Harley Tails

by Brittany Pace

The main thing I want to talk about is the drive there and when we saw the horse for the first time and walking around and getting him out of the car.



It was a long drive to the farm, where we were going to pick up our own horse. His name was Harley. In a picture we saw, he was three feet tall and had a star on his head. On the way there, we saw horses, barns and some geese.
When we arrived, they already had miniature horses. Three of them were running around with their tails up. When we got to the owner’s house, she was brushing Harley. He was wearing a purple halter. When we got out of the car, the owner said, Harley was rolling in the mud. When we walked up to him and patted him on his back, he didn’t pay any attention to us. We watched him for a minute or two and then we started walking him around. My dad got the papers from the owner of the horse. Then she gave my dad her card.
Then we tried to load Harley into the back of the car. He would not budge. He kneeled back. And then we tried lifting him up. He was kicking and neighing. We finally got him into the car. We tied his lead rope onto a hook in our car. Then we thanked the owner for giving us the horse and then we drove off.
The funniest thing on the drive was when we passed the rest of the horses, and then he started neighing.

When we got home, we got out of the car and opened the back of the truck. He tried to get out! We untied his lead rope and he jumped out. He pulled me to the grass and started eating. Then he saw our goat. Harley charged Billy. Billy ran for his life. Billy is four feet tall and taller than Harley, but Harley kept on chasing him. Billy was acting like a coward.
After Harley stopped running, we took him to go see the cats. The cats puffed up their tails and put their backs clear up in the air. However, Stripers just walked past Harley. Harley tried to step on him.
Then my mom went to the store to go get some brushes for Harley. After she came back, she had a purple soft comb brush and a pick for his feet and a currycomb. At first he didn’t like the currycomb, so we tried the soft brush. He like the soft brush better than the currycomb.
My dad went to the store after Mom came home and got posts and fencing and some hammers and nails. The next day he started building the fence.



XXX

I was rolling in the dirt one day, minding my own business, when the owner came in. She grabbed my purple halter and my black lead rope and put them on me. I did not like that. She took me out of my pasture and took me by the trailer where she had brushes, halters, picks, baskets, and hay.
She started brushing me. She brushed me for about twenty minutes, then a big, blue car pulled up. Two kids and two parents came out of the car.
“Oh no! More kids!”
They came running towards me and started patting me on the back. I knew if I didn’t pay any attention to them, they would probably go away.
They didn’t go away.
Then they grabbed my lead rope and pulled me around the car. I pulled, tugged, kneeled with all my might to make them stop.
Then they stopped and took me to the grass, for about ten minutes. Then the littler one came and pulled me.
The medium one said, “Stop it!”
Then my owner came out with some pieces of paper. The large one took the papers, put them in the big metal container and then, grabbed my lead rope. The large one tugged and tugged and tugged on me.
And then they lifted me up. I kicked and screamed as loud as I could. When they dropped me into the big metal container, they tied my lead rope onto a hook. My eyes grew. I looked all around. The smaller one and the other one jumped in the car and stared at me. Then the other two jumped in the car and turned on the engine. We started moving.
I saw my friends out the window. I called to them, “Help I’m being taken away!”
Then I got tired of the trip, so I fell asleep.

Next thing I knew, I was in this weird place with lots of trees, lots of grass and lots of good smells. Then they all jumped out of the car, opened the back, untied my lead rope, and pulled me out. I jumped out and ran for my life.

They weren’t holding onto the lead rope at the time. I ran towards the smell of female horses, but the next thing I knew, I was almost flipped over on my back by the large one. They tied me up to a tree and I ate grass for the rest of the day.

Salamander World

When we go down to the creek, we like to look for salamanders. There are big, small, fat and skinny salamanders. We have found lots of salamanders. The biggest one we have found was one foot long and two and a half inches wide. The name is the pacific giant salamander.

