September 9, 2017 Banks-Vernonia Trail Adventure

One of the things that first attracted me to the Farm property, when we started to think seriously about buying it, was the Banks-Vernonia State Trail.

I knew nothing of the trail's existence prior to researching the Farm, though I might have seen some signage driving to Vernonia. The Trail is a twenty-one mile re-purposed rail bed which once operated as an alternate rail line. Now people ride bikes, horses, and hike between these two fairly small towns. It winds lazily between mile-long stretches of blacktop. For the most part the grade is very shallow, and long, making this a seriously long bicycle ride through wonderfully wooded low mountains. A whole bunch of fitness types use the trail. But this was not how we do things.

Instead we rode the Trail on E-bikes. Might be the coolest thing I can write about.

An E-bike is a fairly expensive hybrid bicycle. Electrical battery powers a small motor taking some, or most, of the work out of climbing hills or going fast. The two E-bikes we rented from E-bikes of Portland were between twenty-four hundred and three-thousand dollars. The three days rental for both was two-hundred dollars. So this is an expensive proposition, but worth it. This included helmets, locks, bikes , and chargers. We picked them up on a Friday, to be returned on Sunday.

Imagine two middle aged people, average body types, neither having ridden a bike for decades, deciding to make a thirty-six mile round trip bicycle journey through mountains.

But this idea, as silly as it might seems, came early on in our questioning what Creekside Farm might eventually become once it was completely built to include something like a bed and breakfast. We figured that most of the people who might use the BnB would be couples, these people needing things to do. The proximity of the Trail seemed a perfect opportunity for these people. Some might already do biking. Most might do biking if bikes were made available. But some, those not into biking, might only want to do biking if it were dead simple and easy to do. These, the mostly lazy but somewhat adventurous people like ourselves might want engage in such an adventurous thing as this. But first we had to see what it might be like ourselves.

Once we had the bikes we went immediately out to the Farm to make the short ride (three miles) to the Banks end of the Trail. We decided to ride into town and get Chinese food for dinner. It took only a few miles to figure out how to balance leg effort with the E-bike's power. The ride into Banks is mostly flat, but not being in any hurry the trip took about twenty minutes.  Dinner was good (for a Chinese food place in Banks, Oregon). The return trip took less time. It was a good night and we slept hard.

The next day, today, started off slowly. We had charged the E-bikes during the night, so there was little chance of the power running out, and had them both ready to go. We arrived at the Farm at around ten in the morning and took off for the Vernonia end of the Trail for lunch.

The morning was glorious. Sixty degrees and sunny. The beginning of the Trail had little slope only a few people sharing the road. The grade began to rise as we approached the Buxton Trail-head, so I punched up the power a little. every time the rise got steeper and I felt a bit of strain on my old knees I simply pushed the button and the bike's motor took the strain away. The trail passes through nice farms and tall trees. Rarely breaking into the sunshine, it would have been chilly had the leg work not been  working the blood up a little. We managed about twelve miles an hour climbing to the summit of the Trail. Not a drop of sweat to be found at the top of the hill.

The trail crosses the highway to Vernonia only once at a place where there was once a long high tressel had crossed high over the highway. The tressel had burned down years ago, so they just put ta quick drop down the the highway where the tressel had once been, followed by a quick rise back up on the other side of the highway. The high point of the trail descends rapidly prior to the crossing and care had to be taken as the Trail switched back and forth. There is a trail head at the bottom of the steep drop, then the crossing, and then a steep climb back up to the height of the rail bed come trail. The bike made the climb easy. Just adding power to high range gears wasn't enough, but I would probably be reluctant to walk up such a steep path. The bike too the load off and the lowered gears made the climb nearly effortless.

From there there was a long downhill run into Vernonia, past farms and through forests. The day was heating up, but the bikes went about fifteen miles an hour as we descended into the valley.

