Soggy, But Otherwise Well

Apparently our NW weather has garnered national attention and some of our peeps from far and wide have been checking in to make sure we haven't been swept away in the flooding. It was good and wet for a few days, and we had some high water in places. The creek on our property didn't flood the driveway, but where it flows through a neighbor's land down the road, it did flood the ditch and create a nice lake for us to drive through. The highway into St. Helens was closed with about a foot of standing water. The wetland in that stretch has recently been in-filled to accommodate construction of a car wash and storage unit business. Because, as you know, those wetlands aren't good for anything, that's just a waste of some good, buildable land. Way to go, Planning Commission. We did lose power briefly, had a bunch of limbs come down but no trees this time, and our cabin was leaking around the woodstove chimney--Mark had to get up in the middle of the night and set a milk bucket to catch the water. Other than that, the worst thing we had to deal with was sinking almost to our knees in squelchy, sucking wet mud when we went to the barn to milk the goats. The ducks are living large in all the newly formed ponds on the place. Oh, and the kids lost a money-making gig. We're doing a 4-H fundraiser--Elves for Hire--the kids are doing holiday chores and errands for people, just by donation. A local assisted living home had recruited them to help with their big Holiday Bazaar this Saturday, but they wound up with a foot of water on the first floor, had to evacuate all the residents, and now have two to three months of work ahead of them to repair the damage. We're all okay, thanks for the calls and emails, and please feel free to continue to call and email, just because.

Sad, Neglected Blog...

What exactly was I thinking when I decide to go back to school full-time, while building a house, homeschooling Eli, Jaeger, and Keegan, managing the madness of soccer season, Eli's first season on the climbing team in Portland, and the gazillion other balls that have to stay in the air? It's been a crazy couple of months adjusting to yet more logistical challenges in our lives, but this is our last weekend of soccer, school is going well, and we all seem to be suriviving this latest chaos. Clayton is also carrying a full-load at Portland Community College, and working 4 nights a week washing dishes for Dave at The Klondike. The house is coming along, slowly--tomorrow I'll post pics of the huge roof beam going up. Updates to come, Halloween pics, and generally scintillating news!

October issue of Outside Magazine

Pick up a copy of the October issue of Outside, or check out this link to Hampton Sides' article about swimming the Mississippi River. This is specifically of interest to us since Clayton and Eli were along for the trip. John Ruskey, the boys' Mississippi mentor, was Sides' guide on his river quest. There's no mention of the boys, but they're able to point out where they were while the photos were taken.... http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/200710/swimming-across-the-mississippi-river-1.html

Somebody Throw Nike a Clue!

Clearly, since My Man left Nike several years ago, they have gradually been losing touch with reality, a slip culminating in this evidence of their total batshit craziness. Fugly shoes for Indians. This is not a spoof. http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/2007/09/nike_introduces_new_shoe_for_n.php

Poem of the Week

(This week's recipient of a big pink highlighter heart around it in my poetry book.)
God Says Yes to Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I dont paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

~Kaylin Haught

Fall Color

Sometimes a girl needs to get back to her roots... For Clayton, red is in the 'air this fall...

Eli Tames the Wild Barn Cats

When someone dumped three cats at the head of our driveway several months ago, they promptly made themselves at home...mostly on our outdoor kitchen counter. They immediately earned the names Jesus, Mary, and All the Saints, making hollering at them flow more readily off the tongue. Before long, Jesus was pregnant, though whether it was Mary or All the Saints, or Jaeger's skanky tomcat, Faithful, who was the responsible party could never be determined. We now have two kittens, probably the result of inbreeding, but cute nonetheless. And they love goat milk.

Quest, in book form.

