Sometimes….

08 Aug 2016 32 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Summer Tags: , , , , , ,

Sometimes, I simply take life in and think on it…

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absorbing the incredible views of life itself all around me

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the beauty of open skies and land you can see without end…I have lived here forever and it still takes my breath away!

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fans running as our room is always hot in summer…husbands dozing, Ellie too…windows wide open,

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smells like rains a coming, like a nice warm bath in winter…it smells incredible:)

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an owl hoots somewhere close to the house as he flies by my window looking for dinner…

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my horses are dancing in the moonlight…

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night moves…night sounds…Juniper Canyon on a warm summers night…

Dawn Comes Early In Farm Country

22 Jul 2013 38 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Photography, Sunrise Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dawn comes early in farm country during the summer months…

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Partly due to the busy times before harvest, getting all the equipment ready etc. and then once harvest begins, it is from sun up to sundown.

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I have two reasons for being up in the middle of the night…the first one is due to the “Queen of Birds” as she feels it is her nagging bird duty to wake us all up. She begins about 3:05 every morning in the dark…she chirps and chatters periodically for about 15 minutes and slowly one by one all the other birds finally jump in on the chattering part…by 3:30 it is bird central outside our bedroom windows. I usually get up and shut them hoping we can go back to sleep a few more hours but by 3:30 to 4:00 I am up and wide awake…which is good for my second reason:)

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Which is this view…watching the miracle of a brand new day begin with each beautiful sunrise! It is one of God’s greatest gifts to us as we can watch one of His daily miracles unfold before us…as only God could arrange how the earth maneuvers in relationship to the sun and the moon. I don’t want to miss a second of our summer months while summer is here with my camera…there is so much to photograph and to experience!

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There is something holy about watching the sunrise…maybe it is due to it being a brand new day with renewed hope and a clean slate or maybe it is one of those incredible God moments that you can not explain. For me, watching the sunrise and the sunset in summer gives me beauty filled with miracles that inspires me with a sense of awe and wonderment…and even in the early darkness of dawn, it is usually barefoot nice outside…I love the warm nights as the rest of the year, I am cold.

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And this particular sunrise was well worth being up for!

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The camera caught the rays of light…which I love seeing as it is what I saw…beautiful huh?

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And with each passing second, the light and colors change! I love this time of year here…the magical ever changing light, the colors that knock your socks off and the solitude that brings peace to your soul…it all comes together…feeding your heart with creativity…old memories, good times and new adventures…and the ever presence of heaven on earth for a few short months here in Juniper Canyon.

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Wheat harvest is in full swing this week…and once the sun is barely up, the semi trucks that haul the wheat are back to hauling wheat, while the farmers are headed back out to the fields with their crew, and another day of harvest begins…

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The semi trucks can run around the clock, hauling wheat day and night to keep the elevators empty for each new day of crop to come into their bins.

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The wheat is headed to the Columbia River about 35 miles from here, where it will be loaded onto barges that will make the 200 mile trip down the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon, where it will be shipped overseas.

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One last glorious sunrise photo…this one was on a different day…incredible colors and light!

Sunrise

In the early morning hours as I rise from slumbers sweet
I search the dark and black horizon
Longing for my eyes to meet,
The morning with its subtle dawning, the colors stretching as they wake
Greeting me with glorious splendor, bidding me my prayers to make

Oh my precious Lord and Master, How I wonder at your plan
Who am I to share this beauty? Who am I, but mortal man?
Such a gift you’ve given freely, colors bursting from the sky
Wonders of your vast creation,
How can man your love deny?

There is hope within each sunrise
Hope to face the brand new day
Gone are yesterday’s demises
Hope replaces my dismay

Like the promise of the rainbow that you hung across the sky,
Sunrise stirs the love within me,
Thinking how you bled and died,
Thinking how you suffered for me,
Passed through hell so I could live,

Live to see each morning’s sunrise
And your hope to others give

(Not sure who wrote this, but I found it this week and thought it fit)

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And just for you…one sunset picture too! The mountain (click on the picture) you see in the picture is Mt. Hood, 200 miles away from us. In the summer months, I ride my horse out into the fields around our house…we climb the steepest hill in the back of the field to watch the sunset…most nights it is clear like this and you often can see three mountains in your view…all of them are over 200 miles away from us!

