Life on the Road with June and Dave: Travel Day sites and Lavender Farm Harvet Host, August 18th

We traveled from Fossil, OR to near Baker City, OR where we are staying at a Lavender Farm Harvest Host.

On the way we saw Mount Rainier. It was so cool, I just looked off to the side and went wow, look at that. It looked so majestic. Dave looked it up on the map to find out that it was Rainier. We didn’t get to go there, but it was sure impressive from quite a distance.

We also saw a couple signs that I thought were quite funny:

“Blowing dust area, next 40 miles” - Rt 84 in Oregon

“Caution possible Solar Glare” - solar farm in valley

Once at the farm we had a tour of the Lavender farm. We learned how they extract oil from the lavender, how they use the buds for food items and how they dry it for bouquets. He showed us the newer equipment he has to cut the lavender. He pulls the machine through the rows. Before that he would do it by hand with what looked like a rug ripper, just a little bit larger. He showed us the “machine” he used from Portugal to process the lavender into either oil or a distilled product. There are various kinds of lavender and he experiments with them to make various oils and products. He was even showing us a new method he is experimenting with to see if he can do the oil and distilling process when he wants as opposed to when he just cuts the lavender.

The gentleman is retired from the Forest Service and his major in college was soil. They have been growing lavender since 2016. He said that winter is their biggest challenge. One winter they lost 600 plants because it didn’t snow enough to insulate the plants and the wind and cold killed them. So each winter is a mystery.

Here are pictures of a plant and our views.