what you are about to read is the book i have writen telling about my adventures on quest. all should be expained but if it is not please feel free to e-mail me and ask questions, I will be posting some pictures later on, have a good one, Everett Tales from the E.R.T. Quest: trial by fire By Everett lee-Wuollet Prologue I lifted up my bag up onto my shoulder and held it there. It was a little heavier than I had hoped but not bad considering that I would be living off of the contents for a few days. I lowered it back to the floor and looked around at the others, each standing or sitting and chatting a little. The rest of my possessions, with exception of my bike, where here waiting for me to get back and move them to the church. We had plans to walk about nineteen miles in a day and a half to see who had the physical power to be part of the team. I knew it would be grueling, harrowing, possibly epic and all those words they use in fantasy stories to say long and hard. I knew it would make to; I had no doubt in my mind that I could do it, nineteen miles? I had done fourteen without breaking a sweat, this would be fun. Everyone was talking about the adventure we were about to go on and feelings ranged from happy and exited to scared and nervous, to uncaring. Vanishes top priority was her birthday party the night before. I was very exited and ready to go but we had a little longer to wait, though not much longer before we would be off on a real adventure and I could meet the real people in this room, who they are under pressure. Soon, I told myself, we will be walking soon. And then we will have fun. Chapter One The first cut is the deepest I jumped off the back of the bus ready to go and wanting to be first on the trail. I grabbed my pack and carried it to the edge of the road, then helped Monica and Vanisha with their packs. Monica is about as tall as me, very thin, funny and has a strange aversion to bras. Vanisha is taller, over wait and very loud and opinionated, I had had trouble getting along with her from the start. When every pack had been unloaded, we stood around and listened to El and Bill give us advise and morel support that I had heard a dozen times but knew all to well that I would need before I saw the campsite. With waves, hand shakes and good lucks, we started walking. The line broke up quickly and I mentioned this fact to Matt, a sturdily built “ginger” and a very fun and hardworking guy, said that it was bound to happen and as long as people stayed within sight things would be fine. I half agreed so I said nothing. The line was bound to spread out a little but when the people in front could not see the people in the back, that should not happen. We walked for about half an hour on the road before it turned to the side and we moved across a wooden walkway over a swamp-like terrain. It was after we got out of this area that my first doubts about our ability to end as a whole team began to surface. We had just ascended a small hill, only just enough to be noticed and barely enough to make me breath hard, when I heard a halt called from the back of the line. I pulled up short and turned to see what was up, Vanisha was seated by the side of the road and Ethan and Monica stood next to her offering help. I turned to the others and asked if we should go back and see how Vanisha was doing but no one listened and I was drawn into a conversation about Audrey, a cool and very pretty girl who is at least as strong as me if not more so, needing to urinate, which I found a little funny though I am sure she was embarrassed and found it more of a nuisance. I offered to use my towels to block her from view of the road but she eventually moved away and did her thing and I walked back to where Vanisha was sitting and offered what help I could. Monika was talking without making sense, her analysis was weird and conflicted with everything I knew about medicine and I was very skeptical of what they where saying, Vanisha needing to eat more sugar and such, it made no sense to me. I had been raised on natural medicine and my teachings said that she should be standing and eating things that would not take her energy up for an hour and then drop it back to the floor. She was also tired; understandable considering that she had partied the night before and, over El’s warnings, had stayed up all night drinking and partying. I felt a little sorry for her despite this and wished she had rested up and taken the trip seriously. Oh well, all I can do now is help. Regret gets nothing done. I pulled out my water and offered whatever help could. Ethan, our long haired hippy leader and an ex-coastguard guy, shouted at the others to get back here and see to their team mater and they all moved to about ten feet away and continued their conversation. Finally after about forty-five minutes Vanisha informed us that she could go on and we helped her to her feet, loaded up and walked. Chapter two Man vs. Wild The most annoying thing and I think the only thing that kept me on my toes where I belonged was the presence of dart-board sized, almost invisible, spider webs. Most where inhabited with spiders as big as a man’s hand, easy to spot and the only reason that we weren’t constantly eating web. However where a web is built high over the trail and everyone is going under it and the spider starts to lower itself down toward my neck it is less cool then when I am standing a foot away observing the huge arachnid at work. Don’t get me wrong I love spiders and, for that matter most of deadly creatures, it runs in my blood. My grandfather who I never met collected deadly snakes in Arizona, California and Africa, so it is in me to love such things, but that is still a scary experience. Art simply moved the webs aside saying that this was their home and we were visitors. I liked this idea and moved a few webs like this myself but I was less concerned with the safety of the webs than with that of those around me, a spider bite would have put one of us off the trail in no time. The next element was the heat. It was hot, really hot. We started around ten, just when things where warming up and walked through eighty plus and no clouds for most of the day. All this is bad but the thing that got to me was the lack of any wind. In Portland, you have to go inside to get away from at least a breeze. Here the air was still and hot and humid and totally stifling. Still we marched on like true troopers. My mother always called me that, a trooper. I always turned down the ride in favor of walking. Even when I was little I could never be carried home, I had to walk. The others may not have been as belligerent in childhood but they where all as tough as nails and determined. They where all Troopers. The third element that tried to stop us was the ground. Sand dragged at our feet, mud got in our boots, fire ants bubbled out of their wholes and violently attacked any feet caught immobile, water forced us to tip-toe on the edge of the trail so as not to get our feet soaked and the occasional dose of concrete or cement that forced us to either walk on the it and hurt our feet or take to the grass and get our feet even wetter. And if you will stick with me for a moment longer I will tell you about the biggest problem that we encountered: lack of water. Three large containers of water had been left for us to find and use. But going nineteen miles, in that kind of heat, we needed far more. I tell my readers all of this, not because I like to complain, something I have avoid when ever possible as it is unconstructive and brings the team down, but because the readers may not have been there and may not understand what we went through. I write all this so that you the readers know why people could not make it and why I had myself had trouble. Now you know, back to the trail. Chapter three Dropping like flies Ethan said that we should buddy up to keep an eye on each other to make sure no one over exerted themselves. I immediately volunteered to buddy up with Vanisha to make sure she was getting enough to drink and wasn’t pushing too much. I gave her a full mountain spring water bottle and told her to drink it in half an hour or I would spray her face with water out of my camel pack. I then checked the bottle about every five minutes and told her to drink more and stop putting it away. As we walked we entered a dry and sandy area that made life that much harder but no one complained and after a few turns we made it to another forest area that was thick and shady, far better than the dessert terrain but thick with spiders and deeper in a bunch of bones from a good sized animal. We took a break at some point and the people in front got pissed at us for stopping. Monica was in the very front, walking quick and not really caring where the rest of us were. She was joined from time to time by Jeremy, a tough hot headed and funny guy, Matt or Arthur, a very knowledgeable and strong guy, a natural leader. We continued and eventually the forest was thinned out and turned back into a dessert that reminded me nicely of Arizona and California, which reminded me of a joke; “one day a bunch of California people went to the Oregon boarder and through across a bunch of dynamite. The next day a bunch of Oregon guys went down, lit it, and through it back.” It is a silly little joke but it made me laugh and that always helps. We where almost out of the tree cover when I heard Jeremy behind me say “James how you doing? James? You ok? James stop!” I turned and saw James, a slightly over weight guy with a weird sense of humor (not weirder than mine but more off color and less funny), just pounding along the trail with a lot of speed that would do nothing for him in the long run. But the fact that he was almost running was the first and least important things I noticed. His eye where glazed and he was not responding to the people talking to him and telling him to stop. I told him firmly to stop and put a hand on his shoulder to try and make him stop but he pushed past me and kept moving. I though about what I should do in the time it took me to blink, I could go after him or go back and get Ethan, he had ignored me so I doubted I would have any luck with that, in stead I stepped to the side and walked quickly back along the line, I knew Ethan was in back, that is where he had been all the time. I had been making head counts every half hour or so just to be sure we had everyone and to see who was suffering and lagging behind. Just as I caught sight of Ethan looking ahead to see what was up, I heard the sound of someone shouting and my mind went into action mode. I knew before I turned that and saw him that James was going down. I saw him on his knees fall to the ground with a thump. I was not aware of what my body was doing but I was running back up to the front of the line where he had fallen out. He was on his face and my first thought was that he needed to be turned over so he didn’t inhale sand. I said so and the others, I am not sure who, flipped him over and propped him up so that they could give him water and let him breath. Jeremy propped him up against a tree and Monica got out some water. I dropped my pack and pulled out my own water bottle in case it was needed. James was breathing and he seemed aware. He was aware enough to take the water that was offered to him but his eyes stayed closed. Vanisha was doing her best to advise, which reminded me of a chicken with it’s head cut off, she babbled and gave advice until people told her to stop, I said “Vanisha you are not helping, you need to step back and calm down. Ok? Chill.” I