Thursday May 15, 08

It was supposed to warm up today so Winnie and the little girls stayed in the trailer while R & I did some exploring. We drove east past the Refuge Headquarters heading for Princeton. Never did find it ( it must have been the two houses that were along the road, but we did see a lone mule deer and a herd of 9 antelope. The pronghorns were right up alongside the road when we rounded a curve but they maved off rather rapidly enough tough I cut the engine and rolled to a stop. We watched them for 10-15 minutes until they moved off too far watch even with binoculars.

We found Hwy 79 and headed North, coming to the village of Crane. We turned off the highway to check it out. If you are ever in the area and see the sign for Crane, don't bother to turn off. Crane must be another word for ramshackle. There were only 3 buildings in the town of 150 that didn;t need to be torn down, the PO, school, and the LDS Stake.

On to Burns. Had lunch alongside a side road watching wildlife. The ranchers in the Burns area have a unique way of irrigating their pastures. They flood them in the spring. This serves two porposes; soaking the soil and providing a wetland area for migrating birds. Then in the summer they drain the fields and plain grass or grain. Harvesting it in the fall and letting sheep or cattle on it to graze thus fertilizing it for the winter and the cycle begins again. Definately a win-win situation.

After our lunch we decided to drive about 7 miles west of Burns on Hwy 20 to the BLM Wild Horse Corrals. It's open to visitors from 8-3pm M-F. We followed the auto tour road around the facility and must have seen about 100 horses. In talking to one the workers there, he said that they monitor the number of wild ones in the various areas of the western states. (Nevada has the largest population. Oregon is about 4th. ) The object of the BLM is to limit the number of wild horses in the various areas to correspond with the ability to support them. So during Fall and Winter the herds from Oregon's 15-16 areas are thinned and brought to the Burns facility where the horses get medical care, hooves trimmed, tagged, etc and are put in the corrals to wait for adoption. If you have the facilities to take care of one, you can adoption a mustang for $125. Of course, like adopting a greyhound, there are going to be other costs. The operation was pretty interesting to see. There were many mares with very young ones with them.

Then it was back to Burns for fuel, a truck wash, and of course, ice cream. Life is good.

J