Vernonia is a small timber town tucked nice near the Nahalem River. Occasionally the River comes up and causes a great deal of trouble for the people there. But they love it. The downtown is about three blocks long stretched into six, so there is space in between the buildings. The Bike Trail has brought some prosperity to this little town and two restaurants serve the needs of the bikers. There are a few taverns there as well, another type of biker hangs out at these. I can see a great deal of opportunity for business in Vernonia, some day the town will begin to become more well known.

We had a lunch at the Mexican restaurant, the food was very good and we had a few beers and a long lunch before heading back to the Farm.

The return trip took no effort at all since the range of these bike's power cells is three times that of our need. We increased the power settings so that there was almost no effort, but this didn't stop the grinding of our backsides again the seats of our bikes. This saddle wear was the only complaint to be found though as we pumped lightly up and down the hills. Arriving at Hill-top Trail-head once more we climbed the steep rise to the summit. And then things got very easy.

The descent into Buxton is about nine miles long. The bikes fell down the grade at about twenty miles an hour. So fast that occasionally we had to use the brakes. The Trail had become much more congested in the afternoon so we had to weave in and out of traffic. But the lack of pedaling was welcomed, our butts were getting sore.

From Buxton to Manning is about two miles, half a mile further was the Farm.
Then loaded up we headed home to North Plains.

Thirty-eight miles that day. With my bad knees it could have been very bad for me. At the end of the ride my knees were jelly, but not injured. My legs hadn't worked that much in many years. The E-bikes surpassed all of our expectations. We are hopeful that we can put these things onto the Farm and rent the same experience to those fortunate enough to find us.

And soon.

September 23, 2017 It was a good day.

Yesterday Ann called the Burn Permit hotline and they had opened agricultural burning, so out to the Farm we went.

We had a burn pile the size of a school bus that had been building up since they burn ban went into effect in early Summer. But we are good at building fires, so fifteen minutes into the burn we had a fire twenty feet high. High enough that we had to hook up hoses and water down some trees that were a bit close. But all ended well and the fire burnt down to a manageable level fairly quick. Lucky it did too. A local fire department  fellow drove by about then and we had a nice talk.

I raked up a bunch of the loose bits of trash between the new driveway and the  we had, for the first time, a pretty clean front end. This only took two years, so there you go.

Ann started in pruning a plum tree as I finished up the raking. Then we had lunch under a beautiful sixty-five degree sunny blue sky. Following lunch Ann we back to pruning. I must say the she has never shown much interest in working with trees, so this was a good thing to see. We worked the tree together as the burn pile shrunk by half, then loaded the trimmings onto the burn. For the rest of the day Ann trimmed berries off of the trees and cut suckers. It was a lot of work, and the east side of the Farm looks nice.

As for me, I began loading herbicide into my backpack sprayer and began spraying berries. Fifteen gallons later I had sprayed every Blackberry vine, ivy, Oregon Cucumber, and odd vine looking thing on the place, both inside and outside of the fence.

By four in the afternoon we had to stop work. But the Farm is about ready for tilling.

It was a good day.

September 3, 2017 The plan in action

It's really hard to use the word "plan" when writing about Creekside Farm. Nothing goes according to any "plan" per se. But that doesn't mean nothing is getting done.

We are about two weeks from moving the tiny home to the Farm (95 percent complete). Plumbing holds water, the sinks are in this week, the walls are all up and insulated. The little thing is roomy enough and will certainly do the job. And it's nice in there. We have puppies on the way in October to keep the money rolling in. And we are spending the Labor Day weekend mowing down the weeds in 95 degree heat. So much is getting done. All part of the plan.

And you can see the changes from space!

This is where we started.
You can't see the garbage because it was completely covered in greenery.
The ground under the trees was as bad as the ground not under the trees.

This is a big new picture.
It shows the driveway we just put in and the clearing so far.
You can walk under the trees.

This is the layout of the Farm in Phase One.
So many of the trees in the above picture won't make it.