will say that I was the one of few people there who was civil and level with her. It took a few minutes for him to get to the point where he could talk. And then more and he could stand. When he was standing on his own and had moved a few jerky steps into the shade Ethan descended on him like a bird of pray. We spent the next fifteen to twenty minutes listening to Ethan shouting at James about how he needed to keep better track of himself and how he was doing. How he had to be more careful and we were supposed to be a team and where was his buddy (nobody answered that) and what was he thinking and was he drinking enough and OH MY GOD!! Eventually he finished and as we packed up I walked up to James, put my hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye and said “I know you don’t want to slow us down, ruin our day, but if you fall down again and don’t get back up, that will ruin our day even more.” he nodded and we walked. Chapter four The dessert I have been in tough situations before but of all my adventures I can easily think of nothing more hellish than the three hours I will now describe. We had gone a little over a mile since James collapsed and had taken two brakes. The terrain had gotten only more dessert like with the trees far apart and not much taller than seven feet. I could have gone further and so could most of us but some one called a stop and we all stopped and I noticed that Darcell, a cool black ex-movie star, Brittney, short quite black and as tough as they come, and Jessica, a funny and hard working black girl, where all in the very back and Jessica seemed to be suffering. I kept my pack on and waited for everyone to get a drink and get back on their feet. It soon became apparent that we would be staying here for some time. Everyone was talking about launch and it seemed that we would be staying out I have to say, as far as camping goes, I have seen better stretches of pavement. I walked over to Ethan and asked him about the plan “I don’t know, you decide, ya’know? Figure it out amongst yourselves.” Jeremy I asked how far the water drop was and he said that he wasn’t sure. At that moment a few people including art asked for my map and together we figured out where we were and that the water was about a mile away. I suggested that we send some people ahead to get the water and bring it back, since at this time we had no water. Ethan vetoed that plan with a simple “We’re a team, we stick together. On of us goes we all go.” We started trying to think of alternatives and I went to take a piss. As I walked back Ethan was walking down the road and shouted “Alright. Me and one other person are going to get the water.” Arthur said he would go and the two of them set off. I looked after them for a minute and mentally curled my lip at Ethan for saying we could not go and that we should make our own plan and then leaving like that and not taking Jeremy who had been the first to volunteer when it had been first suggested. Again I put my feelings on the subject aside for later reflection and moved to where everyone was seated or standing doing very little. I walked over to where James was seated With Monica squatting next to him advising him on what he should do and telling him to keep breathing and keep focused. I asked him how he was and he said he was fine, which I told him meant Freaked-out Insecure Neurotic and Emotional. He laughed at that and I moved off to check on the others. All seemed in order and as far as I could tell it was going to stay that way. A bunch of us found a spot of shade and Vanisha rolled out her sleeping bag and fell onto it along with Britt and Jess. We stood around and talked and ate for a while, each talking about what was going wrong and how much things totally sucked. They asked what would have happened if someone had been really injured, broken their leg or something like that? I said that if someone had broken their leg we would have splinted it and helped them to the road but nobody wanted to hear the other side so I shut up and let them talk. We moved around from shade to shade and I went and moved everyone’s packs out of the sun and had some trail mix and beef jerky. After about a hour of shade hopping we started to get even more stressed and turned on our own for people to bash on; the natural choice was the people not right with us: James, who was sitting off on his own resting, Eliot, my room mate for a while was a funny hippy ex-Greenpeace guy and was off sitting alone, and Darcell who, because things where a little to stressed out as he put it, was standing a good fifty feet away. They also went after Vanisha a lot, and Jessica got her more than her share. Each in turn had negativity thrown at him, though by the time we got around to insulting Darcell all that could be managed was I little complaint that he should be over with us. I tried to steer the conversation around to what would happen when Ethan and Arthur got back with water. After about five attempts we came to the decision that nothing could be done now and all anyone was willing to get to was that they would drink and think about it then. Audrey pointed out that we really couldn’t do anything because James could not move much if at all. We kept talking and arguing, most of which I stayed out of because the conversation was not helping anything and I could think of far better ways to pass the time the bitching at people who I agreed with half the time and weren’t there to defend themselves. I said this to, that this was the time to stick together, not start insulating each other behind their backs. But the more I said the more people seemed not to care and actually snubbed me a few times. I started to lose my cool a little, as far as I could tell, everyone else did to, but I was either the only one who knew it or the only one who cared. At one point James came up and told me that the helicopter flying over us was doing a search pattern and if we could flag him down we might get help. At this time I was really losing it, the next time the chopper flew over I waved my arms around like an idiot in an attempt to get some attention. A minute later Audrey and started to yell at me and I realized what a dumb thing I was doing and put my arms down quietly cussing out everything that came to mind I made my way over to a small tree and proceeded to kick it until I felt better, my head cleared with this simple activity I went back to the others and ignored their comments about how dumb it was that I had tried to flag down the chopper and that I had kicked a tree. We sat around more talking about what would have happened if someone had a broken leg and how miserable the communication was and who would we eat first if it came to that. I said that we would have gotten the person out, they had no way to know that the walkie-talkies would not work and I was way to skinny to be good eating. I started to help them get things worked out with calling people to figure out where the hell Ethan and Art had gotten to and if we could get our down picked up from here, if El was willing to drive back along a long unmarked sand road and get two of our own out of the final test. It was over three hours before Ethan and Art got back and handed over the water. We all drank a lot and refilled our bottles. Then came the plan which took about five minutes to make, we kept moving. Everyone we all walked together; the last march of that team. As we walked I started to feel alive, I felt good. The wind started to blow and I felt as though my dearest friend was helping me, as indeed she was. She helped us all, the wind. And then she helped us again. It rained. Small drops that left little craters in the sand. Little rain drops that dampened my hair and cloths and I felt my body cooling as my mind began to rest easy once again, and I really smiled for the first time since getting off the bus. I walked a little faster and urged those behind me to do the same, and together we walked to the road, Ethan singing and me and art joining in when we knew the words. Chapter five Walking the line We reached the road and dropped our packs, glad to have moved away from that little piece of hell. We drank and waited for about half an hour for El. Spirits where high and a few jokes where made about trucks driving off the road and being able to hit us all but eventually we all greeted El and said our goodbyes to James and Vanisha. As they got in James looked really regretful that he had to leave and Vanisha seemed far too happy about the AC to care. A few people put on their rain ponchos so as to batter protect their packs from the impending downpour. I didn’t, I wanted to feel the rain on my head and shoulders and the wind whipping around me. When surrounded by nature, the last thing I want to do is try and stop it from touching me. Monica took the lead again and I held pace with her for about a mile. We walked almost purely on concrete for a long ways and chatted, chanted and generally where happy. We laughed at how funny Greg looked like, with his head just sticking up above the back of his packs, making him look like some sort of huge hunchbacked monster. We talked about how great it would be to finish and be able to just rest and not have to carry our packs anymore. I said that I would feel a little wrong without the wait on my back and nobody answered, or possibly nobody heard me. We saw the place where we should have come out and seen before we go of track and ended almost ended up missing our turn onto a small side road. We hadn’t walked very far before shouted at us that we had missed the trail and we turned. I had fallen behind so this put me close to the front of the line and I made an effort to take to the front, which I think now was a bad idea since it used energy that could have been better spent and showed a personal interest over the teams best interests, though at the time that was not going through my head, all that was going through my head was that I wanted be in front. As we walked a little further the trees became taller and I found myself in the most Oregon-esk woods I had yet encountered. But at the same time it was different, we had walked at least two miles without stopping when I realized what was different: these woods where retarded in the literal meaning, they where not well developed and the weather did not lend itself to the Himalayan blackberries that I was used to seeing all around me. The trees where widely spaced and the under brush saw only knee height and thin. We walked on and on for six miles without stopping, I check on the others from time to time, everyone seemed to be doing alright so I kept moving and stopped talking for a while. We reached the second water drop in one go and we where happy to refill our waters, again empty, and share a single energy bar among us. We held here for a few minutes most of us keeping our packs on and waiting for someone else to give the call to march. Finally I said let’s go and go we did. We crossed the road and started down a long dirt road then stopped and turned around to the sound of shouting from behind. I turned and saw Ethan and a few others standing a little way behind us asking where we were going. We should have listened. Monika went back and looked but said that those marks where for trees that where being cut down. After some deliberation we walked along the road instead of the trail. We walked for a good half hour before Thomas, a taller burly and very fun guy, pointed at that he hadn’t seen any blazes, the marks on trees that tell us we are on the right track. I had been looking for