Lights parade in Madras, Oregon

Even though we had a light rain people were willing to come out early and get a good spot to watch.

Yeah, the wait is over and the parade starts being lead by Madras Police Department.

I loved the bears

and the band, what is a parade without a band?

My favorite radio station KSJJ 102.9 country

No parade is complete without kids

Even the correctional institution got involved. Got to love small towns.

The sheriff's Department

And my favorite, the school bus

I am not sure who this entry was from but I enjoyed it too

Fenders by Endres

A parade always has the old cars

And the ambulance crew. We are so lucky to have an advanced life support ambulance in our rural area as many only have basic life support. Again this is an organization that is helped by the volunteers who give their time and energy to training and volunteering to save our lives.

You always know the end of the parade is coming when the fire department arrives.

The wonderful and very important volunteers. These are only 3 of the great volunteers our agency has. Without them we would lose many homes and crops in our county.

Struttin' Styles do it yourself dog bathing Boutique

They opened a do it yourself dog bathing place in Madras on Fairgrounds road.  For us elderly people this is a godsend.  They furnish everything but the dog and you and are friendly to go along with it. They try to help in any way she can.

Hank my Australian Shepherd (Aussie) getting blown dried on one of the drying tables. The lady was helping me by drying him while I started on the next dog.  Hank as a thick double coat and is almost impossible to even get wet to the skin at home in the shower.

When Hank gets out of the shower at home and shakes all his water flies off leaving him almost dry and me and the bathroom walls needing washed.

It works real well during the summer to bathe him at home because I do it outside or don't let him shake until he gets outside. He behaves so well that this is not a problem but when it is freezing outside. What I usually do is put him in the bath tub and close the sliding doors until he is done shaking then I still have to wash the whole bath tub and doors.

Mom always feels bad that I have to bathe her dogs. She is 88 years old and it is hard for her to bend over that long or to get on her knees. She had a knee replacement and can't get on her knees. Her dogs weigh about 35 pounds so putting them in the sink is not an option for her either.  Down here the lady will help her get them in the tub. Today I lifted them in the tub and did most of the shampooing but she felt so good because when I got the first one done I put the second in the tub and let her shampoo him.

Paco had to get in the tub just where he stayed out of trouble and before we were taking turns holding him. He hated it when we turned on the driers, he did not like the noise. He felt better here with his buddies. They have a nylon grate for the dogs to stand on where they feel secure instead of fighting like they do on the porcelain tub at home. 

They furnish the shampoo and all the towels you want to use so you don't have to wash wet towels at home either.  Guess what?  Your house does not smell like wet dog either.  As you can see no bending over for mom.

Hank is still getting blown out and brushed as we work. He is such a good dog and so well behaved, I was so proud of him.

As you can see in the background they also have cages for you to put the dogs in while you bathe the other one. YoYo is not very happy about waiting but he is being good. Freckles is just enjoying all the attention from mom.

Yo Yo finally gets his turn.

drying time and no hair flying around my bathroom to clean up. 

Mom was so proud that she could do her own dogs and they loved the attention from her. Her back did not hurt. They had padded pads for you to stand on so her knees and feet did not hurt her.

The dogs even looked better then when we do it at home. We get so tired at home we end up quitting and by the time we get the mess cleaned up our whole day is gone. If we have time we are still to tired to do anything else.

This place is wonderful for us elderly!  It cost us $10 a dog which came to $30.00 (Paco did not get a bath as he is easy to do in the sink) It would have cost us twice that much just to do one dog if we had taken to the groomer.  If we did it at home it would have taken soreness for days.

I think this is one of the best things I have found in our county recently. Please try it out!  Tell them you read about it on my page and I sent you. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much easier this really is and well worth the $10 a dog just not to have the mess and smell without counting the less work.

Jefferson County (Madras) vs Crook County (Prineville)

Madras played Crook County out of Prineville. This is a battle between two schools that was a hard fought battle since I was in school here years ago. Every school has a special school they want so bad to beat and with Madras and Prineville it doesn't make any difference if it is basketball, football or rodeo we have a competition going. They are the closest town we play and that is the main reason for this battle. At one time years ago they quit playing each other because it got to competitive and rough.

These kids now on both sides or should I say from both towns keep the action on the court and are nice about it but they play their hearts out with Crook County winning this one.

Both teams played hard but Crook County had a secret weapon.

I don't know what his name is but when they introduced the players they said he was 6'7". Looking at him I think they got the numbers backwards and he was 7'6". He made our kids look like grade school kids.

Now I am suppose to guard this player?  Does someone have a step stool?

ok I promise I won't let a ball get to his knees or this stomach.

ok maybe if we jump really high we can get up higher then him..yeah right.

Ok I think this guy is more our size and we might have a chance of doing something.

The action remained hard and fast for the whole game and sometimes it was very close. It was an excited game for us sitting in the audience.

ok lets put our tall guy out there

Well we tried but that didn't work either, guess it wasn't all their secret weapon. If this basketball season goes as fun for the audience as this one was look forward to a fun winter.

I was so proud of the sportsmanship showed by the teams and how hard everyone on both sides played. I am looking forward to the next game.

Our JV team and our girls team won but varsity went down but we did not go down hard.

Stay tuned everyone this is going go be a fun season!

Vehicle fire

911 toned out for a vehicle fire at Miler Ford.  Quite an exciting call, a vehicle fire in a car lot, this could spread and these are new cars.

This ended up being what they call a good intention fire call. Where the person calling it in believes a real fire hazard is happening and it ends up being something else.  Good intention fires should be called in because no ones knows until the emergency equipment arrives that it is not a working fire.

This one ended up being an illegal burning barrel and the wind was blowing the smoke over into the cars where from the street it actually looked liked the cars were on fire.

Even from this angle it looks like the fire is coming from the vehicles.

But as you can see it is a burning barrel burning after hours. This spends a lot of time and money from volunteer firefighters. They leave their homes and birthday parties, movies, ballgames (heaven help you if it is a good football game) and family fun to find someone could not wait until the scheduled hours to burn.  The really bad thing is this is not event he first time these people have been warned so tonight they got a ticket.

Thank our firefighters for the job they do in our community.  The next time you see a firefighter be sure and say thanks for leaving home to come help us, we appreciate your time. Most rural areas and even many cities have a lot of volunteers. Rural areas would not have a fire department if it wasn't for the men and women who volunteer their time.

Do you also realize that not only do they volunteer for fires, the volunteer for training. They are required to have many hours of training to be safe. These firefighters are a caring dedicated group of people that volunteer many hours a month even if they have no fires.