Muley and I watched a big harvest moon rise last night and set this morning. I've moved my nightly encampment from the lawn of the bunkhouse up to the pathway in front of Honey's paddock where a big oak tree holds the dew off me and I can feel the wind sweep in across the plain from Mary's Peak. Muley shares her paddock with a smaller mule, named Kate, who looks like Muley in every way save a white star and shorter legs. Kate has developed the bizarre habit of pulling my tarp off me as I sleep and dragging it into the paddock along with my sandals. She stands there at my feet chewing my sandals while Honeychild reaches up to shake the branches of the oak tree with her teeth, dropping leaves and acorns down upon my sleeping bag.
In the morning, I wake to see Honeychild standing over me watching me. "Good morning, Honeymule," I say, to which she responds readily with a long, earnest bray, issued just several feet from my bleary face. Then she sighs and lets out half a dozen board yawns while the other mules begin to cry for their breakfasts. What cacophony! And so I rise and head to the bunkhouse to dress, usually just in time to see Fred, the one-legged peacock, ruffling his way disgruntledly down from the haybarn. Morning is upon us all!
After morning chores I've been heading in to town pretty regularly. I've been loaned a bike from my dear Corvallis friends and it has proven indispensable. I try to get back to the barn by 6:30pm so I don't get stuck on the roads in fading light. I usually get back in time to grab a bowl from the kitchen and head out to the blackberry patch along the driveway. I've frozen five gallons of enormous, plump blackberries and three more of blueberries. I've also begun drying apples (from the tree outside the door) and am going to sauce and can more tomorrow. Amy, who runs the stable with her husband Barry, has been bringing me wonderful produce from her jungle-garden, and I've been blanching and freezing everything I can't eat. I love getting ready for winter!
I received a call today from the president of the Oregon Coastal Trail Association. He called to tell me he'd brought up the idea of my riding a mule on the Corvallis to Sea trail at a recent meeting and had been met with enthusiasm. So... I'm getting in touch with some folks locally in order to do a little more research to make sure the trail is a feasible challenge for me and Muley... If so, we'll probably try to ride a portion of it in the next few weeks -- we need to get a glimpse of that ocean before the rains set it!
Oh! And I've arranged to move into a lovely room in downtown Corvallis and have accepted a job at the family-owned Grass Roots Bookstore just a few blocks away...
More later and love to all,
~April and Honeychild
P.S. I promise -- photos are on their way!!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
We're in Corvallis!
Can it be real? Honeychild and I made it to Corvallis, Oregon, in the warm breezy hours of the deep dark night. Honey bolted off that horsetrailer like a honeybee chasing a hungry bear - she was a big tired Muley who needed to pee in deep wood shavings and roll and shake in a dust hole. Once Muley was happily settled into her big new stall I crawled off to my own fluffy cloud. I'd planned on staying in the bunkhouse, but the night was so mild and lush that I couldn't stand to be out of it. I unrolled my sleeping bag in the night-shadow of an apple tree and swapped out my dusty travel clothes for long johns. Half way through my task I collapsed and fell back, staring at the stars above me. The insects chirruped loudly from the trees crowding around the edge of the lawn. "What wonderful heaven," I thought to myself. "Trees, trees, trees, trees, trees." I held my eyes on the stars and waited for my sign. A moment later, a shooting star darted across the bottom of the sky. "Good," I thought, "I'm in the right place."
Waking up in the morning was like finding myself in the middle of a surprise gift and unwrapping it from the inside out. I'd driven into Corvallis in the dark, so I scarcely knew what surrounded me. When dawn broke, I found I was in the midst of trees, dhalias, sunflowers, barns, outbuildings, and dozens of mules. I plucked my breakfast from an obliging branch and set off to explore. There was Muley, head hanging out of her stall, braying to me. I haltered her and led her out for a walk. Rounding the barn, another surprise greeted us -- a zorse (a zebra-horse hybrid) was grazing contentedly in a small pen. Just beyond it, a male peacock was settled on the grass. And above the peacock was an oak tree! An OAK tree! What relief. Oak trees and apple trees will make this place home.
Waking up in the morning was like finding myself in the middle of a surprise gift and unwrapping it from the inside out. I'd driven into Corvallis in the dark, so I scarcely knew what surrounded me. When dawn broke, I found I was in the midst of trees, dhalias, sunflowers, barns, outbuildings, and dozens of mules. I plucked my breakfast from an obliging branch and set off to explore. There was Muley, head hanging out of her stall, braying to me. I haltered her and led her out for a walk. Rounding the barn, another surprise greeted us -- a zorse (a zebra-horse hybrid) was grazing contentedly in a small pen. Just beyond it, a male peacock was settled on the grass. And above the peacock was an oak tree! An OAK tree! What relief. Oak trees and apple trees will make this place home.
Friday, September 5, 2008
On Our Way
After leaving Augusta and heading north, Honeychild and I spent two and a half lovely weeks with Russ and Maxine Barnett in Whitefish, MT. Honeychild settled in immediately with the Barnetts' two horses and three mules and was reluctant to leave when the time came. I was a little reluctant to leave, too -- I was having such a good time! Russ and Maxine were kin right away and were as nice as parents to me. It was sad to leave when the time came to move on to Spokane, WA. Fortunately, Amtrak connects Corvallis, OR to Whitefish, MT, so I'm hoping I might be able to come back in the winter to go ice fishing...
