WILDERNESS RANGERS ON HORSES

It was early morning when I saw a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer drive into the ranger station at Pinecrest Lake.  I was living in the bunk house on the ranger station and getting ready for another day of hauling garbage from remote camgrounds on the Summit Ranger District of the Stanislaus National Forest.   It was the summer of 1970 when I was working as a seasonal recreation aide.   I noticed the driver of the pickup was wearing a Forest Service uniform with a cowboy hat on as he checked on his horse in the trailer.   He was one of three wilderness rangers that provided their own horses to patrol the Emigrant Primitive Area.  It was not desiganted a wilderness until 1975.   The name Emigrant Wilderness came from early emigrants in 1852 that migrated through this area into California, and some with much difficultly.   Later miners and ranchers took advantage of this region looking for gold and summer pastures for their sheep and cattle.  Cow camps were constructed, including cabins and livestock facilities dating back to the 1890's.   Most were declared historical sites later and appeared on maps showing the Cooper Cabin, Yellowhammer Camp and the Piute Lake Cabin.    I'm not sure how much upkeep or maintenance was done by the Forest Service on these structures as they were used by Forest Service personnel, such as the wilderness rangers and trail crews.   Each wilderness ranger was assigned a patrol area and responsible for fire suppression, trail maintenance, law enforcement and packing out garbage.   They all had Forest Service portable radios and utilized these cabins within their patrol areas.   On one occasion it was reported that the three wilderness rangers got together one night, had too much to drink, spent the night in one of the camps and allowed their horses into the cabin or the horses just went in seach of their masters--who knows?   How it was reported to the District Ranger and what disciplinary actions were taken I don't recall, maybe by the pubic?    All I do remember it was the talk of the day between us lower echelon employees.  

Today I'm not sure of the status of these structures as some have probably deterioted or were burned from wildfires over time.   The only other wilderness area where I saw cabins related to livestock or mining were in the Trinity Alps Wilderness in northern California.   

Another good story of my time on the Stanislaus National Forest in this blog is called, Excitement at Brightman Flat 1970.

CHANGING OF THE SEASONS

 It is the middle of September as summer still hangs on, but there is a chill in the morning air as I drink my coffee, listen to the radio and reflect on life.   Looking forward to Fall always brings a certain amount of joy after surviving another hot dry summer and above all not being burned out by a wildfire.   My garden still produces a few tomatoes, green beans, some squash and peppers, but its days are numbered.  The daily chores also change with the seasons as the morning watering routine declines due to recent rains and in another month there will be a need for getting a fire going in the wood stove to keep body and soul warm.   The Fall colors are one of natures blessing in a world of human chaos.   This is the time of year to escape to the mountains as the mosquitoes and ticks are hopefully gone.   I feel the urgency to get away from the daily grind, see the Vine Leaf Maple turning yellow and orange while hiking a mountain trail before winter sets in.   

THE STING ON MY MIDDLE FINGER

This afternoon I went out to the clothes line to see if some clothing was dry and in the process something stung or bit my middle finger on the left hand.   I didn't hang around to see if was a yellow jacket or some thing else, like a bald face hornet as the pain was intense.   All I wanted to do is get away from there before anymore pain might be inflicted upon me.  This brought an immediate halt to the many projects I have been trying to accomplish this weekend.   An ice pack did ease the pain as I sat to reflect on how how such an event can change the course of the day.   After removing the ice pack the pain returned as the swelling increased.  

Maybe I can take advantage of my swollen middle finger to show my thoughts in public on the politics of the day.      

THE NORTH WIND

When the north wind blows in the late spring and early summer it brings hot dry weather.   The green grass begins to turn brown and the fire danger increases.   There is the threat of trees or branches hitting power lines and sparking a fire.   This has happened over the last decade causing catastrophic fires throughout the west.   My first experience was in the summer of 1962 seeing a fire started from a down power line, west of Willows in the foothills of the Sacramento Valley.   The north wind blew it south through dry grass to the Colusa County line by the end of the day destroying 60,000 acres, including livestock, fences, barns and a few homes.  Nothing could stop it.  Sometime when we lived in Gold Beach between 1979 and 1986 a fire started in the beach grass along the ocean west of the city and spread rapidly south along the beach from the north wind.   All the city fire department and the Oregon Department of Forestry could do was keep the fire from getting into town.   Now that we are a few days away from the start of summer 2026 with moderate fire danger, the north wind blows during the day, and into the nights.  The big question is what will the north wind do this fire season and where?

