One Whole Year on Maggie

Sunday, February 3, 2008 one year ago I was living at my grandma's house in Cottage Grove. There was an essay contest in National Geographic Kids magazine. The essay had to be about nature and my interactions with it[some nature photography to go with it was a bonus]. The prize was a photo expedition to the Australian outback and a new camera. So me and Dad went to Maggie to take some pictures [of coarse I didn't win] but I took my first nature pictures. Dad uploaded them onto the computer and they were better than I expected. Dad said I might have an eye for photography. We created a blog to put them on and the result was my first entry "My Pictures" then we posted the essay "Alex's Essay" [we werent very creative with names back then]. The pictures had no captions, the essay had no pictures and we didn't know how to do a lot of things we can now but was the beginning of something great. Ever since we have updated it about every week. For the last year. You my readers have followed me on a journey through the wilderness of Maggie we have trekked through things wondrous, happy, and macabre. I look forward to another amazing year on Maggie.

We visited the grave of Martha Maupin the founder of the farm. She is buried in a very small cemetery inside our neighbors land which can be accessed via dirt roads from Maggie. She has the biggest and probably the nicest tomb stone there. Here is a link to a picture in Kellogg, Oregon on GoogleMaps. The graveyard is to the right on the winding dirt road on the hillside just to the right of the bright white gravel pit.

This is the grave of Martha's son Cap. Maupin the second owner of the ranch and uncle of my great grandpa Gene who bought it from him. about one third of the graves are my ancestors'.
This grave of someone not related to me [to my knowlege] is from 1885. It looks home made carved from a block of obsidian.

A worm interacting with beetles

A waterfall

This tree down by the river has probably been assailed by red breasted sapsucker[s].

It frosted on Maggie

A frosted spider web

These are the same semi-mummified deer that was in the early entry "morgue"

As you can see they have decayed somewhat

This was the baby

Maggie
My home and friend
Another year, nay many years await