An Exotic River

I think the first picture will show what I take from the garden every two days. The potatoes are a potato developed by the Incas some five hundred or more years ago. The meat of these potatoes is blue just like the skin. Peru releases a vegatable a year to the market. The Incas developed over 3,000 types of potatoes. Mostly specifically to grow at various elevations and on various sides of the mountains because they terraced gardens up the sides of the mountains. I got these potatoes from Territorial Seed in Western Oregon. My daughter turned me on to this neat seed catolog. They have an online presence. Check it out.

Perry and I went fishing for brown trout on the Owyhee River today. Perry had no strikes. He is a very good fisherman and he was bummed. I had one strike--this little rainbow that I helped plant last June. I had some big browns rising occasionally in front of me, but they could not be bothered with my offerings. This river is a classic example of what geographers call an exotic river. The surrounding terrain is desert, but the river provides a ribbon of green vegation. This river and the surrounding area is the site of of the deadliest Indian battles in all of the West. These occurred from 1864 to 1868. Both sides were brutal. Paiute and Shoshone attacks had been going on since 1851. Check out the Utter and van Ornum Massacres in 1851. Puts the Donner Party in second place. Then check out the Boise River Massacres (Ward Party) in 1854. Very brutal. So when the fish are not biting, one can enjoy the scenery and wonder what was taking place at this site in 1866. I taught four children in high school whose mother is a Paiute Indian from the band that lived on the Owyhee near its mouth at the Snake River. Their mother speaks fluent Paiute and their grandfather is the medicine man of the tribe. I some times think about how brutal her people were a hundred and fifty years ago, but then get my thinking straightened out when I think about how brutal the whites were to these same Indians.

Yeeeeeooooowwww, the Old Papa Coyote loves you all.