Pendleton Woolen Mill

Wednesday May 8 we took a tour of the Pendleton Blanket Mill. First we walked through the retail store, then went into the loud manufacturing area. We each had a headset to hear the guide's explanations over the roar of the machines. The colors of the wool were so vivid, I just enjoyed snapping photos and didn't listen too well to the history. We went upstairs first to see the wool being cleaned. Downstairs the automated looms were rolling out a blanket every 25 minutes. The newer machines could complete a blanket in only 12 minutes! The side scraps are saved for braiding rugs. There was a well lit space that a worker would hand sew any flaws in the finished product...looked very tedious to me! I'd never heard of Pendleton Wool, but it is evidently a quality product! We enjoyed the small taste of learning the process,  and in the town of Pendleton to boot!

Can you tell how tight my hand is clenching to Cora the Courageous?

watching the wool cleaner get out impurities

our friendly guide

Before leaving Pendleton we stopped at Cash & Carry to check this store out. We came out with cheese, apples, carrots, lettuce, and the steak rub that Shannon liked so well at Jenny's. Plus 2 cookies the check-out man threw in for the girls. Then we headed toward Pasco! Stopped and ate lunch at the small community park in Stanfield, OR and stopped again at Goodwill & Walmart in Kennewick, WA.

We set up the motor home at Everett Wray's and spent the evening at Kenneth & Teresa's. They had his sister Miriam and her family over for supper as well. We had a nice visit catching up with the Brubakers since their brief move to Pratt about a year ago. And a delicious meal, of course!

fellowship around the meal table

Darin & Jenny's

We left Joe & Denise's and drove northwest on I-84 passing by a big Ore Ida potato plant near the state line. (Now we know what that name means!) Entered Pacific Time Zone again. This was the first stretch of our trip that we backtracked...about 4 hours. We opted to take the Columbia Gorge route with lots of flowing water through Oregon instead of the High Desert and so viewed the Blue Mountains again on our return trip.

Blue Mountains, OR

We stopped back by Pendleton and parked in town at Jenny's. Her daughter Kyra had a Little League fastpitch game not too far away, so we walked a few blocks to the ballfield. Jenny treated our kiddos to snowcones, a first for little Cora. (Bummer, I forgot my camera!)

After the game we walked back to Jenny's for a steak dinner prepared by Darin. Baked potatoes, salad, french bread, soda, and ice cream too. Kaylan and Annie baked and decorated cupcakes while the other children sported on the wii.

cutting steaks off the choice meat

Jenny in her kitchen

What happens when cupcakes are iced while still warm? :)

We overnighted in a lot across the street from their house. Which just happened to be 30 feet from the train tracks and which happened to be a well used track and so we enjoyed the bright engine light, loud rattling noise, and vibration frequently during the night!

goodbye before work outside the RV
Jenny's house on the left, hospital on the right

Here we are with morning train rumbling by!

Riley layed several pennies on the track before bed and retrieved well-flattened pieces of copper in the morning. What an experience!

Hutterite Colony

Somehow in conversation with Thom & Melodie and a phone call with Everett Wray, we got a time lined up to tour a Hutterite Colony just 20 minutes away from where we were in Boardman.

We spent about 2 hours with Ed Stahl. First he showed us their mammoth 200 x 300' shop. Inside a girl, engaged to be married, was sanding several headboards, one for the bedroom suite in her new home. We left the carpentry section of the shop and entered the machine area. Most of the men were out cultivating potatoes, as was the equipment, but we did look at 2 potato harvesters...interesting pieces of machinery! There was even a mini street sweeper in the mechanic shop. We stopped through the meeting room, where Ed offered us cookies, then he showed us the computer room that controls all their field irrigation systems that are on the 4 square mile plot that they own.

sign at the entrance of a 2 mile lane

one side of the street: 12 apartment homes

other side of the street: kitchen/dining/laundry

Annie, Shannon, Ed

Next we walked across the gravel lot to the kitchen. Ed's daughter & daughter-in-law were preparing supper for the colony. They were making a creamy carrot soup for the young children under age 5. The mothers feed them before everyone else eats. The rest of the colony were having stir fry. Adjoining the kitchen was the dining area...men on one side, women on the other. Across the kitchen was the meal room for the school age children and a married couple chaperone. 

