Big Sheep Ridge Wildland Fire

Yesterday, walking out of the library I saw this:

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Whoa! I had no idea there was a giant wildfire raging in the mountains! Of course I had to drive around the county side and take pictures-and almost be late for class!

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Thanks Smokey the Bear!

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Life on the Lake

After a little over a month of incredible hospitality from Craig and Renee, it is time for our little clan to move on and out to our own place for the next few weeks.

With Renee's help, we are now staying at a little cabin on Wallowa Lake for the rest of our time here in Enterprise! That means no more pictures of the chickens and horses and probably a lot of pictures of deer and the lake-not a bad trade!

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Here is our living room, dining room, kitchen, and study:

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Luckily most tourists are starting to clear out of this area, so it looks like this may be the majority of our neighbors for the remaining couple of weeks-which of course BJ can not stop barking at!

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I apologize if anyone got emailed a draft of this...while I was typing BJ jumped on my lap and hit send!

Party, party, party!

What a week! Not only did I have my birthday but Keith and I have had not one, not two, but three parties to go to this week-and one is being thrown just for us!

On the big ole' 3-0 we had the clinic BBQ to go to, which of course we were late to because I had archives class and was dying to get out of it the whole time! I was very surprised that right when we walked in to Liz and Nic's candles were lit on a birthday cake for me, even though almost no one there even knew me!

Then on Thursday evening we were thrown a community (recruiting) party at the Fish Trap house. Liz and Kathleen planned the party, down to hand picking who were invited. I'd say the best part of this (besides the pizza and beer) was that the about 20 people who came all sat around and told us all their favorite parts of living in Wallowa County and how much they would love us to come there to stay. I'm not sure if any where we go after this will be able to compete with what was referred to as the Holy Trinity of Wallowa County: the mountains, the community and Terminal Gravity beer!

On Saturday we went to the benefit for the hospital. It was an auction and dinner and Keith and I were among the very few younger people there. Keith said that he had never seen so many people he had seen in clinic in one place before. We were seated at a table with the Wallowa County District Attorney and her husband and family as well as Ann Hayes-who I had interviewed on the phone a few weeks before for an assignment but hadn't met in person before. The best part was that I got to dress up and wear my new necklace!

Well I don't think we have any more parties to go to since we're only going to be here for a couple more weeks... but this past week was a lot of fun!

Hike to Maxwell Lake

This was probably the last beautiful weekend here in Enterprise Oregon before it starts to snow and Keith wasn't on-call so we had to go hiking! We had both heard about how beautiful the hike to Maxwell Lake, so off we went!

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Keith, BJ and I got started up to the Lake at about 11 am. It was just getting warm and sunny-confirming that it was going to be a great day! The first couple miles weren't so bad and we were making pretty good time-and then the pain hit-after doing about 14 million lunges the day before my body was starting to mutiny and we still had about 2 miles to the Lake.

Keith starts in with his 'come on, it's not that much further'....I've heard that line about a million times before-what it really means is that we have an elevation gain of about 2000 feet in about 2 miles and by the time you get to the top you're begging for death, water, or at least the bag of BBQ chips that we brought with-and this hike was no different-but at least I made it up to the top and it was worth it!

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BJ was clearly feeling kind of like I was-exhausted, dirty, tired...but I could hide it a little better than the pups could!

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The way down wasn't bad at all! We finally made it down at about 4 pm...and we had to be clean and dressed up at the hospital benefit by 5:30-we barely made-more about that later!

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I should turn 30 more often!

Yesterday this was my facebook status: Ellen De Young is a spoiled little bitch and doesn’t care who knows it! At the time I wrote it (while Keith was making me the delicious breakfast described below) I didn't realize how true that statement was!

We are kind of officially celebrating my birthday this weekend (with some celebrations going on next weekend too), since my birthday falls on a crappy Monday-I have class all evening and then I have to go to the clinic BBQ with Keith-I'm trying to not throw a My Super Sweet Sixteen size bratty fit because I don't get to have a party for ME on MY birthday...I'm not too old for that right?! :)

We kicked off the weekend with a delicious breakfast! It was strawberry pancakes with a strawberry compote and bacon! Here is how it started (sorry this picture is kind of terrible-I was starving):

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And here is how it ended:

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Notice the empty plate to the right-it was full of scrumptious bacon-but it disappeared rather quickly!

Most of the rest of the day was spent watching football while Keith made an amazing dinner! I don't have any pics of the appetizers-prosciutto and basil wrapped dates filled with goat cheese-I have no self control when it comes to these mouth-watering bits of perfection!

Next was a salad of mixed greens topped with spicy roasted squash, lentils and goat cheese. It might sound like a strange combination, but it was marvelous!

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Now for the main course! Buffalo tenderloin with saffron root vegetables and a spicy mango mint sauce. The buffalo was from a local ranch that is just outside of town-fresh and yummy!

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Dessert was just about the richest, tastiest dessert ever! Bread pudding made with croissants, dried cranberries, dark chocolate, toasted pecans-then topped with vanilla ice cream and black currant liquior-OMG it was amazing!!!

