There's a few things I know for sure that us girls can get away with out there, that you guys seem to maybe care way too much about some pride or self respect type thing. Well, I think maybe you might miss out on some mighty fine moments. For instance...

...."and there's onions in the ditch everywhere." Monica

"Well let's go get em" Heather

"You're not going to go do that!" Moon

"Why not? There's free onions rolling around out there." Heather

"I'm not going to pick up onions out of a ditch. Jeez. I'm NOT." Moon

"Okay" Heather & Monica

So Monica and I harvested many wiley onions. I couldn't catch a fish, but I nabbed some nice sweet onions. In September they move up out of the fields and lie in the ditches on the corners, hills, and cutbanks of eastern Oregon. And they're flippin EVERYWHERE!!!

Any semi-industrious person is going to grab hold of this situation and end up with a few bushels of wild escaped onions. But that's not really what I was getting at... I mean, so a man wouldn't ever do it? Golly, us gals got after it. Road spotting good lies of onions is not so different than road spotting rising trout and good trout water. It's all in the hunt.

Anyway....

So yesterday I went for a wander with the dog along the Rogue River in the sunny afternoon light. No rod or reel, cause trout fishing is closed and I haven't yet given into the steelhead tag thing, and so i was walking along through the browning oaks and the bleached grass and I see some guys swinging for steelhead. I watched for a bit and decided to keep heading upriver.

On my way back by there, half an hour later, one gent was sitting on the bank and the other was doing some type of spey cast that I want to figure out. So, i walk right on down to the river and and stand behind the guy sittin on the bank and ask "how's the fishing."

And he says "it's slow today, but we had eight to the boat yesterday."

So then I say "Hey, I want to know how he does that cast."

The guy doesn't seem perturbed at all. He scratches the dogs ears and proceeds to tell me about the upriver flick, but set the anchor in front and keep on moving that rod smoothly to directly up over your shoulder and then accelerate forward.

And I say "uh huh" and then I plop down on the bank next to the guy and I start waving my arms around trying to follow his buddy's casting motions in the river.

I'm not a good dancer. I didn't learn the Macherana or Electric Slide easily. It was darn painful to watch. If you're a Seinfeld fan and saw the Elaine dance, then you get the picture. It's the reason why I don't go to aerobics classes either. Something about trying to make my limbs move in a certain order is just plain hard. Learning any cast has taken me a long time.

So there I am with my "air rod" waving back and forth and I get the guy giving me tips on it. He's going right along with my imaginary loading of the rod and pick up off the water....he's even giving me tips on acceleration of my "line" on the forward cast.

God bless the man for not falling over laughing. And just before he was about to give in to his belly laugh, I thanked him, wished them well, and ran up the bank.

Here's my thought, way to often I hear you guys talking about etiquette, and somehow asking "how's the fishing" is some violation of some unwritten law... but jeez it wasn't bad at all, and I think I learned something and maybe someday I'll actually try that cast with a real rod. For now, I'm just going to air practice while I'm walking the dog.

If you see the gal tripping over her feat, walking a dog and waving her arms around, don't forget to say hello. I'm working on my spey cast.

you are a goof!
fun to read.

Heather, you could have taken my spey for a test drive at BP...You still can anytime.

I think I would have been rolling a bit after watching that "air spey".
He should have put a rod in your hands.

On my way home from the Snake last week, I picked up roadkill onions, turnips, sugar beets, carrots, a nice hermiston melon, a pumkin, and apples! It was like rolling farmers market on Hwy 730. rb

ya shoulda offered him an onion or three as a means of getting things going well from the start. ez!

See now that's pure romantical kind of talk. Pickin up food from the roadside bounty is just a sign of a person with their head on straight.

I haven't been exposed to the Eastern Oregon roadside produce harvest before. Could this be the start of a type of seasonal club outing (like mushroom hunting)? And would it be a women only club?

Do you think the gent sitting by the river didn't laugh at your Elaine dance because he was subdued by wafts of your sweet, wild onion breath?

Fun read, Heather.

Bill

oh, I'm game for an onion rondi. Absolutely, we could have a great onion cookoff and maybe fish some too.

I think Black Butte answered my inquiry and let me know that it's not a gender thing. Some see bounty in the ditch and others see disgrace. I don't know if folks are born that way, or they choose it, but I think that's another type of argument. I'm pro ditch harvest and I stand by it.

My family calls me the "Road Raven". Half the tools I own, and several household appliances, came from the ditch. If yopu drive enough in central oregon, you don't even have to cut your own firewood. rb

While y'all are in the ditch, digging onions and such, keep an eye out for a dead possum. You could make a nice stew.

When I see someone waving their arms like that, I figure its got to be either a spey caster or Samurai warrior.

Ditch onions are fine, I guess, but whilst I was in my youth and visiting relatives in the Yakima valley, we'd harvest ditch asparagus. Now that was gooood.

And, over here on the West side, you can drop in behind machines harvesting either beans or corn and get more missed produce than you could eat in a half-dozen winters.

Then, there are all the fruit trees around here. Know were to look and you've got unlimited apples, pears and even prunes.

If you begin to make a hobby out of all this free stuff that's lyin' around, you start lookin' for mushrooms (albiet carefully) and you can pick your fill of chantrelles and truffles and such.

'course I never do any of this; my wife gets it all. 'cause it's girl stuff.

Phil

Here's my photographic proof that they exist.