Bigger Isn't Better

I am driving down the road at the posted speed limit. Approximately three inches behind the rear bumper of my little Honda is a sport utility vehicle. Its headlines shine directly into my rearview mirrors.
I appears that the driver wants to get to know me. I slow down, whereupon the SUV driver honks the horn, flashes the headlights and, without signaling, passes me. I look to see who this friendly driver is.
Is it a 6-foot-5, 350-pound gorilla with a testosterone overdose? Or a freaked-out meth addict looking for his next fix?
Nope. It is a woman.
We all know that females are mannerly, nurturing and loving. At least the ones I know are.
I wondered: How could it be that a female was exhibiting the characteristics of a Boston cab driver here in Oregon?
I found the answer in the newspaper recently. It was in the “Car Talk” column that Tom and Ray Magliozzi write. They also have a radio show on National Public Radio.
In the column, a woman makes a confession. She says that, normally, she is polite, caring and generally pretty nice to be around.
However, when she gets behind the wheel of her new SUV, she becomes a different person, cutting off other drivers and expressing her inner orneriness.
At one point, she said, she got into an altercation with another driver.
The kicker, she said, was that she is a middle-school religion teacher.
What is it, then, that causes a perfectly normal person to become transformed into a highway hog?
I think some people just have a hard time dealing with big.
I know. I am a reformed big vehicle driver. Actually, our old 15-passenger van made most SUVs look like a compact. It was huge. When I wanted to change lanes on the interstate nothing short of a semi-truck could make me do otherwise.
Parking lots were my personal domain. Because it took up two parking spaces, my van was the gorilla in the forest of vehicles. I parked wherever I darn well pleased.
I did receive my comeuppance, however. Once we were camping in the redwoods in northern California with our van and tent trailer. The sign on the road warned that no vehicles towing trailers were allowed.
“Honey, don’t you think we should stop?” my wife asked.
“Nah, we’re fine,” I assured her. And we were fine for about a mile. The trees got bigger and bigger, and the road got narrower and narrower.
Pretty soon, we couldn’t go any farther. Two redwoods grew right up to the side of the road. Short of using a chainsaw, we’d never be able to get past. We were stuck.
All of which was highly entertaining to our four kids.
“Whatcha gonna do now, Dad?” they chorused.
I ignored the taunting.
My wife was silent. She was either confident that I would figure something out, or she was figuring out how long it would take to walk back to the main road and hitchhike home.
After a little reconnoitering, we did find a spot big enough to turn the van and trailer around, and we headed back to the campground.
When we passed the “No Trailers” sign, my wife pointed to it. She only said one thing: “That must mean everyone.”
In some things, bigger is not better.

The Dumbest Animals Ever

I was wondering the other night what the dumbest animal is.

That thought came to mind as I was jamming on the brakes of our van, trying to avoid mowing down two deer. We were on Cascade Highway near Sublimity, Ore., and these two geniuses took up their station in the middle of the road and stood there.

I don’t know if they were waiting for Mr. Spock to beam them up, or if they thought our car was going to jump over them. Either way, they were not demonstrating, shall we say, much in the smarts department.

This is not my first experience with DDs, a.k.a. Dumb Deer. Some years ago, when I worked for the Stayton Mail, a woman called to inform me that a deer had been seen downtown.
It was a slow news week, but the sighting of a deer in Stayton didn’t even make my News-o-meter flicker.

Then she said that, while it was downtown, the deer had jumped through the plate-glass window of the old Plaza Restaurant, skidded across the floor, jumped up and ran outside again. In the process it whacked one of the patrons in the face, breaking his jaw.

Then it ran down Washington Street and into the Norpac plant before heading out of town.
All of which made my News-o-meter jump off the scale. I headed to the restaurant and talked to several witnesses, all of whom agreed that this may be the dumbest deer ever. Malicious, too.