CELEBRATION OF LIFE

Recently I had the privilege to attend the celebration of life for a mutual friend of many people I know.  Her name was Catherine Paul, she died from breast cancer at the age of 73.   In her final month, while in hospice care she planned her own end of life ceremony, including the music, the eulogy and the closing benediction.   Her son Nathan helped her while being her principle care giver.   She asked her son to have all her books available to the people that attended the ceremony and to take whatever they wanted.  Catherine had been a nurse, midwife and helped start the WIC program in Douglas County.   She is survived by a brother, sister and her son.   According to her brother she was a nature enthusiast, enjoying backpacking and outdoor activities in her younger years.   Celia and I first met her at a July 4th potluck at some friends house, I think in 2012.   She was also with many of  us at the annual Thanksgiving dinner at some other friends.   I had the impression she was a quiet and reserved person.  What conversations I had with her I learned she was a good listener and took great interest in what others had to say.   I learned more about Catherine at her celebration of life wishing I had known her more while she was alive.    Life is uncertain and none of us know when we might depart this world, it could be sudden or we might be given a period of time to prepare for the end of life.   We should all be better at learning more about those around us while we are still alive.    

LIVING WITH DEER

 After coming home this morning from Costco with the intent of taking the truck down the road to cut grass with the weed eater I had an encounter with a new born fawn.   As I walked around the house to where the truck was parked,  I was shocked to see a new fawn laying in the shade of the truck.   The fawn was just as shocked to see me as it struggled to stand up.   Not knowing where the mom was I slowly backed away not to disturb the fawn more than necessary.    At this point my plans for the day were drastically changed knowing any noise from a vehicle or power equipment was out of the question, so I retreated back into the house.   About an hour later I went back outside to see if the fawn was gone and if the mother was with it.   It is customary for the mother to leave their young after birth to go out and eat and return to where they had left the new born.   As I started to walk by the truck the mother deer was crossing the driveway with the fawn following.   The mother deer abruptly turned to attack another deer that was following behind the fawn.   That deer was last years offspring and no longer wanted by its mother.   In short, the mother was telling her last kid its time to go out on your own.    During this encounter the new fawn laid down in the grass to avoid getting hurt.   Instinct tells them to hide when there is danger.   Female deer can be very aggressive when they have their young fawn(s) nearby.   They can attack other deer or animals and humans by standing on their back legs and using their front legs as weapons.  One of my neighbors had one of his dogs killed this way by a deer.   After the dust settled I saw the fawn nursing from its mom in the driveway.  This is not the first time this has happened here.  Over the 20 years of living here there has been other births near the house.  I suspect some of these mothers were born near the house over the years and find it a safe environment to give birth, plus they have grown accustom to seeing me.    

THE EAGLE LAKE LUMBER COMPANY

Yesterday one of my sisters told me a lumber mill in Susanville burned down.  After looking into the news of Susanville I found out it was the "old and historical" Eagle Lake lumber mill, as stated in the news article, which brought back a few old memories of days gone by as described below.  

During my first year of attending Lassen College in Susanville, California in the fall of 1968, I lived just up the street from the Eagle Lake sawmill.   Log trucks arrived in the early morning and throughout the day to have their loads dumped in the log pond.   The mill was operated by steam and electrical power.   I remember hearing the steam whistle blow whenever their was a shift change or lunch break.  The sound of saws and the clanging of equipment was part of the environment.   Most of the finished lumber was hauled away by train going south toward Reno.  It was my first exposure to a working saw mill and a community dependent on logging and milling.    There was one other mill south of town called the Susan River Lumber Company.   After graduating in 1970 with a AA degree in technical forestry I worked for the Forest Service in timber management starting in silviculture, timber sale preparation and administration from 1971 to 1977 at Orleans, California.    

