Oregon and GeerCrest Farm

So of course, our family vacation to Oregon coincided with the biggest heat wave Oregon has ever seen in recorded history.  At our fantastic cabin, where our closest neighbors were three apple-hungry horses, we sweat a LOT.  But after I ingeniously improvised some curtains out of blankets to keep the heat out, and we wisely realized that we should probably avoid turning on the oven, we all had a great time.

I was so worried that Moo, ripped from her normal routine and on an anti-nap streak, would be grumpy and sleep-deprived the whole time, but she quickly adjusted, starting with our hike at Silver Falls State Park:

The next day, we visited GeerCrest, the old family farm, where my dad’s…grandmother?? once lived (I’ve heard these stories 10 million times, why can I not retain the correct information?) and where Erika the Farm Goddess now reigns over a family of volunteers and animals, teaching the agrarian lifestyle and changing the lives of  any and all hapless folks and children who wander within arm’s length.  Erika is one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met, right next to 92-year-old Vesper (my dad’s…cousin??), the woman who, along with my grandmother, made me fall in love with the farm when I visited over the course of three years in my teens.

Father watching daughter watching a (barely visible) frog:

 

Moses, Chief Goat, who once disappeared with the entire herd in order to rescue a lost member of the family, inspiring the popular film, “Saving Private Udder”:

 
Moo got a little tired after raking out the stables and working in the fields all day:

 
Irwin and Clara, collecting eggs: 

 
While Moo seemed less-than-enchanted by the farm, demanding we carry her everywhere (“Come on, Grandpa, don’t you want to pick me up?”), Irwin and Clara seemed to fall in love.  Clara just had to sit next to Erika at every meal, and Irwin took notes on everything she said.  They even got to milk the goats, which I will spare you pictures of, and just leave you with this picture of Moo and Clara relaxing on a swing dedicated to the farm’s matriarch, now and forever:

Goats

Tomorrow morning, at an hour when everything good and natural in the world should be ASLEEP, we’re heading for the airport to go on a little family vacation to Oregon. My (rather distant) family has a farm outside of Salem, where the good ol’ Geers settled after trudging endless miles on the Oregon Trail.  So it’s, like, historic and all.  Pretty cool.

My parents are turning mumble-ty this year, and wanted to celebrate with an Oregon trip, so my sister and her family are also heading up, and we’re all staying in a rented log cabin next to a creek where hopefully we can skip rocks and float leaf boats.  Then we’ll visit the farm, including matriarch Vesper and Farm Madame Erika, who will undoubtedly seize the children and put them straight to work collecting eggs and picking basil from the garden. 

The farm has special meaning to me, because I visited several times with my grandmother as a youngster, and then many times again when we lived in the Northwest.  The first time I met Erika about seven years ago, she shook my hand and said, “Here, hold this goat.  I’ve got to take its temperature with this anal thermometer.”  It may have been the single best introduction of my life.

I can’t wait to see what she’s got in store for the kids.

Be back Wednesday…