them too but I had seen none and would have mentioned it but decided to wait for a minute more and see if I could see one. However now that he had said it I began to recognize the signs of being lost. We all stopped and yelled up to the front to come back and talk. I felt an unfamiliar felling called doubt. I wasn’t sure which was we should go, we were going the wrong way but nobody wanted to go back. I was of the opinion that we should cut across the retarded underbrush and try to find the trail like that, we knew thanks to the map the we where north of the trail and most votes where that if we walked far enough this road would hook up with the trail and we would be fine. So we walked, against my better judgment, along the dirt road that, at one time or another, I would call a lot of things I would never say in front of my mother. Chapter six Darkness We walked and walked and walked. The road kept going so did we. Eventually it spit and one path went southland one continued east, so we took the turn and went south. We walked and I talked to Matt and Jeremy and Audrey at various times about their opinions on whether we should have turned around or if they think we should continue. Matt was with the idea of moving forward and said that we would eventually run into the right trail. Audrey said that we should have turned around but it was to late now. I kept my eyes fixed south looking through the trees to see if I could see a blaze but had no luck and eventually gave up, figuring that we were to far up for even me, with near perfect eyesight, to see anything. It was about seven when things really started to get good, and by good I mean bad. It was starting to get dark and people where already bringing up the idea of setting up camp, though they where thoroughly ragged on for it. I got out my periscopes style army flashlight and clipped it to my belt so that it faced out in front of me and illuminated everyone in front of me. We could not hear anything outside the footsteps of our comrades and the sounds of the forest moving into night. As I moved to the back to give moral support to those who needed it I saw something reflecting my flashlight back and it appeared to be mobbing closer, parallel to the road and about seven feet to the side. My first though was a car but I dismissed this immediately. Why would there be a read there? My next though was that we had left someone behind and this was something reflective that they had on, but no I had just taken count and everyone was present or accounted for. Then a third though entered my head like the appearance of some dark stranger who surprises you in the night. What if it is an animal? My mind almost immediately called up the image of a large gray wolf. My mind soared with this idea, and as much out of boredom as fear I let it. I remembered the Resident Evil 4 wolfs with slavering jaws and eyes that glowed with true carnal rage. I started to walk faster and the knowledge of wolves kicked in. Wolves attack, what they perceive to be, the weakest creature in the pack, aka the one who can’t keep up, the one in the back, me at that moment. I took my flashlight off my belt and help it by the very end of the handle so that it hefted like a good, if short, club. I checked over my shoulder and saw that it had moved a little closer and had stayed the same distance off the side. I made it into the rest of the group and checked behind me but saw now there was no reflection. This was the first time I thought I was going a little crazier than usual but I put the event behind me and kept walking and offering what help I could to those around me. After a long time and quite a few bends, twists and false alarms regarding what was off to the side of the trail, we found ourselves on the a long strait stretch of road. It was truly dark now and I could not help being a bit nervous that we would end up camping here, as Greg suggested. I don’t know how far we walked on that road but I know that it was approaching ten o’clock when I heard the call of a road ahead. We stomped up a hill with all the vigor we could muster and saw a sight I never thought I would rejoice at; asphalt. I was ready to move down the road in search of our campsite but others started dropping their packs and flopped to the ground. I started to ask what they where doing but then I realized that me and Darcell where the only ones with packs still on and dropped mine on the road and walked to where Ethan and Arthur where looking over a map. I sat by, listened and offered my opinion when I thought of something that could be helpful. Eventually we figured that the camp was about a mile ahead and everyone, with groans and slow movements got up, put their packs on and walked. I will never forget that night. That road. The dark blue ford f-250 that drove past us as we tried to flag it down. The side road, with a stop sign painted like a smiling face and chocked full of wholes from at least three different guns. The smiley face gratified on the road under our feet, something move in the corner of my eye and nothing ever being there. The more we walked, the worse it got. Matt swore he saw someone up ahead, it was a full moon and we heard wolves in the distance. It was the second most freaked out I have ever been. In the end we dropped our bags by the side of the road and got ready to sleep. About the time everyone had their sleeping bags set up a car stopped and asked what we where up to, we gave him a general outline and asked if he knew how far away the trail where the water was? He told us that it was (groan loudly) one mile away from our position. We thanked him and he drove away. Arthur, Matt, Greg, me and Jeremy volunteered to go get the water but as I was getting my pack on something popped in my nose and blood started to drip out at an alarming rate. I waved goodbye to the away team and lay down to deal with my bloody nose. I still wish I had gone, the stories of that night sound hellish and I would have loved to be part of it. I heard all of this from various accounts and I will now relay the events of that night to my readers. The away team walked down the road for a ways and after a few turns made it to a large parking lot with a number of trails leading off it. After deliberation they picked one and walked into what was described as a hellish swamp. The noise of saccades and crickets was so loud that they could not hear themselves think, it was total dark and Gregg started to recite the Lord ’s Prayer, had I been there I probably would have joined him. They made it back hours later with no water except one bottle full of creek water that they had strained through charcoal and a tee-shirt. Chapter nine So this is morning I woke up a few times that night, once to see who the hell was in our camp site, it turned out to be the away team returning. I woke up to some truck parked by the road asking us what we where doing and I shouted “sleeping” at him. Once I thought I woke up and there was some dude there with a smiley face shirt and a shot-gun but it was a dream and thankfully so. The next morning we where up early and moving before eight, the events of the night before talked about among the people with breath to talk. After a few miles we made it to the trail we should have been on all along and turned right off of the concrete onto the dirt. We had thought that the water would be right here and people started to panic; we needed that water and could not find it. People started saying that it had been hidden and that they were screwing with us, that there was no water and it was all part of the test. The trail was thin and we had to stop a few times for people and many in the front objected to this continual stopping and starting, saying that we should just go and in they should suck it up and walk. I heard both Matt and Jeremy say so and after a while I told them that just because they could do it didn’t mean that everyone could. We walked for a few miles and in the end found the water right were if should be but not were we thought it was. The directions said that it was to the left off the side of a concrete road. We assumed that it was off of the concrete road slept on when in fact it was off of a different road all together. We filled our water all and used it to cook up some MRE. A quick review of what an MRE is: and MRE is a meal ready to eat. It includes a number of plastic containers and a heating packet that will cook once water has been added. The food is a little gross but filling and it kept us going for a good ways. El showed up and talked to Jessica, who had broken into tears more than once and wanted to quite. It had been her that had wanted to call a halt and had been tired the whole time. I don’t know what he said but it motivated her and she kept walking with us. By this time it was getting to the true test and I was reminded not for the last time of the book Endurance by Earnest Shackelton. It talks about the adventures of the crew of the Endurance and how they tried to venture into the South Pole. How they became stuck and had to hike back across the ice, and how no one died. We passed over a bridge with a little river below it and a few of us wanted to swim but we had no time and so pushed on. Monika was having pain in her ankle (to which I said “Damn your ankles” and got a few weird looks) which turned out to be a torn Achilles tendon. It was a good long ways before we stopped again and some of the stress of the day before came out. It had started before I realized and I am not sure how. Ethan, Jeremy and Matt where sitting across the road from one another. Jeremy was taking Ethan to task for the lack of organization. “What if something really bad had happened” was his biggest point. He said that we where out here with no guarantee of help and that if someone had a life threatening injury we would be lucky to get them out alive. Ethan made a few good points that that is what we were here for, that risk was part of the test and the ever present “this is what it will be like on a disaster.” I could not help but role my eye at that, as true as it was it was annoying to keep hearing it, I knew that and if they didn’t I suppose it would be necessary to repeat it. But the thing that blew my mind a little was that after saying all this valid and reasonable stuff he ended with a snappy comment and totally voided all of what he had said before with the little assault on Jeremy as a person rather than the issues he had raised. I remember quite vividly turning to him and saying “that was unnecessary. That was totally unnecessary.” He barely responded and the argument ended moments later. We walked a little more and then Thomas started to cramp up in the backs of his legs, these stayed a problem and eventually we had to stop and see how he was doing. He stretched and we ate what we had, not much by that time, then continued. I walked in the back with Tom partly because he was in back and partly because I was almost out of energy. The rest of the hike had us on paved roads; I tried to avoid them for the sake of my feet and walked to the side. Chapter ten Rain We had gone a good few miles before it started to rain in earnest. Not like the light rain of the day before, this was rain that an Oregonian such as me could acknowledge. This was real rain. I stripped off my shirt and we had stopped so I dropped my bag and put a tarp over it. All around the rain fell on the rest of the team and they moved to cover or put on their rain ponchos, I smiled and ran about in my cameos and boots. After a few minutes the thunder and lightning started and