SPORTS & OUTDOORS MyEagleNews.com SHOOTING THE BREEZE Boots, blisters and socks P ainful blisters from poor choice of footwear is a great way to wreck a hunt. Awhile back I invited myself along on a desert sheep hunt in Idaho. Appar- ently my brain was in neutral while I was packing, because the only socks that ended up in my bag were standard cotton. Know- ing I am prone to blisters, I tried cover- Rod ing my heels in duct Carpenter tape, but it didn’t work. By the end of the fi rst day I had a pair of beautiful blisters on my heels. I spent the rest of the hunt in tennis shoes. I don’t recommend it. With the advances in boots and socks these days, avoiding blisters should be easy to do if you engage your brain. The selection of footwear can even be a little overwhelming. You can get boots as light and comfort- able as tennis shoes or almost as stiff as ski boots for technical terrain. You can get them in low, medium or high tops. Socks now come in cotton, synthetic, wool and synthetic/wool blend. Not only that, you can get socks with mini- mal, moderate or full padding in ankle, crew or over-the-calf lengths. Rod Carpenter/Contributed Photo Good footwear is a must when you head into the backcountry. These days I lean toward a low top, uninsulated, synthetic boot for sum- mer and early fall. I forgo waterproof- ing in favor of better airfl ow to keep my feet cool. By the time elk season rolls around, the weather has usually gotten a little worse and I reach for my tradi- tional 8-inch leather boots. I have pretty much given up on expecting them to be 100% waterproof. Even if I treat them, a little water starts to get in by the end of the season. That’s what wool socks are for. Speaking of socks, traditionally I have used thin silk liner socks under wool outer socks to combat blisters. However, companies like Darn Tough, Kennetrek and Kuiu have come up with some really advanced designs that pretty much eliminate the need for a sock liner. Options allow you to choose a sock with extra padding where you need it most to avoid blisters. You can choose thickness, mate- rial and length. They do cost a lit- tle more than cotton, but so far I think they are well worth it. My Kuiu socks are heading into their fifth hunting season, and reports say the Darn Tough brand will last forever. If you are still running the same footwear you have been using for the last 10 years, I rec- ommend you treat yourself to an upgrade. With all the new technol- ogy out there, you just may find a level of hiking comfort you never knew existed. How do you care for your feet in the woods? Let us know at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com Rod Carpenter is a husband, father, and a huntin’ fool. Wednesday, October 26, 2022 Owyhee wilderness bill reintroduced By BRAD CARLSON Capital Press SALEM — A reintroduced Owyhee River Canyonlands wil- derness bill could get a hear- ing before a Senate committee in November. Senate Bill 4860, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, was introduced Sept. 15 by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. The bill was read and referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. A hearing has not yet been set. The Senate is not scheduled to be back in session until after the Nov. 8 election, “but we are hop- ing for a hearing in November,” said Hank Stern, Wyden’s press secretary. It is a shorter version of the original bill that Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, intro- duced in November 2019, Stern said. The bill and its reintroduction refl ect “the need to keep the dis- cussion going, with the continued goal of working together,” Stern said. It would designate about 1.1 million acres in Malheur County O utlook SENI R Promptly at 12 noon our bell-ringer, Josiah Hoeffner, rang the dinner bell. Derrol led the flag salute and Tom asked the blessing. The winner of the free meal Rose Coombs was Lyn McDonald. Carla and I had to do some substituting today for our very capable registrar, Pam. You sure do appreciate those folks when they have to be gone and you have to do their jobs! Between Ginger and Carla and I, we got the job done. Whew. We are very glad that that doesn’t happen too often! Our volunteer drivers and deliverers included Gwynne, Sharon, Mary, and Carla. In-house volunteers were Tom and Chris, along with Josiah. Good workers all. Thanks so much for doing your bit. This was a slow week in history, apparently. No famous birthdays and no historic happenings. What was really interesting was the people who were born this week and said to be notable we had never heard of. Decided they must have been born in this millennium... The ones we did know started with Noah Webster (ahem), who was born in 1758, and ended with Evel Knievel, who was born in 1938. The “first table served” question was who lived the longest of these people: Webster, Rita Hayworth, Chuck Berry and Evel? The correct answer was Chuck Berry, who was 91. Our word to the wise is for this time of year: “In selecting men (or women) for office, let principle be your guide.” (Noah Webster) On to the meal! We had chili and beans with