Wellll, it’s a deep subject:) Hee-hee…one of WB’s silly lines…and because its Marvelous Monday, I had to say it:)  Wishing you a wonderful week wherever you are! HRC over and out for now:)

Warm Summer Nights Are Truly Heaven’s Delight…

16 Jul 2013 17 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Warm summer nights are truly heaven’s delight…

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Basking in the soft glow of harvest colors reflected on the land, we remember the memories of old…tough years that taught us to dig deep…and the good years full of family times and grace. We remember…and we give thanks for our heritage and the traditions passed on to us that we hold close to our heart.

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 Wheat fields immersed in golden amber light, surround us with vivid hues of auburn red delight…that makes this cowgirl farm girl stop and stare…as I marvel at the beauty of the coming crop…that began with one small kernel of faith.

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Magical times of twilight and early morning light…always brings summer delight to your heart and a smile to your face. And in the reverence of a quiet country night…wait? What was that???

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With the earth-shaking…”Jagged”, rolled up the driveway with the beat of a heavy-duty cam and a healthy ba-boom-ba-boom sound.  “Jagged” is our 1928 Dodge Coupe that WB is building by hand, as he has to build the modifications and literally make the parts due to the limited availability of parts for a 1928 Coupe. Can you believe that he put a V-12 Jag motor in it with nitrous??? Stay tuned as there will be more on that in a later post. And this is a good picture of why I am called “Hot Rod Cowgirl?” Horses in the background and a Hot Rod in the foreground:)

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Tuck Girl is in agreement, taking it all in…looking relaxed and happy…wondering where she left her ear plugs?

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As the night air shifts, a cool canyon breeze whispers softly that soon, life in the canyon will pick up the tempo from a slow country waltz, to a do-si-do down home harvest swing!

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Slowly the day ends, with the last ray of magical light setting softly behind the hill, while overhead the sky is a blaze with glory…and another golden day rolls into a warm summer night…truly heaven’s delight.

Heritage And Home Speaks Softly To My Heart…

01 Aug 2012 20 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Heritage, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Lifestyles, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

As I was standing this evening on my front porch…

Looking out at the same view I have looked at all my life…I was filled with a grateful heart that was full of honor for my parents and for my ancestors that came before me. I am so incredibly blessed to live where I grew up…where my family has lived forever, as my Great Grandmother would have stood on the same front porch looking out at the same view…as did my Mom.

 To me that says a lot about living your heritage and breathing it in every day.

I live in my forever home…this is me when I was 3 or 4…it was taken on a snowy Christmas Eve as my folks and I were getting ready to join Grandmother T and all of Dad’s brothers and sisters with their families. I loved the family get togethers…I had lots of cousins my age and it was always fun!

And here is my beautiful Mom…she was such a lady…full of style and grace but mostly lots of love:) She would make homemade cut out cookies every Christmas and would take about 200 of them to the family get together as all us kids loved them! She iced them and decorated them…they were delights! I still have the cut outs…and guess what…she found a cut out of a horse so I could have horse shaped cookies too:)

And this is the front porch today…where I often stand to watch the weather or sit on the porch swing to cool off after a hot day…or watch the horses play in the pasture. It has always been front and center in the life of this house as when you want to see what in the world is going on outside…you go to the front porch. Right now it looks a bit bare as we moved all the furniture off the patio including the porch swing…and my pots of flowers as we are working yet on the patio as it needs some TLC.

Several years ago now I had the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with my sister in law…it was a gift of time for me to see another part of the world.

The above picture is of Jerusalem…we spent almost a week there touring the Old City as well as all the historic sites…it touched my heart and spirit deeply.

