Getting the Low-Down on the High Desert Museum

Today we visited the High Desert Museum, south of Bend.  It's operated by a private, nonprofit organization and attempts to convey an understanding of the geology, plant and animal life, and human experience in the high desert east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.

The museum appears very well funded and is in a beautiful facility on 135 acres previously occupied by the Miller Ranch, which has been incorporated into its exhibits.

The museum runs presentations on various topics throughout the day.  We first attended a program on wild cats of the desert:  lynx, bobcat and cougar (or mountain lion).  We learned that the lynx (Lynx canadensis) and bobcat (Lynx rufus) are closely related, with the main distinguishing mark the fact that the lynx has black on the tip of its bobbed tail and the bobcat does not.  We also learned that we never want to encounter a cougar (also known as a mountain lion).

Here are photos of the lynx --

-- and the bobcat:

Both of these cats are unable to live in the wild for various reasons, so the museum is their home.

Shortly after the cat presentation, we moved to the Birds of Prey center and attended a presentation on birds of prey, which focused on hawks.  Here, the presenter is showing us a local hawk:

After the presentation, we toured the birds of prey exhibit, and saw an owl --

-- and a bald eagle:

After the birds of prey, it was on to a presentation on otters.  Here's one of the two little male otters who inhabit the museum grounds:

The museum also incorporates the buildings of a real working ranch, the Miller Ranch, and presents them much as they were in the first decade or two of the 1900's.  Here's a photo of the ranch cabin with the barn in the background:

We walked past the chicken coop, which houses Faverolles chickens, the only chickens uniquely suited to the hot summers and cold winters of the Eastern Oregon area.  They grow more layers of feathers as the seasons get colder, then shed feathers as spring warms up:

The Miller Ranch had its own sawmill, and Kathy models the mechanism:

The realism of the ranch even extends to the outhouse - which, on closer inspection, was a simple port-a-potty wrapped in rustic trappings:

 After the High Desert Museum, it was a stop at the Bend Farmers Market, then home for a couple exquisite Belgian beers - Straffe Hendrick ("Strong Henry") quadruple and triple beers by the Brewerie de Halve Maan ("Brewery Half Moon").  Where have these great beers from Bruges, Belgium been all our life?