Brownlee Reservoir, an impoundment of the Snake River. Photo of my boat taken from the Idaho side looking towards the Oregon side.
My friend and I were boating up the reservoir towards a fishing spot when we noticed this word written with rocks along the shore. Coincidentally, my friend’s college age son and his friends had been in the area the week before. When shown the picture and asked about it, he denied having any knowledge of how it got there.
I took this one while my son and I were on a guided bass fishing trip on the John Day River in central Oregon.
A friend of mine was scouting elk in the Wallowas in northeastern Oregon when he came across a very fresh kill of an adult cow elk. He attached a game camera to a tree aimed at the elk and then checked it the following day. This picture was on it. Great photo because the elk in the foreground gives perspective to the size of the cougar, the probable killer of the elk. An adult cow elk weighs between 400-600 lbs. No doubt, that cougar is a mature and huge male, very likely weighing well over 200 lbs, perhaps close to 250. Awesome animal.
I would be awful nervous walking up on a kill like that. Even well armed I think I would still have the jitters
A friend of mine is a very experienced United Airlines copilot who flies the trans-Pacific routes from the west coast to Hawaii and Asia. He was on a flight to an Asian country when the cowling of one of the engines flew off. They shut down the engine, descended, and diverted to Honolulu where they landed without incident. This picture of the engine was taken in flight over the Pacific. “Thank God it didn’t hit the rear stabilizer”, he said.
Absolutely! He thinks the cougar was nearby and had probably heard him coming. It may have even been watching him.
In 2020 there were massive forest fires in the Cascade Mountains east of where I live. Usually the wind blows to the east, but there are times when high pressure gives us wind from east to west. When the Cascades exploded in fire that year, the smoke blew to the west, covering the Willamette Valley where I live with thick smoke. This lasted for a solid week. Everything pretty much shut down, and people hunkered down in their homes. The smoke created an eerie purplish color in the sky that I took a picture of. Both pictures taken from my back yard.
Just a picture from my barber’s shop. She’s lived here all her life, and she has many customers she has known since childhood. During the 2000s she put these pictures up in her shop, all local young people serving in the military.
A friend of mine served in the 101st Airborne in Viet Nam. In battle, he and a North Vietnamese soldier both fired at each other, and both were hit. My friend survived. The North Vietnamese soldier did not. My friend’s battle buddies took these things from the dead soldier and they put them in with my friend’s personal things. Months later those personal things made there way to the Philippines where my friend was recovering in a U.S. military hospital. He put them in this frame and pinned his Purple Heart ribbon to it. He saved this for 40 years and then passed it on to me. The items are Vietnamese money, the top one stained with the soldier’s blood, and a U.S. leaflet promising that if they surrender, they’ll be treated humanely.
That is a big cat. A very big cat. I can’t remember if I’ve posted this picture here on PF or not. It’s a picture I took of my dad and a female lion he shot over the carcasses of some dairy goats it had killed a couple nights before. The picture was taken the next morning and the cat is frozen stiff. LOL I’m sure there have been others but this is the only lion I know of taken with a .22LR.
We had five acres adjacent to thousands of acres of BLM forest land. My office was a converted barn about 400 feet from the house, down at the base of our forested area next to the pasture. I was always walking back and forth to my office at night, often without a flashlight. For most of those years we had dogs. But the dogs all got old and died and our marriage was in terrible shape, so I didn't want to get more animals. What didn't occur to me was that without the dogs around, the wildlife started moving in. A friend of mine who is a hunter came over and was walking around my office. He pointed out that I had recent bear, elk, and cougar scat within feet of my office. On top of that, I would let the pasture grass grow until it seeded off, and then have it cut. In fact I was really timing by the thistle! Cut before the seeds are mature but too late to reseed. The point is, the grass would get about five feet tall before it was cut. That cougar could have been five feet away from me and I might never know! From then on I took the car down to the office at night. I did get trapped down there by a bear one night. I knew he was in my storage area because he was pushing around stuff that weighed over 200 pounds. I could hear him. LOL! I ended up spending the night down there.
Our cats liked to buddy up with the skunks and then show them where the food is. I found this guy in our kitchen at about 3 AM - just a a baby! We had them come in from time to time. Over time I realized they are pretty fearless. One night I actually got on the floor and carefully slid towards one [fully mature] that was eating the cat food. He kept looking at me while chomping away and seemed to care less. I got close and close until I was only a few feet away. He kept eating and looking at me from time to time until he was done. Then he left without incident.