This photo was taken at the “Wailing Wall” in the Old City of Jerusalem, I am in the blue skirt and black t-shirt.

We were gone for three weeks and the night my plane touched down in Portland I was thankful to be almost home again…we saw many incredible sites in Israel and Jordan…Syria and Turkey…but the best site that I saw, was in NY at JFK Airport, it was a Burger King!!! Humus, strange meat and weird veggies did not cut it at all…I lost 20 pounds due to not eating unsafe veggies and meat…so an American Hamburger was “Manna” from heaven for this American Cowgirl:)

The first morning I was home I stood on the front porch and thanked God that He chose for me to live right here…where I have lived forever…and not in Syria or Jordan or Turkey or Israel…but here in Juniper Canyon:)

God blessed me with my parents and blessed my parents with me…they had waited a long time for me to finally make an apperence…I was their little cowgirl as I grew up and still a cowgirl today,  we had lots of good times together and good memories…and then God directed my path to meet Wild Bill and we made a family together of our own…God was determined that we would meet…we came close to meeting many times when we were growing up!

What a blessing it has been to live here in the same old house my parents and I lived in with Wild Bill…we have made lots of good memories here…where my family lived before me…leaving me lots of heritage, traditions, hopes and dreams…mostly though they left their love for us.

Often when I stand on the front porch or saddle up my horse to go out riding into the country or be in the kitchen cooking dinner I will smile and laugh as God brings back some good memories of my folks and I when I was growing up…good memories of Wild Bill and my folks…and our family. Living in a forever house does that…it brings back comforting memories, sounds, smells and love.

I look out the same window that my Great Grandmother looked out of and the same view that my Mom looked out at…now it is my view of life today…but for some reason I would rather view life the way it was…being an only child I know that all the heritage and memories will be lost with me, part of my wanting to view both the past and future is to write all the history down.

I can close my eyes and imagine what my Great Grandma saw and felt…I can hear the sounds of horses and mules with the noise of harnesses…men talking about how many acres that can be done today in the heat…or maybe she was baking homemade bread and pies…or Norweigian potato cakes…maybe not simpler times but they did things the old-fashioned way…and created family times…working together on the land…with hearts full of heritage and hard work for the future of their families.

This photograph would have been in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s…pull combines pulled by tractors without cabs or air conditioning…no CB’s or communication…you had to watch the machines in order to tell where a combine was in the field…sometimes the pull combine would be down in a canyon so you could not see it…but if you listen and watch for a puff of smoke from the Caterpillar tractor pulling the machine up a hill, then you knew…truck drivers always sat on top of the hill in the field, trying to figure out where they were needed. Today’s truck drivers have the luxury of radio or cell phones…and they know where they are needed.

In todays techno world…combines are outfitted with a GPS, that can program the machine to drive themselves…and the driver does not have to drive it as the combine is satellite guided. We have come a long ways baby!

Farming has gotten as high-tech as my office is high tech…smart phones…satellites…gps…computers and all the incredible bells and whistles.

Todays equipment does not compare to yesterday’s equipment…today they have 40′ headers that flex in the center, with their own wheels to help drive and turn them.

This is a Gleaner combine with the 40′ header…you can go with a 42′ or a 45′ header as well.

The smaller John Deere combine next to today’s machine is a 1955 model…no cab and a 10′ header compared to the 40′ header…it held 40 bushels of wheat while todays model holds 400 bushels of wheat…when I was driving truck we had one of the JD 55’s and my uncles always used it to open up fields and draws or canyons…I can not imagine the 40′ header today…WOW!

Harvest has changed a lot since my Grandfather homesteaded the land out here…often I wonder what he would say today if he saw the equipment and how much our way of life has changed.

Back when WB and I farmed the land, the machines we had were considered the art of technology…20′ headers and a bulker that held 120 bushels of wheat. Here the combine is leaning as it is using the automatic leveling to unload the wheat into the back of the truck.

