Glass, Bronze and Clay (in short Art) Part 2

Here is the news about bronze and clay. I don't want to keep you in suspense, so I will tell about the Bronze Foundry and Olaf Pottery today.

After Moonshine glass, we very briefly went to the Powwow grounds for lunch. I'm not going to go into details, but it was interesting just to see them. Then we drove to the Valley Bronze Foundry for a tour. The man who gave us the tour showed us the process of the bronze- making. While he was leading us around we got to see all the amazing art pieces. My favorite part was when he took us into the monument center where we got to see an incredible astronaut. The astronaut was gigantic; everything about it was perfect! After that we thanked the man and climbed aboard the bus.

Next we went to Ted Juve's to learn about clay. Ted handed out pieces of clay for everyone to hand-mold while he showed us how to use the wheel.

The demonstration was really amazing. Ted explained where the clay comes from; he said that the clay starts as decomposed rock and plants. After explaining that, he started with the wheel. First he took a long "worm" of clay, cut it into 3" thick circles and put one on the wheel. Instead of putting it on the wheel with the circle facing up, he had to turn it so it was like a wheel. After that, he centered it by covering the clay with his hands and turning it into a cup, vase, pitcher, plate, or whatever he wanted by pulling the clay up into a shape.

The whole time he worked, he talked. He told us that he has been doing clay for 38 years. THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS! That is a long time; 452 months! After Ted finished his demonstration, he let us try. It was so awesome. We had a choice to use the wheel or hand build and we made bowls and cups. Ted is firing them for us. I am so excited to see how my vase turned out.

Glass, Bronze and Clay (in short Art)

Today (in case you hadn't guessed) was the Art Day. It was an opportunity for us to visit artists who make their living in Wallowa County. First we went to watch glass blowing, then to the Pow-wow grounds for lunch, off to the Valley Art Foundry for a tour and finally to Ted Juve's house for a pottery demonstration and a chance to try it ourselves.

Russell and Lori Ford own Moonshine Glass, the glass-blowing place. Russell has worked with and blown glass for twenty years, and he taught Lori about two years ago. They also have two workers, Jake Kurtz and Brent Wydrinski. Russell taught Jake about glass nine years ago and they are in the process of teaching Brent, who has been working with them for two weeks.
At Moonshine Glass. Lori met us outside and told us that we would have to be quiet and to ask her questions, not Russell, Jake or Brent because they were working and needed to concentrate. Janet, one of our leaders split the 18 of us into three groups and took six kids inside while the rest of us stayed outside and talked about the last WREN trip.

When it was my group's turn to go inside, we went in and started asking questions like crazy. What's that? What's that going to be? How hot is that? What's that going to be used for? How much does it cost to learn how to be a glassblower? Lori answered all those questions and many others. She told us that the glory hole was 1200 degrees F. That is hot! The glory hole is where, in between shaping and and blowing, the glass gets spun inside and pulled out to make a bowl, cup, plate, vase, ornament, or anything! Jake was making a bowl with warped edges so it looked like a flower, but the bottom was too thin and the bowl broke.

To start with, Russell used clear glass pellets that look like glass ice cubes. He put the pellets into the furnace, which is kept at 2025 degrees F when they are working with the glass. To pick up the melted glass, Russell took a tube and rolled it in the hot glass. He pulled it out and kept spinning the pole with the melted glass to subjugate (conquer, Vocab. word) the forces of gravity. Then he picked a color and rolled the glass in the color, which in this case was wine. After that, he stuck the glass in the Glory Hole, spinning it the whole time and taking it out many times to shape it or blow it, and to get the shape or size he wanted it to be. At the end he had to hammer it off the metal tube and put it in the cooler, which is 950 degrees F. It is supposed to cool off the glass! Russell said the next day is like Christmas morning when they get to open the cooler and get out their glass creations.

I will write about the other two places we visited later. This is probably enough for now.

Grouse,Grouse,Grouse and more Grouse!

Photos by Penny Arentsen









This, or should I say last Friday's WREN, last WREN for the season was a Grouse and Their Relatives Day. A lot of birds. First we went to the school. When we got there, Penny put us to work at these "Groovin' Grouse" stations.




Station 1 - Identifying Grouse and their Relatives

• I identified the mountain quail, sage grouse, and blue grouse.

Station 2 - Drawing Wings, Beaks, and Feet of Grouse and their Relatives

• I drew pictures of wings, beaks and feet of a grouse, a woodpecker, a raptor and a duck so I could compare them.
  

