well. During one stop, a mated pair of ruby-crowned kinglets landed in the lodgepole thicket just a foot away from me, so close that I could have touched them had I wanted to. The female had some sort of fluff in her beak and the male’s ruby crown was flared out in mating display. It took me a moment to identify them because I’d only seen them in winter coat before, not spring and summer. They didn’t seem to be bothered by a rider so close to them.

The area burned in a hot fire thirty years ago, so it is full of skeletal, whited snags and young lodgepole and Ponderosa regrowth. In one place, the wind blowing through the snags moaned and howled in a convincing imitation of wolf calls–something the team leader pointed out with a chuckle, because while there are wolves in the area, it was clear from the equine calmness that what we were hearing was trees and not wolves.

Bat and I had the brief discussions that come along with experienced equine used to carrying riders of all skill levels, that is to say, she threw some brief tests at me and I let her know that while I deferred to her judgement on some things, it wasn’t all going to be her way. She wasn’t happy about the young horse coming close to her hind end and pulled faces at him, tossing her head at him with pinned ears as a warning. Except for the bigger head and longer ears, Bat’s expression was darned near identical to Mocha’s in a similar situation. There’s something both comic and yet more threatening when that facial expression comes from a longears, though. Mules seem to have more expressive and comic faces, but those big pinned ears are a definite threat–until they flop. Going downhill, she also kicked at him several times, popping up her hind end for a double-barrel warning.

But she was also calm and sturdy, and definitely sure-footed. More sure-footed than Mocha? That’s not the difference. What really shows up as the big difference between Mocha and a mule or the stouter horses preferred here is durability and stability. Mocha is much smaller than Bat at 14.2 hands high and about 1000-1100 lbs at her heaviest. Her feet are tiny in comparison and she lacks the support of a sturdy, solid frame of a standard-sized mule like Bat or even the typical frame of the stout phenotype of horses preferred in these canyons. She’s not bred to work this country, and even though she’s catty-footed and strong, she would break down a lot sooner than Bat. Not her fault. Bat’s extra bone and sturdiness makes her more stable when going downhill and rider balance is not going to throw her off too much. Mocha needs a more experienced rider who can keep their balance because she’s so light in comparison. Seriously. I’ve ridden Mocha down similar steep slopes and I could tell that I needed to work much less with Bat where I would have either dismounted or aggressively maintained my balance with Mocha. Bat has the body to compensate for a bad step in those conditions. Mocha doesn’t. There were moments when I really noticed that difference with Bat.

So that was interesting.

That wasn’t all I learned from this work trip. The team leader is an experienced packer and the son of an experienced packer. He used the Decker packsaddle with clip-on canvas bags (carrying hard hats, clippers, axes, backpack, and pulaski), then dropped ropes on each side to secure the loads and tie a four-foot crosscut saw on top. I had lots of questions about packing and watched, wishing I’d had a camera to take even more pictures.

And I got to use the crosscut saw! First time for that. We had to leave the stock after about two miles and continue on foot for about another three-quarters of a mile due to snowbanks with uneven consistency. For the most part, humans could walk across the top of the occasional snowbank without sinking in, but there still was the occasional postholing moment. Not at all safe for stock, even led instead of ridden. The young horse Had A Moment in one snowbank but all came out well. Our goal was to eyeball one nasty fallen log just before the wilderness boundary and decide whether hand tools would be sufficient, or if a chainsaw was needed (okay because it was outside of the wilderness). The verdict was that the chainsaw was needed, especially since there were several other tough logs that would be best done by chainsaw before we got to that one problematic log.

We ended up cutting 7-8 big logs. The most challenging one was about 12 inches in diameter and had fallen across the trail to hang up in trees on the other side, at about 8 feet high. When we passed on doing the other log by hand we decided to do this one instead.

Then we headed downhill to a waiting barbecue. The mules and horse got their own version of the barbecue by getting to hand graze for a little bit before the humans went off for burgers and beer.

Dang, that was fun.