I used to live in Minnesota, where deer were renown for their lack of intellectual capacity. Once I was talking to an insurance agent, who told me the weirdest claim he ever had gotten was from his daughter. She was driving her brand-new minivan and saw a deer in the road. She stopped the van to wait for it to get out of the way.

As she was stopped, the deer ran around to the side of the van, charged it and caused $2,000 in damage before running off.

Now that’s dumb.

Of course, there are plenty of dumb critters in the animal kingdom. Opossums should be included on any dumb-as-a-rock list. They just play possum whenever they’re threatened.

Our three cats, Spit, Buttercup and Eddy, should also be included in the Idiots Hall of Fame. If brains were dynamite, these cats couldn’t blow their noses. The only things they’re good for is eating and sleeping.

I take that back. The kids taught Eddy to do an impersonation of a bagpipe.
At any rate, we’re not talking smart here.

I used to think that cats were smarter than dogs, but we once had a dog, Toby, that could read my wife’s mind. No, he didn’t bite me whenever I forgot to wash the dishes.

Whenever, my wife took him for a walk, he would wait at the street corners until she looked both ways. She didn’t have to signal or say anything. He just knew when she decided it was safe to cross the street.

I’m not making this up. I’m pretty sure that dog was smarter than three out of our four kids.
And I’m not saying which kid passed the Toby Test.

The Forecast is Sunny

Whoever said the weather doesn’t affect folks obviously hasn’t lived in Oregon during the winter — or, in this case, the spring. This year’s combination of cold and rain and even snow has set all sorts of records for the most of this and the deepest that.

For me, though, the lousy weather has been manifested in a lousy temperament. It’s not just that I was grumpy; it’s that I was grumpy all the time. Even when I was in a relatively good mood, I was still in the grumpy zone.

When the kids would tell me about their latest exploits, instead of saying, “Hey, that’s pretty cool” or “Does you mother know about that?” I’d say something like, “Yeah, whatever.”
Having someone in that semi-permanent state of mind couldn’t have been fun for anyone, much less my family.

I used to be one of those folks who thought the weather didn’t affect me. After all, I survived almost 20 years in Alaska, the mother lode of lousy weather. I lived three years in Fairbanks, where loooong, dark winters with temperatures waaaay below zero are the norm.

I spent several other years in Anchorage and Wrangell, but I spent most of the time — 14 years — in Juneau.

You think it rains a lot here? Juneau often hits triple digits, about twice as much precipitation as the Willamette Valley.

Yet, it really didn’t bother me. I never went outside, so as long as the roof didn’t leak, the rain, snow, sleet, hail, and general misery of Southeast Alaska weather didn’t matter to me.

Every time I read an article about global warming all I can think about is 600,000 Alaskans cheering: “The sooner, the better!”

It was often said that if you survive one winter in Alaska you could survive anything. Nearly 20 winters there proved that.

For me, though, this spring pushed me to the edge. I was ready to get in the car and start driving south until I saw the sun.

A little rain now and then is part of the deal. It’s hard to imagine Oregon staying as green as it is without a good dose of the wet stuff every now and then.

But this past year was ridiculous. I mean, really.

Temperatures were normal all right — for January. And the rain just kept falling. By the time spring rolled around the April showers had extended well into June.

All of which made the recent stretch of sunshine that much sweeter. The other day I caught myself doing something I hadn’t done in years. As I walked down the sunny street I broke out into “Oh, What a Beautiful Day” in my best Gordon MacRea baritone.

And it was a beautiful day. I went to a meeting that same day, and the utter joy on the room was palpable. Though we’re normally not exactly Ebenezer Scrooges in disposition, we were a pretty happy bunch. We all smiled and joked as though we had just won a two-week vacation in Vegas.

Life is good, but it’s a whole lot better when the weather cooperates.

