A HOMESTEAD IN OREGON'S HIGH DESERT

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FOLK WISDOM

In our travels, we took every opportunity to talk to nearby residents and soon gathered additional tidbits of information that proved important in our final site selection.

We were told, for instance, that homes beyond a 20-mile radius of Burns aren't served by the school buses which take area children to the tiny (frequently one-room) schoolhouses dotting the desert . . . though the county will pay 12¢ per mile per "outland" family for transportation expenses to the nearest school.

Furthermore, only two high schools serve the over 10,000-square-mile Harney County, so secondary school students from outside the Burns district live in collegelike dormitories on a campus in the tiny burg of Crane. (In fact, Crane Union High School is the only public boarding school in the United States. There's no charge for room, board, or tuition . . . and the youngsters apparently love it!)

We also learned that the Bureau of Land Management offers permits for cutting juniperswhich can be used for fenceposts or in pole buildings, corrals, etc.-at a charge of only 7 ¢ per tree. And, though lodgepole pine is scarce, the species is sometimes included in timber sales in the Malheur or Ochoco National Forests . . . with four- to six-inch-diameter poles selling for 1/2 ¢ per lineal foot or 10¢ each, and larger pines (six to eight inches in diameter, and over 25 feet long) costing 2 ¢ per foot.

We were also reminded that cattlemen are still "kings" in the high desert . . . and thataccording to prevailing open range laws-we would have to fence the ranchers' free-roaming critters out of our vegetable gardens! It's also not unusual, as we soon learned, to wait half an hour for a modern cattle drive to plod up the highway. (A friend became impatient once and honked her horn at the brutes, whereupon a recalcitrant bovine up and kicked out her headlight!) On top of that, any driver who hits a cow on the highway must pay for the beast, regardless of whatever damage might be done to his or her vehicle or body!

HOME ON THE RANGE

In spite of all the eccentricities of Oregon's "last frontier", we finally-after a seven-month search-located our own piece of ground. The property fronts a gravel road and lies only two miles from Crane's schools.

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