O.C.F. Caretaker's Journal O.C.F. Caretaker's JournalFriday 30 April We have returned safely from our adventure---the Site Truck piled high with bamboo. Bamboo is one of those amazing plants, like hemp and soybeans, that literally has the potental to save the world. Although bamboo is not a native plant at the OCF, and therefore will never be planted here, it is a viable replacement for wood in its harvested form. It is extremely lightwieght, can span large distances, and has a tensile strength greater than that of steel. In many parts of the world bamboo is used for the primary material in building both houses and furniture, and in a great many useful household items as well. Besides being incredible useful in its natural state, bamboo is the raw material for superior plywood, cardboard and paper. It is the fastest growing woody plant on this planet and can be harvested in about five years, versus over twenty for most softwoods. Beyond its utilitarian value, bamboo possess an aesthetic beauty that is revered in Asia, providing the inspiration for countless works of Art. This year the Oregon Country Fair will feature bamboo as a central component in several new completely temporary structures. Here is more information at the American Bamboo Society's homepage.
Tuesday 27 April I was in a bit of a holding pattern all day as Max's found a few things wrong with the Site Truck that needed to be fixed and it was touch and go as to whether they would get it done or not---but around five I rode my bike over and picked it up. The Media Escorts had a meeting at the Yurt and we got to see a bunch of old footage of previous Fairs, which really started to get me in the mood for this year. There were a couple other meetings going on around here as well and things are most definitely beginning to pick up. Tomorrow morning I will be heading up to Vashon Island with Hilary to pick up a load of Giant Timber Bamboo with the Site Truck. That should be a fun road trip but we won't be back until Friday, so I won't have another Journal entry until then. Phillip Guyette is going to babysit the place on Wednesday and Arrow will be here Thursday night.
Monday 26 April Yesterday I worked first with the VegManECs and then alone, continuing the cleanup of the new Sesame Area. This morning I was over off to my flying lesson in the almost preordained lousy weather, which naturally got better shortly after touchdown. When I got back there were cars backed up at the gate, including one from the U.S. Government. Steve arrived and we shuttled the Site Truck over to Max's for a front end alignment. Then I was off to Eugene for another meeting with Craig Huber about the Giant Kalideoscope project, which has been taking some very interesting twists and turns in in this man's amazing mind, and we now have a working model.
Sunday 25 April Another week begins. Humans have always had the need for a time interval between the day, which by convention is the smallest calendrical unit of time, and the month, which is an approximation of the lunar cycle. In ancient societies weeks of anywhere between four to ten days were observed, typically the interval from one market day to the next.The seven day week was possibly an ancient Babylonian or Egyptian invention that corresponded roughly to the phases of the moon. The Greeks named the days of the week after the Sun, the Moon and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the Theon hemeraior "days of the Gods". When Julius Caesar extended the year of 46 B.C. to 445 days and then introduced the Julian calendar with the concept of leap years, the Roman eight-day week was not affected. The seven day week was firsintroduced to Rome during the first century A.D, when ides, nones,and calends were in vogue. The Romans substituted their equivalent for the Greek gods in the day's names; Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the time of Constantine (c.325 A.D.) and the familiar week of seven days beginning on Sunday officially took its place in the Julian calendar. The Teutonic people have, in turn, substituted their gods, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Freya, but left Saturn. From there the days were introduced into the English Language and evolved into the familiar names we have today. By the sixteenth century it was realized that the equinox had shifted by ten days. Pope Gregory XIII convened a commission to consider reform of the calendar. The recommendations of Pope Gregory's calendar commission were instituted by the papal bull Inter Gravissimus,signed in 1582. Ten days were deleted from the calendar, so that 4 October was followed by 15 October---but just as always Thursday followed Wednesday. When the calendar changed from Julian to Gregorian the week was preserved, though not the days of the month, and the rule was instituted that centurial years not divisible by 400 would not be leap years. (Thus the year 2000 will contain a 29 February.) It is believed that the succession of days of the week has continued uninterrupted for over three thousand years.
