"A Spooky Life"

Once upon a time there was a baby dragon and I will tell you his life. He lived in a darck scary cave that 100 bats lived in. When he was 16 a mean nasty pousin dragon flue rate into his cave. Then it shot 20 pousin darts all over the cave!!! The dragon was ok. He'd never fellt so scard. Ever sins he's never come out of his cave. Most people say he's dead. Other people say he's a zombi eating every singl pousin dragon in the world and sometimes mistakes people as pousin dragons.

By Sasha

On a Saturday

1. Sort broken crayon bits by color.
2. Melt similarly-colored crayon bits in an clean, tin soup can. On the stove. (Turn on fan.) This should take 5-10 minutes.
3. Pour liquid into molds.
4. Cool in freezer 20 minutes.
5. Pop out of mold.
6. Photograph results for the blog.

The molds came with one of those magic sand kit thingies that Sasha's aunt gave her for Christmas one year; I found them Saturday as I was cleaning out a closet.

Aren't they cool? I love them. On popping the dinos from their molds, I immediately called my sisters to tell them what they'll be getting for Christmas this year.

Remains

Upstream from Benham Falls, 15 miles from Bend.

This ponderosa tree grows beside a trail which is actually wider than the Forest Service road that leads to it. The trail used to be a railroad track. Back in the day – in the 1930s, I'd guess – one of the logging companies built and maintained it. A sign explains that once a year the company hauled its 2000 employees out here on the train and they threw a huge party, a company picnic. That's why, says the sign, you still see stands of old-growth in these parts. The company left them deliberately – for atmosphere, you might call it.

This particular tree, however, probably got left because it grows crooked. I wonder if children played here 80 years ago? Or 280 years ago?

The Freakish Deschutes River*

I found this sign about 1/2 mile upstream from Benham Falls, near the footbridge, along a historical interpretive trail built by the Boy Scouts. A person could say a lot about this sign, but let's focus on what it's trying to tell us.

Jane Austen died 17 years before Wyeth stopped by the Deschutes River.

My mother will appreciate this:
In 1834 Wyeth was traveling with John Kirk Townsend, a Pennsylvanian ornithologist; after this expedition (and one to Hawaii) Townsend returned home with many, many specimens, some of which he sold to John Audubon. Townsend's species comprise 15% of all the birds described in Audubon's book Birds of America.


*Title taken from a pamphlet for sale on eBay.

Central Oregon playground

Near Benham Falls, 15 miles from Bend.

As my husband was parking the truck rather precariously against an embankment, we spotted a coyote loping down the road. It's a Forest Service road – that is, a one-lane dirt road – in an area heavily logged 50-70 years ago, so the trees are small and dense and so is the undergrowth. It's poorly managed, some would say. The coyote looked to be doing all right, though. He was pacing something, a squirrel maybe.

Look look look! I cried. OOO! replied my kids; and then they leapt from the truck and scrambled up those rocks you see there, and then picked up some sticks to combat each other with.

Rocket

At Ecola the only parking lot is on a cliff above the beach. So we deposited the truck there, grabbed as much of our stuff as we could carry, then walked down through a tunnel in thick vegetation. At the base of the cliff is a swath of tumbled, rounded lava rock; we picked our way across that to the sand, where Artist Sister-in-law and her husband had set up camp. A lot of their friends were there, and also siblings and parents and also my sibling: my youngest sister, with her husband and son.

Her son – my little nephew Rocket – spotted us as soon as we reached the beach. He's three. He ran to us the way exuberant three-year-olds will: fast, headlong and shouting. I dropped everything and scooped him up in a giant embrace.

He wriggled out of my arms. Run with me, Jen! he cried. So he and I sprinted along the beach the way joyful people will: fast, headlong and shouting.

"Shadow of my former self"

My husband's older sister and her husband threw a party at the coast to celebrate their 30th anniversary. My husband's older brother used this as an opportunity to teach Blake to surf.

Blake and his uncle are so alike. When his uncle was nine, he looked a lot like Blake does now (so they say): same hair, same scrawny frame. Even now they think alike. They approach problems the same way. They approach life the same way. And they both find joy engaging with the earth's unleashed energy – like a pilot singing as he flies through a storm.

My husband and his older sister love that too, come to think of it.

Light

After the sun set most of the adults clustered around the fire, sitting in chairs or on logs or just right in the sand, while the children (among whom my son was the oldest) raced around the long, wet stretch of beach exposed by the low tide. One parent had brought glow sticks which the children wore as necklaces, and in the darkness that's how we kept our eye on them: on guard against these circles of light receding too far.