The neighborhood was in a stir last evening with the finding of Bigfoot tracks in the snow only several hundred yards from the last house up the road.

The tracks were discovered by two brothers-in-law, Josh and Rob.

A story told by Aaron

Did you know you could get a horse stuck? I got a horse stuck once. I was trying to corral a cow so that I could treat her for mastitis. She was wild and high-headed. I chased her alongside a wet swale that she kept crossing.

Brent Kerns has four working cow horses. Two of them are buddies, and can always be found together. On the morning of March 7, 2010 he had just finished feeding them when he noticed one of the two buddies acting very oddly.

“There is a heat vent in the floor beside my bed that I step on or over every time I get into or out of bed,” I told my friends, Maretta and Vernon. “One day I leaned over the end of the bed to get my shoes,

Vernon Jones was a heavy smoker. He began smoking at the age of 10 when he and a young friend stole cigarettes from the store of his friend’s grandfather. On one occasion they stole a pack of Chesterfields and took them to the outhouse where they intended to smoke the entire pack.

In the 1970s Dr. Lee Adams and his friends were sailing enthusiasts. Together they determined to do the transpacific sailing race from California to Hawaii. The race would require 4 or 5 men being cooped up in close quarters for a two-week period of time on a small craft.

Having served his two years of active duty in the U. S. Navy, 20-year-old Eli Eggers was actively pursuing the next phase of his life. He had fought two shipboard fires during his term of duty,

In the early 1980’s Deryl Leggett was the credit officer who serviced agricultural loans for the Production Credit Association in Grant County, Oregon. Many of the loans came up for renewal during the winter.

Early one Sunday morning in 1980, Janet Kerns was sitting alone in her quiet living room. The house was situated at the end of the county road on the foothills of the Elkhorn Mountains.

Rafter was Brent and Mary Kerns’ horse. He was a good, obedient horse. To load him in the stock trailer, all that was necessary was to loop the reins up over the saddle horn and tell him to get in.

Brent had a recalcitrant horse whose disposition could only be described as nasty. The horse was worked with for three years before it was sold to a bucking string for use in the rodeo circuit.

Brent and Mary Kerns grieved over the loss of their well-trained stock dog. On a road trip Mary was reading the advertisements in the Nickel where she found, “Border Collie, free to good home.”

Years ago Dennis Spence told me that he was driving down my lane when a hawk dropped in the road ahead of him. He got out of his vehicle to look, and found the hawk with a weasel in its talons, and the weasel had a death grip on the hawk’s neck.

Years ago Dennis Spence told me that he was driving down my lane when a hawk dropped in the road ahead of him. He got out of his vehicle to look, and found the hawk with a weasel in its talons, and the weasel had a death grip on the hawk’s neck.

One windless fall night the temperature dropped well below freezing. In the morning, Mac Kerns’ Wingville pond was iced over with a virtually invisible layer of ice.

Mac Kerns’ son bought a small flock of Barbados sheep to use in training his stock dog. Barbados sheep are brown, and a bit smaller than regular sheep.

Lyle Defrees’ father, Albert, had a big, mean-tempered Holstein bull. Whenever anyone entered the corral he lowered his head in a threatening manner.

One day Albert brought a buck sheep home from a neighbor’s place, and unloaded it into the bull’s corral. The bull resented the intruder, and lowered his head. The buck sheep backed up, and with lightning speed and great impact, rammed the bull head to head.

The bull dropped like a rock. And there he lay for a whole day—knocked unconscious. Finally he got to his feet, and never again lowered his head to anything or anyone.

Silas Turner lists three strange and unusual events to which he’s been witness.

In the first, he and his father, Don, were hiking in the mountains looking for wildlife to photograph.

Darlene Friedlander’s husband died this week. (Written 5 January 1997). Darlene is a good member of the Church. After they got married 17 years ago her husband joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Walt Smutz was a truck driver for Boise Cascade. One winter day he was trucking in the Tri-Cities area in the state of Washington. The road was icy and slick.

Gary Dielman spends time each summer hiking in the Elkhorn and Wallowa Mountains. One of his hobbies is to climb to the tops of high peaks on clear days and take 360-degree snapshots of the view.

A cheerful disposition and easy-going manner pay big dividends. On the other hand, a disposition to bully people and be hard to get along with usually end up costing the mean person—hereinafter referred to as the MP.

Jim and Vernon were brothers-in-law living side-by-side on their recently-acquired farmsteads in New Mexico. One ran a nuts and bolts business, and the other was an attorney.

Darrel Holliday has eight daughters. That in itself makes him a remarkable man. Even more remarkable is that he has not only survived them, but also an encounter with a cougar.

A young man, who we will call John, jogged, biked or hiked nearly every day in the woods near his Oregon home. He enjoyed the forest and the air, the birds and the animals.

Champ Bond was a mechanical genius. He could figure out any mechanical problem, fix anything, and even invented machines that are still in use 60 years later.

In 1955 Ken and Joann Boyer started their new house. The plan was that they would do most of the work themselves. Joann made a blueprint of her plan on the back of a Baker 4th of July Rodeo poster.

A farmer was pulling a lowboy trailer loaded with a backhoe as he crossed the railroad track on Cemetery Road north of Haines, Oregon. The pickup that was pulling the trailer successfully crossed the railroad,

Hay was normally ground for the milk cows at the Warnock Dairy, and blown into the big, blue Harveststore for storage.

One winter the cows on the Warnock Ranch had a gravel pit for their watering hole. The sides of the pit were steep. There was only one route down to the water, and the whole herd readily used it.

Nearly every Sunday of his adult life, Todd Leishman went to church—with two notable exceptions.

While serving in the city of Fuenlabrada, Spain, Elder Knowles and his companion began their daily ritual of knocking doors in hopes of finding someone who would let them in to hear their message.

David Knowles was called to serve in the Spain Madrid Mission in 1988. He spent the first eight weeks at the Missionary Training Center in Provo,

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything unusual,” Alice Tucker said in answer to my question.

“—Although, we did have an experience with a goshawk.

In about 1990 David Knowles had a dream. In the dream he was standing in a big city among skyscrapers. He was physically in Madrid, Spain at the time;

“What is the oddest or most interesting thing you’ve seen?” “A wolverine,” Donna Kilgore promptly answered.

“What is the oddest or most interesting thing you’ve seen?” “A wolverine,” Donna Kilgore promptly answered.

Cover of “In a Grove of Aspens”

Cover of “In a Grove of Aspens”