One afternoon my mom and I took the boys and one of my mom’s friends to the Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene. It’s a neat place that rescues injured/sick birds and nurses them back to better health. It is a small outdoor location that makes it perfect for little kids to run around and learn about different types of raptors.
They had many types of hawks and owls,
and my personal favorite was the Eagle.
Jake made a friend, and they chatted their way through the center.
It was a fun afternoon adventure!
That evening, back at the ranch, Jake was happy to be back doing chores with grandpa and daddy. And this year his favorite chore was picking up the horse poop. Over the last two years, he has always “helped” grandpa pick up after the horses, but he really was just sitting in the cart dancing away to the country music on the radio and talking to grandpa. This year, he actually wanted to do it “all by myself” which is a phrase we hear frequently these days…so consider yourself warned…if you are squeamish by the sight of horse poop, you can quickly scroll over this next batch of pictures to the second half of this post.
Jake looked forward to doing this every single day. And anytime he saw horse poop he had to stop what he was doing and announce that we needed to pick it up.
He did have his few trips and face plants into the piles,
But he took his job very seriously,
And he was mortified that I was taking pictures of him…
Really mom?? Are you really taking pictures right now?
Ugh! I can’t believe it!
Still taking pictures??!!
Whatever, I’m going back to work…
And this little guy, is still too young to be wielding his own pooper scooper…
But he was watching closely, and taking notes. I’m sure he will join them next year.
All this talk of picking up horse poop makes this an appropriate spot to share this adorable photo of Dylan taking a bath in grandma’s bathtub.
On our last day there, we had some more rain. We had a few errands to run and shopping to do in town and we even drove 30 minutes out of our way to go back to Brewers Union for fish and chips for lunch. And I love this picture of the boys/guys with the dark storm clouds in the background, cheering for the rain!
And one thing that we never did and had been talking about doing since our first day there was visiting the Lowell covered bridge. Other than walking through the bridge and reading about the history of it, there really isn’t much else to do, so the guys were not too excited about going. But those kind of places are what make people like me, who are interested in photography, drool. So the guys obliged and we headed over there. I wish we had easy access to a place like this in San Diego to do photography sessions.
As I said it had been raining off and on all day, of course right when we pulled up, the skies opened and it was POURING! But we were there (the only ones for that matter) and we weren’t going to let some rain stop us. So we ran…all the way to the safety of the covered bridge and we were soaked!
Once out of the downpour, we walked around and read about the history of the bridge, and looked out over the lake and watched the storm.
Then it stopped, and the sun came out!
Cheering for the sun!
And we were able to have a much more leisurely walk back to the car.
We always have so much fun visiting the “big ranch up in Oregon”! And I love that every year we do some of the same things as well as some new things. I am looking forward to all the fun things we can do in the coming years as the boys get older!
