A day in Athena and Weston

I worked on Saturday and had the pleasure of spending the morning in Athena and Weston. I was headed that way to cover Pioneer Days, but stopped by at the Lads and Lassies Cancer Walk on the way.

I caught up to the "walkers" (though many were running) as they ascended and descended the hill to the cemetery and I was amazed at the number of people strung along the road. Officials said it was 75, but I'd say it looked like more.

Here runneres Colleen Baydon and Anne Countryman of Athena led the charge back downhill toward town.

Pioneer days is one of those fun, small-town festivities full of cute kids and puppies - yes I did see puppies. This little girl won first prize in her division, though I wasn't able to suss out her name from the list of entries. She's pretty in pink anyway.

Flower power

These are some more photos from the Lick Creek hike. I don't know the names of these little purple blossoms, but I enjoy photographing them anyway.

Lick Creek

Sunday I went on a short hike up Lick Creek on the North Forks of the Umatilla Wilderness. I've done other hikes in the area but this was the first time I took this one.
It being early spring, there were sprouting buds, new leaves and wildflowers everywhere. Here are a few things I saw: A tree dripping sap like a frozen waterfall and a new leaf catching the afternoon light so well, it stopped me on the trail.

Charging to a green future

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Athena Elementary School's cleanup day. I put a couple photos in the paper, but I didn't think this one would work for the story. It does, however, encompass the effort, vigor and excitement these kids put into their jobs that day. This is a group of second graders charged across the field after picking up trash along Wildhorse Road and around the school. With their bright orange vests on, I though they resembled bright flowers or leaves blown by a strong wind. Their enthusiasm was no exception that day as kids happily pulled weeds and picked up garbage to help out the community.

Striking it rich

During a week-long vacation we went gold panning on my boyfriend's land in Southern Oregon. Surprisingly we panned about $100 worth of gold, we guessed, in small flecks and dust from the spring runoff flowing through the stream.
To the left is black sand picked up by the large magnet included in our gold panning kit. It helps to tell the difference between the sand, which can glitter like gold, and the gold itself.
Below, the waters of the stream swirl around one of our gold pans filled with the sediment we later sifted and sorted through to find gold flecks.

Color and light

The carnival came to town this week, but I took this photo during Round-Up back in September. My fear of rides kept me off whirling dervishes of death, but friends were more than ready to go for it. So I enjoyed myself taking photos of all the bright lights.

Shadows

A few weeks ago I went to the Pendleton cemetery to get art for an article which we ended up using file photos for. It was one of the transition days of spring, which have been going on for a month now, when you don't know at any given moment if it will be sunny, windy, rainy or if it will still snow.