Working animals and Scablands

All the animals on the ranch are working animals.
There around 25 bulls--Angus and Hereford.
There are quite a few horses used in all the cattle work--here are Jack and Paint.
Here is a good-looking cow and her calf
A bottle baby--they have a few every year. They are pretty much hand raised until they can go out with the big ones.
Here is Bandit just of of the 3 working cattle dogs










The scablands are call that some say for two reasons--one is that they are still healing and two because the rock outcroppings some times look reddish and like scabs. So here are what the rock formations look like. also there are some caves up high and Geologist from the University have studied them and their contents and 'they' say the caves have been used for at least 3000 years. Pretty neat.
The little building is one of the original schoolhouses on the property.

From wheat fields to Scablands--on to Ritzville

Continueing on. we flash by Moses Lake and head to Ritzville. The land is getting flatter and wheat fields are showing up. It is either wheat fields or cattle. The ranch has been in my SIL's family for 5 generations. It is cowboy country and they do all cattle work on horseback and using cattle dogs. It is in what is called The Channelled Scablands.
Fifteen thousand years ago, chunks of glacial ice had formed a dam above Clark Fork, Idaho, backing up a 180-mile-long lake that contained as much water as today’s lakes Erie and Ontario combined.

When the dam collapsed, the water rushed westward at 45 miles per hour, scouring the landscape down to basalt, a flood so powerful it chewed into the volcanic basalt, following existing drainages as it could, then creating its own drainages when it overwhelmed them. One flow swept westward from Spokane, then down through the Quincy Basin, another down the Crab Creek drainage near Odessa. A third swept down through present-day Cheney, through Washtucna and Pasco. Near Pasco, the flows recombined at Wallula Gap, along the present-day course of the Columbia. Formed by bluffs only a mile apart, the Wallula Gap constricted the flow, forcing the water to back up behind it.

From there, it surged down the Columbia, still powerful enough when it reached the coast that it deposited huge granite boulders in the Willamette Valley it had carried, probably in chunks of ice, all the way from Idaho.

But this happened not just once, it may have happened as many as 105 times.

1. Heading down the highway I-90 going east
2. turn off the paved road
3. Wheat fields
4. Wheat
5. Keep going
6. and going
7. See the ranch--dead center
8. No more wheat--Scablands
p. Ranch cows
10. An oasis--the ranch
11. Did I say it was hot out here?

Sky watch--Mt. Rainier--tonight's almost sunset

I thought I'd give you all a vacation from my roadtrip and show Mt. Rainier I took tonight at 9:00---just before sunset and the setting sun is shining on it.
Kinda hazy but I am seeing it from maybe a couple hundred miles away. This is from the front of my house.

If you would like to see more beautiful skies from around the world and in your own backyard or would like to participate go to www.skyley.blogspot.com.

Thank you.

On down the road--part three

Next stop Vantage and the Ginkgo Petrified Forest and the Town of George.
1. State Park sign. The park was set aside as a historic preserve when remains of a fossil forest were unearthed during highway construction in the 1930s. Petrified wood from many different trees are common in the area, but specimens of petrified Ginkgo are rare. Many buildings on the premises owe their origin to the work of the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps.
2, Wind turbines at vantage.
3. Native petroglyphs
4. Petrified wood
5 Oops--ditto
6. Dinosaurs still roam the earth
7. Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies. My favorite stop. I always have to go and pet the ponies.
A sculpture of 15 wild horses has crowned a barren Central Washington hillside for more nearly two decades, but the rusted sheets of steel still are an inspiring sight to travelers along busy I- 90.

The 200-foot line of life-size charging horses, the creation of David Govedare of Chewelah, Wash., captures a mystical spirit from a time when real wild horses roamed the steppes.
8. Columbia River
9. The sculpture in the town of George, Washington
10. Martha's Inn--now closed and left to rust
11. Waterfall in Frenchman Coulee
12. Frenchman Coulee--looks like a small Grand Canyon.

Roadtrippin'--1st day--Cle Elum

Once over the mountains notice how the terrain changes. I like cle Elum. There are still lots of trees but not so dense. Lots of meadows.
Cle Elum is located in Upper Kittitas County. Kittitas County It is bordered on the north side by the Cle Elum Ridge and the south side by the South Cle Elum Ridge including Peoh Point. The Yakima River Runs through it and also Crystal Creek.
At the site of the future city, a Northern Pacific Railway station was named Clealum after the Kittitas name Tie-el-Lum, meaning "swift water", refering to the Cle Elum River. In 1908, Clealum was altered to Cle Elum. The name was given to the river, the city, and Cle Elum Lake.

Cle Elum was officially incorporated on February 12, 1902
The first picture shows modern day Cle Elum main street.
Next is a beautiful farm. Note the barn very full of hay.
See the goats up high on the hill.
This old irrigation flume is no longer in use.
Country fun on the river. Innertubing is always a blast.
On one part of Hyway 10 (The backroad to Ellensburg) are these sandstone cliffs. I found them interesting because they are nowhere else.

Roadtrippin'--1st day

So--off I go on my road trip--hoping to end up in Ritzville Wa. to visit my daughter and family at her husband's family ranch and to enjoy a 4th of July party.
As you may or may not know the state of Washington is split north to south by the Cascade range of mountains. Western Wa. is know for been green and WET while Eastern Wa. is a bit on the dry side. Both sides very beautiful. I left home all by myself July 2nd. Adventure awaits.
Of course I had to stop at Snoqualmie Falls and wander around there. Photos 1-2 and 3
Next I stopped at Twin Falls and while it is called a park it is a trailhead into the park. I hiked around there for awhile but decided to save the hike to the falls when I had someone with me. Pics #4 and 5.
6. I am now over the pass and next stop is the town of Cle Elum. See ya then.

Little Wren

I am singing out to let you all know (if you want to know) that I will be home on Monday. I've been here and there and have a desa-bazillion (that's a bunch) pictures
that I have and will take. Loaded down!! Whew! I hope to be home--all brown as a berry from riding the prairie. MaryBeth
PS. Isn't this little Wren cute. I took his picture in Ritzville,Wa. MB