The wildlife at Crater Lake. Our cabin was right under the flyway for the geese, as they migrated either north or south. That was always a thrill. You could hear them before you could see them. But you could see great V’s of the geese flying overhead and hear them honking. Then the animal life. We had a fox we fed little scraps of meat out of the window regularly. He got so he would come and expect food. We even had some good picture opportunities. Our fox got his picture in LIFE. When a “LIFE MAGAZINE” photographer was up there. He made a good model. The boys wanted me to see if I could get him [ the fox ] to come into the house. So I kept putting meat further and further and sure enough he came in and he didn’t come very far and he didn’t come very willingly. He scooted out in a hurry. The other animal that wanted to come in the house one time, we weren’t particularly thrilled about. That was the bear. By the time he got the screen door open, it slammed once. He was out too. He didn’t like that noise. I was just walking across the street and I couldn’t do anything about it except yell. It wasn’t very long before that when he bears invaded the house over on the canyon and made a shambles of it. He got into her kitchen, her new cupboard of jam, and the refrigerator. Anyway, I did not want that to happen to our house.
One time in the winter I was watching out the kitchen as a marten was chasing a squirrel. It was a life and death matter for both of them. The squirrel was up and down the tree and the marten was up and down after him. Each of them trying to win. It was food for the martin and life for the squirrel. The squirrel finally got up the top. What he said to that marten wouldn’t bear repeating. He talked down to him in no uncertain terms. Anyway, he was free.
We used to go huckleberry picking west of the park towards Union Creek (8). We canned huckleberries to make pie out of. It just makes my mouth drool thinking about it now.