Station 3- Grouse and Where They Live

• I found out where in Wallowa County the sharp-tail grouse, ruffed grouse, blue grouse, and spruce grouse live. Blue Grouse live in the Wallowa mountains and their higher foothills. Spruce grouse live in the Wallowa mountains. Sharp-tail grouse live in Leap country and Ruffed grouse live in the woods.
  

Station 4- Where did certain kinds of Grouse originate?

• I found out that the Chukar and Gray Partridge originated in Eurasia, the wild turkey and White-tailed Ptarmigan originated in North America and the Ring-necked Pheasant originated in Asia.
  

Station 5- Mating Habits of Grouse

Station 6 - What do Grouse eat?

• Grouse eat: seeds, berries, grasses, leaves, catkins, bugs, pine needles, etc. They eat everything!

After we did the stations, we ate lunch and loaded up in Scooter and the Hit-and-Run mobile. And we were off! After a five-minute drive we stopped by a truck with a bunch of antennas on top. We jumped out of the vans and met Mike Hansen who works for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Mike was going to teach us how to track sharp-tail grouse by using radio collars. When the collar is on a grouse, it makes slow steady beats. If the grouse stops moving or the collar comes off, then after four hours it changes to fast warning beats. The collars are how they keep track of how many Sharp-tail grouse die and survive every year.

After Mike told us a little bit about the antennae that they use to track the collars, Penny divided us into groups and Mike handed each group a antennae and told us to find the 12 collars he had tossed out into the field. There were four groups and each group found three collars. My group took turns holding the antennae and listening to the beeps from the box that was attached to it.
After we found the collars we caught a signal of a real grouse with a collar on. We walked up on a hill and Mike's dog flushed eight grouse out of hiding in the tall grass. We watched the grouse fly and Mike showed us a Lek. A Lek is a spot on top of a hill that is flat, with no trees, where male grouse get together and show off for the females during mating season.

After we saw the Lek, we ran down the hill, thanked Mike for his time, jumped in the vans, and went back to the school. At the school we did a survey on WREN while we waited for our parents. I loved this Fall's WREN and hope I can do it again in the spring.

Thank you Penny for doing WREN this year and I hope you will do it again next year.

History of Wallowa County

This falls' WREN has been the best season of WREN that I have ever been in! I love it! Today I'm writing about the History of Wallowa County.

First we met at the school and talked about the places we were going to visit and the things we were going to do. Then we jumped into Scooter and the Hit-and-Run mobile and we were off. The first place we went was Leap country, so named that because it was a leap year when it was discovered. We stopped once out there and piled out. We talked about plants, animals, and people who lived there. Then we piled in again and we were off!

The next stop we made was to examine a juvenile Red tail Hawk that was dead. It was totally awesome! Then we drove some more until we reached our lunch stop. We ate our lunch and played a game, and after lunch we headed to a graveyard. We picked partners and Penny gave us each names and a little information about several people who were buried there. My partner and I decided that we would split up check certain graves and come back together to check more. We found another groups' name by accident so they helped us; they found one of ours. Three little toddlers from the same family died in less than five months (twins and their younger brother). It was terrible! The other person we had to find raised 6 kids before she died.

After the graveyard, we hurried to the Joseph History Museum and started a scavenger hunt. I filled out the whole two pages before Penny called us back to the door. She asked us about the questions and we answered them all correctly. One of the things I learned at the museum was that the oldest thing they had was a ammonite. I also saw a ballot box that was attached to a saddle so a rider could go around and collect ballots from farms and homesteads out-of-town. I wanted to stay longer but Penny said that it was time to go. We got back early so we ate the cake that Penny brought us (she is so nice), and played a game. By the time the game was over it was time to go.

Photo by Penny Arentsen

I LOVE WREN!

Girls in Science

Okay. I haven't posted anything from WREN yet. I didn't go to it! I was sick the day before and Mom wanted me to be ready for Girls in Science (GIS) on Sat. so that is what I'm going to write about this week. I didn't type yesterday because I was so sick I thought I was going to die. Actually maybe not - I couldn't think straight. It was a migraine headache and a stomachache.

Anyway GIS was a staged crime of murder. "Mrs. Pringle's Deadly Party! Who Killed the Mystery Guest?" I was in the Beakers group. They came up with some pretty funny names: Footprints, Magnifying glasses, and Fingerprints! Very scientific! We all had name tags with a number (1,2, or 3) on the back. Each of the three groups went with a group leader (mixing up all the groups) to the crime scene, which was actually set up in three different rooms that looked the same. The crime was that Dracula was killed next to the refrigerator.

