Imagine Our RV Dreams: Janesville, CA and Malin, OR

After our visit to Mexico City, we left the backyard storage area in Reno, Nevada and drove to Benson’s Humble Homestead in Janesville, CA.

Entrance to the property

Al pulling our RV to its parking spot for the night in the shade of a giant tree.

Parked for a night

Benson’s Humble Homestead is a 9 acre farm with horses, a hairy cow, pigs, ducks, rabbits, goats, turkeys, and Remington, a soccer playing dog.

Hairy cow

Remington loves playing with his soccer ball

They had a cute store in a shed where we bought a strawberry rhubarb pie, apple butter, and some salsa.

The husband of the farm has cancer but was recovering and the wife and kids make the items for sale in the store plus more.

Check out all that is offered on this farm: https://www.bensonshumblehomestead.com/what-we-offer

Al took this artistic photo while we were on the property.

The next day we drove to Malin, Oregon and stayed at the same potato farm that we stayed last year in June.

Here is a link to the blog where we had a tour of their potato processing plant: https://imagineourrvdreams.blogspot.com/2023/02/our-stay-on-potato-farm-in-malin-oregon.html

Since we stayed on this property before we knew where to park and got settled in.

The owners, Jan and Bill, came by at 6:30 to take us to two fields to learn a little more about potato farming. Unfortunately the processing facility was not operating due to the time of year. All of last years crop had been processed and this year's potatoes were still growing.

Jan dug up some potatoes and gave them to us right from the field.

It was early in the growing season so the potatoes were still small.

???????

Al, Jan, Bill, and Nancy

Jan and Bill were so interesting and we learned more about potato farming. We appreciate their passion for sharing their property with us RV'ers.

Back to the area where we were parked for the night I went walking around on the property before the sun went down.

Storage for harvested potatoes

Inside looking deeper into the storage building

Then I turned around and looked back at the door

These tubes are used to keep air circulating around the stored potatoes

I found it funny that there were potatoes growing in the bales of hay

Our potatoes fresh from the field

We also got a souvenir bag of potato chips that Jan and Bill's potatoes are processed into..

The town of Malin, in Klamath County, Oregon, has started a Barn Quilt project along with other local towns in the area of the Oregon and California border.

CONNECTING BORDERS

The Five Friendly Towns of Klamath Country & Rural Klamath Connects is creating a barn quilt trail along the route through the towns of Bonanza, Malin, Merrill, Oregon and Dorris-Butte Valley & Tulelake, California, hence the name “Connecting Borders Barn Quilt Trail”. A barn quilt is a brightly painted “quilt block” on wood affixed to a barn or structure.

The first barn quilt trail was started in 2001 in Adams County, Ohio. It was conceived as a way to capture traffic off the highway, leading from one barn quilt to another. Our barn quilt project will celebrate our agricultural and quilting heritage, bring cultural graphic art to our rural areas and encourage tourism in our region.

We have received grants from the California Arts Council via the Siskiyou Arts Council, Travel Oregon and the Oregon Community Foundation in order to begin this project. Donations are gratefully appreciated to fulfill our grant match obligations.

We will work with the property owners to select an appropriate “Quilt Block” for their location. The history of the barn or structure, location and pictures of the quilt block will be highlighted in a brochure, which will include a map of the regional trail, GPS coordinates and other pertinent information.

Barn quilt adorns this barn near the potato farm.

We went to downtown Malin to eat at the same diner we visited the previous year. Near the diner is this old gas station building.

On August 14th, 2020, the Malin Community Service Club purchased the old Malin service station. It was purchased with the intent to restore the historical building, improve the aesthetics of downtown Malin, and potentially provide a site for community and/or business use.

The search is on for applicable grants, monetary donations, and in-kind services to help with this restoration project.

The service station, build in 1924, is one of the last "house type, bungalow style" gas stations still standing, at it's original location, in the country.

A new RV park opened in the downtown since our last visit.

While at the campground, we learned there is a free dump station in town. We had a little trouble finding it but after asking a guy at the Ace Hardware, we were able to find it and get our tanks dumped. That was a nice surprise.