Oregon Garden Resort a Natural

One of my favorite spots in Oregon lies right on the outskirts of Silverton.
Since its opening, the Oregon Garden has stood out as an example of the many things that make our state beautiful.
Yes, the collection of plants is among the best on the West Coast. I don’t know a daffodil from a dahlia, but I do know the garden has a bunch of them.
Yes, the landscaping makes it a catalog of ideas for my inner gardener. Actually, my inner gardener stays pretty well hidden in spite of my attempts at coaxing it out of the tool shed.
Yes, the location overlooking the valley is just about perfect.
But the thing that really stands out is how many volunteers worked together to transform a horse farm into the centerpiece of the Willamette Valley. Their efforts show a sense of community above and beyond any other place I’ve seen.
I remember when the garden first opened. The entire city seemed to be busting its buttons over the miracle they had pulled off. More than $20 million had been invested in the garden in contributions and in-kind services. Even the Environmental Protection Agency was involved with the wetlands demonstration project that now serves as a home to about 456,000 frogs.
To me a walk through the garden has always been something of a mini-vacation. I used to daydream of about the possibility of someday staying at a lodge on the grounds.
Last week, that daydream came true. My wife, Patti, and I checked out the new Moonstone resort at the garden. Judging from our brief stay, it won’t be the last time we visit, either.
The resort is perched above most of the garden, allowing visitors to view it from the walkways. Many of the 103 rooms are in individual buildings tucked next to the forested portion of the garden.
We arrived there on a bluebird afternoon, just after twilight and as the full moon hung low over the hills. After checking in, we met some friends in the bar. It’s a funny thing about that place. As we sat, more people we knew arrived. Some were celebrating birthdays; others were just like us, checking out the resort.
I had heard that the food was good, and we weren’t disappointed.
But the real show was outside. We took the scenic route to our rooms, strolling around the grounds in the moonlight, telling stories and enjoying each other’s company.
The only unfortunate part of our stay was its brevity. Patti and I had to get home the next morning, but we did notice that our friends were in no hurry to leave.
I don’t know much about the resort business or what makes a hotel successful. But I do know that one of the key elements is finding the right location.
That being the case, the Oregon Garden Resort has got it made.

A soft night

We recently spent an evening visiting with some friends on their farm. After dinner, the host suggested we take a walk down to the lake.
“It’s a soft night,” he said. “It’s not too cold, and the rain has stopped.”
We pulled on our jackets and, under the partially obscured half moon, set out, through the berries and past the corn maze, now retired for the season.
We topped a rise and stood overlooking the lake.
“My dad always wanted a lake,” our friend said. “A year ago, my mother said we should put one in. So we did.”
The kids — his and mine — scrambled up and down the hillside and traced the shoreline with their footsteps.
We continued our walk up another rise and stood in the quiet. Scattered across the countryside was a constellation of yard lights rivaling their celestial counterparts above.
We stood, and even the kids maintained a silence born of reverence for the moment.
It was quiet, as quiet as you will ever find.
After the walk, we got down to the serious business of the evening — charades.
“I’ll warn you — my wife is a professional. She’s played charades practically her whole life,” our host said.
So we split into teams, trying to come up with book and movie titles, sayings and characters that the youngest players could act out, while trying come up with others tough enough to stump the “professionals.”
Late into the night we played, enjoying the laughter, the jokes and the stories.
And I ached for a return to our small farm, which we left nine years ago when we moved west from Minnesota. It’s not that I live in New York City. The bustle of the small town I now live in is limited to a rush-15 minutes in the morning and evening as workers head to and from the smattering of factories and businesses that line the edge of town.
Yet there is something truly sacred about life in the country, away from the buzz of neighborhoods and apart from one another, except for family.
As we ended the last round of games and headed for the car for the short drive back to town, I turned to my wife agreed with our host.
It truly was a soft night.