In 1977, I transferred from the Orleans Ranger District on the Six Rivers National Forest to the Greenville Ranger District on the Plumas National Forest as a timber sale contract administrator.  It was here that I learned the Eagle Lake sawmill was now owned and operated by Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI).    I was familiar with SPI when I worked at Orleans administering timber sales purchased by SPI as they were bidding up timber sales to feed their sawmill near Arcata.   Most of the logs from timber sales on the Greenville District either went to the two Louisiana Pacific mills near Greenville or to the big Diamond International mill in Red Bluff or to the two mills in Susanville.  For accountability purposes it was required that log loads have assigned brands on each log end with a spot of yellow paint for export control and a Forest Service load receipt stapled to the load.   This receipt showed a receipt number, the date, the timber sale name, assigned log brand and number of logs loaded on the truck.  These receipts were usually filled out by the log loader operator or other authorized person and stapled to the front of the load.   Receipt stubs remained in the book and were returned to the Forest Service.  Sale administrators or their inspectors were required to follow a loaded log truck once a week to the mill to check that the number of logs loaded were delivered to the mill and not removed elsewhere.  Even people working for the mills would sometimes check their truckers for log accountability.   SPI had a timber sale on the Greenville District where they had completed road construction and contracted to an independent trucker to haul the decked right-of-way (R/W) logs to the mill.    He was given a branding hammer and load receipts by SPI to be attached to his loads.   Since I had the closet operating sale in that area, I would occasionally check on the removal of  these R/W logs.   Sometimes there was only the loader near a deck of logs and I noticed logs in the deck were branded and painted.    On one occasion I saw the log truck loaded as the driver was putting cable binders around the load.    I asked to see the load receipt and he told me the book of receipts were in the truck and he would fill it out when he got to the mill as he told me he did have the time to do it now.   This was reported to my supervisor and the SPI logging manager, who immediately fired the trucker.   Later we learned he had been hauling his loads across private timber land owned by the Shasta Forest Company without a permit and their local forester put a stop to him hauling over their road.   

All this makes me think back 57 years ago when I lived near this mill now called "old and historical"--makes me think-- I must be getting old and historical or what?   

  

LOST IN TILLER

Last night I had a wild dream of being lost in Tiller, Oregon.   For those of you that have never been to Tiller, it is a small community near the South Fork of the Umpqua River with a population of a little over 200 people.   There are a few houses, a post office and a ranger station.  At one time there was a grade school, store and some logging equipment nearby.   Most of the town now is being over taken by blackberries.  

The dream started out with people boarding buses for a tour of Tiller.   The bus I was hoping to board with some friends was full, so I got on a bus in the rear that was a library bus.   The District Ranger, who I knew from my days of working at the Cottage Grove Ranger Station was the tour leader for our bus.  The first thing he had us do is say the pledge of allegiance to the flag.  When the bus arrived in Tiller me and a young man were the last to depart the bus and all those ahead of us had disappeared.   The young man and I started walking down a street in hopes of finding those ahead of us.  We ended up in a flour mill that I knew was part of the tour, but we never saw anybody we recognized.  Some where in the mill I last track of the young man and was on my own as I tried to find my way out of the mill.   Once out of the mill I was walking in alleys and driveways of residents of some community that I felt was not part of Tiller.  I came across a woman working in her yard and I asked her where is Tiller?   She told me I had to go east a little ways.   After walking east for some time I found myself in a deserted old barn that over looked a vast country of lava fields.   At this point a voice told me I was not lost and I woke up exhausted.  

THE DAYS BEFORE SEAT BELTS

 According to Wikipedia seat belts in cars were not required until 1968.   So how did we survive without them before that?    It must have been luck and/or an act of God.    I do remember my mom making us lock the car doors as some of us kids would fool around and there was the fear of a car door coming open, especially when my dad was known for driving over the speed limit at times.   For extra excitement there was a cigarette lighter in the back seat ash tray that my younger brother would pull out at times and threaten to put it into somebody's finger.  This would upset my dad as he threaten to pull over in some unsafe area for disciplinary purposes.   Both my parents smoked and their smoking habit increased under the stress of driving with six kids in the back of the car under chaotic situations.    There were few times the brakes were applied suddenly and some of the smaller kids almost landed in the front seat.  

