Eastern Oregon

by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Photography is one of my true passions and I was thinking about the photos I didn’t use in my blog last year. Thought I’d give you a peak at a very fun experience I had with my buddy Joann, aka Gate Girl, while we were on our way out to the thunderegg beds last September.

Gate Girl can spot any animal at 1,000 yards, I swear. She can also tell me what fashion accessory they might be wearing. A hunter and country girl, she is always asking me to see stuff I can never find with my challenged eyeballs. So concentrating fully on the rutted dirt road to get us to the mining beds, this was my first alert.

“Sheep! Big Horn Sheep!”

Since I didn’t see any standing right in front of me on the road, I turned to see her pointing directly left. I could see a desert slope, some trees, rocks. No sheep.

“Look, right there!” she exclaimed.

I pulled Subie over to the right side of the one-lane road and proceeded to scan. Nothing. Then I grabbed my first ELPH camera and went full zoom. Maybe a brown something, Might have legs. Dug around in the other bag and grabbed out the newer ELPH camera with the longer zoom. By jiminy, brown sheep things!

“I think that’s a rock,” she added at the large clump next to one of the sheep in my viewfinder. “It moved!”

Aka the rock, Barbary Coast Sheep. Not moving.

Besides almost throwing the camera over my head at that outburst, I tried to find the moving brown rock with my Canon Powershot ELPH 340HS point and shoot. Given the camera is the size of a deck of cards and doesn’t have a zoom lens to balance in my left hand like the 35mm, I tried not to get seasick at the same time.

I managed to find the rock, er sheep, focused and took several shots. They started to move; sheep are such unreliable models that way. At the end of the short time before they ran off, I took 23 photos and waved three cars past who were blocking my view. They had no clue there were sheep.

Back at the Richardson’s Rock Ranch gift shop we asked about the sheep. The family brought six of the Barbary Coast Sheep over from Africa about five years ago and now they had close to 200. They are not for hunting, just amazing animals on the ranch.

And I got to see them because of Eagle Eyes Gate Girl and my zoom lens. Never leave home without it. Priceless! Got zoom?

by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

I never get tired of playing in the dirt, especially when there are treasures to discover. Weekend before last I snatched my rock buddy Joann from her husband and we went on a four-day girl’s shop and rock trip to Sisters, Oregon.

: Heading out to the thunderegg beds! Luckily I’d just put new tires on Subie.

Stayed at our favorite place, the Best Western Ponderosa Lodge, complete with a killer outdoor hot tub, free breakfast and llamas to feed. Liv’in the dream.

We packed up our gear, filled the gas tank then headed eleven miles North of Madras to the Richardson’s Rock Ranch to hunt thundereggs. I’ve never dug for thundereggs before and this ranch is the mother lode. We also love to buy pretty rocks and geodes here.

Signed our waiver, got our map to the digs and we were off on the gravel road eight miles to the beds at a not-speedy five miles per hour. Takes about 30 minutes to get out there with the gravel road and opening three gates along the way. Since I was driving Subie, Joann became gate girl.

The weather was perfect, 84 degrees with a slight breeze and we were alone at the dig beds. Heaven. It was so quiet. I’ve been living in a neighborhood construction zone the past several months and this was a treat. Complete silence except for a little wind, an occasional bird and my digging.

Happy me sitting in the dirt digging thundereggs. Priceless!

We only had an hour to hunt before we had to hightail it back to the shop, since they close at 5 p.m. We’d moseyed into the day and ended up getting to the ranch later than we expected, so we had to dig fast.

The thundereggs cut in half with the agate showing in the middle. Treasures!

Thundereggs look like clumps of dirt or stone. I followed the directions from the “cutter” at the shop and went two feet out from the cut wall. A girl in the dirt. Happy.

Came across several I wasn’t sure if they were dirt clods or thundereggs, so I tapped them with my garden weed puller. Ended up with about 20 or so round orbs.

Back we tore to the shop, just in time to get several of the thundereggs cut. I picked the large one I dug out of the ground, one that looked like a double and a medium-sized orb. Mr. “Cutter” took them in the back and brought them out wet in the sun for us to see. Fabulous.

It’s like finding gifts inside a plastic Easter egg but better; these natural agate gifts are made by Mother Nature. We ran out of time to have more thundereggs cut, so I may need to find someone here with the skills. Or maybe we need another girl’s road trip to Richardson’s Rock Ranch? Yes!

Close-up view. So exciting. Buried treasures. Must learn how to polish them. — Close-up view. So exciting. Buried agate.

And I need to wet polish them. Another craft project, I do believe.

www.richardsonrockranch.com

Story of the thunderegg

http://www.richardsonrockranch.com/story.html

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