Time for Daylight Savings Time to Go

Congress is back in session. I know lots of folks have big concerns they'd like our best and brightest to address, the war in Iraq, immigration reform and the high cost of video rentals among them.
However, I have an idea that also deserves serious consideration. Twice a year, I feel as though the federal government has done a number on me. No, it doesn't have anything to do with taxes or elections.
What I'm talking about is daylight saving time. When we switch back and forth between daylight saving time and standard time, I can be guaranteed to have my life screwed up twice a year. I tromp around pawing for a cup of coffee to get my eyes open. Things at work are all out of whack, and I'm generally not a happy camper every time the federal government decides to mess up my life.
Look, if someone wants to get up earlier or later, that's fine. Just leave me out of it.
Which brings me to my point. We often hear a lot of hot air coming from Washington, D.C., and elsewhere about how we should save energy. I'm in favor of that, because the more energy I save, the less money I have to ship to Pacific Power, which, not coincidentally, is owned by Warren Buffett, the second-richest guy in the U.S.
So how, exactly, can we do that? The answer is simple — and it will avoid ticking me off twice a year. All we have to do is stay on daylight saving time year around.
By doing that, we use less energy because the sun "sets" an hour later. That means we use lights and other appliances less. That's because about 25 percent of the electricity used in the country is in the evening hours. When we lop off an hour of electrical use each day, we save energy and money.
This is not a radical idea. During the energy crisis in the late 1970s we stayed on daylight saving time. When Enron screwed up California's energy supply a few years ago, that state requested to stay on daylight saving time. Some states don't switch time at all. Hawaii and most of Arizona don't, yet we go through this twice-yearly exercise in frustration and futility for, well I don't really know why. And I doubt anyone in the federal government can explain why we do it, either.
Here's what I suspect. I suspect that the federal government, Congress included, looks at daylight saving time as a twice-a-year wake-up call to show me, you and everyone else who's really in charge. Twice a year, the Washington, D.C., crew gets a chance to send a message to each of us that, no matter what we learned in our eighth-grade civics classes about majority rule and representative democracy, we really do serve the federal government instead of vice versa.
Some years ago, parts of Alaska switched time zones by not switching from daylight saving time to standard time one fall. Some folks thought the world would come to an end when they did that. They were sure the economy would suffer and the world as they knew it would grind to a halt.
And do you know what happened? Nothing, other than the fact that most Alaskans didn't have their sleep patterns ruined that fall.
While Congress is pondering Iraq, immigration and all of those other problems, I have one little request. Please make a simple switch to year-round daylight saving time. It'll save energy, it'll save money and it'll give us more daylight in the evening.
And we'll all sleep better.

Choosing the right critters for your small farm

It is 10 p.m. I am chasing a couple of 200-pound hogs around a field in the pitch-black darkness. Actually, six of us are chasing the hogs.

The hogs are winning.

I should explain.

My 16-year-old son and his friend are raising hogs to enter in the 4-H competition at the upcoming county fair. They decided to build a new pen for the hogs where there is more shade.

Our job was to help them move the hogs from Point A — the old pen — to Point B — the new pen.

The hogs preferred Point A, so there we were, hollering, waving our arms, cajoling and cursing these hogs.

In the dark.

The hogs didn't seem to mind the commotion. For them, I'm sure it was great sport. They ran, weaving and bobbing through our legs, as we tried to coax them toward their new home.

After what seems like an eternity, the hogs made a dash back into their old pen and laid down. They weren't about to move.

Game, set, match. They had outwitted, me, two of my sons, his friend and his friend's parents.

We did what politicians often do: We declared victory and surrendered.

"We'll try again tomorrow," we all agreed as we headed back toward the house.

All I could think of is a conversation I had had some years ago, when we lived in Southern Minnesota. There, hogs are king. Actually, they are king, queen and everything else. Our neighbors alone raised more hogs each year than the entire human population of the county.

The one part of the job our neighbors didn't care much for was loading the hogs for the trip to the slaughterhouse.

Now I know why. When a hog gets it into his head that he doesn't want to go someplace, it takes more than a few kind words to change his mind. Multiply that by hundreds of hogs, and you've got a lot of work on your hands.