Saturday 24 April Steve is off at a wine festival in Astoria which leaves yours truly holding down the fort this weekend. Flower Crew, Tree Crew and parts of Traffic were all out here today as well as quite a few others as it was a beautiful day to be out here on site. Worked with Charlene, Carol, and David to remove the all the winter bed straw from the nursery and the bamboo containers. When I took a walk it was incredible to see bunches of Delphiniums suddenly in bloom since yesterday. Tree Crew worked cabling the Drum Tree back up near Ark Park. Traffic was planting trees and grass down in their area and they are camping tonight. Later I worked for a while on the small lawnmower, but was only able to succeed in making it worse. Here is an interesting email I just recieved from Bruce Berryhill, who was out here today working on the garden. I met the neighbors next to the compost pile today. I was out at the end of Bus Road and I see four pot-bellied men with 5 quart ice cream pails collecting something. I inquire and find out that they live on the hill over the compost pile and that they hit golf balls over the trees into the back of the Craft Overflow lot. They were collecting them. We separated and they headed back thru the woods like a flock of turkeys. Searching the ground and occasionally pouncing. I would always find these golf balls out there and wonder where they came from. I have quite a good collection of them myself now. If you're ever out there and you hear somebody yelling "Fore"---I suggest ducking.
Friday 23 April EFN is having some trouble apparently, because I can't get connected so this won't get posted until they can work out their difficulties. Last night Marcus McNabb and his friend Michael arrived to check out a site in Chela Mela for a meditation area they will be building out there this year. This lovely morning we went out with the Queen of Chela Mela (a.k.a. Hilary) to do just that. Along the way we spotted the first Delphiniums in bloom, while the fields are beginning to turn yellow with Buttercups. We also had an amazing close encounter with this big ol' Hawk Owl, who flew within a couple feet of us then landed nearby where we could observe it with binoculars. Unlike most other owl species, Surnia ululaoften hunts by day. In less than a week the four of us will meet again up on Vashon Island when we go to purchase a load of Timber Bamboo from Marcus for this year's Fair. I took my sailboat out of mothballs which really meant pressure-washing off the mold, along with some overdue maintenance. In the afternoon Hilary, Adora, and I took the boat over to Fern Ridge and sailed around for a few hours. There was a gusty wind and we took on water a couple of times---but any day that you don't tip over is a good day when it comes to sailing.
Thursday 22 April Earth Day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, a dedicated environmentalist who was trying to find a way to increase ecological awareness. During an airplane flight in July 1969, Senator Nelson read an article about the anti-war teach-ins when it occurred to him to create a nationwide teach-in on the environment. When he returned to Washington he begin raising the funds to get Earth Day started, writing letters to the 50 governors and mayors of all the major cities. He sent articles to college newspapers and even one to the Scholastic Magazine. In a speech given in Seattle in September he broke the news and wire services carried the story nationwide. It was an idea whose time had come. By December, the movement had expanded so rapidly that it became necessary to open its own office. Schools and communities by the thousands independently organized at the grassroots level. Earth Day was celebrated across the country for the first time on the 22nd of April, 1970. An estimated twenty million Americans participated in rallies, marches, and educational programs. Three months later President Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order. Today Earth Day is celebrated in many countries around the globe by hundreds of millions of people. Find out more at earthday.org or the Earth Day Network.
Wednesday 21 April They don't just call Steve the Wiz for nothing. As early as last Friday he was claiming that he had dialed in the rain for Wednesday evening. Was I having any doubts? Well . . . . yeah. All day Monday, Tuesday, and then today we spread huge dumptruck loads of river loam over the entire length of the East 13th Street path with the tractor, and then graded, raked, core plugged, dragged, seeded, and dragged some more. The rain came in this evening to germinate our grass seed right on schedule---just as the wise old wizard had predicted. Have I seen the Error of my ways? Do I Believe in the True Path? Oh yes!
Tuesday 20 April Coverage of the Littleton shootings added a horrid gravity to the day which was inescapable. I remember being here when I heard about the Thurston incident about a year ago. There is nothing logical that can be said about such henious acts of violence. Perhaps now is the time to admit that there is something very wrong with our society when students bring automatic weapons to school and our government continues to routinely bomb third world countries. Something very wrong.