 

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April 30, 2017 · 9:10 pm

Falls Creek hike and Zumwalt drive and writing oh yeah

The day started out kind of gloomy and moody and slow. I needed to work on edits for a short story so that’s how I spent my morning. By the time I was finished, though, the sun had come out. Husband and I were ready for an Adventure, so we decided to go hiking up Hurricane Creek. As we started up the trail, though, we decided to give Falls Creek a try. I’d read that it was both easy and difficult…well, we opted for the difficult hike up the slope, not bouldering along the creek bottom.

Hmm. All the photos loaded at once. Well the first and sixth shots are of Falls Creek Falls. The last three are on Zumwalt Prairie.

Anyway, we hiked uphill a bit over a mile with at least a 1000 foot and probably a 1500 foot elevation gain. Then we decided to go for a cruise out to the Nature Conservancy preserve on Zumwalt and see what we could see.

We ended up taking the old road from Midway to Imnaha, and saw nearly two dozen deer, at least one eagle, northern harriers, a rough-legged hawk, a number of kestrels, several meadowlarks, two chukar, and three turkeys. The road was such that I was glad we were in the truck and not the Subaru, as we had to ford water running over the road in several places (clear, seasonal creeks with rocky bottoms, no problems).

A glorious day.

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April 8, 2017 · 8:19 pm

Transitions, new promo banner, and trails on foot and horseback

The big transition news isn’t really news to people on Facebook and all. Like many others, I’m leaving LiveJournal for Dreamwidth. The new terms of service from the Russians are just over the top, especially for a writer person like me. I’d previously stayed on LJ in support of the Russian dissidents who use it as a platform, but this last bit….no, I couldn’t do it.  So I’ve been busily adding new people to my circle on DW, and hope that this means perhaps we’ll be seeing some more action there. I’m sad to leave LJ, but knew this was coming. I’d started crossposting from my main blog to DW, and had DW crosspost to LJ. This week I severed the DW/LJ link, then imported all my content to DW. In a few weeks I plan to delete my LJ account entirely, or perhaps just delete all my entries.

The banner news is more fun. This winter, I joined the Wallowa Mountain Quilters Guild and started learning about making quilts. Up until a few days ago, though, my endeavors were limited to making the block of the month, with a vague sense that maybe I wanted to make a book advertising banner that I could have at readings, signings, craft shows, and what-have-you. But it wasn’t until I worked on the April blocks that I realized I had the perfect block pattern to make a quilted banner…and if I followed the basic concept of a table runner, I’d have a banner. I also had leftover space fabric from the curtains I made for the Enterprise bedroom as well as black and silver moon and stars fabric left over from pieces I’d gathered from an old job to help provide craft materials when I was a 4-H leader.

So here it is:

I used it today for a lightly-attended Grange author breakfast. Now I’m thinking about sf-related art quilt ideas….of the wall hanging size, using beads, and perhaps something to take to convention art shows. Have to think about it.

Hubby and I are starting to get out more and hike. Our first year here was full of moving and getting settled in. Last year, the sub testing job in Portland required that I spend at least a week testing students every month, along with working on my current online teaching job. Plus we were busily digging a lot of razor clams–a good thing as the domoic acid levels this winter and spring have kept us off the beach. It is looking now like the season may not open at all this spring/early summer. So this spring we are trying to get out and do more hiking. We’ve done three major hikes–one in Devil’s Gulch near Big Sheep Creek, another at the Chico Trailhead near Sled Springs, and the third with the horse on the Aneroid Lake trail.

All three hikes were fun, but the Aneroid Lake hike with Mocha left me smiling. I had been worried that she might be silly or weird, but instead, she marched right up the trail, was not worried about being with only her human herd, and showed lots of potential for being able to handle a longer hike on a non-icy trail (we ran into patches of packed snow and ice which made us turn back sooner than we might have otherwise). She picked up pretty quickly on the pacing of the husband staying on foot and was willing to stop and wait without fussing. I was worried that the steepness of the trail and some of the things she did to stay upright on the ice (kicking her toes into the ice to gain a foothold) might have made her sore, but no.

