A COLD MORNING

So far this is the coldest morning this winter at 22 degrees.    The coldest I have recorded here is 9 degrees.   The coldest place I have ever been was at Fall River Mills in northern California in the winter of 1972 when it was minus 25.  A few of us went over there from Orleans to go duck hunting and stayed in an old ranch house with a gas heater.    When we went outside to hunt we could only stay outside for 20 minutes before our noses started to go numb.   By noon we called it a day and went in to Fall River Mills to get something to eat at a restaurant.  The high for the day was zero as we started the long drive back to Orleans with no ducks.     

THE TALE OF TWO LOOKOUTS

 A young husband and wife were hired one summer to be fire lookouts, while I was working on the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest from 1971 to 1977.   In order to make more money they both volunteered to work in two separate lookouts.   The wife worked on the Orleans Mountain Lookout and the husband worked on the Offield Mountain Lookout on the Ukonom District of the Klamath National Forest.   Both lookouts were in sight of each other with a distance of maybe less than five miles the way the crow flies.   By road it was close to a two hour drive.   After work hours lookouts were allowed to use the radio system to talk to each other socially, since they were isolated and life could be lonely.  The rumor has it the wife on Orleans Mountain one clear night with the lights on in her lookout, called to her husband to look in her direction with his high powered binoculars and to let her know if he would be interested in driving over for a visit.   It was said that she was standing out on the open deck of the lookout wearing very little, if anything and rumor has it that he did make the drive in less than two hours for the visit and made it back for work the next day at his lookout. 

GUNS, PICKUP TRUCKS AND TEENAGE COUNTRY LIFE

The culture for most teenage boys living in small farming towns across the country was and might still be all the same involving driving pickup trucks, hunting and fishing during their free time.  The small northern California town of Willows, where I was raised was no exception.   Hunting pheasants and geese was common in the fall and winter.  Fishing and swimming in the creeks and the Sacramento River were the favorite past time in the summer.   To get to all these places required a pick up truck, since we were beyond the age of riding our bikes.   With a learners permit at the age of 15 and half I learned to drive our 1951 Ford Pickup with a three speed stick shift.   My mother supervised and would let me drive it to the dump whenever our garbage cans were full, usually every two weeks.    After I got my driver license at the age of 16, I was on my own with driving, whenever the pickup truck was available.   On one occasion my friend Alan and I drove out in the hills with our .22 rifles in the truck.  We were driving up the Clark Valley Road and stopped to shot at something from the truck.   All of sudden a California Highway Patrol car pulled up along the side of the pickup and the officers told us not to shot from the truck and drove off ahead of us.   We were so stunned and relieved that we were not issued a citation.  We continued our drive and never touched the guns again until we got home.     

GROCERY SHOPPING

Grocery shopping is not one of my favorite things to do, but is necessary since the alternative is not pleasant.   Usually what prompts me to think about the need to go shopping is when I notice the refrigerator starting to look empty.   I prefer shopping at the Thunderbird market in Roseburg early Sunday mornings to avoid the crowds, plus they have a good selection of organic produce.    Being a creature of habit I know where things are in this market and make the same old route through the store as quickly as possible before the crowd gathers and avoid the fear of catching the dreaded virus of the day.   Most of the customers in the store during this time of day are other old men wandering aimlessly in search of whatever.    Within 20 minutes I can get my usual two bags of basic stuff for about $65 and be out the door and feel I have achieved a great task knowing I will survive another week.      

DRY LAND FARMING

There were a few crops raised in the Sacramento Valley of northern California without the need for irrigation.   Barely, safflower and wheat were generally the crops that were planted in the late fall and early spring that were totally dependent on winter and spring rains.    Many of these crops were raised in the foothills along the westside of the Sacramento Valley.   Ground preparation took place in the spring when the soil was easy to turn over with a moldboard plow and left fallow through the summer months.   In the fall the plowed fields were disked, harrowed and planted with barely or wheat during November and December.   Safflower was planted in the spring and only required a couple inches of rain.   Safflower is used for its oil, both in the pharmaceutical business and for cooking oil.   Barley was mostly used as a feed grain for livestock and some for brewing of beer.  Most of the wheat was exported.   In the summer of 1962, I worked for a couple of weeks for Joe Stutz, who was farming on the Holmes Ranch west of  Willows, in northern California.  It was my first farm job driving a D-4 Caterpillar tractor that pulled a grain cart that followed two combines that were harvesting barley on a large field (maybe 200 acres) next to the foothills.   When the combines were full of barley they would empty into the grain cart that would be emptied into a truck that transport the barley to metal bins for storage until taken to market later.  We worked 10 hours days and I was paid $1.50 per hour.   It was hot and dusty work, not to speak of the noise.   At the end of the day and when sleeping at night I could still hear the clanging of the tracks on the Caterpillar tractor.  

Today there is no dry land farming on these lands due to a drier climate.   Some of these crops are raised with irrigation throughout the Sacramento Valley.