Was this in Yamhill County or somewhere else? Cougar and bear sightings are not unusual here in the rural areas.
About 60 miles NE of Eugene Bigfoot country too! I'm not a believer but I have to wonder. We had a significant creek with flows typically being 30-50 cubic feet per second. I know because I nearly put a little hydro system in and I measured the flow. The point is, there was a fair amount of water and it was several feet deep. One night all three dogs suddenly took off towards the pasture and creek like a bat out of hell. I then heard something very large running through the creek and it sounded like a person or something very large running on two legs. And I don't think it was a person. Apparently it went beyond the fence line because before long the dogs came back. I dunno but I really have to wonder.
And cats and skunks like each other. Remember Pepé Le Pew - the skunk who loved cats? Well I have to wonder if that was created by someone who had cats and skunks around. I saw one of our cats hanging out with a skunk on numerous occasions. I even saw them apparently sleeping together under the truck. I don't know if there was any funny business going on or not.
Below is a little skunk family that made a home under our chicken coop. One year, I think this one, we had something like 7 or 8 skunk families on the property. With about as many babies per family, the damn things were everywhere! One night I had forgotten my flashlight and had to walk up to the house on a moonless night. It was pitch black. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. But I knew every square foot of that property. So I started up the hill carefully. I had an electric fence on my right and a ledge and significant drop off to my left. About half way up, I heard something you only recognize after many years around skunks. I could hear one and then two skunks pounding their front feet. That is what they do before they spray. And they must have been within ten feet of me. I just froze and stood there for the longest time. I couldn't hear them run off so I didn't want to take a chance. I finally started up the hill again and after another 20 yards or so I heard another one pounding it's feet. Eeeeeeesh! Rinse and repeat!!!
Now THIS was really fun! I practiced for probably 20 years. I became a deer whisperer. LOL! Honestly! We had a lot of wild deer around. One day on a whim I decided to see how close I could get to one. I kept at it and slowly began to learn tricks and helped to put them at ease. The basic logic is simple: Don't do what a predator does. Move slowly and act disinterested. Slump your body. Look down and only glance at them carefully from time to time. Work your way closer and closer ever so slowly. Stop and look away any time you seem to get their attention. Don't make any loud noises. As the years went by I learned that I was getting better and better at it. A few times I got so close than I could almost reach out and pet them. One day I was toying with a baby fawn. But I noticed that the baby wasn't as careful. I could look at her and she didn't run even though she was only about 30 feet away. Mom was nearby but not paying attention. I had learned that a long blink is essentially a word to cats and dogs. For cats especially, it is a greeting and a sign of playfulness or as if to say, everything is okay. I learned this by experience and then confirmed it in the literature later. Soooooooo, I decided to try the long blink on a baby deer. When I got her attention again and we made eye contact, I gave a long blink. Her head popped up and she stared straight at me. So I gave her another long blink. She clearly responded, almost as if excited, and started to run towards me! Holy crap!!!! So I gave her another long blink. And this time, she ran about half the distance between us towards me and then stopped. WOW!!! I think she was about to come all the way over to me! Suddenly, out of nowhere I found myself face to face with mom - about 5 feet in front of me!!! And we stood about eye to eye too. She was pissed!!! I was only a few feet away from the door to my office but it was closed. It would take me a second to get in. So I decided not to try that. Instead I just blinked slowly at her and began to talk very softly and calmly - I'm not going to hurt your baby. It's alright. I'm not going to hurt your baby. After about 30 seconds she seemed to relax a bit and then slowly turned and walked away. Below is the little one. The cat slow blink is just one of the more subtle ways your kitty says, "I love you," and it's a gesture that you can return. "Cat returns your blink" made it onto Best Friends Animal Society's list of relaxed or curious body language cues.Apr 9, 2019 https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/behavior-appearance/why-does-my-cat-slow-blink#:~:text=The cat slow blink is,or curious body language cues. My cat and I blink at each other all the time. One of my GFs was freaking out when I showed her LOL! Blink at the cat and she blinks back.
A bold crow, watching me watch him. High summer on the high plateau, and a little snow still on the ground.
Speaking of cats, this is one that we saved. He showed up in terrible shape and very wild. It's a long story but we finally took him in. We spent a small fortune to get him fixed up, which included pulling all of his rotten teeth. He had no problem eating, but when he slept.... Honestly, I don't think anything or anyone has ever loved me as much as that cat. He knew I saved him from a miserable death and he loved me so much he could hardly stand it.