The first summer I drove wheat truck, I was 15. Our harvest started June 25th on the winter cattle ranch…if all went well with good weather and no huge equipment breakdowns, we were lucky to be done by my birthday in late August. We had a total of about 5000 acres to cut…we ran four pull combines with tractors and two open cab combines that at the time we called pushers as they were the first of the machines you see today. Harvest took a long time as the machinery moved slower and the headers were small…as were the wheat trucks. My little truck held 2.5 dumps from the combines and I would be off to the elevator to dump it…my truck had a hoist which means I would stay in the cab of the truck and would activate the hoist which would lift my truck bed up into the air at an angle so that the wheat would dump out the back of the truck, falling into the grate on the elevator floor, going into the elevator bin below, where it would be stored until we sold it. Today, the old cab of my truck sits out in one of our fields behind the house…someday I hope that we can restore it…I loved that old truck!

As the world of farming evolves each year with new farming practices, along with equipment that has all the bells and whistles…I am blessed to have the old memories of farming during a different time when life was a bit slower and time seemed to stand still…and with the old stories that were passed on to me about my Grandfather coming to America when he was 13 years old…eventually homesteading 10,000 acres.

My imagination carries me back in time when he was here farming and my Great Grandmother was seeing a whole new world as she stood on the front porch watching her son farm…I am reminded of the past and how hard my ancestors fought for this land, working long hours and days to leave a lasting legacy that today blesses my life.

I was born country right here where I live today…with a 100 years of down home, filled with rural heritage and hard honest work…I was born country and this country is what I love!

Born Country

By Alabama

Clear creeks and cool mountain mornings

Honest work out in the fields

Cornbread in my momma’s kitchen

Daddy saying grace before the meal

Family ties run deep in this land

And I’m never far from what I am

I was born country and that’s what I’ll be

Like the rivers and the woodlands wild and free

I got a hundred years of down home, running through my blood!

I was born country and this country’s what I love

Moonlight and you hear beside me

Cricket’s serenadin’ in the yard

What more could two people ask for

Laying here in love beneath the stars

Now this is where I wanna raise my kids

Just the way my mom and daddy did

I was born country and that’s what I’ll always be

Like the rivers and the woodlands wild and free

I got a hundred years of down home, running through my blood

I was born country and this country’s what I love

I was born country

And I will always be that same country cowgirl, farm girl…this is what it is all about. Traditions, family heritage and the incredible land and soil of the ranch. I thank God for His blessings and His incredible beautiful land and scenery…His animals and His world:) For harvest time and the blessings of those who went before us and those who someday will follow in our footsteps after us.

In remembrance of Donna Goff…she was a great lady and a good friend. 

Seasons A Changing In Juniper Canyon As Summer Slowly Slips Into Fall

04 Sep 2011 2 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Clouds, Harvest, Heritage, Holton Secret Lab, Juniper T Ranch, Photography, Ranch Life Tags: , , ,

Seasons a changing in Juniper Canyon as summer slowly slips into fall…where did summer go? Fall is whispering to us softly now as summer is slowly fading to a quieter time in Juniper Canyon…the business of harvest and life blends late August into September…school is back in session once again and Round Up is in the air as we begin to get ready for the annual rodeo…evenings have a chill now so we slip our jackets on to sit on the patio to grasp the last light of summer.

Time has sped forward and taken us from bright summer days and warm nights to my favorite colors of the earth…the colors of autumn…burnt rusty oranges, reds that are deep in color with a warm glow and yellows that are golden in the golden light…God’s incredible glory in the landscape…and yet as I try to hang on to summer I can feel the breath of fall, softly on my cheeks and I know that summer is tucked away until next year.

Harvest was late but it was a record harvest…the fields have turned from golden-yellow stalks with full heads to stubble that has turned into a deep golden auburn color…harvest is behind us now but we will always remember the harvest of 2011.

Before long the farmers will be seeding next years crops…as soon as we get some rain. Usually during Round Up week we get rain…and this country girl loves it as it smells heavenly on the parched dry earth.

Trucks have stopped rolling by our house and our days and nights are slowly returning to our usual quiet.

