I’ve been converted…

I am hooked on camping! I don’t mean the sort where you lug everything on your back and you have to hike out with everything you bring in, but more like the subdivision variety -- where you may get noisy neighbors from time to time, but a hot shower is never more than a short walk away. Maybe later I can graduate to the wilderness for more than an overnight stay.

Paul and I recently got back from a camping trip down the Oregon coast. We had a blast together – we rode our bikes, explored small coast cities (although not as much as I would have liked), played cards by the campfire and made camp coffee every morning. I think the thing Paul and I enjoyed the most was setting up and tearing down camp. By the end of our trip we had it down to a science – each with our own tasks to perform. Our campsite served as our home away from home.

Each night we played cards until the sun went down; I was victorious at Gin Rummy but Paul snaked me at Speed & Yhatzee (don’t tell him but I let him win). Paul usually retired to bed early and I read by the light of my headlamp until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I hoped it was almost time to get up so we could make coffee. Something about coffee made in a French Press over a camp stove makes my heart go pitter patter (especially with Cinnamon Bun creamer – yum!) As the end of the week approached, I was dreading having to return to a routine work week; I did NOT want to go home.

When we returned home Friday we didn’t quite jump back to our normal routines and we had a short stay from Mike and Lori until Monday. The rest of the weekend we attended a triathlon, a luncheon, a rocket party (quite amazing) and hiked at Lost Lake – I also enlisted Lori’s green thumb for some gardening advice. As I was still in the camping spirit I fell in love with Lost Lake, a small lake 20 miles from my doorstep complete with lake view campsites. If only we had discovered it earlier…we could have been camping there all summer. I guess there’s always next year!

Below is a slideshow of our vacation; if you click on it you will be able to see it larger and you can read the captions.

Green Thumb

WARNING after reading this you could feel…

…jealousy, feelings of being less than or not worthy of. Or you might be pondering, “How do they do that? I wish my garden looked half as good.” Insert any cliché that pertains to people being jealous of THE GARDEN OF JONES.

This is Erica & my second attempt at tending to a garden. The first was in California; that garden did a great job of feeding all the deer in the neighborhood. Since then I have been determined to try gardening again. Earlier this spring I went to the rental center, rented a rototiller and cleared a small patch of dirt for the garden.

As a result of the Master Gardener course Erica took last winter, we had some great resources about what to plant in our area. I also asked the locals what to plant and, more importantly, when to plant. After gathering all this info we planted our garden over the course of a few weeks.

So far we have enjoyed the following: lettuce, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes (Roma & cherry), eggplants, peppers (hot and bell) and zucchini.

Next year - watch out folks! After our first Pacific Northwest gardening season behind us, we are going to pull out all the tricks from up our sleeves. We are even thinking about starting a booth at the local farmers market…

Education 101

This is my first attempt at writing a blog, so you will have to forgive me for trying to keep up with my sisters. They must have plenty of downtime to keep their blogs updated (or it takes them 5 mins and me 3 months to write one).

I will attempt to make a long story short. Over an afternoon of wine tasting with some mutual friends, we met the parents of one couple, Rich and Brook Remington. My ears perked up instantly when they said that they are long-time wheat farmers. Since I have been living in Oregon one of my favorite’s places to ride my bike is The Dalles, a town 20 minutes East of Hood River. The roads there are in great shape; no traffic and interesting landscape. Riding my bike around the vast, amazing fields, I could never figure out how they were planted, harvested or irrigated.

So over a glass of wine I expressed my interest in seeing how “things are done”. Somehow my logging career was mentioned and in the next breath Rich said, “Do you want to run combine for me during harvest?” (it must have been the wine talking). There was no way he could have taken me serious, could he? After all, I was just a skinny kid with shaved legs who likes to ride his bike on, as Rich would put it, “his roads”. Regardless, by the end of our wine tasting session I shook his hand and the deal was made; I told him I was serious, and he confirmed he was as well.

A few weeks later Erica and I went out to their ranch and he gave me the skinny on my new job. He said he would give me a call when the moisture in the wheat was under 11.5%, which means a green light for harvest. The phone call came on a Sunday and I showed up the next morning with a suitcase full of clothes and an ice chest of food. They had a fifth wheel trailer that I would stay in for the week and they would provide me dinner. What more could a guy ask for?

Monday Morning:

After 30 minutes of work I realized I had forgotten how much I enjoyed driving 1-ton pickups; ahhh, the smell of grease and big equipment. As they say “you can never get diesel out of your blood”. Within a few hours we had the combines moved to the fields and we were ready to start. Rich showed me a few keys things and I was off driving a huge combine around wheat fields and most importantly, LEARNING.

Sitting on a combine between 10 to 12 hours each day gave me plenty of time to think about all the amazing chances and people I have met in my lifetime that have allowed me the chance for once-in-a lifetime experiences like this. From living on a cutting horse ranch in Nevada when I was 14, later living in the mountains working on a cattle ranch, having my logging career, performing my various types of coaching, working excavation for a summer, to being a Director at a ski resort, I have found it all comes down to saying YES. (On the other hand, I have also learned the hard way about saying yes to too many things). As they say, “with age comes wisdom” - a good topic for another blog…maybe later!?

Back to learning - I think there are different ways to educate yourself, one is to go to school and learn how things should be done by the book, or say YES when opportunity knocks and learn on the job. After a seven day stint with the Remington’s, who answered every question that I had about wheat (which were a lot), I have educated myself by simply saying YES. The Remington’s are an amazing couple; they are great teachers, hard-working, possess good values, were very patient with me and best of all proved to be overall NICE PEOPLE.

I could sit here and go on and on telling you all about how wheat is harvested, but I will leave it up to you to say YES and educate yourself on the subject, or any subject you find interesting.

What will I learn next? Look for me next in a middle of a vineyard…I still don’t understand how THAT all works!!