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| Brewing coffee in our RV, Maxine |
Eric wakes up around 6:30 am, makes coffee and wrangles our
livestock – Sophie the cat, Lexi the dog - while Lynn fries a couple of eggs,
slices oranges and sizzles a muffin in a little olive oil. By 7:45 or so, Eric
is walking to the Crane’s Nest Nature Store to open for the day; first, to feed
the resident red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds, the drop-in finches and
warblers, chubby quail and towhees along with a passel of fat Belding ground-squirrels
who are already lined up at the feeders (a bunch of freeloaders getting by on
their looks).
By about 9:30 or so, Lynn has walked Lexi down our back road to
the Blitzen river, flushed a flock of ducks, and scared up a klatch of kildeer.
She walks to work at the store, giving Eric relief dealing with the late
morning rush of one or two customers. Our patient and merciful “boss”, Janelle,
is usually buried in one project or another in her office or out barnstorming
the community, so it is up to the two of us to mind the store.
There are always things to do in the store– restocking,
pricing, and best of all, meeting the visitors. Lynn jots notes on their maps –
a Swainson’s Hawk nest is near the highway to Burns, and here is a good spot for watching waves of Snow
Geese roll over farm fields, and, oh, don't miss the Eagle with her chick
near the P Ranch.
Noon-ish, Eric goes back to the wagon train (our RV camp) to
fix himself a lunch. Around 1pm he is back with a mini-lunch for Lynn – half a sandwich
and an orange to get through the afternoon. We trade off and Lynn has an hour play
date with Lexi while Eric palavers with visitors. Everything winds down around 3:30 or so, and by 4:00 we close
the store, count the cash and walk back together to the wagon train.
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| Dan, Eric, and Jo share a laugh |
Evenings are always good times with our volunteer mates: Dan,
Jo, John, and Sally. Jo could have stepped right out of a western. She showed
up in a big 4x4 pick-up truck with a horse trailer and her Red Heeler, Juniper.
She’s a walking library of area history, geology, and zoology along with being
an accomplished artist and horsewoman. Dan is a professional photographer who
is generous with his time and kind with his critiques and suggestions. John, who
styles himself as a curmudgeon, is anything but. He is, instead, a careful
thinker and good conversationalist with a slightly off-kilter sense of humor -
though one gets the feeling he does not suffer fools lightly. Sally, a former
schoolteacher, is big-hearted and has, in many ways, been the glue that has cemented us together over the weeks with lovely wines to sample and tasty
contributions at communal meals.
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| Dinner at the Frenchglen Hotel |
Many nights we socialize while fixing our own evening meals. It is a
swirl of talk and laughter. We debate various issues pertaining to the Refuge,
the surrounding ranches and communities, crack jokes, review the photos of the
day, puzzle over the weather surprises we’ve had and compare notes on RV living
in the high desert. Around 9:00 pm or so, we hit the sack. The shades are
drawn; the coyotes howl and owls hoot; the stars, more than we have ever seen,
save for our kayak trips, wallpaper the sky. The pets jostle for warm sleeping
spots over, under, and around us.
And
that’s it. Such is our work day.
You couldn’t pay us to
do this job.
Days off we’re exploring. We locate new birding spots,
venture out into the desert, rattle along the back roads around the awesome
Steens, read maps, take pictures, hike, drop by the hotel at Frenchglen for
coffee and sandwiches if we happen to be down that way. There is no end to
discovery and learning here.
Lynn,
ever the intrepid photographer, eschews any caution vis-à-vis her new Toyota
RAV4 and seems bent on placing her car in various extreme attitudes as we pound
around some of the less than perfectly maintained back roads. Eric, a one-time race car driver, is often reduced to hyperventilation and panic attacks
accompanied by strange, but well intentioned, bits of advice like Gaaahh and
Noooo.
All in all, somehow, we manage without any real plan. We just pick a direction
and drive. Wonder and beauty ensue.
Mountains, snow, desert, shy pronghorn, sarcastic ravens, bounding
jackrabbits, casual deer, imperious hawks, fluttering kestrels all come and go.
We stop and hike, eat lunch and take pictures. It is as if we were astronauts
silently probing some alien Edenic landscape.