Monday 19 April I resumed Flight School and have resolved to go every Monday until I have my license---with the exception of several weeks surrounding the Fair obviously. Flying is very much a ritual and everything is a little more familiar each time I go. Countless pilots have gone before and the teaching methods are tried and true, with just a little more attempted each time. In the afternoon forty-eight cubic yards of river loam was delivered to the East 13th Street path. We are to spreading it thin using the tractor and a gradebox borrowed from our neighbors, the Mauldin's. In the evening I attended two meetings, one with the Personnel Committee and the other a Board work session about the elders issue. About the second one. I listened during the meeting and here now is my two cents for what it's worth. The Fair was founded in the idealism of the Sixties which was all about change, alternatives, even revolution. On the brink of the new millennium the Fair is beginning to slowly petrify and this has been realized, ergo the meeting. The crux of the issue seems to be how to graciously move perpetual coordinators into a new role and replace them with the vitality of youth. It is human nature to want to keep things constant but Nature herself has a much more brutal formula---evolution or extinction. Personally I think much of the stalemate could be eliminated if crews were simply allowed to elect their own coordinators. Thus the Ancient Ones would be freed to move towards their final transmogrification---the Elder's Council.
Sunday 18 April In one way this Journal has come full cycle. In November I began by describing a cleanup in the Kilgallon-Sesame area, but the floods came and washed our efforts back into the woods before we had a chance to burn the pile. My draining project has gone very well and project area has dried dramatically. Today the VegeManECs and I resumed the undertaking. This part of the Fair is the flood depository for debris from the over the entire Fair site which has built up over the years. A couple more workpartys will be neccesary just to remove all the various paddywackery before the work of transforming this area into the public domain can even begin, but it was exciting just to get the project underway. Lots of other folks out on site today as well, including a meeting at Energy Park and people out checking out the conditions of their booths.
Saturday 17 April It was another picture perfect day weather wise and a busy one on site. After a little head scratching we got the John Deere mower working again, after it had thrown its drive belt while Randy was using it on Thursday. The Site Crew had a meeting. Arrow and Mike worked on the Vehicle Shed and hopefully the thing will be complete by Sunday. I finished off the dozen flower boxes we started last week with Hilary's help. Charlene and Carol were working on the nursery. Steve, Hilary, Lynn Kampher and I planted a whole bunch of small trees and cuttings on the sluffed banks of the river along Strawberry Lane and Chela Mela. We hauled some old hay from the flower nursery to compost corner and brought back a huge load of compost. Finally we all went out for pizza at Countryside and came back for some of Jin-Lin's blueberry pie and ice cream at the Yurt.
Friday 16 April Today is the anniversary of the discovery of LSD and the dawn of the psychedelic age. In 1938 Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical laboratory in Basel, Switzerland, had created the twenty-fifth version of a synthetic drug, known as lysergic acid diethylamide, as part of his medical research. Five years later he was resynthesizing it when he accidentally consumed a small amount, possibly by absorbing it through his fingertips. This is how he related his experience:"Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."Several days later he intentionally took a tiny oral dose to confirm that it was what had caused his strange mental state and this time experienced considerably more powerful hallucinations. Dr. Hoffman published a report announcing his discovery that was at first disbelieved by his colleagues---until they tried it for themselves, at which time all doubt was erased! Hoffman later wrote an insightful book entitled LSD: My Problem Child, which is published in its entirety online. The U.S. Government conducted many tests during the 1950s on both informed and unknowing subjects in the hopes that it could lead to a truth serum and in fact Ken Kesey's first acid trip was courtesy of one of these government studies. By the time LSD was made illegal in 1966 the genie was already out of the bottle. Various proponents of LSD such as Albert M. Hubbard, Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters publicly expounded its use as a consciousness expanding tool. In some ways it was the spark that ignited the Sixties because it caused a lot of people to question the dominate reality. Whether or not a person has ever taken this drug, for better or worse there is no arguing the fact that this small little molecule has affected our society in a multitude of subtle and even profound ways.
