My sisters and I stood around the kitchen island visiting. It was their usual Sunday stop-by after shopping at Yoke's and Wal-Mart. I told them about the little horse I planned to go see during the afternoon.

Lots of horses need homes this winter. That's a sad fact of the economy. I've already read among my equine newsgroup topics of large numbers of nice horses in Oregon needing foster parents. The price of hay---the price of everything, actually, is doing a number on the animals as well as people.

In my case, I'd been asked by a friend to consider taking on an extra little filly for the winter. I'm still thinking about it and did not get to go yesterday afternoon because the owner had another commitment.

As we wrapped up our visit, Bill came home from church. My sisters left, and that's when I called to find out the planned trip would not work out yesterday.

"What do you have planned this afternoon?" I asked Bill.

"Nothing, do you want to go up to Grouse Creek and walk through that logging camp?" Bill didn't have to ask twice.

I love Grouse Creek. I worked the nine miles of the Grouse Creek Road with the Forest Service engineers nearly 40 years ago. And, in the years since, I've hiked it, cross country skied it, ridden it by horseback and have driven it many a time.

I've also nabbed a few apples from the abandoned trees along the roadside and in some of the meadows well off the road. Grouse Creek, however, like much of our back country, has become inhabited permanently by a lot more humans since the days of the early 1900s when loggers lived temporarily in camps along the creek, worked the woods and sent out their logs via the old logging railroads.

Bill had been checking out an area for some fisheries consultants the other day when he stumbled upon a piece of rail and an old bucket. He wanted to go back and look some more.

So, we loaded up the dogs, got some gas at the Samuels Store where I visited with Ron, the licensed plumber, who's gonna fix my automatic waterer. We then headed for Grouse Creek.

It was late afternoon and cold in the woods, so we were glad that we'd brought along an extra layer of warmth. As dogs raced off to and fro, making plenty of ruckus with their claws smashing beds of crisp fallen leaves, Bill and I made our way down the trail. All along the way, Bill surmised what must have been the garbage dump, what might have been a road, and where flumes most likely helped transport logs.

He was also trying to remember where he had run across that rail. We did not see it yesterday, but we did see the old bent-up bucket. We also came upon the remains of an old trestle.

We spent a few minutes standing at the same spot where Bill had stood on a big, flat rock the other day, watching a small fish grab its afternoon lunch of winged critters off the water. It was probably one of that little fish's last suppers before winter, Bill suggested.

He was hoping it might show up again yesterday as the sun was making its last appearance on the creek. Like the rail, though, the fish was elsewhere.

As we headed back to the pickup, I could not help but smile. This area was also one of the first places I had taken Bill so many years ago when he first moved to Idaho in the dead of the winter. I loved Grouse Creek so much then that I wanted him to see where I had spent part of that summer surveying the road.

Back in 1974, Bill was impressed with the size of the stumps from the old days when Humbird Lumber Co. had logged the Grouse Creek drainage, setting up its mills, logging camps and railroad system. Nearly 35 years later, through study and talking to oldtimers, Bill has become somewhat of an expert on the stories associated with those logging camps.

It was fun to reflect upon our own personal history with that area and also that of earlier generation of folks who wrote their own colorful history of Grouse Creek. We walked their pathways yesterday and speculated their activities.

Halfway back to the pickup, we came to an open area where I snapped most of my photos. It was too dark in most other places. Bill pointed to the right and asked if that wasn't an old apple tree.

Sure enough it was. As I walked closer, I spotted apples and reclaimed memories of other Grouse Creek apples. This was a tree I'd never seen in my other adventures, and this was a tree begging for me to steal its forbidden fruit. Forbidden because it was much higher than my reach.

One learns, however, to be enterprising when reaching for fruit. I found a piece of old log, stood on it and finally grabbed hold of the limb's end. I snatched the apple, took a bite and threw it to the ground. Ever bite into a mushy transparent apple? Kinda reminds me of soggy bread in milk, which I've never enjoyed.

I did take my bite, and I was satisfied. One more day of pilfering apples in Grouse Creek and a wonderful afternoon of escaping into its colorful past.