Of course, a few days later she was a total idiot on the roads, calling and calling and feeling like a coiled spring under me. But the weather was unsettled, with squalls blowing off of the Wallowas, and a couple of miles of long-trotting on a soft gravel/dirt road took some of the edge off. While we had wind here, it wasn’t as bad as it was further west in the Willamette Valley. All the same, we got hit with gusts that made me sway a little in the saddle. So I can’t blame her for being on the muscle and worried about her herd.

She has moved to a spring pasture with three other horses. It’s set up with two bigger chunks connected by a smaller corridor. I often find the four of them in the back, and bring her up front. What’s funny is she will then call and call until her friends come up front to join her, and then she settles. This is new behavior for her–but they will come. She also starts calling to them when we get close to the place, and they will answer–and come up to hang out until she goes back out with them.

I’m still just amazed about the difference that a couple of years makes. Two years ago, we were preparing to move her here. She was still struggling with the white line disease and I think was in pain from arthritic joints in the process of fusing. She was depressed and sad. The whole change completely upset her, but given all she had been going through the previous year, in retrospect it wasn’t a surprise. Now, as she prepares to enter her third summer in the Wallowas, she’s completely recovered. There aren’t many 17-year-old horses who feel like they’re seven years younger on a stormy day like yesterday energy-wise, and I’m thrilled to have it happen–I’ve ridden a number of horses her age in lessons, and she just doesn’t feel that old under saddle. Her topline has filled in. She still shows a little rib, but the vet has pronounced her as being in good weight.

Mentally, she’s much more independent than she used to be. That comes with running with a big, stable herd over a rough winter. I’m glad to see it because I notice that it seems to contribute to her being more confident on the roads and trails. I would not have dared take her out on the roads in conditions like yesterday last year. Everything would have made her nervous and worried.

So all that is going well.

I’m working slowly on the writing right now. I’m not sure why that is. I can get going in small pieces–I have a couple of short stories out there that will be circulating, and all, plus I am contemplating what Challenges to Honor will be about. I think part of the issue is that I’m not seeing a lot of sales and I just haven’t had it in me to get out there and do the promotional work. Perhaps the cold, harsh winter? Or just a need to recharge? I’m not certain. Part of it may just be that I am dedicating a lot of energy to defeating the myofascial pain syndrome that has been intensifying over the past year and a half. I think I’m on track for a solution, but I’ve thought that before. One problem is that no one solution works for very long. Whatever it is, though, it interferes significantly with my sleep.

On the other hand, perhaps just putting energy into building my community networks in Enterprise may be part of the situation. I don’t know. It may just be recharge and recovery from the intensity of the past few years. It may be recovering from being totally pissed off at being slammed back into the situations of the Reagan administration politically, with less competence at higher levels (and that’s a scary thing to consider). I do think that this last election has uncovered issues that have been festering since Watergate, and need to be dealt with. I really, really didn’t want to live through these sorts of time at my age–oh well, it is what it is.

I do know that I need to get a newsletter out soon. I need to blog more. I need to do many other things.

And maybe it’s just that I am finally settling in and giving myself space to do so. We shall see.

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February 12, 2017 · 11:27 pm

The days are too freaking short

Yeah. I know, it’s wintertime. I live most of the time in a mountain valley that’s had a LOT of snow in it since early December or so. I should have lots and lots of time to write, do crafts, and blog, right? That was my plan.

Weeelll, instead it’s been OMG the social whirl! Part of this has been connected to dealing with the weather, of course. We got socked with serious subzero temps in December along with big dumps of snow and downright crappy weather outside of the valley (not that the valley was necessarily without winter). There were a number of December nights where I entertained myself by looking at the weather forecast on the smartphone that claimed the temps would go up 10 degrees in the next hour…only to see that hour pushed further and further out. When you are talking about the difference between -14 and 4 degrees F, well, that’s significant.