Thursday 15 April Many procrastinators are furiously tearing out their hair trying to beat the Internal Revenue Service's 11:59 pm income tax deadline tonight---meanwhile a certain tax accountant I know has begun to party wildly. My parents were here for a brief visit and left this morning. Marshall Landman was out and I gave him a hand trying to get a handle on the lantern situation for the new Crew Services Crew. This afternoon I went over to Doctor Joe's place to inquire about the possibility of digging a ditch through his property. Not only did he respond in the affirmative, but he came out with a three wheeler and a small plow that made short work of it. Then he even picked up a shovel and we toiled and sweated for a while in the hot sun like two kids playing in the mud. Tomorrow I am going to connect the new ditch to Kilgallon Acres and hopefully watch the whole thing drain off. It is substantially drier in there than it was when Steve and I were in there a little over two weeks ago. The trilliums are at their peak and it is a beautiful time to come on out for a site walk if you are so inclined.
Wednesday 14 April On this day in 1865, five days after the Civil War had ended, John Wilkes Booth rode to Washington, hitched up his horse outside Ford's Theater, crept unnoticed into the Presidential box, pressed his gun to the back of Abraham Lincoln's head and pulled the trigger. He wounded an army major with a knife he had stashed in his boot and vaulted out of the box, but caught his spur on one of the flags---which caused him to break his left leg. When Booth landed on the stage he yelled the Virginia State motto, "Sic semper tyrannis"which means "Thus always to tyrants". Like his father Brutus and his brother Edwin, John was a successful Shakespearian actor, although because of his flamboyance and ill-temper, he never received the acclaim he thought was his due. He had certainly managed to stun his audience this time however, and thus escaped to his waiting horse through a rear alley. The president was carried to a cheap lodging house across the street and died there about 7:22 the next morning. Clocks are traditionally set to display this time as a memorial to Lincoln. Booth meanwhile was treated for his injury by an unwitting Dr. Samuel Mudd, who later was arrested and spent many years in jail before being pardoned. The term "your name is mud" became common during his imprisonment. Twelve days after the assassination, Union troops surrounded a farm near Bowling Green, Virginia, where Booth was hiding in a barn. The troops set fire to the building and Booth died during the ensuing gun battle, his last words "Useless, useless". The charred body was never positively identified however, leading to a persistent myth that he evaded his captors. Of the nine other persons charged with the conspiracy, four were eventually hanged and four were jailed. Today a certain mystique has arisen concerning a series of coincidences between presidents Lincoln and Kennedy.
Tuesday 13 April I mowed the grass for the second time this year, not so much because it needed it, but I am because I am trying hard to start the ritual. Steve ventured into the Eight with the tractor and began core plugging and spreading out the piles of river loam deposits. That it is dry enough to do this now is a positive sign. Indeed, the weather report suggests that there are at least several warm days on the horizon and based on this information, we are having several loads of topsoil delivered to East 13th Street on Monday so that we can rehabilitate the eroded path. During the afternoon Dr. Andyman worked behind the Vehicle Shed, carefully excavating several ancient burial grounds and campsites---meticulously cataloging the precious artifacts into our archival dumpster or else processing them via the chipper-shredder. Current data indicates that these sites were occupied for approximently three days circa the 1990s AD, by the subspecies Hippiecus abstracticus.There seems to be a strong possibility that more of these Neo-primitive archeological digs may be located nearby and can be subjected to more rigorous scientific scrutiny.
Monday 12 April Today I took the day off. Clif Cox and I rented a Cessna 152 and flew out to Coos Bay to see what was left of the New Carissa.We landed on the grass strip at Lake Woahink where Clif took a picture of me. I just created this little biography page with it and also linked it to the introductory paragraph above. We hiked around the dunes for a while, then over flew the wreck right before we arrived at the North Bend Airport, walked into town, had lunch at a German deli, and then flew back to Eugene. I am finally going to resume my flight training next week. Friendly's, the outfit I was with, lost the lease on their trainer and I have been waiting for months now for them to get a new one. So today I jumped ship over to Lawrence Air---where they have three trainer airplanes.
