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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Chordie's Chat Corner → Doug????
What's up, brother?
Haven't seen any posts/threads lately.... 
Bill
Jus' been lurking and doing that moderator thing. Tis Summer around these parts and there's plenty of chores to attend to. Thankful the livestock is a thing of the past..... not so much the kids etc. the 4 legged ones. Not missing the horses and other critters, but there were times I had wished I hadn't taken all those Vet Med courses. Shots, drenching, hoof-trimming and such.
I'll drop you a mail and tell you all about it soon !!
Planning to spray the orchard this weekend and still have a couple of acres to mow while it's not raining but before things dry out too much as to be a fire hazard.
Even retired Farmers have a full time job. 
Hopefully I'll be heading your way next month Doug. A couple buddies and I are planning to float and fish the John Day River in July if water levels permit.
DE
That's just a few weeks away.... and the John Day stays well up into mid-August most years. We are still getting a little rain now and then so you should be in good shape for a float.
It is getting hot during the day (in the mid 90s this week) and over on my side of the Mountain the micro-hydro plant shut down the other day for lack of water. It'll be down into September and gives us a chance to catch up on a few chores up there.
Fishin should be good and there are some nice fish in those waters !! Wear your sunscreen, bug juice, and stay hydrated...... don't forget to bring your camera and batteries, some pretty country out here. The skeeters are blood-thirsty just like at home though! Deer flies are the worst..... got bit right through the back pocket of my Levis. That's TWO layers of denim and my "fruit of the Looms".
What stretch you gonna be on ??
That's just a few weeks away.... and the John Day stays well up into mid-August most years. We are still getting a little rain now and then so you should be in good shape for a float.
It is getting hot during the day (in the mid 90s this week) and over on my side of the Mountain the micro-hydro plant shut down the other day for lack of water. It'll be down into September and gives us a chance to catch up on a few chores up there.Fishin should be good and there are some nice fish in those waters !! Wear your sunscreen, bug juice, and stay hydrated...... don't forget to bring your camera and batteries, some pretty country out here.
What stretch you gonna be on ??
We have a permit to put-in at Clarno on the 10th and spend seven days floating down to Cottonwood Bridge. The John Day is considered one of the primo smallmout bass streams in the country and hopefully I'll be able to cross it off my bucket list. Last smallmout trip I did out west was four years ago when I floated the lower Salmon and Snake rivers with my son and two other friends. Locals thought we were crazy to drive that far and not fish for trout, Salmon or other sought-after species but chasing smallies is what I do. It's how I met Zurf many years ago.
We're doing a packing "dry run" this Thursday to see how much room we have in my truck for the boats, camping and fishing gear. Although space will be limited I'm hoping I'll be able to squeeze in a guitar for some river-bank pickin'. No fires are allowed beginning in July so I guess it will have to be around a lantern. I didn't take a guitar last trip and regretted it.
DE
Almost forgot to add : put some shotshells in yer' sidearm...... there be snakes that also can bite. Nothin' like waking up to the sound of rattlers that crawled under the floor of your tent during the night lookin' for a warm place to curl up. They tend to object if you lean on 'em while rolling out of the sack early in the morning. Yeah it only happened once..... but it still gets the old heart a thumpin" !!
Almost forgot to add : put some shotshells in yer' sidearm...... there be snakes that also can bite. Nothin' like waking up to the sound of rattlers that crawled under the floor of your tent during the night lookin' for a warm place to curl up. They tend to object if you lean on 'em while rolling out of the sack early in the morning. Yeah it only happened once..... but it still gets the old heart a thumpin" !!
I think my heart would just completely stop 
Now THAT is a camping story worth telling around fires for years!
A friend that has floated the river a couple times has warned us to look out for rattlers, scorpions and mountain lions. Thankfully, unlike some of the other adventures I've been on, bears are a rarity.
DE
rattler's, snakes, and lions...... oh my !
that camping trip better be as worthwhile as going to see the wizard !
that is a great story - glad it wasn't me.
JIm
Thankfully, unlike some of the other adventures I've been on, bears are a rarity.