everyone was called on to move under cover and I dragged my worldly passions to the other side of the road where they would be safe from the rain. I kept rejoicing and taking any excuse to run and see what everyone was up to. We called El yet again and this time he was called in to get Thomas and pull him out of our midst. We stood around in the rain and in time we got to talking about everything that had happened on the trip and it seemed that everyone was having a different experience. Some where having a good time, myself included. Others where going through some sort of hell, having trouble staying on their feet and almost just dropping their bags and quitting. And some who just wanted to keep walking and deal with everything when it was over, which I could respect. In the end the rain kept us in one place for about an hour, and the lightning put our continuing at all in jeopardy. As always our coda of safety first took effect and it was deemed a bad idea to keep walking in the lighting. I looked in my bag and pulled searched for my arnica, a semi-organic pain killer which would help with his cramps, but it would seem that I had left it in a different bag. Eventually the rain cleared and El pulled up in his big white truck. He talked to Thomas for about twenty minutes and then Thomas put on his backpack and walked with us. I was happy that he could and did but was confused as to how? He had said that he could not go on and yet here he was going on. It didn’t make much difference, he was with us and we walked. Chapter eleven The home stretch It was about two miles after that when we reached the sign for adventures unlimited, the organization that had made these trails and would be housing us for the next few days. I grinned and walked a little faster giving comfort and encouragement to everyone within earshot. I knew it would be another five miles before we could drop our packs but it was a reason to smile and pat on the back so that is what we did. I walked near the front and it was not far before we where joined by El who got out of the truck and helped us out by walking with us. He kept a good pace and I managed to keep up with him to my own surprise as much as anyone else’s. A field full of cows and the all to familiar smell of compost. Past a rectangular burn in the grass, surrounded by car parts, it looked like the place where a car had exploded. I, with my sharp eyes, spotted an exact-o knife on the ground and took it. I talked to Ethan for a while about the trail and what he thought about how it was going, he was a little surprised about how we where doing. I think he was expecting better of some and I know that El was surprised by how well I had done. I had expected this result; Vanisha dropping out was inevitable, even if she hadn’t partied all night she would never have made it. James was unfortunate but not surprising. He had been strong and though but he didn’t have the endurance to do it and I had guessed that. I was surprised that Jessica was doing as well as she was, I had been unsure about her from the start and was happily surprised by her progress. Audrey to was doing better than I had expected and over all the team impressed me quite a bit. Brittney was the biggest surprise of all, shorter, shy and attached to Jessica, she had not complained, slowed or needed a break yet. She was far tougher than she looked. Jeremy too did great and Gregg, despite his scary thin build made it look easy with strides that almost doubled in length to mine. As I walked I though about everyone that I would tell about this, my mind started to come up with what they would think. Then it started to bring up what would it be like if they where here. I looked to my left and saw Emyli Poltarak walking there, her hair pony tailed up as always, she was nodding in agreement with some silly nonsensical statement I had just made. I looked to my right and saw Nicole smiling her “you are so silly” smile. Up ahead was Clayton and Hannah, pushing to be ahead. I saw Eli behind me, lugging a huge pack without a care, all the parents trudging along and leaving us to our own devices, to an extent. I realized that they where all pulling for me. The entire AmeriCorps team was here on my side and everyone at home was wondering what I was doing and wishing me the best. I felt a new strength that I could not lose; I had to finish for them. I would finish for everyone who knew me. I was among the first to see the sign telling us that we there. I saw it up ahead, a tall semi-billboard that advertised our destination. I think I ran the last hundred feet up hill to get to the sign. I then dropped my bag and me, Art and Jeremy ran down the hill to tell the others. It was hard to stop smiling long enough to tell them we were there, we had made it! I ran back to the top and helped with people’s packs. Everyone made it to the top and sat down for a short break. Then came the bad news, we still had a mile to go before we unpact and took a nap. I was to happy to give a hoot. One more mile, what was that? Nothing. I walked it without really feeling the pain that had plagued me for the last tirhty hours. It was however the longest mile i walked, so close and yet so far from easy life. When we made the camp we opened up the trailer and started to eat and drink and compare our wounds, the water in my shoes had left them looking weird, but Arthur had feet that looked like something out of a bad Zombie movie. Most of us had some form of chapping on our inner legs and it made for some funny wattles around camp in the days after. I felt like my eyes where closed. I no longer had to think about it. I was relaxing and sitting and had nothing to worry about for the next half hour at least. Chapter twelve The rest of the day Looking back I think I was pretending to be tired, that or I rebuilt my energy really quick. I was ready to go when we needed to and had enough energy to walk around from one place to another. We went to the camp site and I then out in the canoes. I was a failure as canoe drivers go, I tried to get us turned the right way but either I pushed us further into trouble or stopped us all together and one of the other boats hit us. About half way down the four mile river paddle I spotted something amiss; an empty canoe. I was right behind El, Ethan and John, a funny and cool guy with a goatee and a short strip of hair in the middle of his head. As they moved forward one of them pointed his paddle and made a triumphant noise, Matt who had been hiding behind a log in the water came out grinning. Then as Darcell and I neared the spot Arthur and Gregg charged out of the brush and started to yell and go after the canoes. I stood up in my seat, gripped my paddle like a battle axe and leapt out of the boat, shouting like a maniac. I then proceeded to help flip every canoe that came down the river behind me, shouting, splashing and generally acting like a total crazy monster. When we flipped every canoe on the water we loaded up and paddled onward, me hitching a ride with Gregg and Matt since Darcell had left with my boat. I eventually caught up with Darcell and switched back to that boat. We made to end of the river trail in no time and pulled our canoes to the edge where we left them and returned to the water for a bath and play time. I don’t know how long we stayed in the water but eventually we went back and ha some dinner, hamburgers, the best I have ever had. After that it was pretty much just hanging out and talking and then going to sleep. Chapter thirteen The rest of the quest It was up early the next morning I woke up at five after eight and dicided to get up, the next thing I knew it was eight thirty and El was clapping his hands right next to my ears. Five minutes later I was up and eating breakfast. Then came the quick task of butting my cloths out to dry and arming up for the next task on our agenda: clearing out one mile of trail. We walked across the length of the camp and a few people complained, Jessica was feeling down because it was her birthday and she was having a horrible time. I had some sympathy for her but after about a solid hour of the complaining interspersed with crying my pations was growing thin. We sang happy birthday to her as we walked to the site and all she could do was mumble for us to stop. Hearing this I didn’t sing but I think I should have, looking back on it now their was nothing we could have done to make her feel better, she was bound and determined to be miserable, and when someone does that all that can be done is point it out and hope they change their mind, like everything else it is all in your head. We arrived at the work site and started assembling our helmets and putting on our chaps. I grabbed a pair of loppers over machetes, thankful for the experience that taught me these where the best tool on offer. It was an easy task and Jeremy and I held the front most of the way. We all got to use chainsaws and learn how to use them right. It took us a few hours, which was a few hours less than expected. In the end I went back with El and Ethan to review the trail with the guy who would actually lead people on it. he deemed it good and I went back to camp, hung out, went swimming and in the evening I played narrator for one of the best mafia games I have ever seen. Later that evening I was on my way back from the bathroom when I saw some of the gang walking over to the playground, diciding I might hear something worth hearing I hid in the shadow of a bush and watched them climb into a small house-like structure. They where almost all inside when Gregg spotted me and Audrey said “It’s Everett” I stood up and vaulted the fence, saying “no it’s Eliot.” There was a moment of silence as everyone tried to figure it out in their heads. For those of you who will read this without having been there, everyone mixed up Everett and Eliot when talking to or about us, so when I miss-corrected them it through them and was very funny. I climbed into the tree house and spent the next few minutes talking about nothing in particular and laughing about the weird stuff that had happened. Then we climbed down and walked back to the camp and not long after, I was fast asleep. The next day we were up and packing, everything was put away and we drove away from what is still one of the best camping trips I have ever been on. It was a long car ride back to mobile but I slept through most of it. When we got back everyone was ready to go home but we still had work to do. I knew we would have to put everything away but it would seem that some people didn’t, some complained more, some started to complain and some just left. I did what I had done all that week when there was more to be done; I put my head done and kept working. I talked with those around me when it was necessary and we got everything put away. I don’t remember much else after that, other than going back to the church and falling asleep. Epilogue Reflection I am sitting at a desk typing and thinking about everything I have written over the last week or so. A lot has changed since quest, about which you will hear in later writings. And yet I hold the experience close, I know now that I am capable of great things and that I am stronger than I or anyone else had thought. At the same time that this showed me things about myself, it also showed me a lot about the people who I walked with, how they act under pressure and who can take the heat. It was, in all honesty one of the best adventures I have ever been on, and well deserving of the title it was given and will always be known by; Quest. *** End ***

Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's

We're having our first chilly, misty, gray mornings here in the Northwest, and I find myself reviewing the summer just gone by...In the fine self-indulgent tradition of bloggers everywhere, I'll be posting my meaningless musings on whatever-the-hell-I-feel-like Right Here to be enjoyed by, like, no one, but that's okay. My choice for Love Song of the Summer is this one: Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's. The backstory behind this song is that there really is a Delilah, a beautiful girl who's training for the Olympics in some equestrian event. Apparently, she and lead singer Tom are still just friends. But really, I think his approach was sound: Guys, take note--write a song to a girl, release it as a single, and have it become your breakout hit. Chicks love that shit. Just saying. So if you haven't, or even if you have, check out the song...so sweet.

A Word on Barnyard Fowl...

Free range chickens can mean a variety of things. As legally defined by the USDA, commercial operations can call their birds free range if each bird has a 3’x3’ space to move about in. The chickens don’t have to ever leave that area or see the light of day, but can still be referred to as free range. For most small farmers, it means that the birds spend at least part of the day roaming in an area large enough that they can forage for bugs, greens, and seeds and not decimate the area they’re in with their scratching and pecking. It’s generally accepted that free-ranging is healthier for the birds and that they require significantly less supplemental feeding. It’s also accepted that if you free range your birds anywhere near your living area, the chickens will want to be near you, will leave their droppings in your paths and on your porch or deck, will dig in your garden and uproot your potted plants. In our present living situation, with our compost-outhouse and outdoor kitchen, free range means that the chickens often keep you company while you visit the outhouse—last summer we even had a little bantam hen that went broody and decided to nest and hatch her chicks in a corner of our makeshift bathroom. Part of the morning ritual here is throwing water down on our wood pallet walkway to get rid of the chicken, duck, and goose poop left there overnight, and cleaning our kitchen counter space with bleach, sometimes actually having to shoo the chickens off of the counter first. Bucolic taken to ridiculous extremes. We put up with the birds because once you’ve gotten used to your own fresh eggs, commercially grown grocery store eggs are intolerable. The yolks are pale, the whites are watery, and they have no flavor of their own. Home-grown eggs have rich golden, almost orange yolks, thick whites, and taste. And we like the birds. They have personalities, they’re cute, and with some handling and attention when they’re young they can turn out pretty friendly. But generally you don’t bond with them to the point that you could never eat them—a handy quality in a farm animal. I couldn’t tell you how many hens we have right now—our flock has been culled a bit by predators since moving to this property almost 2 years ago. We have three roosters—the large and mean Pharaoh, an Auracauna who consistently menaced Keegan until we trained her to carry a big stick and when he came at her, to whack him like a piñata, Hermie, a smaller Mille Fleur who thinks he’s all that but will only attack you when he’s standing on something that puts him at your level—typical short man syndrome. Then there’s Jack, Clayton’s show rooster, an adorable little Old English Blue Wheaten who crows like he’s the king of the world but gets chased away by the larger hens and mostly spends quiet days with his mate, Diane, a lovely fawn-colored, pigeon-sized hen of the same variety. She may actually be his sister, but we don’t talk about it. Typically, even free range chickens have a coop that they sleep in at night, safe from predators, and as long as that’s where they’re fed, they make their own way back to it in the evenings. With a new coop, or when you bring new birds home, there can be a training period where you either keep the birds shut in all day and night for a few days, or you have to make the rounds at dusk retrieving chickens from their roosts in trees and on top of milking stands, and putting them in the coop until they’ve gotten the clue that that’s where they sleep. The coop should include nesting boxes which even free rangers will use, at least most of the time. In our case, however, our chickens roost in the goat barn at night and, lacking proper nest boxes, lay their eggs wherever they see fit, necessitating a sort of perpetual Easter egg hunt here at the farm. Their favorite laying spots include the goats’ hay feeder, the abandoned rabbit hutches, under the corner of the floor of the outhouse, and any number of secluded little nooks in the long grass. Keegan is the designated egg hunter, securing a bounty of 5c each. Sunday, while I was doing the weekly maintenance of the toilet compost (a subject for another post), I spotted a beautiful nest of about 18 eggs. The nest was a little too hard for Keegan to reach, so I helped her retrieve the eggs. We made sure to leave two eggs there, so the chicken will continue to lay in that spot, making the hunt easier on us. The two we left we marked with a black Sharpie marker “X” so we’ll know those are the seed eggs, and we won’t inadvertently collect them and crack them open when they’re several months old. Part of collecting eggs in this haphazard way means you never, ever crack an egg into a bowl with other cracked eggs, because if you get a rotten one it will explode into the bowl, ruining however many good ones you already had. And sometimes we discover eggs that appear to have been laid long enough ago that we don’t even bother to crack them open, we just assign the kids the “chore” of flinging them into the woods. They like to choose a tree for a target and see if they can get the eggs to explode on impact in that uniquely satisfying and revolting way that rotten eggs do.

A Fair of State

The week and a half ending with Labor Day is the time of the Oregon State Fair in the white-trashy capitol of Salem. This year marked our first foray to the big event, as Jaeger and Eli both qualified to show goats and rabbits with their most excellent performances at the county level.

So on Tuesday, August 28th, after a previous day spent hitching goats to the back of my Landcruiser for a good washing, we (Jaeger, Eli, and I) loaded up all four of our French Alpine dairy does, along with all their accoutrement for feeding and milking, and headed 100 miles south to the Oregon State Fair.

We opted to stay in the dorms rather than camping because, Helloooo, we camp at home. Our days started at 6:00 with stripping the previous day's bedding out of the pens and replacing it with fresh, milking three of the does, feeding, and making sure our county's goat area was clean. After the requisite flagpole meeting and announcements, the kids and I would gather our breakfast food and head to the deserted garden area of the fairgrounds. After our quiet breakfast time, the days were filled with herdsmanship duty in the barn, getting the goats all pimped out for showmanship, and taking in the sights of the fair as time allowed. Eli discovered a rock-climbing area with two nice 14-foot boulders and spent every free moment blowing off steam and intimidating other climbers with his monkey-tude.

