Tepee SkyWatch and Reflection

We met the kids at Tamastlikt Cultural Institute to visit the museum. The outdoor exhibit featured examples of dwelling construction over many centuries. This one was a below ground  living area. The Tepee frame would be covered with tightly woven willows.

From the other side it was reflected in the museum windows.

Different types of dwellings met the needs of the people at different times and in different circumstances.

This reminds me of the summer lodge of the Yakamas. The Tamastlikt Museum is operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla. The boys noted common images and themes from the tribes they study in Arizona, and we saw patterns similar to those we saw in Alaska and British Columbia. It is good to recognize those connections among all people.

A group of young people were doing beadwork in the outdoor area. One of the boys expressed interest in trying some beadwork, so I will be looking for some simple patterns and instructions, as well as some more beads and supplies for our camping trip with all the kids next week.

SkyWatch sights will be found at the dedicated SkyWatch site, and Weekend Reflections at James's Newtown Daily Photo.

Sunday's Psalm--Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon

and the stars

which you set in place —

What is man that you should be mindful of him,

or the son of man that you should care for him?

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

You have made him little less than the angels,


and crowned him with glory and honor.


You have given him rule over the works of your hands,

putting all things under his feet:

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

All sheep and oxen,

 

yes, and the beasts of the field,

The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,

and whatever swims the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.

<~>

from Psalm 8

<~>

Photos:

sky over Eastern Oregon

crescent moon

clouds and fog in Gastineau Straits

Alpine Aster

underfoot at Kalaloch Beach

ewe, muskox, deer, pelicans, whale

ABC Wednesday--J is for

J is for Joseph.

I've been part of ABC Wednesday regularly since the beginning of Round 2. Here we are in the midst of Round 6. Who would have thought it would last so long? Thanks to Denise who started it and the team who help to carry it forward. Find other Js here.

I've featured several pictures from in and around Joseph, Oregon in the time since we visited there last month. You can find most of them here if you are interested and some others over at my 365 photoblog.

Joseph is a small town in northeastern Oregon. It lies in the Wallowa Valley, a high valley--the altitude of Joseph and nearby Enterprise is over 4000 feet above sea level. The winter is long and sometimes harsh, but there is lots of agriculture in the area.

Ag is not the only industry around, though. Joseph is the home of several foundries, used by local sculptors for casting their bronzes. For that reason, there are beautiful bronze sculptures on all the street corners in the downtown area.

Joseph has some interesting history as well, and I related at least one historical story shared with us by a local who stopped us on the sidewalk to share information about the building we had been looking at.

He also told us that the mountain we could see had been known as the Five Fingers  because of the way the snow remains in the rock falls there dividing it into five sections. It is now officially Mt. Joseph, but still known by locals as Five Fingers.

Why Joseph? The town, Mt. Joseph, and the Joseph River nearby--and anything else named Joseph that I didn't notice were named after Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, whose home territory was the Wallowa.

The treatment of the Nez Perce is a sad period of our history as government took over more and more of their hunting, fishing and gathering grounds and drove them from the valley.

Joseph's artists look ahead to more prosperous times as they continue creating beauty in their town.

"no matter how small"

Do you ever feel small? like you don't make much impact? aren't seen?
Remember as a child being shy and maybe hiding behind your mother's skirts?

Remember Dr. Seuss's Horton? "A person's a person no matter how small!"

There is always a reflection, an impact on society, on the world. Like this tiny reflection of the wing of the bird in the bit of water collected in the tiny birdbath--it's there. Not always noticed. But you never know how far it may reach.

Just think--this tiny reflecton of the tiny wing will now reach around the world.

Weekend Reflections

Shoe Tree against an Oregon Sky

I may be stretching the SkyWatch theme here, but I have been meaning to come back to the shoe tree since our trip to Northeast Oregon last month and there was a lovely gray clouded sky that day as a backdrop for this social phenomenon.

Without the sky

 behind it  you would

 be hard pressed

to see these:

Or these:

or these:

We found this Shoe Tree on our drive between Joseph and Imnaha last month. I was in the driver's seat on the way back from Imnaha when I spotted this as we went past and "Whoa!!!" we had to go back for a better look.

Other "shoe trees" are more "famed", more visited, but fewer can possibly be in such an isolated area. Just look up shoe trees or shoes in trees on any search engine to find a number of collections of pictures and just about as many explanations.

Thank you sky for helping to highlight the shoe tree for me.

For more conventional SkyWatches today, visit the SkyWatch home blog and follow the links to skies around the world.

This Way Thursday--Old Chief Joseph

 This Way Thursday
--

others can be found here.

Old Chief Joseph was a participant in the treaty negotiations of 1855. In 1863, he refused to sign what he called the subsequent "Steal Treaty" which ceded 90% of Nez Perce land, including all theWallowa Valley to the government. Old Joseph died in 1871 and was buried near Wallowa. His grave was moved to this site between Enterprise and Joseph in 1921.

Old Joseph had refused to leave the land, and died at winter camp in 1871.

Items left at the gravesite to honor Old Joseph are varied.

It was Old Joseph's son Young Joseph who was chief when the Nez Perce were driven from their traditional homeland. He led them on a nearly 1200 mile trek through mountainous terrain into Montana and Canada with the U.S. Army in pursuit, finally surrendering in October of 1877. These words attributed to his speech of surrender are well known.

"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

Dining Reflections

Our plan for dining on our trip to eastern Oregon was to eat breakfast in the hotel, picnic our lunch, and eat out for dinner. We stuck to that pretty much, though one day we switched the lunch and dinner.

The Wallowa Valley is a mixture of farms, artists and tourist friendly businesses. The dining opportunities were fun. We missed the "Friends Café" in Enterprise, though we were tempted to stop to try a "junk omelette". When we decided to try "Terminal Gravity", we found the microbrewery closed. So we headed to Joseph for another recommended venue.

What a fun menu for lunch! So much so that we returned for Sunday breakfast. (You can only toast so many hotel bagels.) They have a different French Toast special every day of the week. That day was Raspberry Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast.

The motto over the bar translates: It's not always summer.

My comment was that that is why the snowshoes live in the car four or five months a year.

The waiter said it was because their summer is so short.

We had a lovely dinner at the Stubborn Mule Saloon, too. The atmosphere was kind of blah, but I imagine it would have been a lot more lively if we had eaten later and sat in the bar.

It's time again for Weekend Reflections, hosted by James at Newtown Daily Photo. You will notice that this post contains both visual reflections, and reflections on the dining opportunities of the Wallowa Valley.

SkyWatch--Skies Over Two States

Visit the SkyWatch site to see beautiful skies from around the world.    The skies couldn't make up their minds what to do the day we hiked into Hurricane Creek Road near Joseph, Oregon. Our intention was to snowshoe up this trail into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. If we had driven to the campground, we could have started that hike. But because of conditions, we parked on a turnout much farther down the road and hiked up the road (uphill) to the campground.  By the time we got there, we were ready for a rest and to eat our lunch. We decided to make the Eagle Peak hike another time, either on the snowshoes or in the fall as a hike.

After hiking back down the road, we chained up to travel safely down to where it was plowed. When we stopped to remove the chains, we could see clear to Idaho's skies.