Chickens 2013

After work this afternoon, we decided to get a few more chickens.  One, to replace the Rhode Island Reds that had died earlier last year, two we have a australorp chicken who wants to lay and has been all week and three, they are just too darn cute.

We went to Dell's and picked out a few.  We originally wanted four but I guess we had to buy six of them.  We got some baby chicken food and a new water container and paid for everything.  We got them home, put them in a container with a light and cedar shavings, gave them food and water and they will live in the bathroom for a day.

I put two Easter eggs underneath the chicken who is laying just to make it seem like she is hatching eggs when we slip her all six baby chickens.  We have never done this before but have heard from other people it does work.

I guess we will find out tomorrow night if it works or not.

**Update** 2/23/2013

We successfully put all six chickens underneath momma chicken and she accepted them like her own.

**Update**  2/25/2013

We put momma chicken and her babies inside the other pen to be isolated from the other chickens.  They will be in there for a few months until they get big enough to merge them in with the other chickens.

Ghost Town

The Ghost Town cache came out at the end of summer of 2011 and since then it's been a buzz.  Just about everyone in the area that has found it told me I really needed to do it.  I waited and waited and waited.  I figure no one is going to go with me (either they didn't have the time or they already got it) so I might as well find a day and go for it.  I chose today to run out and go get it.  I know there are several others nearby but because of this streak I am doing, I get to come back three more times.

After our catered Panara Bread staff meeting, gas, a few things at the store, I was on my way out to the Capitol Forest via Littlerock.  As I got closer to the forest the mist started up.  I hope my pictures I planned on taking weren't going to be ruined by the rain...

I parked at the first pull out, turned the car off and looked at the GPS, I was 500 feet from the cache.  I changed my clothes into some of my hiking khaki's and got out of my good shoes and into my hiking shoes.  I put my bags into the trunk and all the other "steal-ables" out of view since I was leaving my car.  I made sure I had my keys, my phone, my pen and my GPS and I locked the door.  I had my camera and tripod in tote as I found the trail head.

The first 100 feet brought me to a very slick bridge over the Mima Creek.

The area was even better than described to me from other fellow cachers who have been there before.  I just wished that it wasn't winter when I decided to do it.  Oh well.  I tried to imagine what the area looked like in its heyday.  It was hard because of all the brush, trees and the paved roads.

I followed the GPS down a couple of muddy trails and over a few downed trees.  This area would be awesome just before fall.  I so need to come back here.  I continued down the trail and around the corner to some old grown over structures.  They were actually hard to see because everything around it was green and brown and so were the structures.  I actually wasn't that far from the road.  I was stoked.  This area was awesome!

I found the cache first, which took a few minutes to locate just because of the tree cover, it made the coords bounce slightly.  I was within about 15 feet when I made the discovery.  It was a film canister hiding amongst the brick facade.

Let the photo taking begin!

I was out there for about 45 minutes taking it all in.  I love exploring cool stuff in the woods.  I have a list of other stuff like this for future mini adventures.  I just have to plan them.

I gathered my camera and headed back to the car.  A volkswagon bug with Oregon plates pulled in to the pull out, they shut the car off and got out.  A guy and a girl got out.  They were about my age maybe younger and they said hi and I asked if they were here to look at the ruins.  They said yeah, they were here to explore the area.  Someone they knew told them about it.  I told them about geocaching for a few minutes then we went our separate ways.

What a great way to spend a Valentine's Day right?

Here is some history about the area:

www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/09/ghost-towns-of-pacific-northwest.html

www.ghosttownsofwashington.com./Bordeaux_Washington.html

Next Adventure:  Eatonville, Wash.

Legend of the Falls

I got up when my alarm went off.  I rolled out of bed, got ready in the bathroom and put my clothes on.  I couldn't decide if I should wear layers or not.  I didn't know how cold it was outside.  I wore them anyway.  I got my back packs together, my walking pole and a few snacks for before and after the hike.  I got in my car and headed to Bob and Bev's house.  We left around 9:15.

We got into Bob's truck and off we went to the Summit Lake Fire Station off of Hwy 8.  We parked it near the gate and gathered the stuff we would need.  This parking area was closer than the other one off of Hwy 101 on the other side.  There, it would have been a 7 to 8 mile hike instead we were going to go on a 3 to 4 mile hike.  We could have saved some time by riding our bikes but we just opted to walk instead.

I couldn't get Ben and Jayme's route file to open so we just went with our maps on our gps's and hoped we were going the right way.  So far so good.  We followed the forest roads to where we thought we needed to be.  There were a few spots that went up and down and a few gradual inclines, we hardly paid attention because there was a lot to talk about and plenty of things to look at.  We mostly paid attention to where the roads forked off and which forks we took.

We went around a major corner and out into an open clear cut area with some great views of the surrounding area.  We took the only side road that made sense because the cache was to the left of us.  We got to the top of the hill and hoped that it took us to the right place.

 

We continued following the road until it ended.  We could see small trails that lead toward the tree line.  We knew the river was over there and Bob knew there was a fire road that followed above the river.  We went down the hill and followed several different colored ribbons.  I was pretty sure these weren't left for geocachers but other people who use the area.  We followed them anyway.  When we got to the fire road we should have taken it all the way to the cache but we followed the ribbons.  Followed the ribbons all the way down to the river and we were still .15 from the cache.  Hmmm.  We did something wrong.

We did get to see a cool part of the river and an otter floating and twirling about.

We thought maybe we could walk along the river to the falls, we were so denied.  We had to literally climb up the side the hill and back onto the fire road we should have stayed on but we didn't see the road because we were too low to begin with.  Lesson learned.

We walked the remaining 500 feet to the cache.  We walked down a small hill and Bob spotted the cache sitting on top of a large stump.  We signed the cache and then looked through the container.  People really do leave some weird stuff.

Oh by the way, HUSKIES SUCK!

We walked down to the upper falls and took a few pictures.  The area was pretty cool.

And now the long walk back and we were already exhausted because of our crazy detour.   This is the trail we should have taken to the cache.

 

We left the cache area just before noon and we didn't get back to the truck until about 1:15.  We stopped a couple of times to catch our breath and to let our legs stop burning.  We saw a few chipmunks, raccoon tracks in a mud puddle and even a couple of salamanders.  We heard birds chirping, brush moving and Kennedy Creek splashing and babbling.

We were very glad it didn't rain today.  We would have been soaked after our detour and it wouldn't have been a very happy walk back to the truck.  Overall we walked a little over 5.5 miles for the day.  I was so glad I brought snacks for the truck ride home.

Next adventure:  Ghost Town off of Boardeaux Road in the Capitol Forest.