Field Trip Part 2

We drove for an hour after lunch to Warner Valley which is east of Lakeview.  The road meanders along Camas Creek through that notch behind the Post Office and is the same Hwy 140 that goes through Klamath Falls, hard to believe.

We gassed up at the Adel Store established 1898 and bought snacks.  A cowboy saundered over to our group and asked if we were interested in taking a look at the BLM Mustang facility about a mile away.

Why not?!  We were already a couple hours off schedule.  This is Beaty Butte Wild Horse  - click on the link for more information on their rehabilitation and adoption of mustangs to keep them out of slaughterhouses.  It was well worth the time we took.

Ian was taking a picture of Joanie and me when we realized we were standing in horse manure.

This is our friends Joanie and David with Ian.  It's a good thing we met them because they invite us to do fun stuff all the time, like this trip!

It turns out that the cowboy who is invited us to visit this rescue operation is Ken Kestner, Lake County Commissioner.  He told us that the county, the largest in Oregon, has a population of about 8,000 and he is one of three commissioners though there are supposed to be four. That means the safety of petroglyphs as well as the Summer Lake Wildlife Area, which has been in the news lately for their work in bringing trumpeter swans back from near extinction - all are in his territory. 

He explained the process in rehabilitating the horses, something he is clearly passionate about.  Andries gave him his card and told him to shoot him an email next time they have an adoption and he'll help publicize it.

The Greaser Petroglyph was our last stop of the day.

The separate piece on the right with the fat lizard was vandalized, then later recovered and placed approximately in the sport where it had been removed from.  These were the best yet, and there are many more sites if we decide on another trip.  Al was making a list for "next time" as we drove back.

It would probably have been 30 minutes shorter had we just gone back the way we came but we voted to go north along Lake Abert, an inland sea remnant, and through Christmas Valley and Fort Rock, home to the largest homesteader museum.  None of us had been there before and I knew Ian and I wouldn't go there on our own. We had left at 8:00 and didn't get back until after 9:00, and though we were exhausted, we were exhilarated. 

Field Trip Part 1

Yesterday Ian and I and four other couples took a field trip into Central Oregon to look at petroglyphs.  The trip was offered through the High Desert Museum and our guild and driver was Andries Fourie, curator of Art at HDM.  We met out in front at 7:30 and were underway shortly after 8:00.

Fort Rock was our first point of interest.  Andries explained that once upon a time this area was an inland sea called Lake Chewaucan and this rock would have risen above the surface as an island.  A similar rock to the left is where sandals were found, dated between 9,000-13,000 years ago. The native peoples lived along the shore of the lake and hunted water fowl so the perimeter of the dried lake bed is a favorite of arrow hunters.

Table Rock is another remnant from the volcanic past.  It's owned by the BLM and you can drive to the top on a dirt road that spirals up around it, although Andries says spots are white knuckle - no thanks.

This is what the lake would have looked like before the Cascades rose up and the climate got drier.  I found an interesting blog post of a father/son trip to the region which goes into more detail which you can read here.

This is the crossing from Silver Lake into Summer Lake and the point of our first petroglyphs.  This is basin and range country so this is the uplifted range between the two basins.

We parked the van and hiked to this spot which is just one rock of many in this area.  No wonder the road sign says Picture Rock Pass, elevation 4,380' and there's no way I would have found this without being led to it.

I worked on the research for petroglyphs of Nevada that were used as part of the interior design of the Spanish Springs Library opened in 2005 and that I retired from in 2009.  I was very surprised at how similar these were to those.  Andries said that actually these primitive drawings are similar all over the world, including South Africa where he is from, and also France.

The figure center right looks like a horse and rider but the dating of all of these figures has been established at around 7.000 years ago.  Horses weren't present in the Americas until after the Spaniards introduced them and the rider was added and dated as later.  Andries showed up how rocks were tapped onto the surface to creating these "etchings."

This is known as the Ana Boulder and is on the shore of Summer Lake, or what once upon a time was Summer Lake.  It like many of these remnants of Lake Chewaucan are dried up alkaline lakes now.  This originally was a large rock, however, in 1980 in straightening a road the county blasted several boulders which had been deep grooved petroglyphs.  Six fragments of these boulders remain.  This was the oldest of our trip.

Our trip was a special arrangement made with Andries by one of our group who is a generous supporter of the museum.  The original trip offered and filled within the same day so Andries agreed to do this as a shake-down cruise.  We were running late by the time we arrived for lunch in Paisley, home of the Mosquito Festival.  The first order of fine-tuning for the next group is to make lunch brown bag.  The rest to follow.....

Books, Books, Books

Winter is easing its grip and I am finding a day here and there to sit outside and read.  Which means it's also time for yard word and that is nothing to write about.  However I recently finished a book about a bookstore which made me think of others, so here goes.  Books about bookstores.

Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan

I’ve loved the books I’ve read that were set in bookstores so I was eager to read this one after I read the description. The beginning was confusing but once the story moved to Paris and into the bookstore, it turned a corner for me and I was engaged by the charismatic George, the adorable Peter and Annabelle, crotchety Madame, and the enigmatic Declan as well as the sense of place Callanan’s descriptions of Paris provided.

The single fly in the ointment for me was Robert. I was perplexed by the relationship between he and Leah. I just didn’t get any spark or romance between them and I didn’t understand Leah’s support and tolerance of Robert’s “write-aways” where he would leave for indeterminate periods of time. Robert’s absences were hard on both Daphne and Ellie and led Ellie to ask, “He didn’t hate us, did he?” We learn that this dysfunction went on for 18 years. It felt like Leah put her selfish husband ahead of the welfare of her girls. Without strong and clear leadership from their parents, the girls became very mature and my favorite characters. I was thoroughly sick of him before the family left for Paris.

This was a coming of age for Leah as well as for her girls and i was glad she didn’t give up. Without giving anything away, the end was worth the journey.

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon

This has been around for a while but it's still good.  Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

The Storied Life of A J Fikrey by Gabrielle Zevin

My bookclub chose this book and we lean toward literary works, so this felt like a spoof on our tastes, with so many of the book clubs and book discussions developing throughout. The anatomy of a book club, its expectations, a reader's response to a book, and the books they chose will be fun for our book club to talk about. It started feeling predictable, like a happy-ever-after story, but given the press this book received, I knew more was coming. Lambiase kept talking about a book with a twist and this certainly had one. A.J. had asked Maya, "Is a twist less satisfying if you know it's coming?" I'll find out how my book club answers that question tomorrow.  (I read this several years ago)

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

I enjoyed this book in spite of its thin plot and the interludes of predictable sexual tension. I loved the author's voice which made me set aside the things that didn't work like "apartments" in a rural and dying midwestern town and just keep reading on. I liked the motley cast of characters and I really did like Sara, her impressive knowledge of books and her inner dialogue as she ruminated about books and authors. I loved how she created shelves and the seeing which books she chose for them. I want to visit her bookshop! It was cold and snowy outside so I sat in my favorite chair and sank into this book. This book is a translation and I suspect the author has never been to the American Heartland, hence the apartments.

Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

I struggled a little in the beginning with the French names and setting, but once I cleared that I sailed into this book. My first thought was - physician, heal thyself! This poor damaged bookseller could put the perfect book in anyone's hands but his own, and then we learn his misery is the self-inflected, the produce of hurt and pride. He refused to use his first name as he drifted through those twilight years, and I noticed one of the first changes in his awakening was acknowledging his first name, Jean. I'm calling this a book fantasy, short of serious literature and much much more than a romance. Imagine a literary apothecary on a barge! With cats!! The one silly thing that niggled at my mind was - where were the cat boxes?? I loved this book.

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

A Winner of the Alex Award, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything―instead, they "check out" large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele's behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore's secrets extend far beyond its walls. Rendered with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

April Showers

I finally got the loom warped but boy am I glad I warped from the front for this one.  I miscounted and had to insert corrections in about four places.  I am already planning my next tartan and I will play close attention this time!

Linda Davis, our instructor, gave us each a square PostIt note and had us fold it diagonally as a tool to help us beat to square.  It's so simple.  Just line up the bottom with a lateral line and it's immediately apparent whether or not your beat is correct.  I used it constantly in class and I'm still using it at home.

I finally finished it today.  I love it!

I sold about five pounds of roving which was really freeing, the letting go and also the freeing up storage space.  This is three pounds and the very last of our Shetland colored fleece.  Vacuum-seal bags are the ticket to shipping roving.  It made all the roving that I still have seem more manageable. 

Friday morning I dug through all the handspun yarn that I've complained about storing because I don't have enough for one project.  I found three skeins of the gray Merino in a bag that said "not fulled" and that with the fulled yarn in another bin came to a pound.  It's from a hogget Merino I bought when Linda Loken still lived in Reno, bought from Wayne Jesko and sent off for processing to Morro Fleeceworks.  The white is 17 micron Merino, also from Wayne and I don't know where he had it processed.  I have enough for a yoked sweater.

I browsed Ravelry and found this pattern, another one from Heidi Kirrmaier.  I realize that Ravelry makes it easier to find a pattern that matches up with the gauge of my handspun yarn.

I have about four pounds of processed\ Cormo/Corriedale that's a brown/black, also processed by Morro Fleeceworks, and just like that, I'm spinning again.  It's like riding a bicycle.  I still know how, even with this long hiatus.

This was the second nice day of this year and I probably shouldn't have spent so much time weaving, but I still did find a couple hours this afternoon to sit outside.  I had planned to finish my book but my Kindle died so I read the library's copy of Women's Work: the first 20,000 years instead. The birds were great company.  I even had this robin join me briedly for a bath in our pond.  It rained quite a bit last week and is in the forecast for tomorrow, but you know what they say about April showers?!