Then there was dealing with the snow. And cold. Even though things have warmed up, several weeks ago we got the warning that ground frost levels had dropped to the depth of the city water mains, and we needed to keep running water 24/7 to keep the mains from freezing. After having a brief flirtation with frozen pipes early in December, we took that warning seriously. Still, we’d get a drop of around 4 inches of snow, which meant we needed to dig out the driveway to keep things open. One thing we discovered about the first winter here was that ice tends to form right off of the bottom step out front. Well, it didn’t this year, possibly because we kept digging it out. All the same, days on end of subzero temps where the daytime temps might break single digits above zero…MIGHT…led to a certain amount of survival prioritizing.

First of all, the snow was too deep and it was too cold to safely ride. I spent a lot of time just going out to the barn (if the roads weren’t too bad) to give Mocha petting and grain. We sure didn’t do a lot of riding this winter as a result. But part of my going to the barn also meant checking the big trough for the pasture horses, because they were sucking it dry 2-3 times a day. The water trough is heated, and there’s not a lot of moisture in hay. They were eating 35 pounds of hay a day or more during the worst weather. Mocha went through it just fine. One day I brought her into the barn because it was icy, she had front shoes on, and between freezing rain and wind she was having problems staying on her feet. I took several blankets out to the barn, figuring I’d need to blanket her.

Um. Nope. Even though she had ice in her mane, ice on her back, ice in her tail…no shivering. And she made it clear that She Was Not Staying In Any Stinking Barn. In her past life as a stall princess, you could leave her stall door open and she’d stay put. Not now. I went to fetch her some grain and hubby went to get her more hay, leaving the door closed but not latched (it was a gate, not a sliding door). Little Miss pushed the gate open and marched out, heading for the pasture in spite of hay in the trough. I intercepted her, put her back in, and once she was done with her grain, she tried to push that gate open and leave once again. We ended up leaving her in the barn for the day, but by late afternoon she was ready to go back out. Hey, she’s holding her weight just fine, she’s sound, and today we went for a short ride in snow that’s still deep but not too deep for a short ride, especially with conditioning time coming up.

Secondly, just keeping the house warm and keeping ourselves warm could be interesting. We use wood heat with radiant oil backup, and have winterized the heck out of the place. The woodstove will hold a fire most of the night, especially with a pair of oldsters who wake up in the middle of the night and throw a log on. Still, when temps dropped to the subzero level, there would be a period where things got cold. Hubby and I got really coiled up together at that point. When it’s that cold outside, even insulated walls radiate the chill.

Thirdly, getting out and walking around, while doable, also required caution because of ice and slick spots, as well as burning calories in the cold.

But add to all that my getting involved in some local groups, and yeesh. I’m liking it, but I’m also finding that the community (as I already knew) had a lot of things going in the depth of winter.

Now things are getting warmer. Oh, temps in the high 30s still feel positively tropical. Mocha is having to relearn how to carry a rider in something other than a tractor track and that breaking through crusty snow does not mean she’s sinking into a deep morass. Grass and plants pop out green from under the snow. One of our local roads has turned into a roller coaster due to frost heaves over every culvert.

And now, suddenly, it seems to be easier to focus.

Interesting how that works.

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March 14, 2016 · 3:11 pm

That moment of epic earcamness

So this happened today….

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Ten feet away. We rode by him (from the size, I’d say it’s a male) twice. On approach, Mocha was all ears.

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I had one thumb bare and my phone in my pocket, so I was juggling snaffle reins, doing everything on a touch screen with only a thumb, dealing with a Very Alert Horse who was suspicious of the eagle…and sidepassed by him the first time. I was sure he was going to take off but we never got closer than ten feet and he showed no real inclination to go. Just as well by me as a certain little mare was on her toes and ready to go.

After four trot lengths along the back fence, she was somewhat quieter but still energetic, and wasn’t at all thrilled about stopping. But we got within ten feet and I got that first pic–which was the last one I took. Then we headed back to the barnyard to beat the snow shower blowing in.