Mrs. Pringle was rich because her brother had died in a freak bungee jumping accident and left her heaps of money. (Some people still think she killed him for his money.) She wasn't well-liked by anyone because she was never nice. Someone actually said he did not wish her to die, but he was surprised she wasn't the victim! If Mrs. Pringle had died, her "best friends" would have gotten equal amounts of money in her will.

We got to interview the four suspects. They were Mrs. Pringle's "best friends," but none of them really actually liked her at all. One of them was really snobbish and acted scared. Talk about looking guilty! Once when someone asked her favorite animal she ran out of the room. The rest of them just answered questions and acted like they were scared that someone was going to rush in and hit them with a softball bat.

I went to four labs to solve the crime, so I'm going to write a post for each one.

The Ranch

On Friday we went to the Craig and Liza Jane's ranch. We got there and saw four dogs (three were cattle dogs) running all over the place, but at at a whistle from Craig, they all ran to his side and lay down. Then Craig and Liza Jane started telling us about the ranch, their cattle, and the history of the ranch. Pretty soon Craig asked us if we'd like to see the dogs work. He walked out into the the field called the dogs and told them to "bring em' up." The dogs were off like a shot and pretty soon the cows were in the pen.

Craig and Liza went to get the horses so they could show us how to rope. When they came back, Craig roped a heifer and let it jump around him for a while, then Liza threw a trap for it. She had to throw her rope right in front of the back legs so the heifer would step into the rope and then she pulled in her slack. Craig dismounted, instructed his horse to stay, and pulled the heifer down onto the ground. Then he demonstrated doctoring and how to tie the front and back feet together. He took off Liza Jane's rope and rocked the cow up and down until it relaxed, then he took both the ropes off and went over to his horse - he had time enough to get to his horse before the cow got back on its feet.


Next we went over to the outdoor arena. When we got there Craig and Liza told us a little bit about team roping. Then they showed us. It was awesome!


After that we got to chase cows. We got into pairs and stood in two boxes and someone let the cows out of a chute. The pairs had to chase the cows on foot into a chute at the other end of the arena. Once the cow was in the chute, one of us snuck up and opened the gate into a pen while the other stood behind and kept the cow in the chute. When we were finished we had to put up both our arms so they would stop the time. My team was second to last, but we both had fun.

Then we loaded up and went down the road to the indoor arena and barn. When we got there we were divided into two groups - one going to Sunrise Tractors and the other staying there. I was in the group that stayed. When the other group left my group was divided in half. One half went in to learn how to rope and my half watched Craig work with a horse that had never had anything done with it. It was amazing! He took off the halter and waving his arms made it go in a circle around him. He made it slow down, go faster, and turn around. After a while he stopped and the horse came into him. Craig said it was because the horse felt safe with him and wanted to be with him.

After half an hour we switched places and my group went in to rope dummies. Liza taught us the parts of the rope, how to swing it, and to throw it like you mean it or you won't catch it. Roping was really fun (and hard)!

Just as we finished roping the other group came back. Now we had to go to Sunrise Tractors. My group jumped in the van and left. When we got there Penny handed out cards that had descriptions of a tractor on them, we had to find our tractor and tell the rest of the group about it. When we finished we went over to the garage to see one of the first semis. That was cool!

Thanks for the pictures Penny!

Thank you for letting us come to your ranch Craig and Liza. It was the very best WREN I've ever done!

I'm a Weed Warrior!

WREN Weed Warriors

Being a Weed Warrior isn't all that fun! Well, it is if you call tripping and falling backwards into a cactus and hardly being able to walk the rest of the day fun! Luckily it wasn't me, it was one of the other girls there.

Our weed warrior group traveled to Camp Creek in Imnaha. We learned how to identify some invasive weeds that are common in Wallowa County. As we hiked we looked for the following invasive weeds:

Common Bugloss (above), Scotch Thistle (bottom left), knapweed (bottom right), and cheat grass (not shown).























After lunch the real work started. We had to pace out half an acre and rake out all the cheat grass, pull out all the rosettes, and plant native plant seeds so they would take over the invasive weeds and grasses.

We did this three times, in a harder place each time. But it was really fun!

P.S Next week we're going to the ranch. YEE-HAW!