In March, Tim Barry came to Black Butte for his second boxcar show.Migratory Birds: After the Show. (photo by Tim Barry)Flyer artwork by Trish Tripp.During the Spring Work Party we got two large searchlight signals mounted up and operating.Blacksmithing in the shop.We kicked off a major outdoor kitchen upgrade with the construction of a permanent roof — built with wood milled by John Medaris, one of our board members and including pine poles from our land.For our annual Railroad Days event in June, we took our railbike, the “Bindlestiff Express”, out for a spin. Guitar Whitey, who started riding freight trains in the Great Depression and was featuring in the PBS documentary “Riding the Rails”, joined us for a ride.Dunsmuir re-instated its Railroad Days festival in 2015 and the BBCRC again participated in the parade, winning a prize for the best Railroad-themed float.After getting the basic framing done in May, we added the metal roof onto our outdoor kitchen during Railroad Days.Manzanita adornment to the outdoor kitchen.An acoustic boxcar music show for RR Days included Matt “Pond Scum” Michaels, the BBCRC’s own Lauren Oakes, and then Rosie and her partner playing gypsy ballads from Eastern Europe.In mid-July the BBCRC put on a four-day event which attracted a good crowd — including a film night in collaboration with the historic California Theatre in Dunsmuir.
Fall 2015
In 2015 we started to see sporadic unit oil trains coming from North Dakota and headed down to a refinery near Bakersfield.Fall Work Party Flyer by Brynn.Our garden coordinator, and some of the produce harvested at the Fall Work Party.Macks sprucing up the semaphore blades.Firewood Processing.Pizza Night at the Fall Work Party.Powers from Santa Cruz rocking the boxcar.Planning retreat in the BBCRC board room.Dog pile.In November we had our first small controlled burn on the land, burning off a thick layer of pine needles and debris.Thinning out the pines.After being closed for seven years, the Siskiyou Line between Black Butte and Medford, Oregon resumed through operations in early November.Our final event of the season — BBCRC was a stop on the Joe Hill Road Show national tour.Old time labor/folk music during the Joe Hill Road Show.BBCRC’s Lauren Oakes with David Rovics at the Joe Hill Road Show in the boxcar.Outdoor kitchen upgrade includes this pot rack, forged by Logan in our shop, and a newly donated antique gas oven.Maxx enjoying an early season snowfall.After two winters with almost no snow at all, the El Nino winter of 2015-16 is upon us!