While in the Bob Marshall Wilderness I'd met some folks from Spokane and exchanged contact information with them. I called a few days in advance and asked them if I could come stay with them for a week while I looked for a trailer ride to Enterprise, Oregon. "Absolutely," they said before I'd even finished my sentence. And so, on the last day of August, the Barnetts drove me west to Spokane and left me with Dean and Anna Koesel.
My week with the Koesels has been packed. Dean is a small and large animal vet and also runs an embryo transfer business with his wife, Anna. That means they artificially inseminate valuable beef cows and flush the 7-day embryos out to freeze in liquid nitrogen until transferring them to surrogate mothers.
On Monday I got to watch Dean flush a cow (wash out the embryos) and also got to put my whole arm inside the cow to feel around for her ovaries and uterus. On Tuesday I went to work with Dean at the vet clinic and got to see him treat several horses, a cow, a premature cria (baby alpaca), and a dog. On Wednesday Dean, Anna, and I drove to a large dairy near Moses Lake to breed some cattle, and on Thursday I spent the day swinging a hammer on the house their son is building. Today we moved irrigation pipes and picked up rocks and I got to drive a front end loader and a skid-something. Wow!!! I got to move several huge haybales with the front end loader (alone!) and I got to use the skidder in the field where we were picking rocks. Maybe my destiny lies in operating heavy machinery...
Tomorrow Anna is going to drive me south into Oregon, and on Sunday a fellow there is going to drive west to Corvallis Oregon. The fellow driving me to Corvallis is Barry, of Valley Mule Co., where I'll be keeping Honeychild.
I'm excited to get to Corvallis where I have good friends awaiting me. Three months on the road, depending on the generosity of strangers, is wearing. I've made so many friends, though, and have so many people to visit when I pass through Montana and Washington again. It will be good to have a stable place in Oregon where Honeychild and I can finally settle in. It looks like we'll be overwintering in Corvallis, so I suppose I'll be finding a job and a place to live. I feel so far from home. I've never been away from home this long before! I've never gone this long without seeing anybody from my family. Well, I suppose they will have to come visit me. I've been talking to my brother in LA and hope we get to have some adventures together while I'm out on this coast. There are so many places to see!
Once I get to Corvallis I'm going to look into the Corvallis to Sea Trail. I've heard it's a good 60-mile trail to the ocean. I'm hoping to travel it round-trip with Honeychild to conclude our adventures.
Even a week ahead seems too far in the future to contemplate. I am tired! And germs have finally caught up with me -- I have my first cold since before I set out on the road. Sigh.
Thank you to everyone who has been sending me encouraging notes. I'm not in a good internet spot at the moment, but I hope to respond to you all soon. I am so, so warmed by your good thoughts and wishes.
More soon,
~April
While in the Bob Marshall Wilderness I'd met some folks from Spokane and exchanged contact information with them. I called a few days in advance and asked them if I could come stay with them for a week while I looked for a trailer ride to Enterprise, Oregon. "Absolutely," they said before I'd even finished my sentence. And so, on the last day of August, the Barnetts drove me west to Spokane and left me with Dean and Anna Koesel.
My week with the Koesels has been packed. Dean is a small and large animal vet and also runs an embryo transfer business with his wife, Anna. That means they artificially inseminate valuable beef cows and flush the 7-day embryos out to freeze in liquid nitrogen until transferring them to surrogate mothers.
On Monday I got to watch Dean flush a cow (wash out the embryos) and also got to put my whole arm inside the cow to feel around for her ovaries and uterus. On Tuesday I went to work with Dean at the vet clinic and got to see him treat several horses, a cow, a premature cria (baby alpaca), and a dog. On Wednesday Dean, Anna, and I drove to a large dairy near Moses Lake to breed some cattle, and on Thursday I spent the day swinging a hammer on the house their son is building. Today we moved irrigation pipes and picked up rocks and I got to drive a front end loader and a skid-something. Wow!!! I got to move several huge haybales with the front end loader (alone!) and I got to use the skidder in the field where we were picking rocks. Maybe my destiny lies in operating heavy machinery...
Tomorrow Anna is going to drive me south into Oregon, and on Sunday a fellow there is going to drive west to Corvallis Oregon. The fellow driving me to Corvallis is Barry, of Valley Mule Co., where I'll be keeping Honeychild.
I'm excited to get to Corvallis where I have good friends awaiting me. Three months on the road, depending on the generosity of strangers, is wearing. I've made so many friends, though, and have so many people to visit when I pass through Montana and Washington again. It will be good to have a stable place in Oregon where Honeychild and I can finally settle in. It looks like we'll be overwintering in Corvallis, so I suppose I'll be finding a job and a place to live. I feel so far from home. I've never been away from home this long before! I've never gone this long without seeing anybody from my family. Well, I suppose they will have to come visit me. I've been talking to my brother in LA and hope we get to have some adventures together while I'm out on this coast. There are so many places to see!
Once I get to Corvallis I'm going to look into the Corvallis to Sea Trail. I've heard it's a good 60-mile trail to the ocean. I'm hoping to travel it round-trip with Honeychild to conclude our adventures.
Even a week ahead seems too far in the future to contemplate. I am tired! And germs have finally caught up with me -- I have my first cold since before I set out on the road. Sigh.
Thank you to everyone who has been sending me encouraging notes. I'm not in a good internet spot at the moment, but I hope to respond to you all soon. I am so, so warmed by your good thoughts and wishes.
More soon,
~April
New Blog
Welcome to my new blog. The Wind Riders blog will now be laid to rest and my future adventures with Honeychild will be chronicled here. It might take a few weeks to get my links posted since I'm still on the road, so just bear with me. New photos should be up soon.
~April
~April
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