I don’t think I can top that earcam.

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February 21, 2016 · 10:49 pm

Winter evening, Enterprise, 2/21/2016

10 pm. 34 degrees. Slightly tipsy from celebrating the completion of a graduate-level class I needed to take to renew my teaching license. Knocked off a reading unit and a test, two journal reviews and a reflection essay today, Test scores are in the 90s so I’ve aced this one, given that the complementary review of my first essay and journal review was–complementary. The original plan for today was to go riding with the barn owner, but things came up, so I decided to finish this class off and get it out of my way. Short-term teaching and testing gig ahead as well as working on Beyond Honor, all derailed by last week’s bug. Now I can face the writing with a clear conscience as my brain returns from whatever the heck it was that hit me. The class is all done now, and it’s a good transition back to braining for writing. Damn, don’t know why I ever dreamed of getting a doctorate. I can play this game well enough but–no, I’d much rather write fiction.

As part of the celebration I went out on the front porch to admire the moonglow on the Wallowas. While the forecast says partially cloudy, there’s not much cloud cover over the moon and the light is almost bright as day. A faint wisp of cloud hangs midslope below Ruby Peak, and I see other clouds hovering behind the peaks, but right now they’re not obscuring my view of those glorious, glorious mountains.

Down by Prairie Creek, the great horned owls are hooting. The barn owls over at the bed and breakfast’s barn break in occasionally, punctuated by brief coyote calls to the north of town. The bright neon blue and magenta of some kid’s hoverboard lights up First South Street while he talks to some other kid in a lifted diesel pickup. Then they both head their separate ways, the diesel chugging by my house before looping down and onto the highway. I hear it head up toward Joseph, loudest noise around.

But it fades, and once again I hear the measured hoo-HOO-hoo of the horned owls on the creek. They’re more consistent than the screeeck of the barn owls. A mallard duck sounds off somewhere along the creek. Then I hear a brief honking as something disturbs one of the Canada goose flocks, also north of town. Maybe Mister Coyote is finding an evening goose snack?

Quiet again. I huge myself while I sit on my stepstool, listening and looking into the night as the hoo-HOO-hoo sounds, regular as clockwork. For years the only way I could have this experience was to go camping.

Now I just have to step out on my front porch.

Were all the sacrifices and hard work to get here worth it?

Hell, yes.

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January 2, 2016 · 9:29 pm

Winter driving musings

As we progress through this first winter split between Portland and Enterprise, I’ve been noticing more and more differences between winter driving in Eastern Oregon and winter driving on Mt. Hood. Most obvious (besides the crowds!): Hood is wetter, even when it’s snowing. That means there’s a greater potential to slide on ice on Hood than over Meacham, because by golly, if there’s going to be a low temp for the day in winter, Meacham (on I-84 over the Blue Mountains) is most likely to be one of the coldest spots in the state where the Hood passes tend to run right at freezing. It’s a lot harder to skid on ice with temps in the teens or lower F.  As I remembered the other day, on our way to Portland for Christmas, when a driver in Lostine started backing out of a parking space without looking, and I hit the brakes to keep from getting caught between inattentive driver and parked ranch truck. It was slower braking than non-icy dry pavement, but no spin, no scary skid. I can think of times on 26 where a brake like that might mean heading for the ditch.

But there’s more to it than that. Chain conditions on Hood in my past experience focus more on either carry chains or else everyone chains up (unless you have traction tires). Not so over the Blues. There’s three conditions there–carry (A), vehicles over 10,000 lbs/towing chain up (B), or everyone chains unless traction tires (and sometimes even then) (C).  I’ve yet to see the fabled C condition over the Blues but that may be a factor of weather bad enough that we stay put (i.e., I don’t wanna be there). B conditions can be hairy enough.