DE
Oh there are Bears too..... Somewhere I have a video of one that wandered into the campground, sauntered up to some folks sitting at a picnic table and absconded with one of those really big Hershey Bars. Then it ran across the road and crawled under another vacant table where it daintily peeled the wrapper off with it's claws and munched the whole thing down while a crowd of campers (cameras in hand) gathered to preserve the moment in memory. Once it got too crowded, the critter come up out of there at a full run scatterin' kids, and dogs, and panicked city folks like the running of the Bulls in Spain !! It was funny because (thankfully) nobody got run over and the general course of conversation all around the area centered on "the best way to winch your cooler of food 10 feet in the air and at least the same distance from any tree". Over on that side of the hill, trees are a little further apart than here on the Western slopes..... If you'd had a truck-full of rope, you coulda' sold every inch to good profit !! You wont usually see Bear because they know where you are and where you are going long before you know, just from smell. They'll avoid you mostly unless you advertise free yummy munchies, and leave them laying around. Or camp in established camps where they get used to being fed by tourists, or via unsecured dumpsters.
Cats are another matter..... you rarely see them, but they always have "eyes" on you. Safety in numbers. 
Good story Doug. I once saw a grizzly run through a crowd of photographers to get to the river in Yellowstone Park. Looked like a bowling ball knocking down pins as the folks scattered. All my encounters have been with black bears, mostly on kayak or canoe trips on mountain streams in remote areas of West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Of the 22 canoe trips I've done in Canada, a handful have been during years when berries didn't develop well and hungry bears were looking for food. usually making noise keeps bears at a distance but in those years it was like ringing a dinner bell. The bears have learned that canoers carry packs of food and the packs get left at the end of a portage while the paddlers go back across the portage path to bring over more gear. To avoid making two trips I'd carry my packs and canoe together. It's a spooky feeling to look behind you and see you're being followed by a bear while your weighted down with about 100 ponds of gear and couldn't run if you wanted to.
On one trip we were being harassed daily by bears trying to get to our hung packs while we were out fishing, then lurking nearby when we returned to camp. The four of us decided to move to an island in the middle of a large lake on our map as it only required one short portage On the way, my buddies in the other canoe caught a couple walleye for supper. We carried our gear across the portage and my buddy Joe and I loaded our canoe and waited offshore while Ernie and Tom carried the fish about 50 yards away from their canoe to fillet their catch. Suddenly we heard the guys yell "bear!" and saw a sow and two cubs come out of the woods and jump into their beached canoe which still had the smell of fish in it. She broke a rod and paddle and the boys started throwing rocks to hopefully scare her off. One of the rocks hit a cub which began squealing. She came at them on a dead run with hair laid back and teeth clicking. We had been told before by a park ranger about bears making "false" charges in which they try to size up their opponents. I suppose they want to scare off the intruder but don't want to get into a fight in which they would be injured and their cubs starve. Anyway, she was charging the boys, they put their hands over their heads to look bigger and yelled and made noises. Meanwhile Joe and I were paddling over to where they were in case they ran and jumped into the lake. However they held their ground, and she put on the brakes about 20 feet from them and ambled back into the woods to check on her cubs. Talk about a few exciting moments!
While canoeing on the Buffalo River in Arkansas last year, wild hogs could be heard grunting and rooting in the woods a couple times near our river camps. One morning we ran into a young man who was doing a solo float. Twice during the night a pack of hogs came down to the sandbar he was camping on. He said he counted 16 of them. Those critters are not to be messed with either.
DE
These banterings remind me that as we spread out, the other critters that share our ground lose space...... proximity leads to "accidents", and then ...... the results are seldom pretty.
Those of us who spend (or have spent) considerable time out there on the edge of what's left of the "wilderness" accumulate these sometimes humorous stories. We sometimes get complacent about those other creatures, and I do forget to be as watchful as I should be at times. I got a Cougar that wanders through my back yard once in awhile, and I've seen her a couple of times. Mostly I just see tracks...... and that's when I am thankful the dog stays nights indoors, the kids are grown and moved away, I always face away from the lights and house when pickin' guitar on the back porch late in the evening, and we are still allowed to buy ammunition.
Being able to share the space, walk the trails, float the streams, and appreciate what we have and where we are, makes one ponder why we invented cities??? Nothin' against people..... odds of surviving in either place is about even, it's just quieter here. Now if I could get those darn tree frogs to shut-up, i could go to bed !!
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