Sunday 11 April Today was the warmest day of the year so far. I stayed busy all day riding the tide of the suddenly increased energy level around here. There was a Native American Sweat going on. There were a lot of other people out here either working or just plain enjoying themselves. Michael Bishop was here with his trailer and a friend of his came over first thing in the morning with this enormous forklift and we yanked that old reefer box (which Michael is going to use for a tool trailer), right on out of here. That in itself made my whole day---but they also took away the old quart of oil a day, antifreeze belching International. Goodbye, goodbye! Michael also helped me get Godzilla and the Red Ford running and we moved them to the Vehicle Shed. I helped Palmer do the same with Little Hank. The VegManECs were out here and they completed a limb raising project near X-Ray Park and raked leaves that were smothering the grass. Late in the day a couple guys came out to canoe the Long Tom and Hilary and I decided to go along, and we ended up hauling a canoe load of junk out of one of the new log jams. We are talking about organizing a downriver canoe float cleanup of the Long Tom in the near future.
Saturday 10 April Yesterday Steve and I went out to Maple Gate to look over ODOT's plan for a deceleration lane that will be built on Highway 126. They are very serious about it happening before the Fair and we will undoubtably going to have to absorb some of the costs, such as the relocation of the gate and a new internal roadbed. Spent a good part of today working on a dozen new flower boxes with Charlene, Carol, Randy, and David. The boxes will have built in trellises and be used at the front entrances. Last year about this time I built a number of these boxes single handedly. The newest news is that lately I am using amusing musings, somewhat confusingly, rusing fairly frequent family fairies into finding fanciful fun whittling and whacking on wonderfully weird widgets. Delegating that is. In the evening I was at Sam Bond's Garage to see Ashbury Park play at Jen-Lin's birthday party. The place was literally thronging with the Fair Family, a veritable Who's Who. There were at least a dozen coordinators there, three Officers---including El Presidente himself, two board members, booth people, multitudinous staffers, and a good time had by all.
Friday 9 April It's three months until Fairtime! That's a mere ninety days and yet there is a seemingly infinite number of things to do before it can ever happen. Luckily there are I don't know how many volunteers more than willing to do them all. Volunteers that are the heart that drives this organization and soul that keeps it together---and all will be gathering soon for our thirtieth annual festival of psycho-spiritual rejuvenation. We will work hard and we will play hard. We will create amazing Magic. Each and every participant will bring a different set of interests, motivations, skills, and dreams but together we are One. Remember that our energy can be noble, directed towards the greater good. Petty squabbles and selfish motives should never be allowed to have a place. Honor each other. Learn from one another. Have a reverence for the Earth. Laugh, sing, and dance!
Thursday 8 April Today I was back over at Craig Huber's studio brainstorming about the Giant Kaleidoscope we are going to build. The foundation of this project is now going to be an isosohedron, one of only five regular polyhedra. Although Plato did not actually discover them, he did describe them and by convention they are now called the Platonic solids. Stringent conditions must be met to be classified as a Platonic solid: All of the faces must be the same, each face must be a regular polygon, and all the angles on the solid must be the same. These are the tetrahedron (four equilateral triangles), the hexahedron or cube (six squares), the octohedron (eight equilateral triangles), the dodecahedron (twelve regular pentagons) and the icosohedron (twenty equilateral triangles). The Greeks saw great significance in the existence of the Platonic solids and they related them to the four elements (fire, earth, air and water) together with the Universe. Of the five, the tetrahedron has the smallest volume for its surface area and the icosahedron the largest; they therefore showed the properties of dryness and wetness respectively---and so corresponded to Fire and Water. The cube, which stood firmly on its base, represented Earth, but the octahedron, which rotated freely when held by two opposite vertices, corresponded to Air. The dodecahedron corresponded to the Universe because the zodiac has twelve signs---equal to the number of faces. The dodecahedron and the icosahedron are referred to as duals. The mid-points of the faces of the dodecahedron define the vertices of an icosahedron and the mid-points of the faces of an icosahedron likewise define a dodecahedron. The same is true of the cube and the octahedron. If we try it with a tetrahedron though, we just get another tetrahedron. Each can become the dual of the other solid because the number of edges in each pair is the same, but the number of faces of one is the number of vertices of the other, and vice-versa. This is fascinating stuff here. Identical copies of either a tetrahedron, cube, or octahedron can be stacked to fill a volume of space with no gaps, but the icosahedron and the dodecahedron cannot. This is analogous to trying to tile a plane with pentagons - they leave odd gaps that are not pentagonal. Both the dodecahedron and the icosahedron exhibit a similar five-fold symmetry.