Roni and Keegan came down for the day Wednesday when Jaeger had 4-H rabbit showmanship. It was a tough show, but J. held her own, and Keegan was stoked to partake in the sights, sounds, and especially foods, of the fair.

Then Mark, who had said he would try to get off work early on Friday and join us for the weekend, surprised us all by taking the entire day off and arriving by 8:30 a.m. Friday morning so he was there to see the kids show, and being male, he was allowed in the boys' dorm area so Eli had someone to help him get dressed in his white show clothes, gel his hair, and generally assist with whatever the manly equivalent of primping is. The arrival of my guy also heralded a couple of lovely evenings sitting on the quiet wine patio overlooking the Bocce courts. My kind of fair activities.

I always develop severe animal lust at the county fair, and at state, with so many more species and varieties to see, I went completely batshit crazy. I mooned and crooned over the tiny piglets and the brand-new lambs. And I developed a serious crush on a certain llama--just my luck, he's a gelding--but check him out, he's a hottie.

Where I completely lost my senses was in the rabbit barn. I fell head over heels in love with first, a tiny gray Holland Lop being shown in 4-H, and then with the huge French Lops. This obsession has followed me home, and I've spent the last week bombarding Mark with email pics of French Lops and links to web pages describing how ideally suited they are to be house pets. In the evenings, I snuggle up to My Man and whisper seductively in his ear devout promises to duct tape all the electrical cords to the floor so our future baby can't gnaw them to bits.

But enough about me. We went to the fair for the kids, and the kids rocked. They had no expectations of placing in showmanship being up against the best intermediate level showmen from all over the state, they went to gain experience and confidence, and they achieved that beyond our highest hopes. They were quick to grasp how much higher the standards were at the state level, and with no real prodding from me, were busily studying and quizzing each other before the show, and took all of their goats to the animal washing area where they got them cleaner than they'd ever been in their little goat lives, including scrubbing and brushing their hooves to a high shine and wrapping them in vet tape until right before they entered the show ring. Once in the ring, Eli and Jaeger held their own with the best in the state, placing 7th and 8th, respectively, in a class of 11. They each did at least one maneuver incorrectly which probably cost them a place, but they learned so much being out there in the ring for AN HOUR AND A HALF with a judge who put them through their paces like they've never experienced. At the county level they're in the show ring for maybe 20 minutes. The day after showmanship was judging of the animals themselves, and our 4 year-old doe, Gracie, who won Best in Show at County Fair, won Best of Breed at State. And Gracie and her daughter, Magic--Jaeger's dry yearling doe, won Best Alpine Dam & Daughter. And again, just being out there in the ring with the goats, as well as the best 4-H showmen in the state, was awesome experience for both Jaeger and Eli. At the county level there are different 4-H clubs, and we of Aardvark Farm are our own goat club. But at the state level, all the kids from a county form a club together, and the clubs are judged daily on herdsmanship. Herdsmanship entails the cleanliness of your animals' pens, the freshness of their water, how clean you keep the aisles and areas the public sees, the friendliness of the club members, and even how organized your tack area is. Our Columbia County Dairy Goat kids, Eli, Jaeger, and four other kids, won the Herdsmanship Champion award in the dairy goat area. Very cool, nice big purple ribbons.

On Saturday night, after all the showing is over, the 4-Hers fence off part of the barn and have a dance. Our kids got out there and danced, but for Eli there's a mandatory watching and waiting period before he feels comfortable dancing. Upon his arrival from the climbing area to the dance, half a dozen girls from our county rushed at him, intent on dragging him out onto the dance floor. Like a spooked deer, Eli turned tail and vaulted right over the fence, seeking refuge with the card-playing older teens in sheep 4-H until he felt it was safe to sneak back into the dance area. But once he got the lay of the land, he was spotted slow-dancing with an extremely adorable fellow dairy goat showperson from our county. Also worth noting, Jaeger (who looks much older than her almost-13 years) danced with two boys who were not Eli. So there.

Other impressive sights of the fair included a stunning wall-hanging quilt a woman had made for her daughter. The pictures I have don't come close to doing it justice. The mother had asked her twentysomething daughter to make a list of her favorite books, limited to 124 titles. Then Mom created this gorgeous quilt designed to look like a bookshelf containing all the books on the list, with framed photos of the girl and her family scattered amongst the books. The colors are vibrant and vivid, and I found among the book titles many of my own faves--daughter was a women's studies grad, so lots of heavy-hitter female authors, but the thing that actually caused me to tear up was what the love contained in the quilt. It was almost palpable, and no one I saw approach it was able to just walk by, or to walk away quickly. It was one of the most powerful representations of love made manifest in craft that I've ever seen. Truly moving.

The 720 pound pumpkin was cool, too. I tried to imagine what it would be like to grow vegetables the size of Volkswagens. Surreal. I definitely want to try it next year, but when I try to grow pumpkins in my garden they never do much. It's the following spring when the pumpkin I threw on the compost pile in the fall, volunteers as a new plant in the compost--then I get some kick-ass pumpkins. Next year I'll just plant straight in the compost....or maybe I'll just snag a huge pumpkin from a pumpkin patch this Halloween, take it straight home and put it on the compost pile.



All in all, it was an exhausting adventure, but so full of moments of incredible pride in our kids that I can't imagine anywhere I would rather have been for that week. Jaeger and Eli worked so hard, were a great team together, rooted for each other, helped out the other kids any way they could, and kept everything in perfect perspective all week. So yeah, grueling as it was, I guess I'll do it again next year...but we'll be staying in the campground where nobody will notice my stash of vino and I don't have to sneak out to kiss Mark good-night!

Hello all! It's me, Everett. I have finally gotten signed up for the blog and this is my first entry so read it and weep (for me, weep for me). I have been here over two weeks now and let me tell you it is quite an interesting experiance. I first arived at the airport after an all night flight during which i got about five minutes of sleep. El Williams, the program director was missinformed about my arivle time and had already been and gone when I walked out of the airport. I called him and he picked me up after about 20 minutes. He drove me to a training that everyone was part of and their I met the rest of the team; Ethan our hippy lead man, Thomas one of our top guys and a team unit leader, audrey is one of the the only girls in the group and is one of the team leaders though some don't loke the way she leads, Darcell is a strong hansom man well deserving of the third team leader role, matt is a funny "ginger" and our last team leader. Unfotunatly I am at the office and need to get back to work, I will send you more when I have a chance. Love, Everett

Everett Goes Mobile

On August 20th we waved good-bye to Everett as he took flight to Mobile, Alabama, ready to begin a 13-month stint with Americorps.

He applied in mid-July with the intention of starting their 10-month community service program beginning in January. The day after he submitted his on-line app, he received a call from the South Alabama Emergency Response Team asking if he'd be interested in applying for their program. The thing he was most interested in doing with Americorps was Katrina relief, so when the SAERT folks explained that they would be a team of 22 trained to be one of the first responders in natural disaster or man-made emergency situations, he pounced at the chance.

A whirlwind of phone interviews, faxing documents, fingerprints and background checks followed, and within a month of their initial contact with him, I put Number One Son on a plane for a year away.

