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Watching the weather

The day begins with coffee, Weather Underground, and the crossword. It’s important to know what’s happening outside as you plan the day and week ahead. The high desert  has great vistas whose beauty is in the sky and clouds.

This particular morning there was a notice of thunderstorms on the forecast app. Always on the look out for weather picture opportunities, this storm was scheduled for late afternoon and seemed too good to pass up.

Deciding to document the storm we head east toward the Fort Rock area. This part of the high desert has a great expanse of sky. The plan was to get ahead of the storm and be set up to catch the action.

We opt for the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge, offering a perfect location, just off Highway 31 near the the town of Summer Lake and to the north end of the town’s namesake.

This put us exactly where we hoped to be…surrounded by storm clouds. Thunder never materialized and for the most part we avoided rain and hail, all the time capturing images of the three or four different storm cells pushing up against the mountains to the east and west of us.

As icing on the cake, migratory birds were paddling around in the water ways. I guess the only down side were black clouds of mosquitoes. Even then the storm’s wind helped disperse the pests.

Finally, on the way back home and closer to Fort Rock, we managed to catch a tremendous sunset. A great ending to a day of weather watching (check out newest photo essay for more images of the storm).

 

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Salad in minutes

As the main salad maker in our family, my goal is to ensure we eat fresh veggies every day. A quick, mixed green salad fits the bill nicely. So why do I hesitate when it’s time to make a salad?

For me it’s the prep…washing the greens, peeling the veggies, and measuring assorted oils, vinegar and herbs. Apparently I am a lazy salad maker. Still, determined to do better, I decide to streamline my process.

All cleaning is done at one time. Vegetables are washed (check out Fruit & Vegetable Wash), then stored immediately after our weekly grocery run.

Now that everything is prepped, we are ready to assemble a salad at any time.

Print Recipe

Salad in minutes

Prep Time4 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbl olive oil ratio of 3 to 1, olive oil to vinegar
  • 2 tsp vinegar
  • pinch of salt
  • grind of pepper
  • pinch of thyme
  • handful of spring greens per person
  • 1/4 cup freeze dried blueberries per person
  • 1/8 cup sliced roasted almonds per person

Instructions

  • Place oil, vinegar, salt, thyme in large bowl and stirvigorously until emulsified. 
  • Put greens, blueberries and almonds and lightly toss until coated in dressing. Serve.

I only make enough dressing for the meal at hand. The ratio of oil to vinegar is three to one: three parts oil to one part vinegar. Not every vinegar is the same strength, so “to taste” is important here.

Choose a bowl three times bigger than the salad you are making…why? Because it’s a tossed salad and this helps contain all the parts.

The dressing is mixed first. Let sit a few minutes to blend the flavors, then the greens and extra fixings are put in the bowl and it’s all tossed.

Sometimes the extras are held back and dressed on top of the salad. Depending on how heavy they are, the really heavy stuff will end up on the bottom of the mixing bowl and make distribution more troublesome.

 

 

 

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A picnic on the Crooked

Weather wise it has been a very odd start to our spring. There was the late winter snow fall. Then…this week, within one single day, it started with snow, ended with warm sunshine, and included thunder and lightning with freezing pellets.

For the most part winter is subsiding and while no buds or blooms are visible yet, there has been increased bird activity.  We are also managing to get out a bit more these days. It feels great!

The Crooked River below Bowman Dam is one of our regular stops. Even with it’s steep canyon walls, plenty of sun warms the riverside. Open year around for fishing is one draw, but there are also lots of great camping and picnicking sites.

The Crooked is a very fishable stream, easy enough to wade and small enough to get to any spot a fish might be holding. There are quite a few people on the river, but you rarely bump into anyone and at most see another fisher up or down stream a few hundred yards.

There is a visit to the Crooked River marked in our calendar for mid-May. We have a guided trip on the river to learn Czech Nymphing. If you read our blog regularly you are going to see a lot of this river … your welcome!

This day we were coming from the John Day area and turned south out of Prineville to check on the Crooked. it was a perfect spring day filled with bird song and warm sun. Tip enjoyed paddling around in the water and we polished off a late winter picnic at one of the camp sites.

 

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A view and a warning

Oregon Trunk Railroad Bridge

Located just north of Redmond, the Peter Skene Ogden Park is the perfect stop if you’re heading south. A rest area that features three bridges spanning the Crooked River gorge. The railroad bridge that is about 100 years old, a highway bridge no longer in use, and the new bridge.

Oregon Trunk Railroad bridge is a steel arch built in 1910. Workers climbed rope ladders and waded through the river to get to the other side. Later, 300 feet above the gorge, they would “walk the plank,” crossing over on narrow boards that bounced with each step.

The Crooked River High Bridge allows pedestrians to walk the 464 feet over the Crooked River gorge to some dizzying views of sheer basalt walls leading down the 300 foot canyon face.

Also, if you are so inclined, there is a platform set up for bungee jumping.

Speaking of jumping … one alarming note…there  were many signs posted on the path to the gorge’s edge. They all offered a very explicit warning about the fate of many dogs (gulp).

Needless to say. I left both Tip and Jack in the car.

 

 

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A stop in Warm Springs

Deschutes River, near Warm Springs

This year winter was three weeks long and started four weeks ago. On Feb. 24 there was four feet of snow in our front yard. Today that is down to about six inches. Not complaining. We enjoyed winter and three weeks was a nice amount.  But when you are looking for hiking opportunities, this amount of snow makes that difficult. So our weekly excursions kind of stopped.

Road trips started back up this week and the other day we headed up to Warm Springs to check out “The Museum at Warm Springs.” 

Located just over the Deschutes River on Highway 26, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established a reservation school in 1890, on the site of the Warm Springs Agency. The settlement that developed around this is an unincorporated city or census-designated place.  A 1855 treaty ceded 10 million acres of traditional Indian  lands to the United States, keeping only the portion we now call the Warm Springs Indian reservation. The Indian Reorganization act allowed the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Indians to establish a tribal government and take over control of the reservation land.

Beaded Bag Courtesy of The Museum of Warm Springs Permanent Collection

To preserve the language and culture of these tribes, in 1993 the confederated tribes opened The Museum at Warm Springs. This beautiful rock and brick building serves as a central point in sharing not just the historical aspects, but also educational and artistic views.

The collection of baskets and bead work is worth the trip but there are also changing exhibits and on this visit we were treated to art from K to 12 students. The exhibit was great! These were class projects and most of them centered on native culture themes and made use of mostly recycled objects with a focus on traditional crafts and customs.