Wednesday 7 April Woodall's Auto Repair had my Jeep fixed and ready to roll today. It needed a new water pump, radiator, fan belt, hoses, coolant, and engine oil (to the tune of $598.11), and I count myself extremely lucky that I didn't damage the engine. I left the Site Truck there to have its ball joints replaced. On the way I saw all these people out protesting something at the junction of Territorial Road and Highway 126, with big yellow signs that said something about FAIR. "Oh no!" I thought, but they're actually having a teacher's strike for fair wages---so I honked and waved from the OCF decaled truck. Then on the way back I stopped at that little Fern Ridge Wildlife-Long Tom Canoe Launch Area on Territorial before the Hilltop Market, which I never took the time to check out before now. There is a surprisingly long trail in there that winds beside the Long Tom River, naturally with the same ecology as our own section, but in a more pristine condition. I highly recommend walking it sometime, as it will give one a sense of the impact we are having on our own riverbank. Today is my one year anniversary as Caretaker and it has been an extraordinary year of my life. As I enter the next cycle of my tenure I have been reflecting about the legacy I wish to leave here. This little offside walk has helped me crystallize my thoughts. I have resolved to tirelessly do everything possible to rid the Fair Site of dimensional and other debris, and to rehabilitate portions of this land back to Nature.
Tuesday 6 April A sunny day although the temperature got down to around 35°F last night and there was an all day crispness to the air which I genuinely enjoyed. A good part of the day was spent cleaning up the worksite around our new vehicle shed. It is close enough to being done now to start filling it up with big trucks. I got Blueberry Princess, Mothra and the Peach Truck acquainted with their new place, but couldn't start the red flatbed, and Godzilla started but wouldn't move due to a locked up brake drum. Drove the Site Truck back into town for back to back meetings. The Executive meeting (my first) was at the Office and the Board meeting was at the good old WOW Hall. David Liberty had showed up on Sunday and planted out the aquarium and put in a few little fishes and it is really starting to look spectacular. When I got home tonight I just stared into the tank for about a half an hour to relax and unwind. Ahhhh.
Monday 5 April Yesterday Steve drove me back to my Jeep and we put water in the radiator---but it immediately started draining right back out from what I assume is the water pump. However, I managed to drive it in that condition the mile or so to Woodall's Garage. This morning I drove over and talked about the Jeep repair and some work that needs to be done on the Site Truck before it goes to Vashon Island on a Giant Bamboo run. The truck has only had about sixty miles put on it since October but now it is suddenly getting put back into action. Today we drove it down to Lorane and bought a couple trees to replace one on the Left Bank that had been girdled by beavers. Dr. Jim was here and gave us a hand planting them. Later I drove the truck into town to see Cirque Ingenieuxat the Hult Center with the gang, the Board Meeting having been rescheduled just so we could see it. The show was beautifully staged, the acts were incredible, and it was truly inspiring. I wish I could say the same for this entry, but there you have it.