Living in the country is wonderful. Often folks take advantage of their elbow room to raise animals. Some are raised for meat; some are raised as pets; and some start out as the former and end up as the latter.

On our acreage, we raised chickens. We converted a portion of our granary into a coop. We fenced off a portion of the area outside the coop so the chickens could get fresh air during the day. At night, we put the chickens inside, where they were protected from coyotes and other critters.

I never really bonded with our chickens. In fact, for me, the highlight of raising chickens was loading them into our van for the trip to the slaughterhouse. That's when I finally decided that all that work was worth it.

Though many people milk a cow or raise a few beef cattle, horses, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, mules, miniature donkeys or any number of other critters on their small acreages, my favorite of all time were ducks. We had two — Click and Clack — and they were the most entertaining critters I've ever been around.

Our two oldest kids were little at the time, and these ducks would follow them everywhere they went — around the yard, into the machine shed and around the barn. Everyday, it was a small-scale parade as kids and ducks made the rounds.

But the most fun came when it rained. As the raindrops fell, Click and Clack would stand on the driveway in anticipation. When a drop hit them, they'd swivel their heads sideways to look up at the sky. When a drop hit them in the eye, they'd shake their head.

Then the party started. Mindless quacking, splashing, running around in circles — the ducks did a perfect impersonation of a teenager. It could be noon or midnight — it didn't matter. When the rain fell, the party started.

I'm certainly no expert on livestock, but I do know that anyone moving to the country for the first time needs to think twice about which animals, if any, they might want to raise.

Some, like a milk cow, require constant care and attention. Others, in varying degrees, require less. The best advice I ever got was to talk with someone who owns the breed of animals you're considering and ask lots of questions. Among them:

What do they eat? Depending on the animal and your acreage, you may find that you already have just what the animals need. Other times, you may find yourself buying food. Lots of food.

How often do they eat? This is an important question, because you will find that your schedule must match the animals' feeding schedule. Chickens didn't require a lot of care, but I never skipped a feeding, either.

What type of enclosure do they require? You could find yourself learning a lot about fencing or building a coop or other enclosure if you don't already have an appropriate one.

How hardy are they? Are they susceptible to diseases? Some breeds of animals are tough as nails, while others are extremely high maintenance. You need to know that from the beginning, or you'll find yourself working for the animals — and the veterinarian — instead of the animals working for you.

One final question: Are you getting the animal for a pet or to do something with? If you know the answer to that, you're on your way to successfully raising animals on your small acreage.

Joke time: Here's a joke for you.

Question: Why does a chicken coop have two doors?

Answer: With four doors it would be a chicken sedan.

I collect farm jokes. If you have any "G-rated" jokes that you would like to share, send them to me by e-mail or regular mail at the addresses listed below.

Until next time, keep it in the road.

Carl Sampson is managing editor of the Capital Press. He lived on a small farm in Southern Minnesota for seven years before moving to a farm town in Oregon four years ago. He appreciates any suggestions you have for small-acreage owners or ideas for future columns. Success stories are also welcome. His e-mail address is csampson@capitalpress.com. His postal address is in care of the Capital press, P.O. Box 2048, Salem, OR 97308.

11 Commandments of Country Living

Several years ago, we had a Japanese exchange student staying with us. One day, when we arrived at the homestead, he got out of the car, stood up and his eyes crossed.

"What's that?" Yugi asked, referring to the odor that occasionally wafted our way from the hog farms down the road.

"That's the smell of money," I said, quoting a farmer friend.

"Oh," he said. "If that's money, I don't want any."

That's the response of some people who are new to the country. They encounter sights and smells that they've never before run into, and sometimes it's quite a shock. As for living near hog barns, my wife and I decided when we moved there that the hogs were there first, so we were the ones who had to get used to it.