We get so little traffic out here that we can tell without looking whose pick up it is by the sound of the exhaust…we country people have big ears for listening!

Lazy dog days of summer are coming to an end…they love us sitting out in the summer months on the patio with them…throwing a frisbee for them to chase…or getting a good bone to chew on…which they are doing in this photo.

I feel a bit of melancholy when harvest is over as the land is dry and bare…sort of feels like the morning after Christmas…one minute you are celebrating in the moment…running from store to store to find gifts…cooking special family recipes and continuing on the traditions that were handed down to you…lots of parties and visits from family and friends…yet the morning after Christmas comes and you feel the let down…harvest can be like that as all through the crop year you have your eye on the crop looking forward to harvest.

From the beauty of the green fields in the spring after winter to the first of June.

When you begin to smell the wheat as the stalks are drying out and the head is filling with grain as it slowly turns from green to a golden yellow…you wait and watch and worry and wonder when you can get going with harvest…anticipation runs high as the farmers ready their equipment.

Finally it is a go and you as a family pull together and get the job done…long days…short nights but you are all in this together…in my family we had uncles and cousins doing the harvest together…for me it was great as I was an only child and I got to come down from the cattle ranch when I was old enough to drive wheat truck to be part of our family harvest…fun times and memories that I still hold close in my heart.

Finally the last day of harvest comes…and boom it is over…now we worry and wait for the rain to come so that next years crop can be seeded…and the cycle goes on. You can see our home down there in the picture…see the straight stretch of road…WB does burn outs there…he pretends he is on Pinks All Out!

With fall now upon us…soon winter will be too. I am already getting Christmas catalogs…I am not ready for snow or cold temps! One morning this last week I had the heat on for a few minutes to take the chill off the house!

Time seems to be going faster…the months blend together and the seasons rush by…I can not believe that 2011 is almost over…I miss the days of old when time was country slow.

Life seemed to stand still during the years of growing up on the ranch for me…summer lasted a long long time then.

Heading home for the summer to the Juniper T ranch…it was our home in the Blue Mountains…lots of green grass, cooler temps and fresh water.

Time was one lonnnggg day at a time…it was horses and cows…life was fine in my world. Oh sure in the evenings I would be bored sometimes, I would eat dinner and then go out and either hunt for rocks in the creek or fish in the creek or ride my horse bareback up the meadow…I would come back at dusk…my folks would be getting ready for bed…if I caught any fish I would clean them…with Mom’s help…by then Dad had “Ira Blue” on the AM radio and the talk show would be fading in and out…simple times…good times…time to go to bed…turn out the lanterns…poof the lantern said when I turned it off.

This was the bunk house for the cowboys…the front half was Mom’s kitchen…no power…wood cook stove…no running water…yes it was work…but that was what we all knew…it was life to the rancher and his wife…Mom was a cowboy’s wife…and the cowboy’s kid had to bucket the water for her so she could heat it on the wood stove to wash the dishes…it was simple yet peaceful…it was good… I miss it…I miss the beauty of life then….the simple of life then…the good of life then.

I grew up this way and could easily go back to it….Mom was a city girl…her Dad started one of the first Ford Garages in the Northwest…but before that he worked for Pete French on his vast ranch…I have Grandpa’s wool gloves and pipe…he went on to become a state rep for Oregon when Mom was growing up. She told me that when she married my Dad in 1939 she did not know how to boil a pot of water let alone cook…she learned though and was known for her cooking in later years on the ranch.

Mom loved my Dad and she was with him on all his adventures…their marriage was old-fashioned as it was forever…thick and thin…they taught me a lot about marriage and relationship.

We have an old-fashioned marriage too…thick and thin…no matter what…I am with “Wild Bill”  forever and he is with me…I am very blessed…and I love his adventures as they become our adventures.

Such as Photo Shoots with Holton Secret Lab and

Pendleton Woolen Mills…a wonderful rainy and cold June day on location.

