We are sitting outside of Quartzsite with the wind howling like crazy. Our wind turbine has been going like crazy for the past several days. We actually generate quite a bit of power-enough we can sit and play on our computers for as long as we want without worry.

settled in Quartzsite,AZ

The flags flying are about 10ft shorter now after our 60mph storm. The river running under Gypsy is now gone; we’ve rescued a runaway Blueboy and many bottles-the worst is over. We sit up here on a hill with no one around us so we can have privacy and make tool noise without disturbing neighbors. As a result we did get a bit more wind than we would have liked. It felt at times like we were riding on a carnival ride.

We decided to take a little adventure  with some frinds to find some petroglyphs using directions a friend got from the BLM people here. She was told the road was negotiable with a “sedan” but we had a truck with an ATV on it, and a Jeep. Thank God we did because I would NOT take my sedan on this road/wash. We got quite far before we had to drop the truck, unload the ATV and the Jeep even had trouble as the pictures will show.

Rich could barely squeeze his truck through this wash let alone get over the rocks. We had to build up several places just so he could get adequate clearance. Our nerves are starting to quiver about right now!

Dripping Springs is where we were trying to reach

There are hundreds of Petroglyphs here if you can negotiate the obvious 4 wheel drive road. We stopped here to eat lunch and wonder where the hell we were and why we were being passed by nothing but ATV’s and motorbikes! That should have been our clue.

Jimmy's jeep squeezing thru the rocky wash

Jimmy’s jeep was doing fine until we noticed a drip coming from the left front undercarriage. Jerry checked it out and it felt and looked like fluid of some kind. Oh No we thought-we had sprung a leak. So much for going any further. The funny thing about this is it turned out to be a Coke can had been punctured and was draining down the floorboard right under the body of the jeep. We didn’t find this out until we got almost all the way back out! At least it wasn’t a major transmission fluid problem like we thought it might be. We did feel like it might have been some kind of omen to TURN BACK!

headed straight for those nice big rocks!

We are all wondering what the hell we have gotten ourselves into. Rich & Rosanna set off on the ATV just to scope the road out further up and came back saying “I don’t think so .” Our adventure was coming to a rapid end.

OMG I lost my head

At least we saw some rather interesting Saguaro cactus on our adventure. This one reminded me of a woman lying back in her lover’s arms only to loose her head!

A wonderful Crinoid Jerry found in Q-from Morrocco

My favorite little Trillobite I bought to add to our fossil collection

The sky is on fire-one of the spectacular sunsets

The sunset pictures here in the desert are absolutely beautiful and it just makes you stare in wonder of what mother nature can give us to enjoy for free. It has been a lovely time here in “Q” but we are off to the Phoenix area tomorrow to spend some time before working our way back home to the cold NW. We miss our new grandbaby who is now 3 weeks old and 6.5#. I can’t wait to smell and hold her and give Mom & Dad a break.

I finally decided to include a picture of myself in here so people can see what I look like. I feel really fortunate to be able to do this especially as the past week has been a bit difficult on me health wise. I got the evil C-Diff. back so I am really glad I came prepared with extra medicine. My strength is returning and I finally feel human again. Never ever take your health for granted-it is a blessing.

writer,jeweler,rocker,wife,mother,and lover of life

Welcome to the Steens...it gets pretty harsh up here

We just returned from a glorious week of traveling. We got invited to caravan with some friends to the Steens Mtns. to watch the meteor showers for the week. It was actually looking grim for the trip after my friend Steph, ( yes same name), who was fostering 9 pups suddenly came down with Parvo!!! It was touch and go for the pups and one did die but Steph was able to find a sitter for them for a couple of days. It took a lot of faith on her part to go but she and her husband certainly deserved it for taking in the pups to begin with. We not only enjoyed meteor showers, we did 3 days of rocking. What strange things we found, some worth a lot, others just a memory but nevertheless fun!

The wild flowers thought it was still spring up in the high desert hills in the Steens. They were plentiful and Pat, one of our friends, thought to bring her wildflower book so we  could identify them. There are several I was not acquainted with. Here are two that were beautiful and kind of wierd?!

Blazing Star

we all called this one the testicle plan

The Steens is a rugged and fierce enviornment. There isn’t any water that is potable (we carry a large water barrel in our truck),  and we were plagued with one episode of mosquitoes but Deet took care of it, as much as I hate to use the chemicals, it was necessary. I guess it beats West Nile! You can drive for miles on the back byways without any gas so go prepared. All of us got very dusty RV’s going over so many miles of gravel.

