Of course, the real reason I was headed this direction was to visit R&A Paradise Ranch near Baker City, OR. I think it's Jeff Foxworthy that has a bit of stick called "You might be a redneck if ..." One of the lines is "If directions to your house include the words, 'Turn off the paved road...' then you might be a redneck." Well, if redneck is synonymous with good living, hard working, country people, then I would say R & A qualify. It was two and a half miles down this gravel road with the truck tugging along in 4x4 drive.
They came out from the house to meet me, but I was quickly ushered inside where we talked and caught up on a couple years worth of happenings while I cut up baby cucumbers for bread and butter pickles. A made the brine and got started on the syrup for peaches. By the time the pickles were all soaking, we started peeling and canning four cases of peaches. A par-boiled them for 60 seconds then dumped them in cold water where R quickly stripped the skins from them. I picked them up and quartered and pitted them then stuffed them into quart canning jars. A took the jars, poured syrup over them, put the lid on and put them in the canning tub to cook for 25 minutes. We worked on the production line until we ran out of quart cans and started on pints. I'm glad we put up a few dozen of those as I got to bring a couple with me in the trailer. It was about 8:00 p.m. by the time we finished canning and A whipped up chicken-fried steak for dinner.
While we talked and canned, we covered a lot of ground. The conversation was great. R is a hunter and guide in addition to being a fine rancher and trailhand. When I mentioned that I used to have a horse and ride, A jumped at the chance to go for a ride on Monday. I was thinking an hour or two riding out and back from the house. But A & R are avid trail packers and A wanted to go where she'd have a chance to bag a bear. (I was a little confused when she said we were hunting bare, but got straightened out pretty quickly!) It was pretty obvious that I was going to get to know Rika (short for Paprika) pretty well by the end of the day.
R had to put a shoe on Rika and two on his pack mule, Axel. Then we loaded up three horses and a mule, oilcloth dusters, and chaps and headed for the Willowa-Whitman National Forest. It was a few miles off the paved road on a forest road to the trailhead and about 12:30 in the afternoon, we were mounted and riding up the mountain on a narrow, rocky trail with a steep drop-off to Catherine Creek a few hundred feet below. It was a little scary because Rika doesn't neck rein and I was constantly pulling the wrong way. I'd never ridden a horse that turned toward the reins before.
An hour or so into our trek, we came to a weathered sign announcing that we were crossing into the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area. Another hour and we got to "The Meadow" where we stopped to graze the stock and eat lunch. Yes, it included some of those great canned peaches. Unfortunately, we were joined by a bunch of hornets and yellow-jackets. The idyllic scene I shot below was actually R trying to get a hornet unstuck from A's eyelash before it stung her again. One-sided botox treatment.
We continued on up the trail another hour or more into area that few people see. The weather improved and we were able to shuck the dusters and ride in shirtsleeves or jackets. I was feeling pretty good with my horsemanship skills by this time and was sitting comfortably enough on Rika that I could actually pull the camera out and take an occasional photo.
We finally turned back to head down the trail. I got this quick photo of the edge of the trail and yes, those are the tops of very tall trees just past the edge where I took the photo. Rika did admirably, even though she's only begun to change from race horse to trailhorse. She compensated for most of my inadequacies.
R & A thought it was some kind of record that we reached the trailhead before full dark. Apparently they'd never managed that before. Sadly, A didn't get her bear, but there are still several weeks of the season open. We got back to the ranch around 8:00 p.m. and took care of the livestock, unsaddled, and put them to pasture. By the time I finished that with R, A had spaghetti ready for dinner. I pretty much collapsed in my bed, just vaguely aware of the thunder and lightning and rain that moved in during the night.
Here are a couple more pictures from A on the trailride. And a reminder from her that when I got up Tuesday morning, I jumped out of my seat as soon as I sat to have coffee. I actually got a blister on my butt! It was worth it though.
We all needed to hit the road in the morning. R & A had pigs that needed to be to market by 10:00 and the calf got loose during the storm in the night and took a while to track down. She made it back to the farm when she heard the milking machine kick in. I got to shop in the meat freezer and chose several steaks to fill the freezer in my trailer. R & A had to leave before I was hitched up and I no more than got started raising my stabilizers when the cloudburst hit again. By the time I had the fourth stabilizer up, I was soaked to the skin. Soaked didn't begin to cover it by the time I was fully hitched and ready to go. I jumped back in the trailer and changed clothes and dried off before I dashed back to the truck to pull out. That little dirt road was fun to navigate in the rain!
I continued to have rain off and on as far as LaGrande, OR, then headed back across the pass to Pendleton and up to Walla Walla to get with P & K. I got a few things caught up and apologized to people for not telling them in advance that I'd be beyond cell phone/Internet range for three days. P & K fixed an incredibly good king salmon, wild rice, salad, and veggies for dinner, then I hauled the trailer over to the local Walmart where I parked for the night. Several other cars and RVs pulled in over night and I slept peacefully.
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