Ok “Wild Bill”..where are we going now?

The show must go on no matter the rain and cold.

This is my hubby…the man I fell in love with…the guy…my WB…and I love him and his tenacity.

Here we go…Pendleton Woolen Mills 100th Anniversary Year Catalog Shoot…and they are using our cars!

I wonder what they are saying? Probably something like man is it flipping cold…yeah this is a total crappy day for a photo shoot…I like your cars WB…yeah thanks…how much are you gonna pay us?

The catalog shoot is over and we can finally dry off!

We are  loading up and headed home.

Ahhhhh…we are home….the sun is shining…warmth at last.

Our adventures will continue with this blog…we have Wyoming yet…in this photo the Wyoming wind was blowing so I was hanging onto my t-shirt…next to this monster machine…out in the high desert close to the Oregon Trail crossing.

This was my daily view…the Wind Rivers…and cows…LOVED IT…it was hard to move back to Oregon…the mountains we have here are mole hills compared to my view in Wyoming.

Green River Lake and Square Top Mountain…this is where the Green River begins…I rode above Square Top mountain many times on Pinon Ridge gathering our cows above 10,000 elevation behind Yellowstone…

Wyoming was HUGE country…the first time I rode up Pinion Ridge and looked back it took my breath away…you felt very small as the country was so vast…I grew up in the Blue Mountains but the Rockies were different…I can’t explain it…Wyoming was an ah-ha moment when you just shut your mouth and took it all in…it was a force to be reckoned with…I miss it and part of my heart is still there.

The rest of my heart is here….my home with Wild Bill…and we have beautiful skies and landscapes too.

Seasons a changing here in Juniper Canyon….

Seasons are a changing…constant color and light. Stay tuned….more on the Juniper T and more on HSL…lots of life to share with you…bookmark us and check back several times a week….

Wild August Storm In Juniper Canyon

29 Aug 2011 4 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Photography, Storms Tags: ,

Wild August storm in Juniper Canyon was incredible to see and be a part of. Harvest was late but once it started it was over quickly and now we are headed into fall. It is hot here today…almost 100…however the light has changed from bright summer light to a softer light. I knew a storm was building but had no idea what I would see or experience…thankfully I was home and had my camera ready…hope you enjoy the pictures! They open large if you click them and may take time to download as I wanted to leave them in a size that you could appreciate and experience the storm and colors as I did…it is worth the wait:)

If you look closely you can see deer in our CRP field…accross the road from our home.

The view between Annie’s ears…she’s watching the deer too.

Our nightly deer family coming in for water…there is a running creek in the vegetation.

Here comes the Wild August storm…the pictures are all in sequence…from 6:45 until 8:00.

It’s getting darker and is only 6:50 in the evening

A beam of light trying to shine through dark clouds

Birds flying off getting out of the way

Time to run for cover!

Incredible light.

Golden clouds

Wind is not blowing but the energy of the storm is picking up a bit of dust

Hang on…here we go…even the wheat stubble field across the road is turning a deep orange

Only a few drops of rain fell but enough for a rainbow

I have never seen a storm like this in Juniper Canyon…if ever anyplace else!

Color beyond imagination

Everything began to turn to several shades of orange and red

Interesting cloud formations above the house

Orange bathed light in every direction

No words to describe

The clouds kept moving above us which changed the light constantly

I was swept up taking picture after picture

The orange-colored skies lasted  from 7:02 until 7:54

God gave us a gift…

A late August picture show

Skies filled with God’s glory

And His fire

I took most of the pictures standing on the road for a full view every direction

I could not stop taking pictures

I will never forget this storm

Slowly it began to fade

I did not Photoshop any of the images…the colors and clouds are completely natural! The storm was completely un-natural…I loved seeing it!

Above picture was taken from the canyon behind us and shows the storm heading our way.

Harvest…Hot Rods…Horses…One Hot Time In Juniper Canyon

12 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Clouds, Harvest, Photography, Ranch History, Ranch Life, Storms Tags: ,

Harvest…Hot Rods…Horses…one hot time in Juniper Canyon…I am writing to you from a very warm and dry Juniper Canyon tonight.