A very tranquil camp around a small lake at 7400ft

Kiger Gorge-very steep & large

There are Antelope and wild horses making this corner of southeatern Oregon their homes. We saw many species of raptors; they are large and very beautiful as you watch them soar and fly the wind currents.

Just one of the many big guys that stayed where we did

Jerry and I stayed for 3 days and then started our planned seperate rock adventures.  We seriously thought about Plush for Sunstones but didn’t relish driving another 50 or so miles of gravel road from where we were. So we finally decided to stop at Harney Lake on the way to Glass Butte and ultimately Hampton Butte.

Ornithologists study and know about this decades old Eagle nest!

Harney Lake had lots of jasper and agate but in very small pieces. We started walking up a good slope recommended and started finding oolytic type of agate. It was red and brown with some yellow. It looked pretty strange and we wondered how it would cut up. There is a famous Eagle Nest that has been there for decades. It is quite large and down below it you can see the makings of many previous nests.

Glass Butte wasn’t very far away and we had been there before but just to scout out the better camping sites for a large 5th wheeler like Gypsy. Glass Butte is a desert at the foothills of the Butte that is literally made from Glass of every name and color. We had chosen Aureau Borialis, Red, good Black with sheen, and Rainbow to search for.

This piece has been worked on for awhile

These rocks were large, impressive and really imbedded. It took hard digging and chiseling to get the pieces we managed to dig out. This piece has probably been pounded on for quite some time. I believe it is quite large also.

The overhang on the cliff above us could be dangerous. We brought a lot of it down before we crawled in these holes!

The lower picture makes the holes look big but you were squatting with your head inside them. There were several really large pieces we could see but not dig out but we managed to dig out some good sized rocks too

this is the hole we dug Aureau Borialis

What stuck me very interesting were the “rivers” of obsidian that just flow down the side of the hill It really looked like a really black water stream.

One of those obsidian creeks next to Jerry

We spent one entire day looking for obsidian and the rainbow is at the end of a really rough, definately, 4×4 road at the top of one of the buttes. Once we got all the way to the top we didn’t see any good float so I decided to start digging down just a bit. We found several nice sized pieces that had been buried for who knows how long and they looked good. We were curious to see what rainbow obsidian would look like.

The next day we got up early again and donned our already dirty and dusty digging clothes. Today we would be excavating a tree that was petrified with green jasper. It is at Hampton Butte which was only about 20 minutes from Glass Butte so it made it very convenient for us. We loaded our digging gear for this trip as we knew we would be digging down to find anything worthy. This trip was sponsored by CORC-Central Oregon Rock Collectors.

getting ready for our walk to the dig site

my awesome green jasper wood round-a prize

The tree we were to be looking for is of unknown species. It is infused with green jasper and red/blue agate as well as some opalization.  We brought home a large round that I dug within about 20 minutes of beginning to dig. I couldn’t believe it. Jerry found another rather large piece near the same hole. We went onto find other small pieces from here but this is the only round found that day-a real treat for Jerry &I.

This should be called Oregon Jade

Oxalic acid and scrubbing turned that dirt covered rock into something much more beautiful. It has agate and great patterns as well as mucho jasper. I have never seen petrified wood that is green. This is a large and expensive specimen we can add to our collection.

Jerry and I were up at the top of the Steens which is over 9000ft and we were trying not to get blown away. It is so gorgeous from up here. The lake behind us is just one of so many hidden in the valley’s below. You can just see for miles from up here. It is truly an isolated area. It’s not often we get our picture taken so I thought I would just include it so you all can see what we look like! Enjoy life.

Jerry and I at the Steen

fenced raised to 7ft to keep Beastie Boys (deer) out

Here we are in the beginning days of June and the weather has been wild and weird. We have had thunderstorms almost every day for the past week and lots of rain to get the little seedlings planted in the garden watered. So far no hail to destroy things like last year!

I thought I would just blab a bit about what it takes to do a yard safely from critters here in the high desert of Oregon. It is only our second year and we have had to learn a lot to keep things alive and growing. Last year we used a combination of water blasters and motion sensor lights to keep deer away from the garden and fruit trees. It didn’t work so well. The water blasted them and scared them away at first but as it got warmer they adapted to it and thought “this is pretty cool-we can get some heat relief here”! The motion sensors just lit up the garden and yard so they could really see what to munch on and boy did they munch.

