A Turkey Point of View

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving from our turkey to yours.

Honey is Here

John has been busy extracting honey at our beekeeper mentor's honey shed.  This is the first round. We estimate this is about 60 pounds of honey.  There's 29 jars in this group. John thinks he may extract about 40 more pounds today. The main flower source is alfalfa and rabbit brush.  Wow, is it good!

Chorus Practice

Here's the very lively Harney County Chamber Music Society Chorus in a state of panic at practice because the recital is 12 days away and we aren't ready.  We are singing the Hallelujah Chorus, Do You Hear What I Hear, For Us A Child Is Born, Eager Shepherds on Their Way and There is No Rose. Recital is Sunday, December 4 at 3 PM at the Church of the Nazarene. Somehow it all comes together at show time and everyone always says we sound pretty good. The community orchestra and the bell swingers play in the same recital.  It's an annual tradition. No auditions required, and if you make mistakes no one hardly notices.

Butts in the Wind

Horses will stand with their butts to the source of the wind. Great weather vanes. The wind is blowing pretty lively out of the southwest on this one.

Diana and her cookstoves

Diana, another neighbor on Palomino Lane, is a master of restoration. She found two old cook stoves which she will restore. Who knows?  She might even cook on them.  She has her sights on another and among three she might be able to put together one working stove.  This is one of her winter projects. (Snowing and blowing here today.) 

More Uses for Bailing Twine

Dorset Sheep

Here's another snap of Jane's beloved Dorset sheep.  They came over to check out Pierce the Bull.

Pierce the Bull Arrives

Our neighbors on Palomino Lane, Jane and Bill, rented a bull and he arrived this week. He banged around a lot in the trailer, not happy with his situation.  So John helped Jane unload him into a corral. Pierce lunged out of the trailer and immediately headed for the hay. Smart bull.  However, the vet had to check him out for fertility and STDs so he can't be in with the ladies yet. There are twenty of them. Rosebud, a very sweet cow, came to check out the new arrival. Jane and Bill's cows calve in the fall, so now is the time for Pierce to be on the job for next year's calves. 

Bailing Twine

I love bailing twine. Garrison Keillor even wrote a song about how useful it is.  Here we have a Harney County gate designed and built by John Thelen.  And there is good old bailing twine acting as the closure.  I carry it with me all the time and collect it. We have a bailing twine box in the garage. It comes in colors and a local lady even crochets door mats with it. Now there is a good Christmas gift idea.

Feeding Time

Fancy and Harriet will eat together. But Yoda has to have the tub all to herself. She won't share.

Is Harriet Pregnant?

Harriet, our brown pony, came with baggage, maybe. (Fancy is the Pinto.) Her previous owner reported that she may have gotten into a little hankie pank in April this year. The foal would be due March, 2012. Harriet will be three years old next spring, a little young to be mom, but then wild horses don't use birth control.  We keep looking at her barrel shape, thinking, is she or isn't she?  Whadaya think? (

November 16 Sunrise over Stinkingwater Ridge

How the heck do these things work?

We had our November Statewide Emergency Test of the Oregon Amateur Radio Emergency Service last Saturday.  About six of us participated doing emergency drills.  Several of us ended up trying to re-program our hand held 2 meter radios since a tone was added to our local repeater. Really, it takes a rocket scientist to program one of those things. We used the two meter radios as part of the drill since the scenario was a large solar flare that affected communications on Earth and we weren't able to use HF.  It's a good group and these test drills are very helpful. We all learned a lot.

Pow Wow

The other Saturday John and I stopped by the Burns Paiute Pow Wow held in the Harney County fairgrounds. Most everyone gets all fancied up.  Dancing went on all afternoon into the night. We only stayed a little while. I forgot my camera, but my new photographer friend, Janet, shared these photos with me.  The kids were the best, in my humble opinion.

Lemons in Harney County

Finally, the lemons are turning yellow on my dwarf lemon tree which has had five green lemons hanging on for at least 6 months.  This is the third season for this tree. It keeps producing wonderfully fragrant blooms but no lemons. I didn't know what else to do, not having grown lemons before so I just left the green ones on.  At last they are turning yellow. These may be the first lemons ever to be harvested in Harney County.

Pack Rat

Midnight the cat brought this guy home the other day. I thought at first it was a dead tree squirrel because of the hairy tail. But I looked again and there was that distinctive face.  My neighbor, who is a champion pack rat identifier, said, yep, it was a pack rack, small though. They usually come in pairs and really do like to steal shiny objects for their nest.  Haven't seen the other one of the pair yet.  But the cats are on the case.