Easter Sunday The Pagan origins of the word Easter comes from the Norse Ostara and the Teutonic Eastre, ancient Goddesses of Spring and Fertility. Likewise, our names for the days of the week have survived from the old Teutonic mythology. A festival honoring these goddesses was traditionally celebrated on the vernal equinox, but today's Easter is observed on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or following the spring equinox---and can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25. There is a very long tradition of decorating and giving eggs at Easter. The Egyptians, Persians, Chinese, Romans, and Gaels all cherished the egg as a symbol of the mystery, magic, and medicine. In Pagan times the egg represented the rebirth of the earth and with the advent of Christianity the symbolism came to represent the rebirth of man. The most famous Easter eggs of all were those crafted in the workshops of Peter Carl Faberge. In 1883, Russian Czar Alexander III commissioned Faberge to make an Easter gift for his wife. He produced an egg with a shell of white enameled platinum,which opened up to reveal a smaller egg, which in turn opened to display a golden chicken and a jeweled replica of the Imperial crown. The superb artistry of the first Faberge Egg so delighted the Czarina that the Czar promptly ordered Faberge to deliver another one each Easter. In subsequent years Alexander's son, Nicholas II, continued the tradition and 56 of these incredible eggs were eventually created, 54 of which are known to still survive. The ancient custom continues today as artists of every skill level decorate eggs and hide them for children to find. Out of the millions of Easter Egg Hunts held annually, two actually occurred right here on Site this weekend.
Saturday 3 April It's been a long day. I got up early and helped Steve set up for the work party. Not a huge turnout, but the Water Crew was having a Easter get together out here so there were still a lot of people on site. We've gotten further along on the Vehicle shed but it still isn't finished. The other night at our little staff meeting we were talking about naming it after old Caretaker Bill. My suggestion is the Verneer Vehicle Vault. Later on I decided to go in to town with Anne and Adora to see The Satin Love Orchestra at the Wild Duck. Lately I'm accused of being a hermit and admittedly it was a lot of fun to go out dancing---but dealing with all those drunks makes me remember why I quit being a bartender and took this job in the first place! On the way back my Jeep seriously overheated and I had to abandon it out on Fern Ridge and start hiking. At the Texaco station I managed to cohearse a grumpy paper delivery person into taking me the rest of the way home. Combine that little misadventure with the time springing ahead and it is really quite late. Off to bed.
Friday 2 April A call from Ti this morning about photographing potential sites for his banner project, which I did right away and emailed them off. I also took this new picture for the Beaver Damage page. I am beginning to gradually phase out some the older photos since the quality isn't up to new standards. Mowed Chela Mela for the first time this year as the weather was nice all day yesterday---and the meadow was finally dry enough to cut. The grass is very thick and lush there, best of the entire Fair Site, and it put up a pretty good fight too. This year's Fair suddenly felt much nearer after gazing upon that freshly mown lawn, which until quite recently was a vitual swamp. Steve and I carpooled in and met with norma and Leslie at her house for a staff meeting over delicous broccoli soup. Other folks showed up at eight and we all saw a slide show of the Great French Truffle Tour,starring Leslie and Charlie.
Thursday 1 April This was a fairly typical day and I thought it would be nice to describe it---in order that the Personnel Committee could get a better sense of what I do as Caretaker of the Oregon Country Fair. Arising at 5:30 am I took a bracing cold shower, as is my usual custom. Then I kneaded up a quick batch of whole wheat dough and got it into the oven before getting in to my advanced Hatha Yoga routine. After breakfasting on hot rolls and fresh squeezed orange juice, I did the dishes, changed the sheets, and flossed my teeth. The Yurt is always immaculate but the windows hadn't been washed in well over a week, so I quickly did them before heading out on my appointed rounds. First I inspected the entire Fair Site and tried out all the locks to make sure no one had been tampering with the combinations. On my way back through Crafts Lot I was very lucky to spot a pair of Passenger Pigeons--which I have added to my birder book. Back at the Warehouse I switched gears, changing the engine, transmission, and differental oil in Lil' Hank, Godzilla, Princess Blueberry, and the Peach Truck. I also rotated and aired up all of the tires. Often I am so busy that I skip lunch but today there was time for a delicious helping of my favorite combination of homegrown sprouts and a cup of herbal tea. I talked again with the Rolling Stones' manager about the benefit concert and that looks like that's a go for later this summer out in the Dead Lot. The afternoon was dedicated to rehabilitating the river bank and restoring wildlife habitate around the Site. Once I got my daily ten mile run out of the way I headed over to give blood at the Red Cross which I do once a month. During the evening I relaxed by practicing the Piano and translating some ancient Greek odes into Latin. Well, that was my day. Didn't get as much done as I thought I would, but then there is always tomorrow!