A Side Trip

 

  One spring day, I took the children on a day-trip to southeastern Oregon. The State Boiler Inspector was coming to hopefully put his sticker of approval on our boiler. Although his task would not take as long as our 8 hour loop, it was fun to pick a place that was "different" to go to instead of just getting out of the house for an hour. Mountains we had not ever been to, mysterious buttes and surprise canyons. Sagebrush but no Juniper. Migratory bird-way.

 Looking back towards Bend.

Just over the hills from our valley view is a higher, windier, drier land. The closer you get to Nevada, the vaster it looks. 

 

Malheur Wildlife Refuge (with actual water in it). 

 

We did a bit of birdwatching in nearby fields for cranes, geese and ducks.

 

 A fine, blue-sky spring day. Temps just above freezing. 

 

One wonders what it is like living on a ranch so far away from any large city.

 

 

Back home, our landscape looks a bit crowded in comparison!  

We passed our inspection, got our sticker, and it was on to the next "phase" in construction. 

Some more "life during construction" pics:

No counter yet, but plywood is fine for pantry storage!

The "gardening bug" hits me every year to some extent. I decided to try making some compostable newspaper planters (using a salt shaker as the mold), even though I had no place to plant the seedlings. I had faith that we would soon be done with the house and on to landscaping! It wasn't that successful of a project, which was just as well.

 

This little fella might have been feasting in the garden had I planted one. 

One inspection down, a few more to go. We had made great progress in the winter, now to see how far we got in the spring.