 Back in the 1950's and early 60's there were no freeways, just two lane highways and if I remember correctly with a speed limit of 65 mph.   Trucks were a big obstacle for getting any where in a hurry on major highways.   Highway 99 going north and south in the Sacramento Valley of northern California was known as blood alley, due to many head on collision from cars trying to pass trucks or vehicles going below the speed limit.  My dad was always in a hurry and usually exceeding the speed limit by 10 mph or more.   When he came up on a truck or slower moving vehicles he would pull out into the other lane to see if there was any on coming traffic, if he did not see any he put the gas pedal to the floor and off we went, some times passing two vehicles at once.   There were a few times an on coming car was coming toward us faster then he thought and he pulled back into our lane as some of us older kids looked on in horror fearing the end was near.   The only time I remember my dad getting pulled over for speeding was on a trip to Alberta, Canada for a family reunion.   A Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrolman pulled him over crossing the Canadian Rockies between British Columbia and Alberta.   I never remember him getting pulled over by a California Highway Patrolman because I think they were too busy tending accidents.  When I received my drivers license at the age of 16 in 1962 I had my fair share of near misses and a few I don't care to share or write about.  

Today we buckle up before moving the vehicle and with much more traffic these days getting back home in one piece feels like a miracle sometimes.     

DRIVING WITH NO DESTINATION

The lights from houses along the freeway were mingled through the trees in rural southern Oregon.   It made me wonder what these people did for a living and what kind of community existed out there in the dark of the night.   It couldn't be as remote and isolated as Orleans.  Driving north on Interstate 5 at night by ones self can be a lonely feeling with no destination.   It was 1971, when I started working for the Forest Service at Orleans in northwest California along the Klamath River.   Orleans was a remote community with very little for a single man to do on weekends, except go fishing during the day and visit one of the three taverns for a beer or two during the evenings before calling it a day and retiring to the little shanty I rented for $70/month.  

On one Friday after work I decided to get away from another exciting weekend, so I drove east on California state highway 96 to Interstate 5 and north into Oregon with no destination in mind.   By the time I got north of Grants Pass it turned dark with no idea where I was going to spend the night after four hours of driving.   I was driving through a valley before going over one final mountain pass into Canyonville where I notice the lights of houses off in the woods.   Where I spent that night I do not remember.   Somewhere north of Canyonville I drove to the coast, maybe highway 42 to make my way back to Orleans by way of highway 101.   Saturday night I camped out in the Redwood National Park somewhere south of Crescent City.   By Sunday I turned off highway 101 at the small town of Orick and drove over the Bald Hills Road to the Klamath River and back to Orleans.  This road went through part of the Redwood National Park and was paved.   After leaving the park it was a single lane dirt road with very little traffic, if any.  

This was about a 600 mile trip in my old 1963 Ford pickup.   Over the years after this trip I ended up working for the Forest Service in Greenville, California from 1977 to 1979, then at Gold Beach from 1979 to 1988 and then at Cottage Grove from 1988 to 1995.   Now, after 54 years since this trip I feel fortunate to remember some of it and have learned that the best destination is always the trip back home.  

THE HOLIDAY SEASON

This time of year living alone with no family nearby can be depressing.    Being alone one can lose track of what's happening during the holidays, especially living in a rural location.   Yesterday I drove into Roseburg to grocery shop and then to Lowe's to see if they had the grade of hydraulic oil needed for my new wood splitter.   I completely forgot this is the time of year people are out shopping for Christmas.   As I entered Lowe's there was Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus to greet me, an older couple dressed up in Santa clothes sitting on a sled.   I noticed the sales people were dressed up as elves.   Its been a while since I have been in Lowe's and where I thought hydraulic oil would be located was no longer the equipment section as they had changed everything in the store.   Standing nearby was a salesman dressed as an elf who took me out to the garden section where I  found the grade of hydraulic oil I needed.   I would have never of thought of looking in the garden section for oil of any kind.   On my return trip home I stopped to pickup three days worth of mail in my box.   I noticed a envelope from a woman in Texas.  My fist thought it might be a distant cousin to Celia, who did live in Texas as I remember.    It was not her cousin, but a woman living in San Antonia who had received a financial statement addressed to my address and somehow ended up in her mail.  She took it upon herself to directly mail it to me and avoid sending it back through the mail.   As I drove up Wildflower Lane and onto my driveway a pick up I did not recognize honked and stopped.   I thought they might be lost so I stopped to meet a FedEx man using his own vehicle to make deliveries.   It was a box of beans that Pamela and Mitchell sent me as they do every Christmas.   A man can never have enough beans.   