Long days…hard work…dust and heat mean harvest is finally here!

Harvest memories flood my mind with family times…driving wheat truck with my cousins and my uncles running the combines…harvest lunches cooked by my aunts or my Mom…harvest was the best time of the year!

This makes me itch seeing the wheat chaff..we used to douse ourselves with baby powder so that the chaff would not stick to our sweaty skin. Wheat chaff was not fun but barley chaff was the worst.

When we would harvest a field of barley one of us cousins got to follow one of our uncles when they opened up the field…right behind the combine spitting out the chaff  into your truck…even if it was 105 degrees I would keep my windows rolled up tight…we did not have air-conditioned trucks then.

With harvest going full swing…semi trucks haul wheat out of our canyon night and day…when I was little the trucks coming up the canyon at night would scare me as I would see the lights coming on my bedroom walls…the road in front of the house had a large bump on it…so the trucks would hit the bump with a ka-bang rattle and pop!

The semi trucks either load the wheat out of  the elevator about a mile from our house or they load right out of the farmer’s field from the bank out wagon.

The wheat from the elevators is trucked down to the Columbia River which is not far from here….about 38 miles.

The wheat is then loaded on to a barge headed down the Columbia River to Portland Oregon…which is about a 200 mile trip…in this picture there are two barges loaded with wheat.

Harvest is a happy time of year for farm families…working together to bring in the crop…hoping for a good yield and good price. Harvest also means the season is changing.

We go from this view right before harvest gets under way as the wheat has turned golden and the heads are full of grain.

This is an early summer view and the fields look pretty as everything that you can see out here is green…the wheat begins to turn gradually over several weeks time until it ripens to the golden-yellow color.

Here is a view of the field bare…it’s bounty has been harvested and sold…we go from beautiful green fields to golden wheat fields to bare dry and dead fields…so the cycle of life begins again for next year. Our house is down below in the trees that you see. Wild Bill’s burn out strip of highway is visible too.

With true summer colors all around me I get to take great pictures…golden days and incredible evening skies.

August colors and light… templates paint the evening sky with golden crimson purple colors…every color you can imagine.

With ever-changing light…colors and views…we spend our summer nights on the patio enjoying the smells of the wheat ripening…the night sounds of crickets…every once in a while the cool breeze that comes up the canyon from the creek…warm nights that are filled with amazing skies and views!

Home truly is where the heart is and we love our history here…our home…ranch and shop…our life.

We live in God’s country…His beauty surrounds us!

Where anything is possible.

Such as a street rod shop on a cowboy ranch in a wheat field of dreams…

Not just any street rod shop…but Holton Secret Lab…your dreams do come true here!

We are here to build your dream…we understand dreams…we have the qualifications and history to support what we do and our talent that we sell.

Visit our web page and see for yourself…call us…come tour our shop and facility  www.holtonsecretlab.com

On a side note…at Holton Secret Lab we require our employees to know how to ride a horse…in case we need flesh and blood horse power…yep Cowboy Flame is on a mission!!!

Son Greg works for Holton Secret Lab too…I know I have a picture of him on a horse…hang on I will find it!!! He volunteers at the Pendleton Round Up…he used to rodeo himself…my baby boy all 6’5″ of him! Go Ducks!

This is our other cowboy son Curt…he knows how to ride and throws the “Big Loop”…he works for Microsoft…very smart cowboy he is:)

Circa 1930

No Wild Bill This Is Not When I Drove Truck!!! WB tries hard to make me be his age…sorry WB you are older…neener neener!

See This Look….He Is Being A Smarty Pants!

Wild Bill…I have the last word…you know…what I said about our employees…yah you have to ride them ponies with real horsepower too!

Wild Bill is getting his own horse in a month!!! Yee-Haw!!! Ride Em Cowboy!!!

Hey Leonard…I have not forgotten you….stay tuned!

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