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Now for presents. Keith hands me a small box saying "Please be honest with me if you don't like it, but I don't know if I can take it back..." OK husband...so I open up the little box and I love it!

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I couldn't believe, I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect a necklace that I could wear to the Oscars! It was made it the 1950s and is pearls with rubies, emeralds and sapphires (oh my!). I asked Keith how I'm going to get him anything as nice for his 30th-he said that I should be lavished with jewels and gifts-not him. I think I'm cool with that plan!

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Well, I guess I am pretty damn spoiled and if turning 30 means I'm old enough to get such amazing and unexpected gifts,then I'm all for it! I can't thank my marvelous, fabulous husband enough for such a wonderful and memorable birthday!

These boots are made for walking

Here we go-Walla Walla Day 2

After starting the day at a local greasy spoon which was nothing really exciting, we still weren't quite ready for wine tasting yet-so what do we do?? Go cowboy boot shopping!!!

We found a great western store with a HUGE selection of boots, belts, buckles, hats-pretty much everything you can think of. After having a giant machine scan my feet and tell me two things I already know-I'm a size 6 1/2 and have flat feet- the kind, old gentleman started pulling boots for me. Ultimately it came down to a practical but awesome pair of black boots or an AMAZING pair of navy blue snake skin boots....I was so torn-but the old man working there helped me make the decision by telling me to let my feet decide-and I did. I am now the proud owner of a pair of amazing comfortable black cowboy boots-I needed to wear them-now! My first birthday present so far!

After that we were ready for some wine tasting and we had heard that there were a number of wineries by the airport. The airport?!? you say-yup the airport. Apparently Walla Walla wants to encourage start-up wineries and they provide a number of wineries space at super low cost-at the airport. Well, I can tell you it's not very pretty out there, but we did have some good wines! The two best places we went were Elegante Cellars (no website) and SYZYGY

At Elegante we were greeted by Doug, the owner and winemaker. He started making wines very recently, but they were really great. The tasting room smelled amazing and it turns out that he had just gotten his Merlot grapes and was just starting the fermentation process. We got to see these huge vats where you could actually watch the fermentation process-very cool! We left there with his 2007 Walla Walla Valley Sangiovese.

We were walking around from winery to winery when Keith says to me: "Ellen, you look like a diva today." Me, a diva?! In attitude, everyday-in dress, rarely! After he snapped this picture, I had to agree....I love my boots!

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Pretty much the only other place to write home about was SYZYGY. In case you don't know what a syzygy is (what you don't know! :)), it describes the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a plane-like a solar eclipse. Goofy name aside, the wines were really fantastic and I'm surprised that we only went home with their 2006 Columbia Valley Red Wine blend of Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.

We were pretty much done with wine tasting for the day, it was kind of early in the day and it was getting HOT-what else is there to do but go to the movies!? We saw District 9, which was a great sci-fi movie. It was so nice to go to the movies since there isn't a theater (yet) in Enterprise.

Of course Sunday means football too and we had heard about a bar called the Green Lantern, so there we were! It was here where I got my second birthday present of the day, mozzarella sticks! I realize this may sound weird if you don't know me and my obsession with fried cheese, combined with living in Portland for 3 years and for whatever reason most bars I went to overlooked putting this bit of perfection on their menu. I have been experiencing a mozzarella stick drought that is now over!

I have to recommend a trip to Walla Walla to go wine tasting. We had a really great time and I can't wait to go back-I wish I was there instead of sitting in class right now!

The town so nice they named it twice

So the plan was to be out of Enterprise and on the road to Walla Walla, Washington by 5:15 p.m. on Friday so we would be there in time for a delicious dinner to kick off our wine tasting weekend. I was supposed to be waiting outside of clinic with the car all ready to go......I had the car all packed up and ready to go when Keith called-meet him at the hospital instead of clinic at 5:30-OK-no problem. Then he called when I was on my way to the hospital-maybe it would be more like 6-I already knew where this was going. Long story short-we finally left at about 6:45....I'm glad that's happened so many times that I know just to bring a book with me everywhere!

By the time we got there it was almost 9 and not many restaurants were still open but we lucked out when we drove past T. Maccarone's, which was just perfect. We just had some small bites and of course they had delicious wine-the first wine of the weekend was a Walla Walla Vintners Sangiovese-yum!

Saturday was (mostly) dedicated to wine tasting. We had a few wineries that we had been told not to miss and most of them were on the south side of Walla Walla-so that's where we spent the day.

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We got to the first winery, Va Piano, at about 10:45 and the 'Open' sign was out-so perfect-right-well not really....we were there about 15 minutes before they technically opened. Our showing up frazzled the already very frazzled woman working there (which may explain why this were kind of unorganized to begin with....). Anyway, the wines were delicious just like we had heard and we ended up buying a bottle of their 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, which we weren't even supposed to taste but the bottle was out and she poured it for us before she noticed the mistake-score one for us!

We then we to a kind of crappy, corporate, very manicured winery called NortStar. Not only were their wines boring, but they had a $7 tasting fee-so not worth it at all! Enough said.