His initial report on arriving in Mobile: "It's f*cking HOT here. Mildly unpleasant, really."

He has since failed his initial pack test in which he had to trek 3 miles wearing a 50-pound pack in 45 minutes. He did it in 46. Little slacker. BUT then the team was dropped in the woods with the objective of hiking 19 miles out. They got lost on the first day, turning it into a 24 mile hike, and two team members wound up dropping out. Everett made it through and apparently the program director decided he could forego re-taking his pack test in light of the fact that he managed to schlep his full pack 20+ miles.

He's supposed to be getting an apartment with a couple other team members, but so far they're all still holed up in some rooms provided by a local church. He bought two bikes at a local pawn shop, one a circa 1970s Olympic bike which he plans to ebay at some point, the other a Schwinn road bike he's using to get around in Mobile, which he likes much better now that he's somewhat acclimated to the 94% humidity.

I'll be setting Ev up to post his own dispatches from down South, so look for his continuing adventures...Here are a couple pics from his going-away bash.

Madeleine Peyroux show

I'm in a Madeleine state of mind today. I know her detractors dis her, saying she's just imitating the great Billie and the sublime Bessie, but if I could imitate as well as she does, I'd be out there workin' it, too. I love her for keeping the sweet crooning songstress vibe alive and well in the age of hip hop and techno. Plug in the 'phones and let Homegirl take you where she will...

Recipe for a Perfect Weekend:

One beautiful, remote location, such as Hidden Lake, along the South Fork of the McKenzie River, near where Willamette Nat’l Forest meets Three Sisters Wilderness Area

Spectacular old growth forest to hike through before reaching the lake each morning

Three old, decrepit plywood-and-log rafts to commandeer and paddle to the far side of the lake

My Honey, two supercool friends-Ted and Marina, and believe it or not, seven teenagers: Everett, Clayton, Eli, Nicole, Mimi, Ari, and Emyli

One excellent dog, Jake

Combine above ingredients, then add:

Copious amounts of hearty, delicious food

Plenty of wine in the evenings

Bottomless portions of sunbathing, napping, and swimming in the perfectly mild but cool, deep green lake (clothing optional and, in fact, superfluous)

Be sure to include at least one campfire sing-along

Always, Always volunteer to cook, because then the teenagers will have to do the dishes!

Campfire Songs:

Yellow Submarine

Let the Sunshine In

Free Fallin (Tom Petty)

I’ll Follow You (Death Cab for Cutie)

Nicole performing The Viagra Song, complete with choreography

Emyli performing her amazing original songs

Delta Dawn

A little Rocky Horror, a little Dylan, a little Simon & Garfunkel

A couple of Pagan-y chants (this is Oregon and we are all hippies, after all)

Visual Update on the House

We took delivery of the rest of our house package--check out Mark using the forklift to hold up the back end of the roofing as Dave tows it on the trailer. Our menfolk have the magic touch. And then there's Eli, official House Monkey in Charge of Verifying Structural Integrity.

Who's the Fairest of Them All?

Columbia County Fair took place July 18-22, though here at the farm the build-up began many months ago and built to a fever pitch in the weeks immediately preceding it. Like most families with a lot of animal entries, we camp for the entire week of Fair in the fairgrounds' campground. We had all 9 of our goats at the fair, which simplified their care, rather than someone having to be home for feeding and milking. All the 4-H kids get up by 6:30 to clean animal pens and do their morning chores--in our case, milking is the major one--before assembling at the flagpole at 8:00 for morning announcements. The fair is always a mad rush, with Roni and I having to sit down the week before and create an elaborate flow chart outlining how to get all kids, animals, tack, and camping gear to where it needs to be at the right time. This year was no exception: Before fair itself, we had to schedule blocks of time for the kids to bathe all of their animals, label everything we were taking with us that would be in the communal barns, help with set-up of animal pens in the barns at the fairgrounds, decorate our clubs' areas, make sure everyone's static entries were submitted, paperwork was done, show clothes were clean and ironed, and the list went on. Then at the fair itself it was all about making sure the kids knew when they had barn duty and in what barn. We have our own 4-H club for goats under the Aardvark Farm name, but our kids belong to another club for their rabbit and poultry projects, so they were almost constantly on duty in one barn or the other, keeping the animals fed and watered and chatting with fair visitors. At least, that's what barn duty is supposed to entail, but the reality is there's a whole helluva lot of card playing that goes on. It's part of the tradition of Fair, and it seems that Speed was the game of choice for the second year in a row. We had multiple kids showing dairy goats, pygmy goats, and rabbits, plus Keegan showing her chicken and Jaeger getting her first experience in horse showmanship. In the static exhibits the kids had entries in photography, art, baked goods, sewing, and knitting. Keegan and her friend Monroe did a duet in the talent show tryouts but weren't selected for the main event (robbed!), Clayton and Hannah did Fashion Revue so they got to model their sewing projects, and in between all of this everyone had to squeeze in plenty of time for eating greasy and sugary foods. The week had a gazillion great moments, including our beautiful goats getting some serious love from the goat judge. Jaeger's yearling doe, Magic, and Eli's two year-old doe, Elinor, both did great, but it was their mother, Grace, who stole the show. After winning Grand Champion of all the French Alpines (not hard, since ours were almost the only ones there), she was judged against all the dairy goats of other breeds and again won Grand Champion. Then later she was judged against ALL the goats--meat goats, pygmies, and fiber goats--and won again, crowning her Supreme Champion and Best in Barn. SWEET! Then Keegan, in her firt year showing at fair, and being younger and smaller than the other competitors, rocked Junior Dairy Goat Showmanship. She was showing Indigo, our most calm and docile doe, but the judges like to have the kids switch goats in the show ring, prove that they can work with a goat besides their own. So Keegan had to deal with this psycho Nubian doe who had nothing on her mind except getting back to her two young kids bawling at her from the barn. The goat made a break for it, but those of us who know and love Keeg could only shake our heads in sympathy for the goat, because Homegirl wasn't about to let go. Attempting to dig in her heels against the powerful doe, Keegan held on fiercely to the collar even as she was dragged around the ring. The judge attempted to help out and the judge almost knocked her on her arse. When it came time to announce her placings, the judge heaped praise on Keegan for refusing to let go, when a lot of other showmen might not have been able to keep hold. For her tenacity, as well as being correctly answering some pretty tough questions from the judge, Keegan won Reserve Champion! A synopsis of fair would be incomplete without giving a shout-out to The Girls--our network of extra daughters composed of the boys' girlfriends and miscellaneous friends of all the kids. Hannah camped with us all week, and though we would have let her sleep in, she was up at 6:30 every morning cleaning goat pens, milking, and doing whatever was needed. Keila, who visits her mom in St. Helens for summers, also camped with us, did goat barn chores, and worked at the fair as a volunteer for Kiwanis. Overachiever. We also got help from Corissa, Jaeger's horse-riding buddy, and Jackie, Keila's younger sister, both of whom were invaluable in helping us keep ourselves together. The week was a smash, but it's incredibly exhausting and we're always so delighted when it's over, it's as if that's when our summer leisure can begin. But wait! The kids did so well that Eli and Jaeger qualified for State Fair. Oh, yay...so we get to do this whole circus again at the end of August in Salem. At least we're only taking three goats and two rabbits, plus Eli's photos that qualified, and the cloak Clayton sewed. And I console myself that there's likely to be a far superior selection of greasy, sugary food at the state level.