stir fry prep

salad for the next day

Off of the kitchen was a walk-in pantry mostly for spices. Next to that was a baking room with a walk-in commercial oven for proofing bread on rolling racks with trays and the baking oven that holds the whole rack, picks it up, & rotates the loaves. At the back of the building was a large room set up for butchering animals. The next day they were planning to process ducks raised on their property. A laundry room with a long line of washers & dryers was the last room we walked through. Everything was very bright, neat, and clean.

Caroline and Cora went out to the playground with a few little girls that had been playing in the dining hall. The rest of us looked in the church and inside Ed's house. His wife was home and her sister who was visiting from Canada. They have a kitchen in their apartments as well for snacks or coffee, etc. I think there were 3 bedrooms, a living room, and bathroom. She also sewed upstairs.

hurray, another playground! with playmates too!

There is also a school building, we didn't look in, because it was locked since the school day was over. Ed said they have a hired teacher from outside the colony for now. He walked us to the RV helping carry some food they sent with us: 2 loaves of bread, 2 dozen eggs, a bag of cookies, radishes from the garden, and carrot soup.

the shop is out of this picture, on the left

big line of sweet Petes

Back down through the fields to the end of the lane, we took a peek inside the potato storage shed. What a huge pile of taters!

Riley checking out the bulk potato unloader

While chatting with them, we noticed the Hutterite ladies' twisted hair. Annie and Caroline tried their hand at rolling it back into a scarf.

my sweet girls

We overnighted in Pendleton, OR at Walmart. Shannon took the girls out for a walk and came back with a homeless fellow who ate our leftover supper of the Hutterite's leftover supper and bread. Raymond had a one man military tent that he was going to pitch in a nearby grassy area. He chatted while he ate, used the bathroom, then was gone. Quite a day! God's mercies are new every morning!

Azure Standard

Monday, April 29, we drove south on 197 from The Dalles to Dufur, OR. This is a beautiful drive winding through hills that are farmed with crops and orchards, except for the very steepest parts. It's strange for us to see wheat on a mountainside instead of on a flat 80 or larger Kansas field. Mount Hood in the distance was a sight to behold!

Back home in Pratt, we've been part of a food co op that delivers bulk and organic food once a month form Oregon. We were less than a half hour from Azure Standard's greenhouse and orchards, so we went for a personal tour of part of their operation. This location is the original homestead and office. The warehouse is up and around the next ridge, probably 2 hours away. David Selzer himself showed us the dormant cherry and apple production lines (because they're not in season yet). He showed Shannon the wood gas contraption that is used to heat the greenhouse. Then we entered the steamy warm growing area. Cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes are the main crops produced inside. All along the front were various tropical plants one of the sons was experimenting with. Very neat to see what a papaya, mango, avocado, pineapple, banana, starfruit, fig etc. grows like!

sign at the drive

David gave us a biology lesson on soil and living microbes that are essential to healthy plants. He even dug some dirt for us to sniff and see the worms & bugs his handful contained.

green papayas on the tree

vining cucumbers and 1 exotic fruit on the right

banana tree

a worker picking tomatoes

tomato plants producing for their 3rd year

moist soil sample

one last view of Mount Hood

the rolling farmed fields

Back at the Columbia River Gorge, we drove through Historic Downtown The Dalles and looked at the murals painted on the sides of buildings...Ancient Indian Fishing Grounds, Northwest Trading Center, Lewis & Clark Expedition, Peace Treaty of 1885, Oregon Trail and paddleboat depictions. 

Pulpit Rock
This mural was on the side of the Salvation Army Thrift Store :)

We moved eastward beside the Columbia River, seeing more dams and windmills and the ever-going trains. Impressive to see God's created forces and his gift to man to use it!

The Dalles Dam

John Day Dam