Cookson Beecher, the Capital Press field reporter in Sedro-Wooley, Wash., wrote a story last year in which a newcomer to Whatcom County in northwest Washington state asked a county official: "Do you mean to tell me in this day and age you still allow farming in this county?"

Obviously, the person who asked that question had not been prepared for the realities of country living. Newspapers and magazines often portray country life as heaven on earth, but they also don't mention the potential downsides. (Maybe they should include a scratch-and-sniff page with the article.)

To address some newcomers' lack of knowledge about country life, a group of farmers and ranchers in Kittitas County in Central Washington got together with the local conservation district to print a "Rural Living Handbook." In it, the basics of country living are laid out in what they called the 10 Commandments. With all due respect to Moses, here they are, with a few comments from me:

1 Recognize that being neighbors is a two-way street. And remember, the farmer down the road is probably wondering what the heck you're doing as much as you're wondering what he's doing.

2 Respect your neighbors' endeavors. It's a big, big, big mistake — and I mean really big — to start offering handy advice to a fifth-generation farmer on how he should raise his crops or livestock. You wouldn't want someone walking into your business and trying to tell you how to do things.

3 Cooperatively build and maintain boundary fences so that neither your livestock nor your neighbor's livestock trespasses. Good fences have always made good neighbors. Enough said.

4 Control your dogs so that they will not harass or harm your neighbor's livestock or cause undue tensions. Dogs create more problems than anything in the country. Our kids' ducks, Click and Clack, were munched by the neighbor's dog years ago, and it caused a lot of heartburn. Also, we would have been smart to keep the ducks safely locked in their pen at night instead of masquerading as doggy snacks.

5 Recognize that some portions of the country are open range and livestock may be on country roads or in open areas. I've encountered cattle, horses, goats, sheep and deer on country roads. Hey, you don't get that kind of action in downtown Seattle.

6 Recognize that moving livestock or farm machinery on county roads is necessary. Be cautious and prepare for delays. During harvest where we live in Oregon, our street is populated by combines and other equipment running back and forth to the fields. To tell the truth, they're the only vehicles that ever bother to go the speed limit.

7 Understand that some practices, such as burning along irrigation ditches and running machinery after dark, are common farming practices and necessary at certain times of the year. Farming has never been a 9-to-5 job. In fact, I don't know of any jobs these days that are 9-to-5.

8 Prevent noxious weeds from moving from your property to your neighbor's via wind, water or other means. This is a biggie. If you want to get into hot water with the neighbor, the county and almost everyone else, let your weeds get out of control. Repeat after me: Weeds are the enemy. They cost farmers and ranchers a lot of money to control and in lost production.

9 Remember that it is unlawful to use the county roadway as a parking area for overflow traffic during yard sales and family gatherings. This is not a particularly big problem, unless you have 14 cousins' cars parked on both sides of the road and the neighbor needs to get his combine through.

10 Realize that people who live in the country prize their privacy and their space. Some folks just aren't outgoing. We had a neighbor who was in his 90s and lived alone. I'd stop in occasionally to talk about the township's United Fund drive. He was always very friendly, but all in all, he just preferred to be left alone.

I've got an 11th commandment that has served us well:

11 Have lots of parties, and invite the neighbors. Not only is it fun, but you get a chance to visit with folks about their operations and what's going on. And it's a great way to keep the lines of communication open, should something come up.

Copies of the handbook are available by calling the Kittitas Conservation District at (509) 925-8585. If you have Internet access, you can go to the district's website at www.kccd.net and click on "Current Projects and Programs." Then scroll down to "Small Landowner Assistance." In that section is a link to the entire handbook, which is on a PDF file, so you can download and view it using Adobe Acrobat, a free computer application.

It makes good reading for anyone new to the country.

Until next time, keep it in the road.

Carl Sampson is managing editor of the Capital Press and wants to hear about your experiences living on small acreages. Reach him at csampson@capitalpress.com, P.O. Box 2048, Salem, Ore. 97308 or by calling (503) 364-4431.


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