by Brady Clayton

My Field Trip to Multnomah Falls

I couldn’t wait. We were going on a field trip to Multnomah Falls. We went into groups and we had a helper. It was Lilly’s Dad. He was six or seven feet tall. He had short brown hair and was wearing a green plaid shirt and a brown coat. We were at the front gate entrance when we met him. Then my group and I walked into the front gate entrance. My group was all girls. We were just walking around and talking. We walked around and saw the beautiful scenery. The scenery was rocks, the great hill, and two dragonflies.
Mrs. Handy got our attention and told us to follow George. George was a worker at the falls. George told us the history of Multnomah Falls. He told us the rules. One of the rules was not to hang over the edge of the bridge. He finished up the story.
Then we started walking up the stairs. They were hard concrete. Then, when we got up the stairs, we saw the crystal water falling off the top of the hill. It was fall then and the trees were bare and brown. Some of the leaves on the ground were orange and red. I could see people walking up the top of the path, going up to the peak where you see the water falling down. I could just imagine going up to that balcony and seeing the birds by the waterfall, the hawks in the sky, the squirrels in the trees and the chipmunks gathering nuts.
While I was walking I remembered. It reminded me of when I went up there with my mom, dad, Nana, Papa and brother. We saw the little tiny rivers and the little tiny bridges and big huge fish. We walked up the path. It looked like a road, because it was all black pavement with a white line. We met up with my Aunt Shirley and then we went on walking three miles. We saw a bench and so my Grandma got out lunch. Mine was a cheese sandwich with turkey and some mayonaisse. That is my favorite type of sandwich.
We went on walking about a quarter up and my grandma threw out a walnut for a chipmunk. Then another little chipmunk appeared and they started fighting over the walnut. And then my Grandma had to give up her last walnut.
Suddenly, one of my group members said “Look at it!” Then I jogged back to looking at the falls. It was the biggest waterfall I’ve ever seen.
Then another one of my group members shouted out, “Look at that. That big, huge log is gonna tumble down the falls!” I looked up and there was a big, huge log falling down the falls. It started tossing and turning around the falls and then it crashed and split in half.
When my group and I went back on the bus, I ate my favorite sandwich again- cheese, turkey and mayonnaise. While we were driving off, we saw a flock of Canadian geese. They were flying in a V-shape. They had black heads, black beaks and white necklaces around their necks. Their bellies were white. Then, five minutes later, my friend Emma spotted a blue heron. It was standing sideways in a tree, on one leg. It had a very long nose, thin, spiky feathers on his forehead, and brown wings. I finally saw a blue heron! I was happy that Emma wasn’t absent, because if she had been absent, we probably wouldn’t have seen that blue heron. I felt tired. Barely anybody falls asleep, but I fell asleep.

by Brittany Pace

Some Good Gorge books

The students have been so focused on reading books and doing other writing projects, we haven’t taken the time to do Gorge writing together. Here’s a list of primary and intermediate books about Gorge animals, plants and related subjects just in case you are in need.

Awesome Ospreys: Fishing Birds of the World by Love, Donna
Black Bears by Feeney, Kelly
Little Beaver and the Echo, by MacDonald and Fox Davies
Clever Racoons by Kristen Nelson
Building Beavers by Kathleen Martin James
The Chinook People by Pamela Ross
B is for Beaver: An Oregon Alphabet Marie and Roland Smith

My favorite:
Day Hike: The Best Trails You can Hike in a Day by Blair Seabury

cheers!
Miss Reed

True Story by Brady Clayton

The Diary of Brady

I went down by the Columbia River. I saw a little man carved in the rocks. There was a sign that said, "You can't take the petroglyphs." Petroglyphs are carvings from a long time ago. Petroglyphs were used for making stories thousands of years ago. They put paint on the lines of the petroglyphs, so they wouldn't get all nasty and soon, the weather wouldn't make it so you can't see the petroglyphs.

We also went to the Maryhill Museum. We saw the crown jewels from Romania. There were peacocks there. They were not native. The Chinook people used carved rocks and straight up and down, fat sticks, or spears. They would sneak up on the animal and kill it and then go back to thir home and skin it. Then they would put the animal on a stick and roast it. Then they would eat it.

Brady Clayton, 3rd Grade

Fiction Story by Cole Lucky

Chinook Fisherman's Fate

We are going to meet our new neighbors. So are traveling in canoes. We have our eyes out for danger. The kids were watching the waterfalls while the adults listened to the sound of the canoes as they slowly passed by. It sounded like small waves starting to form at the ocean.

But then, when I closed my eyes for two seconds, I could not see the other canoes. All I could see was rough water and two screaming children. I saw a couple of waterfalls and the water got swifter and swifter. There were some rocks close to shore. So I threw the two youngest kids onto shore so they would be safe.

Then the canoe flipped over. Then we swam to shore. The men were waiting with the two children on shore. The canoe was broken in half. We continued on with the adventure.

Cole Lucky, 4th grade

Canoe Day

We put on orange life vests. If the life vest was over your nose, then it was too big. The captain helped us get on the canoe. Then he taught us how to paddle. Then we started to go, but he helped us a little by turning on the motor. Then we paddled downriver. We saw a snake in the water. The kids jumped. Then it slithered by the boat. It looked like a black and brown snake.

Next we paddled into the big river. Then we started to turn around and play this neat game with popsicle sticks. The captain had this sack full of bird bones. You throw the popsicle sticks in the air. If you got one X and one O, you won one bird bone, but you didn't get to keep it. The captain built the canoe himself. It was a Chinook canoe. The game was a Chinook game. We came back to the school and wrote.

Hannah Woods, 3rd grade