Sometimes all you have to do is.....

The Rancher and his toy, but runs like a champ!

Here is just three out of seven or eight machines. Th second from the right was built in 1884.

Here L. to R. Me, Karen and Betty Jo

Hello there!

Sometimes all you have to do is walk out your door and look around and see if somethings out there that you missed seeing or maybe it could be a small ride in the car to discover something new and beautiful. Yesterday was a day like that, so unexpected and surprising. Yesterday was Saturday October 27, and all I was expecting was for Katie to come pick me up for a trip over the mountain to go to the spinning and weaving guild meeting, that you often hear me mention.

So around ten A. M. Katie arrives, we load up and head out, we had a brief stop in Omak, for Katie to pick up some field seed, then we headed for Conconully. The weather was OK, kind of overcast, but comfortable, but the ride up the conconully hwy is always no matter what time of the year is just so pretty. We arrived a little early, so we decided to drive around town, which only takes two seconds, but they do have the oldest post office in the state of Wash. now that's pretty cool, the spinning day was to be spent at MJ's house. M. J. had her home so cute with Halloween decorations, but most of all when everybody showed up there were fifteen of us, now we are all from all over the area, but most the time those of us who come from the Methow come the farthest, but it's so worth it. We did do a lot of dicusstion about future projects and some things were decided, so next year things will be interesting and educational. Around two thirty Katie and I got ready to head to our next stop, Katie had arranged for us to go to this Alpaca farm in Oroville. The adventure begins, Katie knows a way to go on some back roads to avoid having to travel back down to the main hwy. So off we go, and what a feast for the eye's, we still have some fall colors here and that was a treat, but there were all these little lakes and cute cabins, forest ands ranches, the scenery was beautiful, Katie and I were like saying look at this and look at that, unbelievable. We started up at around two thousand foot level and as we were coming down we could see Mt's. and hills sides, then it started to get to be more ranches and farms a little closer together , we knew we had to be closer to the hwy. Suddenly on the side of the road Katie spots these old tractors all lined up, and there was a man out there messing around with one of them, so we asked him if we could take pictures and of course he said yes. So we took some pictures and then the guy says would you like for me to start this one up and we said yes, well this tractor was a 1912 what ever, but boy it started up first crank, yes I said crank. Well we had to go, so very soon we were to the hwy just south of Tonasket, we headed north to Oroville. Soon we came to our turn and found Alpaca Cloud Ranch, right on a lake called Soyoos, and part of this lake is in Canada, so we were very close to the Canadian Boarder. Katie knew she was at the right place, because here were all these adorable Alpacas milling around in the corrals. Karen is the owner, but we also had a surprise, there also was Betty Jo Roberts there to greet us, we were in her neck of the woods too. We went in and had some one on one with these gorgeous animals, and getting up close with the babies, so fun. Then was the real fun, and that was getting to see all the lovely fiber that these prize winning animals produced. Of course we had to go home with some and one of us more than the other. It's getting late, so we had better head home, not even thinking that there would be another surprise, but oh my stars, the sunset heading back up the mountain was spectacular. What a surpise of a day! I hope my dear ole friends and my dear new friends that you may have a day were you walk out your door and find something totaly unexpected. Diana

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