Week 29 Oregon City/Salmon River - July 17-23, 2023

This week I took Abby and Ruby on their backpacking birthday trip.  After some discussion, we decided to go back to the same place we went last year - the Salmon River....the same campsite where the tree fell on our tent.

No road trip that comes close to Sandy, Oregon can continue without a stop at Joe's Donuts.

With very little trouble we walked the mile and a half to our hidden (and secret) campsite.

A lot of playing occurred at the river's edge - - Abby is the a little mermaid

These may have been two mermaids on their tummies.

One really neat thing we saw was a mother duck and, maybe, 10-12 ducklings.   They were amazing.  The swam easily upstream through the rapids - it almost seemed like they were walking on the water-- and them they'd come to a rest in a small pool behind a rock.

We did two day hikes upstream to see what we could see.  There are two nifty bridges, and the girls love to play under the bridges and go down to the Salmon river.  They did a lot of singing...something about mermaids falling in love.

We checked out some other campsites that look really promising, but I think ours has the best river access while the others have more room.  On this part of the trail I am pretty sure that, when I had some scouts with me, that we were attacked by ground burrowing yellow jackets.

Here's a nice view of the river.

Some super big twin Douglas Firs and twin cousins.

We played games

And ate yummy food

At the end of our second day, we broke camp, hiked out, and found Dairy Queen in Sandy, and had Dairy Queen blizzards and aFrozen Hot Chocolate in the park.

Photos from the woods............a big rotten stump fell over in Sector 4 (right by Magnificent Marge).

I made another wildlife habitat out of it.

And, yet, another stump fell down on Water Pipe Slope - quite near another wildlife habitat.  I'll cut the trunk up in the four foot pieces and use the ATV to pull the pieces up the hill.

We finished refurbishing the front door.  It looks pretty good!  Especially considering that we weren't always sure about what we were doing.  Here's Dad putting the lock and knob on.

We have rescued a rabbit - a Brown Dutch.  We noticed it out in the orchard where is was auditioning to be the next meal for some predator who happened to be coming by.  Dad and Malcolm took pity on her, caught her, and put her in this bin in the basement.

Fortunately, for Nibbles, Malcolm took a bunch of metal shelf racks and made a pen in the orchard, near the chicken, Nibblet.

And, now.  The best kitten photos of the week,,,yes, we have two kitten slings.

Sunday, Pamela and Sloan came to dinner - they will be moving to San Diego soon to be with Brenden who is a Commander of Operations on an aircraft carrier.  We sang to Bev too.

The highlight was the announcement Malcolm and Haley made.  Due in January 2024.

 

Another very good week.