After driving by another winery that at least had the decency to admit out front that they had an $8 fee (!?!?) we were getting a little down, this was our first time tasting in Walla Walla-was this what it was like?? I was starting to miss my favorite Salem area wineries like Mystic and Witness Tree, when we pulled into a place called Glen Fiona that looked very unassuming.

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This place was great! It looked like it was a one man show and he was pouring the wine for us. Not only was there not a tasting fee (yay!), but his wine was much more interesting than anything we had tasted yet and it had the best prices-another score for us! We bought the 2005 Walla Walla Valley Syrah and the 2004 Columbia Valley Claret. The Claret was one of my favorite wines of the whole weekend-I can't wait to drink it!

We were very happy after leaving there, which I'm sure had nothing that we had already been to 3 tasting rooms in about an hour..:) The next place held two wineries in one building-trouble!!! The wineries were Trust and Chateau Rollat. Both wineries were very good and we bought kind of a lot of wine there including Chateau Rollat's 2008 Semillon (I think the best white of the weekend!) and their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon. Things got a little more interesting when the winemaker for Trust came out and started pouring for us-it turns out that he grew up in northern Ohio too and he happened to go to whatever high school my high school, the Norwalk Truckers (no, I'm not kidding), beat in the 1974 Ohio State football championship-will I never be far enough away to not hear about the Truckers?? Whatever-we still bought a 2007 Syrah...

You might think that we're done enough tasting for one day at this point...not quite yet. For our final stop we went to Gifford Hirlinger. Here we were met by two adorable pups and the winemaker's dad. While we were tasting their great wines, we were also having a meandering conversation that hit on everything from archaeology to rural doctoring and ended up with us getting a tour of the behind the scenes at the winery. Not surprisingly we walked out of there with a bottle of the 2005 Merlot and the 2007 Estate Malbec.

The wine tasting portion of the day was over and the college football portion was just beginning. We found a place in Waitsberg to watch the games.

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We hung out here until the Notre Dame-Michigan game was over and left for an early dinner at the Whoopemup Hollow Cafe

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This was by far the best dinner I've had since I've been out here in Eastern Oregon! I had the ribs (amazing!), I think Keith had the special...I don't remember what it was because I was too busy devouring my dinner :)

We all know how the Ohio State game ended-no need to talk about it...

Well-that was day one of Walla Walla! Hopefully no one has been keeping count of all the wines!

March of the Chickens

I love letting the chickens out in the morning! Here is the calm before the storm of feathers and clucking (and quacking).

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And here they come!!

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I know what you may be asking yourself-is that a duck coming out of the chicken coup? Yes, yes it is. It looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, but it doesn't really act like a duck. It (he/she??) sleeps in the chicken coup with all the chickens, eats the chicken feed and just hangs out all day with all the chicken-does it think it's a chicken-we will never know!

This big girl is clearly not ready for her close up yet!

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This is not doing justice to the noise and flying feathers of dealing with the chickens in the morning-but I had to try!

Gone fishin' II

This time we thought we did everything right!

We got up a 6 am on a chilly, cloudy morning and were out in the canoe on the lake by 6:30-the cold, windy lake.

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Keith did some reading about what kind of fish are in the lake-rainbow trout-and he thought we had the right lures this time to actually catch some.

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Again we saw fish jumping out of the water, but I was too cold to feel mocked by the fish. I was surprised that we (I) even lasted an hour! By the time we got back to shore I couldn't really feel my fingers anymore....

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Next time-more layer and gloves! Keith thinks we'll have better luck if we use live bait (gross!)-hopefully the third time will be the charm!

The Bovine Mafia

Usually my morning starts with feeding and letting the chickens out. By itself this chore takes maybe 2 minutes-getting the feed together for the chickens and then letting them out of their coup-which is always hilarious to watch as they come spilling out all crazy.

I can't just go out and feed the chickens. When I go in the shed to get the feed, the three outdoor cats wake up and start demanding attention. Then there's JaJa, Grandma Rachel's dog (who looks kind of like a Springer Spaniel) who keeps her in a large cage out back, for fear of her running away (which I don't think she would do-whatever!) so poor JaJa is desperate for attention. Then there's the horses. I'm usually greeted by Harley and Shadow, and sometimes by Lily and Silver-and sometimes all of them at once-I'm like the horse whisperer :)

This morning we (BJ and I) were going through the usual routine of hanging out with all the animals when the neighbors cows The Bovine Mafia showed up.

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These cows did not seem particularly nice. The vibe I got from them was that they were not very happy I was around and they wanted me gone (and my little dog too!) OK-maybe they're just cows and I'm giving them too much credit-but you weren't there! All of these cows lined up staring with their angry faces with just a little fence separating us!

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Look at these guys! Can't you just hear these cows saying to each other things like "Leave the gun, take the cannolis" and "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." (Maybe I've been away from a city for too long....)

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Even though they look mean I bet they taste delicious...maybe Keith and I should buy half a cow from the neighbors!