We talked with a lot of locals and were advised to surround each tree with deer proof 5ft. fencing and raise the garden fence to 7ft. We have done both as you can see by the pictures I have included.

Deer proof fencing will keep us alive this year

The picture above shows the garden fence raised by over 2 ft using 3 strings of barbed wire anchored to the surrounding steel support posts with aluminum poles. The corner posts were easy…the smaller metal posts took some thought but Jerry’s clever mind figured it out and stringing and anchoring the wire with screws and metal washers worked very well. The wire is very taught and we used the bottoms of cans to sparkle and make noise to warn the critters. So far we have seen no evidence of any deer entry. This technique saved us a bundle over having to build a new 7ft fence. We do have enough barbed wire to make repairs if needed!

The picture to the left shows the deer fencing around one of our fruit trees. They might get some end leaves but they can’t reach inside and munch away. Once again they are just anchored around steel posts with room for growth.

Last year before we left on our winter adventure we installed new solar panels. We are quite proud of the fact that we live off the grid with solar and wind power. Yes, we do have a back up genie that we can use but with the new panels and daily wind we rarely use it. We do monthly battery maintenance and upon coming home this year found we had lost 3 batteries from too much energy coming in. They had dried out from lack of water. So next year we have already spoken to our house watcher about checking battery levels as part of weekly checks.  It took over 12 gallons of distilled water to get the batts back to normality! Here are some pictures of our panels and wind turbine!

6 new panels on a sun seeking rotation device installed by us last fall

This device is so cool to watch…it is in pretty much noon position now. It has an eye that tracks the sun and the panels just follow along!

These are the original panels and the wind turbine

The wind turbine in the background of the solar panels turns almost daily as we are at 4000+ft. Between all these panels we can run pretty much anything in the house and in our barn which is where our lapidary equipment is located. We do have our genie set on auto to come on if we drop below a certain level in energy input. If it needs to come on it would for an hour and to charge up the batts and then auto shut off. This is very convenient especially when we travel during the summer. During the winter we leave the panels in the noon position and genie off.

All of our early planting takes place indoors in peat pots then they get transferred to our cold frame on the south side of the house. This was one of the first things we put in as we knew we needed one. We got the old window frames from our local rehab building place and used spare lumbar to make the frame. We have replaced the old window glass with plexiglass.

a small but very useful cold frame using recycled window frames

We are lucky we have learned some lessons from last years growing season. So far we have squash,beans,lettuce,radishes,onions, broccoli, and tomatoes in the garden. Oh yes don’t let me forget the dozens of potatoes coming up-we thought we had dug most of them up but Oh no…we missed a couple of dozens! The Quail like the seeds so they are hooped and covered in netting. Should it get near freezing, (we compulsively check the temp forecast), we can cover the hoops with garden blankets that let sun and rain in so photosynthesis can still take place but keep the plants warm.

We also have installed a 16×16ft Timbertech deck built out back so we can enjoy our yard. We are recycling the previous deck bricks into walkways leading to the garden and back garage door. We are proud to have saved a few trees by using this product and it looks marvelous. Jerry is at this moment building a picnic table out of the same material! The guys at the lumbar yard laughed at him when he came up with the plans but you’ll see a picture of it!

This may not be interesting to all of you but it does show how one can live with a smaller carbon footprint and use new or recycled  products wisely. I hope you all have a prosperous growing season this year.

Oregon Opal-what fire it has!

3# drusy piece of Malachite

Here I am at the largest gem show in the world-Tucson, AZ where there are fine gems, slabs of every kind of rock, minerals, and fossils. I have seen phenomenal rough Ethiopian Opal for $3/gm. Now that sounds cheap to some people but when they weigh those little nuggets with all the matrix included it can cost up to $35 for one little nugget. Oh it’s hard to turn down that beautiful purple fire you see but I have. We are coming home with Oregon Opal and Boulder Opal and a tiny little Australian Winton Opal nugget, plus Malachite, Australian Tigereye and a beautiful specimen of Astrophylitte with Tourmaline in it. This gorgeous specimen comes from Russia. The pictures above don’t do them justice but just give everyone an opportunity to see some pretty rock we will be working with back in Prineville,OR. 

Weather has been unusually cool for Tucson this time of year, but I hear from folks back home that snow is spitting again so I feel lucky to be here. We are very glad to have our wind turbine as today we awoke to clouds but wind and “Windy” is just cranking.