The scene of childhood bliss looks different after so many years

Written by JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald November 06, 2009 10:21 am

There is something uniquely sad about the sight of a certain sort of barnyard on the gray morning after a hard autumn rain.

This affliction does not affect outfits which have enjoyed a long and consistent run of bountiful harvests. The prosperity of such enterprises is easy to gauge from the well-tended lawn and the freshly painted buildings and the general absence of disorder and neglect.

Even these farms are not immune to grime — it’s awfully hard to grow anything edible without the occasional appearance of mud — but the mess is in the main confined to the fields. The public face of the place, what passers-by see from the road, must at all times and in all weathers present a picture of constant care.

A perfect time for chocolate; and the importance of stopping leaks

Written by JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald October 30, 2009 02:28 pm

The recall is over, and I suggest everybody eat a piece of chocolate.

Except for dogs, who can’t tolerate the confection.

Halloween is nigh, so the availability of chocolate ought to be at its highest level since Mother’s Day.

A story about hunters, private property rights, and one bull elk

Written by JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald October 23, 2009 11:05 am

I suspect that most every elk hunter who habitually pursues the wily animals (and it is a habit, much like smoking, and for some equally addictive) can tell you about the one shot they yearn to have a second chance at.

The arrow that nicked an unseen limb.

The bullet nudged off course by a sudden gust.

I’m referring, obviously, to shots that missed the target.

But there are other cases, albeit of extreme rarity, when the hunter’s aim was true but he wishes, given time to reflect, that he had not pulled the bowstring or the trigger.

A major mountain range that gets no respect from the mapmakers

Written by JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald October 16, 2009 04:07 pm

Mountain ranges, it seems to me, ought to be depicted on maps as something more noteworthy than a handful of the highest summits.

The ranges tall enough to cast shadows across most of a valley should, at the least, have names.

Wolf policy changes needed

Written by Curt Jacobs October 09, 2009 02:45 pm

On Good Friday morning three generations of Jacobses got to experience firsthand the havoc two wolves could wreak. Just a two-minute jaunt from our sleeping households, four of the five documented wolf attacks occurred on what we call the “Home Ranch,” a 640-acre chunk of farm and pastureland, just a part of what we make a living on in this high desert country.

From that day in April until today, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and Animal Damage Control confirmed 29 lambs, a pet goat and one calf killed on two ranches. This act stirred and spread the hotbed of debate in our small ranching community of Keating Valley to the Legislature in Salem and beyond.