Granted, a lot of the craziness over Hood has to do with lots of ski resorts/winter play areas near a major urban center, plus it being a major route to and from winter recreation in the Bend area. That means lots of inexperienced drivers who are either overly timid or too aggressive for the conditions. Not so much over the Blues, though stuff still happens far too easily (again, there are certain conditions we watch for that will cause a trip abort and reschedule. Freezing fog is one of those, big time). However, most drivers going over Meacham in winter usually know what they’re doing and adjust their speed accordingly. Nonetheless, so far the conditions over Meacham have been much less scary than my daily commute up the Mountain was during a typical winter.

The other thing is that besides the difference in chain conditions, the warning system from the Oregon DOT doesn’t quite match what I’m accustomed to on Hood. “Severe Winter Warning” on Hood usually means things like “eeek. Damn. Slick! EEEEKKK. Getting OFF this road ASAP!!! OMG, I’m home, Break Out The Booze To Settle My Nerves.”

But I’ve seen “Severe Winter Warning” in Enterprise for packed snow that, while it bears watching, is pretty much standard winter conditions for at least a couple of months here. So I’m needing to recalibrate what those warnings mean–which usually means looking at several websites to figure out what the weather is bringing.

Weather. We’re in a radar hole here, an area of small population with interesting microclimates and geology that affects things like winds, precipitation, and temperatures. There’s a local weather site that puts all the radars on one page and advises a look at Boise and Pendleton radars to get a better picture of Enterprise weather. I’ve found that looking at Portland and Medford frequently is a good idea as well–with the storms of December, trying to figure out how badly we were going to get hit by rain and wind involved that sort of triangulation. The last big snow dump, people in Cove and Elgin got much more snow than we did here. We’ve also had less intense winds.

To some degree the mountains to the south that cause our weather also shelter us from some things. I’m still figuring out just how that works, but having visibility up to 10-15 miles down the mountain chain kind of helps. I’ve been watching as storms that I thought would come through town cling to the mountains and don’t spread unless they are very big.

And even though we’re at a higher elevation than the lower valley, we got a graphic illustration of how cold air sinks while driving home. We went from 5 degrees F in Wallowa to 15 degrees F at our house in Enterprise, going by the temperature gauge in the Subaru.

So it’s a winter. Snow flurries from Cascade Locks to Pendleton, then sun from the top of Cabbage Hill until we got home. We had to sweep the driveway to clear two inches of dry, fluffy snow–and it was much more comfortable out than when we loaded the car at 28 degrees in Portland with a stiff east wind.

Now we’re tucked in with a nice wood stove and staying warm, even though the temp outside is now -3 F.

Winter is here.

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October 17, 2015 · 12:16 pm

Achievements unlocked

It’s been a busy morning. I guess all the rushing around to get out to the woods early to hunt and cut wood has gotten us into a routine of getting up early and doing stuff. We looked at today’s forecast and thought about woodcutting, but both our bodies rebelled (okay, it’s been four days of woodcutting followed by marathon deer butchering day followed by another woodcutting day…we declared a day off). Rain is supposed to come in tonight and maybe be around for three more days. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, hubby did some chore stuff and then successfully set up the digital antenna. We’re getting ABC, NBC, three PBS channels, and a few more oddities. Broadcast TV returns to our lives…replicating my childhood experience where I never saw CBS shows.

While he was doing that, I cleaned up my office (a wild mess after the past two months of woodcutting/traveling/horse doctoring/hunting) and rearranged things so that I can be productive on both jewelry and writing fronts.

We have to pick up the deerburger from the Dollar Stretcher and wrap it yet today, and we’re contemplating a drive to Buckhorn Lookout this afternoon. As if we haven’t gotten enough outdoor life at the moment…well, we’ve been focusing on the Imnaha unit for hunting and woodcutting because that’s where we had our deer tags. Now we’re going to drive out north. It’s slightly different country with more rolling steppe-like/plateau country.

I’ve also decided to set up a Pinterest for pictures–not just for the County but for book locations. I need to sort pix and get my stuff in order, because I’ve got too damn many pix that are unorganized.

Time to head out.

