I have to say that overall I like the roundabouts, they are fun, they display art, they are not usually a problem to navigate. It was, however, a little boogling to see The Bulletin’s frontpage story on Wednesday about the proposed eight new roundabouts on Reed Market Road from 27th to Division. Good grief, you could get dizzy on a street like that. It is a bit like a cat chasing it’s tail, a mouse on a wheel,or a merry-go-round. But then I realize that maybe these roundabouts are circles of life, maybe Bend is building dozens and dozens of medicine wheels. Let’s hope the art in the centers will continue.
Life is Filled with Blessings
I pirated this cartoon from my son, Jon’s web blog. It gave me a chuckle.
He is my web master for Juniper and Sage, as well as my computer tech. And the web page creation helping along his "sucky" week is my real estate web page, poor guy. Thank you, Jon, you are the greatest. 
Still Going On About Apples
I am happy to report that I made the apple pies for Thanksgiving this year from the apples from my own tree. My son and family hosted and cooked the main meal, it was as always a stupendous feast.
The apples came from a tree that was a first year seedling, the year we moved here to our deserty abode in 1976. I nurtured this little seedling until it is now a 25 foot tree. I always heard that seedling apple trees rarely have tasty apples. There was a large seedling apple at my Mom’s place (long gone now) in Bend, just a block from the Third Street And Franklin Street Safeway and it lived up to the myths of not very tasty apples. But my tree’s apples are excellent, a yellow delicious type. They were not a total suprise, because I had one or two apples a while back. But after 29 years, this apple tree finally fully fulfiled her mission of reproduction and had a full crop of apples and made a delicious pie.
Cycles of life
I have been contemplating the cycles of life. That is one of the advantages of age, you get to live long enough to actually see the stages and cycles. It really is not linear, it is a circle. An interesting way of charting your cycles is by charting your progressed lunar phases. This is an astrogical process of discovering the phase of the moon you were born under and following the phases through the life cycle. Finding Our Way Through the Dark, by Demetra George has some excellent charts that can help you find your own cycles.
Timing is everything.
I went to John Day today.
What a beautiful trip. That is one of my favorite drives, through Prineville and over the Ochochos through Mitchel, Picture Rock Canyon, Dayville, Mount Vernon and John Day. You can stop at the Painted Hills and Sheep Rock, sections of the John Day Fossel Beds for astounding views and great litte museums. John Day has the Kam Wah Chung museum, a tiny little Oriental outpost, home and office of Doc Hay, a famous Chinese doctor that practiced there for many years. We got quite a nice lunch at the Outpost in downtown John Day, and on the road to Canyonville, there are a couple of fun antique shops.
Glenna Lange and I are going to take a tour class there for Central Oregon Community Education Department. in May sometime. This was our pretrip. We will go on a bus and we will stop at Sheep Rock and John Day at the Kam Wha Chung museum. We will talk a lot about plants we see on the way, eating and healing with the wild plants. It will be fun.
I have another class coming up soon that I teach through COCC Community Education. On November 12, Saturday, 9 to 4 is Gardening Under Cover. Register with the COCC office.
Apples
I have been a bad blogger and have not been keeping up. Darn! But I do need to show you my apples. A first time event.
Rabbit-brush is blooming now
Rabbit-brush is one of the dominate shrubs of the juniper-sagebrush country, and is a bright splash of color right now.
Green Rabbit-brush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus)
Gray Rabbit-brush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus)
And more desert wild flowers
Roundheaded desert buckwheat (Eriogonum sphaerocephalum)
Indian paintbrush growing with sagebrush (castilleja sp)
Trying the flowers again
Here we go, I have again gained control of the picture process.
Granite gilia (Leptodactylon pungens) These flowers open at night and are fragrant.
Mariposa lily (Calochortus macrocarpus)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Changes
I have made a big change in my life, I have moved real estate offices to Bend’s Home Town Realty. I can work from my home more now, and have more time to garden and look at wild flowers.
I was having camera trouble, so have not gotten all the pictures of wild flowers that I wanted. But my camera glitch is worked out, so here are a couple that I took pictures of this evening.
Never mind. There is still a glitch.