all the fixins, cornbread with all its fixins, cottage cheese and pineapple salad, and your choice of blackberry or strawberry rhubarb pie. Mmmm, yummy in the tummy. Thanks to our fabulous cooks, Pam and Pam. And we want to thank the Lake Creek Youth Camp for their generous donation of leftovers from their end-of-season supply. Every little bit helps, you know. We celebrated our 61st wedding anniversary last weekend. The temperature on that day was 75 degrees, and a week later it was snowing. I see by the weather forecast that snow is expected on Sunday, the 23rd. Hmm. Some things never change, huh? The garden report: The volunteer cantaloupe yielded five nice fruits. One was rotten, though, so I spread its seeds along the south fence. We’ll see if anything comes up there next year! The carrots are being harvested and frozen. Have found three that are yellow, not orange. They taste like carrots but sure look different with that color. The morning glory and hollyhocks made a grand showing this year. Just need to provide some more support. And I never did get the grapevine transplanted. Oh, well. There’s always next year! Teaser: Watch for an announcement about our center being dragged into the 21st century. Job 12:12 Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding? James 1:5 1f any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. I am sorry to say that the surgeon needed to John Day keep me close for eight more days, so I am Seniors still in Boise. Darlene has been gracious to keep me informed so Elsie Huskey I can keep this article current. On Monday, Oct. 17, Janet Binger and David Pasko were at the desk greeting 17 in-house diners, making sure they were signed in and names in the drawings for the day. Janet was the announcer for the day. Someone led the flag salute but their name did not get on our list (please forgive us) and Carol Claire asked the blessing. Our servers today were from the Living Word Church, including Carol Claire. Thank you to each one who had a part in today’s luncheon activities. It is unknown how many meals were taken out today, but 54 fresh meals and approximately 35 frozen meals were delivered throughout our community to those who can not get out, by our servers, Jeanette, and Kim from our kitchen. Thanks to our delivery people as you are some of the most important volunteers we have. Keep in mind we need to keep bringing in pull tabs from soda and vegetable cans to help with Ronald McDonald House. Jeanette will see to it that they get to them. A reminder to all who come through our doors: please allow the hydraulic doors to shut by themselves. Even though her birthday is passed, we are still wishing Billie Bullard happy days from here on. If any of us reaches 101, we will understand how great she is. The Blue Mountain Eagle came and took pictures of the center and Billie and her family. Billie told someone that her brother, whom she had not seen in 50 years, came to see her for her birthday. What a joy that was. Since I have been gone so long, we are scheduling our board meeting for Monday, Nov. 7, at 1 p.m., right after lunch. The agenda is long, but we will only keep you one hour. Everyone is invited to attend, so this is the time for you to learn how our center operates. Dale Stennett won the Len’s card and Sharon Scott won the free meal. Congrats to both of you. A big thanks to Bonnie Kocis and Jeanette Julsrud for the great Halloween decorations that really made our room inviting. They both put in 12 hours for this project. Thanks, ladies, for sharing some happy feelings via the décor. Please use the gift cards from Len’s and Chester’s within a month of winning them. These vendors offer these cards to us as a courtesy, and expect to get them back. If we do not use them, they will feel like we don’t want them and will discontinue offering them to us. On Thursday, Oct. 20, Darlene and Judy were at the desk greeting 30 in-house diners, assuring they signed in and got their names in the drawings for the day. Jeanette was the announcer and also led the flag salute. Francis Kocis asked the blessing. Thanks to all who participated in the agenda for our lunch. The servers were from the Methodist Church, including Sherry (the last name was not in the notes, sorry). We appreciate you, Sherry. The were 16 takeout lunches and 10 special lunches ordered and 60 meals were delivered throughout our community. The folks who delivered these meals were Ken and Charmain Boethin, Mike Shockley, Rick LaMountain, and Kim from our kitchen. You folks are the greatest. This is a great service to our community. Thank you all. A total of 116 meals came from our kitchen today. Wow! We are grateful for Shay and Kim in our kitchen and all the hours they spend preparing, bagging and serving and cleaning up afterwards. Thank you. Yog won the Thriftway card and Bonnie won the free meal. Congrats to both of you. Be sure to use that card and get your free meal with your certificate. The Samaritan House shoeboxes are in full swing. Let’s all put some together. You can get some boxes at most churches, and usually Len’s has some. These are given to children that