Fair Booty

The birds did well at the State Fair. Didn't win the Golden Bear for Best of Show, but they won:

• 5 first place ribbons
• Best RCCL
• Best Mediterranean
• Best American
• Reserve Bantam of the Show
• Reserve Large Fowl of the Show
• Best Large Fowl of the Show

The winnings were a bag full of ribbons and a plaque. I think there is some premium money, too, but I don't know how much. Probably enough for a sack of chicken feed.

The birds I showed are three of my Dominique bantams, a large fowl Ancona hen, and a large fowl Dominique cockerel. I raised all except the LF cockerel, he came from a breeder in Oregon who has loaned him to me.

Honestly, when I first got him (he was delivered to the Red Bluff show) I thought I'd made a real mistake. He was a nice bird, but he was insanely strong. He'd been King of the Wild Frontier on the farm in Oregon. He would barely stay in the show coop at Red Bluff. The Kiepper coops have an open bottom and are not very substantial. I was concerned he'd fly off the table and take the bank of coops with him. It took two of us to smoosh him back into the carrier when it was time to go home.

I probably used a whole box of bandaids since then, working with Davy Crockett. I didn't have much success until a friend who raises fighting cocks suggested using a tether on his leg. I did. The first time I used it, I had to wrestle him to the ground to put it on. Then I tied him to a chair and sat in it reading a book for an hour or so. About 20 minutes into the project, he was sitting in my lap and not pecking me to pieces. The next time I used it, I took him to the corn stand for some "desensitization." Since the tether training, he's still hard to catch but once I have a hand on his leg, he calms right down.

So here we are just before heading home from the fair. Photo by Katherine Plumer.

I have two of his young daughters that don't have good enough combs for show, if anyone needs additions to their laying flock.

Doing the PCT

PCT is the abbreviation for Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from the Canadian border in the north, through Washington, Oregon and California, to the border with Mexico in the south. It is 2,663 miles long. It follows along the spine of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges, going from just above sea level to over 13,000 feet.

The movie Wild, with Reece Witherspoon, has recently introduced the trail and its challenges to more people, and has inspired them to at least try short sections of it.

The inspiration for the trail, however, came more than 100 years ago. It took many years for hiking and Forest Service interests to make the trail official. Today there are lots of people who thru-hike, doing the trail all at one time. It usually takes between four and six months, squeezed between spring and fall snow storms. The record (made by a long distance runner in 2014) is 53 days.

There are several notable records. The youngest person to complete the trail was Christian Thomas. He was 6 in 2014 when he made the hike with his parents. (Most of us can imagine the whining those parents endured.)

Back in 1988 I did a 13-mile section of the trail with my brother Jerry, his wife Maureen, their daughter Sarah and her cousin Trish. I think Sarah was 10 or 11 at the time. My brother was familiar with parts of the trail between Hwy. 88 and Hwy. 50 because it bordered the mountain cattle range our stepfather Ben had used.

In later years, Sarah and her husband Cort went on to do the entire Washington and Oregon sections of the trail, and some in California.

I've been trying for 5 years to get Bob and his friends to try the 88 to 50 section. They camped nearby every summer, but just never managed to get out on the trail.

This past weekend, Bob finally made this trip with his girlfriend Anna and her sister, Diana.

The route is between two highways, 88 on the south and 50 on the north. Cousin Beverly and I dropped the kids off at Carson Pass on the south, and picked them up in the late afternoon on Hwy. 50, after we did some sightseeing and a little light gambling in Nevada.

Here they are as we left the house that morning.

They all had light day packs, nothing like what the thru-hikers carry. Below they are heading out to the trail from the parking lot at the top of the pass. The trail goes through the mountains in the background. Yes, the sky was actually that blue, it was a great day for a hike.

The kids started about 10:00. We figured the earliest they'd get to the pick-up point was about 5:00 in the afternoon. They actually didn't get in until 7:00, though. They'd made a wrong turn and had to backtrack on one section of the trail that was ambiguously marked. The official PCT site warns hikers not to rely on Forest Service signs.

So Beverly and I sat at the pickup point and watched the trail for quite a while.

We saw all sorts of day hikers: ladies with dogs, groups of geezers with canes and walking sticks. There was no phone service in the area, though at 6:00 Bob finally did manage to get a text message through to us to say they'd be another hour. Sure enough, right at 7:00, they popped up.

I had them sit in front of the trail sign. It's not accurate, the official PCT trail materials says the hike between 88 and 50 is 13 miles. The kids, with their detour, probably walked 16  miles.

Bob said, "If you really want to mess with someone, tell them to do the trail in the opposite direction." The kids had the same experience I did years ago, when you meet thru-hikers with their heavy backpacks struggling up the hills, they look at you in disbelief. There you are with inadequate equipment (if I recall, Trish did the hike in flip flop shoes), just ambling down the trail and doing the section all in one day. The secret is, if you start at 88, it's mostly all downhill.

The kids said the high mountain meadows they went through were at the peak of wildflower season, that most of the route was really beautiful.

If you want to try this hike, let me know, I'm always happy to drop you off and pick you up on the other side. I have room for 4 in my car.