I must admit after yesterday this old scrooge feels the Christmas spirit and sees some goodness in this crazy world.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

LEWIS NEWTON - A GOOD NEIGHBOR

My neighbor Lew Newton passed away November 29, 2025 at the age of 94.   Lew and his wife Christine moved here in 1997 from Illinois to be closer to their older daughter, who lived on 10 acres with her husband at the end of the upper road on the top of the ridge.   Lew and Christine purchased a two story house at the end of the lower road that is above my place.   The older daughter and her husband sold their place and moved back east some time in 1999 or 2000.  The younger daughter lived in Eugene and would visit her parents on weekends.   Christine died 9 or 10 years ago leaving Lew by himself.   Lew had been a naval corpsman in the Korean War and made frequent trips to the Roseburg VA for his medical needs.   I suspect he had some PTSD from his experience in the war.    Lew was a helpful neighbor and any conversation with him he would end it by saying, "if you need help give me a call."   He was hard of hearing and rarely answered his phone due to his hearing loss.  Lew had a Kubota tractor that he would patch pot holes on the road with and at times helped me move down trees on our property.    I did help him out with falling some windthrown trees on his property and brushed his road once.   He had some near misses with his tractor, probably more than any us know about.   I remember hearing his tractor coming downhill onto an old tractor trail along the north boundary of our place.   As he drove down onto our driveway, I was puzzled by his appearance since there is no connecting road or trail on the property above us.   He told me he had run off the road on the 10 acres above that goes out to his house.   Knowing he could not get the tractor back up to the road he drove it down through the brush to the old tractor road that he knew was there.   He was a stubborn man hardly ever asking for help.   Seven or eight years ago he was using a ladder to clean the rain gutters on his two story house and fell.   He managed to call the ambulance for help.    His youngest daughter was staying with when she notice he was not doing good a day or two before he died.   She was going to take him to the hospital and he said NO, so she called the ambulance that took him to the VA hospital where he died the next day from a stoke.   Lew would have been 95 on December 9th.  Good neighbors like Lew are hard to come bye.  

NEW BED SHEETS

A few weeks ago while wandering aimlessly through the Sutherlin Bi Mart store, I noticed fleece sheets for a king size bed on sale for $45.   I thought to myself, those would be nice on these cold winter nights, since the old flannel sheets that I have are rotated as they wear out after developing holes in them over the last few years are in need of replacement.   Now that I think about those old sheets they must be 10 years old or more.  Maybe it was divine intervention from Celia telling me, " don't leave the store without them!"

SHOPPING WITH ARTHRITIS

My old friend Arthritis showed up last weekend and took advantage of my right knee.   By Sunday afternoon I was confined to my chair in pain.    Celia's old walker came in handy in helping me get around the house.   I was able to relieve some of the discomfort with a knee brace, some liquid turmeric and a Tylenol pill from a bottle that had expired sometime in 2024.   Hopefully that does not give me autism according to latest from the Secretary of Health and Human Services.   Luckily, I made a pot of beans and rice a few days before Arthritis arrived.   By Monday night the beans and rice were gone and the need to go grocery shopping was high on my list of things to do, along with a few other things that should have been done long ago.   This morning I managed to drive into Roseburg to shop at Sherm's Thunderbird Market, the most popular grocery store in the county, especially for us older folks.   I was able to use a shopping cart in the parking lot as a walker to make into the store and proceed to wander aimlessly, since I forgot to make a list, again.    Being a work day most of the people in the store were old retired people like myself and I suspect some of the older men had the same problem as they were staying close to their shopping carts and moving slowly.   After checking out and paying $62 for two bags of food I made it back home feeling good about this great accomplishment.