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| Burrowing Owl tucked into a grassy field |
Other days we try to scratch the surface of the community
here. Always we feel welcome, even appreciated. We chat with a local restaurant
owner who is funny and dour all at once. You can see, in her set jaw and
straight-to-the-eye look, that she has a fair bit of hard bark on her, but also
that she is exuberant and kind. A cowboy gentleman sits at a table and quietly
sips his coffee as he listens to his wife. Imagine some idealized old cowhand:
burning blue eyes, handlebar mustache, boots, jeans, wool checkered shirt, red
bandana and of course, a wide-brimmed hat. His leathery hands, wrapped around
his cup, must be holding 60 years or more of stories. Any drugstore cowpoke
would weep with envy. You can’t buy that look; you can only earn it.
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| Eric & Lexi stroll through Burns |
Eric decides to
get a haircut at one of the local barbers calling it his “Burns disguise”. There
are two
predominant style choices here: short and real short. The lady barber
is chatty and once we reveal that we are from Portland, she lets it be known that
she is not a fan of big cities. She relates, as her scissors snap over Eric’s
scalp with increasing ferocity, that she has heard “…there are vans, funded by
us taxpayers, who give drug addicts needles and a place to shoot up, RIGHT
THERE IN PORTLAND…” she slaps shaving cream on the back of Eric’s neck and
hauls out a straight razor. Eric, who was about to mention that he had not
heard of such a program there, but knew of something similar – the so-called
Harm Reduction program - initiated in Seattle, thinks the better of saying
anything AT ALL as the razor slides down the back of his neck. Eventually, after
she’s set the razor aside and begins thinning his eyebrows, he squeaks out a
cowardly, “I’ll be darned…”
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| Refuge staff works with Burns students on a bird art project |
Some days later, back at work, we scurry about in
preparation for the Migratory Bird Festival. The store traffic has increased
dramatically and by the time we close on the first day of the celebrations, we
are dog-tired. So, of course, it is the perfect time for an interview from an
OPB radio reporter who wants to know what we like about the area, what we enjoy
about the volunteer experience, how we felt about the occupation and so on.
Lynn, as always, offers insightful, charming answers. Eric mentions he is particularly
interested in the local geology. Taking his cue, the reporter asks for a quick
description. In his tired brain, Eric composes a quick explanation of Basin and
Range, fault blocks, pluvial lakes, and so on, but somehow it comes out as
something like, “Me like big rocks Steens. Broken. Fault block. Lava is real
purty.” The OPB reporter apparently realizes she is interviewing a Neanderthal
and quickly turns to Lynn for the remainder of the interview.
The reporter has
a young boy in tow who has been given the job of handling the recorder. She
turns the mike over to him so that he can ask questions as well. He asks about
out favorite birds, but seems particularly interested in telling us that his
favowite biwd (he is having some trouble with his R’s) is an “Amewican Bald
Eagle”. Lynn responds, do you mean a bald eagle? He shakes his head no. He
describes an eagle with “wed and white stwipes and blue wings with staws
(stars) underneath. We both say we have never seen such an eagle. He seems
disappointed, puzzled, but also… certain. The OPB reporter gently pries the
microphone out of his hand and thanks us for the interview.
It isn’t until a few days later that it dawns on us what he
meant. He was talking about the eagle shield, that well-known symbol of America.
THAT was his favorite bird. Yes, of course, we have seen it all of our lives, and
it certainly does live here. It’s been here since Teddy Roosevelt established
the refuge in 1908 at the urging of wildlife photographers William Finley and
Herman Bohlman to save precious migratory species from plume hunters. It is has
lived here since the young men of the CCC clambered out of their barracks and
tents to build the headquarters, our store, and other outbuildings. It has been
here through the period of stewardship by local farmers and ranchers. It has
been here since various collaborations, private and public, have wrestled with
best management practices. Here through the occupation and on and on until
today. The bird has never left. We can feel its presence throughout the whole
story of this amazing place. For us to be part of that story, as small as our
contribution may be, is a privilege.
You couldn’t pay us to
do this job.
There is another road that skirts the open range and we could stop, just
for a quick picture. But then another Mustang steps out into view and she is
nursing a foal. We have to wait for her to turn to us just so, which takes time
and costs us distance and a last chance at food. Ah well.