get nothing else at Christmastime. The sign-up sheet for Thanksgiving lunch is at the desk; if you plan to come and maybe bring others, please put the names on that list. Our chef needs to know how many attendees there will be so he will have enough food. We sure would not want anyone to be left out on Thanksgiving. Thank you for your cooperation. Tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 27, we will dine on Halloween witches’ brew stew and candy corn cake. Sounds ghoulicious. Monday, Oct. 31, Halloween day, lunch will be corndog, baked beans, coleslaw and a cookie of Kim’s choice John 14:6 Jesus told His disciples “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The “I am” here is the first of seven self-descriptions of Jesus introduced by “I am” and echoes Exodus 3:14, where God said, “I am who I am — tell them the “I am” has sent me (Moses) to you.” Our delightful cooks made us all an assortment of different pizzas for our Tuesday lunch. We each had three pieces to choose. They all looked very Soo Yukawa good, so it was a little bit of a difficult decision. To go along with our pizzas, we had a fresh green salad and a cookie for our dessert. We thank our cooks so very much, and we appreciate them. Our greeters at the table were Linda Abraham and Sue Cavender. They checked in the guests and collected and counted up the money. Linda led us in the flag salute and made the announcements. Yours truly prayed the blessing over the meal. We thank all our volunteers for their help and support. Our meal for Nov. 8 will be covered by the Grant County Veterans Services Office and Katie Hoffman in appreciation to our veterans. There will also be a quilt giveaway after the meal to some veterans who served in our military. Please mark your calendars for the Missoula Children’s Theater performance at the Monument School on Friday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. Also at the Monument School, they are having a veterans luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 11:30 a.m. in appreciation to our veterans. Man, did our weather change overnight, seemingly. We are expecting rain in a day or two and possibly freezing temperatures. I have been on a mad frenzy trying to get ready. I pulled all of my tomatoes off and brought them into the house. I really think if I had them in a greenhouse, they would continue to give me lots of tomatoes! I had to regretfully cut and throw away a bunch of little tomatoes and flower buds. I must say, though, I did get some really big, beautiful, juicy, fat and red tomatoes, which I never got before! I gave some beautiful red, ripe ones to a friend who had lamented that she had not gotten any big, juicy tomatoes to make tomato and cheese sandwiches. Hope she enjoyed them! I had to repot some of my plants that I had taken outside for the summer so I could bring them back in for the winter. So much to do and not a whole lot of time to do it! In a few weeks, we will gain an hour! Yay! The time change will be on Sunday, Nov. 6. Well, I moved all my goats around. I put Fern, Yuki and Mei Mei with Scotty. I put Remi and Yoshi in with the rest of the girls, and they just went crazy. Scotty ran around after Fern for awhile. Remi went after a bunch of the girls and of course acted stupid with his tongue hanging out. I think I will leave the boys in with the girls for a couple of months to make sure the girls get bred. I will move the boys back together so they won’t stink up the goat shed! Ha. I brought the little girls back up, so it was musical pens. Ha! Zephaniah 1:14 The great Day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the Day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Prairie City Seniors Monument Seniors A11 as wilderness, preserve grazing even in wilderness-designated areas, give the U.S. Bureau of Land Management a degree of implementation fl exibility, and improve road access for recreation and fi refi ghting. Wilderness Watch opposed the legislation, saying its protection of undisturbed lands falls far below Wilderness Act standards. Wilder- ness designation traditionally pro- hibits manipulating vegetation, including by mechanical or chem- ical means, as well as using bull- dozers or other equipment to build roads or fi re fuel breaks, the group said. The bill’s fl exible man- agement approach risks favor- ing ranchers, and its use of a sin- gle programmatic environmental impact statement every 10 years — instead of site-specifi c analyses — reduces public input. The new bill did not change much from its predecessor and includes the same general con- cepts, said Elias Eiguren, a south- eastern Oregon rancher and treasurer of the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition. More than 90% of the areas slated for wilder- ness protection under the fi rst bill remain in the new version, he said. Is the $0 PREMIUM MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLAN right for you? CALL NOW FOR YOUR FREE PERSONALIZED APPOINTMENT!!!! DONNA STEELE 541-575-3518 We offer a wide range of primary care and medical treatment. 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