CHILLY AUGUST SATURDAY

It’s a cooler Saturday than we would normally wish for August. It was 59 when I got up at 7:00. It’s about noon and not yet 70. Thursday morning it was 48 when we got up and 91 at the highest. That’s quite a temperature spread for summer!

We talked with Kyle Meacham, our farmer, yesterday evening. He said that harvest won’t start until August 15, if then. He said the cold nights are delaying the ripening process. One of his concerns was that harvest helpers will have to return to school before harvest is over.

I started riding my mountain bike this week. (“Started means I’ve ridden it twice; that’s a start.) Yesterday I rode past the cemetery because I wanted to see the new fence just erected the day before. The fence is one of those white plastic ones and sits only across the front end. It has a 14-foot gate – wide enough for the hearse and necessary equipment, I guess. Just past there I met an old native farmer who stopped his car in order to chat a spell. (Hmmmm! Sixty-ish woman in biking shorts and shirt; let’s make her nervous!) He said his barley is ready to cut – quite dry.

But he also told a bit about Carl Braun, who lived at Gilbert and was the mail carrier here, probably in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Most everyone out of Orofino knew Carl, at least by name. Carl served the area when some of the long-time folks were elderly and some were widows unable to drive. Carl would run errands in town for these folks – would bring them groceries and supplies when he delivered the mail. Today such favors are against regulations for mailmen but in that time, these services on a person-to-person basis were a lifeline to those who had no family to help them and no place to go.

Mike rode his road bike to Nezperce on Thursday. He carries his bike on the 4-wheeler to a grain elevator six miles from here which is just beyond where the pavement ends. I think he rode beyond Nezperce to Lawyer’s Canyon on Thursday, then stopped at the store to pick up a lemon and get a Pepsi and Big Hunk which he enjoyed in the park. But – when he got back to the farm, he discovered a new geocache had just been placed in Nezperce proper, so Friday he rode to Nezperce again. Yes, he was the “first to find,” a coup in the geocaching world.
The horses? Yes, they are still here. Mike ran them off in the wee hours of the morning Friday and we didn’t see them at all during the day. But this morning we found them grazing in the south field. As they moved toward the pond Mike once again encouraged them to move back to the canyon.

We’ll make a brief run to town tomorrow (Sunday) and come back on Monday. KW

[The photos were taken with the little Fugi camera on 7-11-08 during Jack's visit. The August landscape is more amber than green.]