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October 13, 2015 · 7:41 pm

Adventures in woodcutting and hunting

Dang, the days are getting away from me again. We did a whirlwind trip to Portland, then came back to Enterprise for a whirlwind of prepping for hunting season and hunting camp. Our friend S. brought his wall tent that has a small portable woodstove in it and we did all the food prep. It’s been nearly thirty years since we last did this type of camping–nearly glamping in some respects–so there were some real questions about if it would work. Especially since last time we did it S and his late wife L lived here and did most of the prep. This time we were the ones prepping.

Camp turned out beyond our wildest dreams in many ways, except for one thing. The long hot, dry summer and warm fall meant that there were a lot of yellow jackets out and about. As long as there was daylight a low, persistent hum throbbed around the campsite. The yellow jackets weren’t attacking but they were persistent. I ended up eating some daytime meals in one of our pickup trucks to be safe since I’m allergic. But we ate well, slept well, and had a lot of fun for five days out in the woods. Granted, we ended up making a daily trip into town either for meetings, checking on the horse, or bringing a deer into the meat locker because the yellow jackets were just too aggressive. Still, that’s also one advantage to camping out near the house–being able to run into town during the day to take a shower and pick up other things we need.

In any case, we explored a couple of areas within our hunting unit. Another objective was scouting out locations for firewood cutting. We found some stunning views, some rough roads, and one opportunity to master some nuances of four wheel drive. Let’s just say I’m much better at shifting the pickup into four low now. Climbing a short steep hillside where I can’t look over the top of the hood helps, because you sure don’t want to run out of steam when attempting something like that.

This year we’ve seen more deer in our hunting unit than ever before, to the point where we’re recognizing family groupings of does, fawns, and yearlings. The bucks, of course, are more reclusive and have been that way all along. Until today, when we took a different route, we’d average seeing about twenty does and fawns. The buck spottings have been less frequent, but we’ve seen six of them…and killed two. At least out here where we’re hunting, it’s more of a challenge to find the bucks. And then when you find them, you have to hit them. Of the shots taken, only two made contact–the others were too long, or through brush which deflects a bullet, or a quick shot made while the buck was fleeing. Sometimes you don’t even get a shot, like what happened to my husband this morning. A forked horn hopped across the road, in a dense stand of young lodgepole pine. He jumped out and stalked it but was unable to get a clear shot (stand hunting is not as common when hunting mule deer; walking hunts or road hunts are the usual).

Still, we’re happy to even see the bucks, as we haven’t seen this many deer in years. Part of that is due to the reality that this year we spent a lot of time in our unit scouting for deer while cutting wood and looking at potential campsites. Being able to spend that time over several months as opposed to coming in for three days makes a huge difference. The mild winter is a factor in the deer presence for certain. The two bucks we got were yearlings, in good flesh. One of them might not have survived a harsh winter as though he was a sizable fellow, his horns were still in velvet.

Camp went from Sunday to Thursday. I had a reading on Friday night, so we didn’t go out that day. The last three days, though, we’ve gotten up at oh-dark-thirty and headed out for a morning of woodcutting and hunting. We got to see a dusting of snow on the mountains Saturday morning, thanks to evening rain. Some of it still lingers, but otherwise it’s been a warm hunting season. We’ve brought in a cord and a half of wood for a total of five and a half cords, and plan to cut at least another cord and a half if not two cords (we have permits which allow us to harvest up to eight cords). Our woodcutting has been going on around our campsite, because there’s a lot of dead lodgepole pine there which is the best burning firewood available in this area.

And…I’ve gotten some worldbuilding stuff done with a Weird West novel. Given the positive reception to a Weird West short story excerpt at the reading on Friday, I decided that maybe I should just get to work on that now.

So things are going along fine…just busy. Winter is coming, and we’re hustling to prepare for it. Deer meat is going to be in the freezer, which is good, and we’ll have a full compliment of wood for supplemental heat when things get really cold here.

There will be a picture post. I promise. Just…brain dead and tired. But that will be coming.

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