West To The Sun And Almost Spring....

This sky was a great improvement on the gray, cold, fog of Grants Pass.

We thought Sande may be taking her title of Birthday Queen too seriously til she came out of the Dollar Store sporting this new "fashion accent!"

That chocolate cake was so decacent it had the birthday girl up dancing to her tunes long after all the rest of us were down for the count.
Karen can always be trusted to come up with a creative cake decoration idea for birthdays.
I'm not sure even she could explain the significance of this one for Sande????
The Winchuck is a tiny stream that sits in a real rainforest ecosystem. This color is uniquely its own.


There were 10 trucks with boat trailers parked at Social Security Bar on the Chetco. The rainbow chert shimmering in this clear water reminded me of the trips we have taken through the upper gorge. Boulders the size of cars and small houses of this splendid rock are common up there.
George, King of the Autoharp just keeps getting better and better.
Billie wowed the audience at the Winchuck Open Mike with her blues number. Karen and Marko put the frosting on her Spanish tune.
A real Cabaret Evening at the Palace was quite a treat.



The trip started out with a sacred winter squash being sacrificed and consumed to assure the success of all crops in this coming year. Karen treated us royally at the Palace on Saturday. The Whinchuck Open Mike was held in town for the first time instead of upriver at the fire hall. All agreed it was a warmer place to spend a January evening.
Sunday AM I went to the beach to watch the light come. A flicker in a driftwood pile, with just a bit of help, turned into a great veggie-dog roast. Yup.....they are good for breakfast. Some of the the rest of the tribe preferred Karen's fruit salad and Els's banana bread. I think they were saving room for the hamburgers at the Church of Rolling Thunder. Only a couple of games of air hockey were played before we headed up the Whinchuck to Ludlum House.
The puddles in the road as we approached milespost 11 became iced over. Such a change from the warmth in the sun, and the fragrance of the flowers down at the ocean!
We celebrated a belated birthday for Sande. Karen, once again, came up with some hightly creative cake decorating ideas and garb for the celebrant. This trip to Ludlum had Carole asking that we make a pact....."Let us promise ourselves to never come camping again!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjlsdU2MxP0

Dr. Suess at the Seep

If the highly creative and original Dr. Suess could have his way with a "seep," this is surely what it would look like. Watching it grow and change over the past days has been quite entertaining. It has been noted by one in the know....that I seem to have a "serious attraction" to this spot. Only a pogonip, followed by a snow storm that dumped three inches in about two hours today, kept me from my rounds.
This cliff drips water from the old river bottom cobbles in the cut bank even in the driest days of August and September. Howard, a hydrologist with the Forest Service, tells me that this is because rain and snow is stored in an aquifer beneath this particular spot. The ground is porous and has cracks and allows the water to percolate up and be released all year. This water then heads back down for the river now several hundred feet below this old river channel.
I liked Howard. He is a man of science who does not negate possible magic. When I asked him Carole's question, "Do you think water remembers"? He answered, "It has not been proven, but it is possible."
ALL THE WATER THERE WILL BE ...........IS. Let us take good care of this life giving treasure.

See water move under ice at this linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF2XOl_NQxM

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Learn why "Icicles Have Ripples" at this link to a Discovery channel...http://www.exn.ca/video/?video=exn20030310-factofthematter.asx

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A Can-Do Community Does....

In the face of the virtual loss of the public library in Josephine County....The People MAKE their OWN library! YES! Reni Schaeffer spearheaded the project with help from many friends in the community of Selma. The old elementary school is now a non-profit--"Selma Community and Education Center." The library lives in what used to be the spacious Kindergarten room.The donated books range from mysteries to how-to, biography to philosophy.

Comfortable chairs and couches invite folks to linger and read there. The room can also be used for small meetings. Art work from the classes offered at the Center decorate the walls. This library is a fine testimonial to the willingness of people with an idea, to work together to make the world a better place.

The Learners Will Inherit The Earth

These perfectly good computers sit unused. What a waste!

I was number 12 in line waiting to check out my books last Tuesday.

Normally every computer has a library patron making good use of it. There is often a waiting list of people who want to use these tools.

"The learners will inherit the earth while the learned
are equipped to face a world that no longer exists."
Sometime ago, the Josephine County Library joined forces with neighboring libraries to share their resources. Our library became-- SOLIS--Southern Oregon Library Information System. The books available to us here in this little mountain valley increased exponentially. We had free access to the world through books, periodicals, tapes, and videos. The professional library staff could guide us to the Library of Congress stacks if the information we wanted was not available in our local collections.
Now the Grants Pass Library is open a few hours on three days a week. By the end of June, It will be open for THREE hours TOTAL per week. This is a token bow to the fine print that says...."you will provide a free public library to the citizens." Medford and the 14 branch libraries in Jackson County will close their doors totally in April.
This situation is deplorable. For our children, it is a tragedy. We are denying opportunities to the next generation that we enjoyed fully. The gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in our town has just widened rapidly. The long term consequences of our choices will not be in the best interest of society or the planet.

" The PURPOSE of life is to find your gift.....the MEANING of life is to give it away."

Is there anything that smells better in the kitchen than bread baking? Well, maybe cinnamon rolls? Maybe applesauce cooking? hhhmmmm..

The cholesterol in some things just has to be ignored. There is no alternative for REAL butter on real bread!

Toots says to use regular beer....no Lite beers here. When slices were cut for Madelyn, Nora, Spike and Carole, I had almost made my loaf disappear. What a terrific way to find "meaning" in life! Cheap Thrill #6,539.

Click here for the Recipe Music !
SING-A-LONG with our NEW words:
Get out the flour
We're gonna ma-ke some bread
Open the be-er
It takes one bottle, NOT light
Zing boom ta rare oh...
Add the egg and sug-ar now
Meas-ure, beat and kne-ad the bat-ter,
For the gang's all here.

Most people would agree that Tootsie has found, at least one of her gifts, in the kitchen. Even though winter does not appear to be coming this year to New England, it still seems the time to be baking bread. Her recipe for Beer Bread is quick and simple. If you do not have self rising flour--as I did not-- simply add 2t of salt and 2T of baking powder to 4c of flour.

Now, for the Grand Finale:

"Click Here... to hear and see Karina

our HOUSE BAND play the Beer Barrel Polka !

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This Feels Like A Day To See A Cougar.....

The grays and browns and greens of the landscape had some surprises for us today......RED, RED, RED, in all its' passion. The meat eating Darlingtonia plants may have missed lunch when I disturbed a fly sitting on one of their hoods. The gray- white lacework of last year, is disintegrating as the vermillion heads of 2007 appear from the rock and water.
The sun warmed the rocks enough to make the wind almost balmy. Those azalea buds are taking on some real plumpness. Ahh......I can almost smell their perfume. The sound of the wind and moving water followed me home. It was enough to know that mountain lion was there somewhere -- and breathed the same air as I did.

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