Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the ...
Fall’s Finery
Fall is making a colorful display in the McKenzie River Valley these last few weeks, illuminating the drizzly days as they set in. It seems to be a particularly good year for fall color with the leaves hanging on the trees a little longer than I remember last year. Someone must have been thinking ahead when they planted our yard, because there are different contrasting fall colors catching ...
Jack-o-lantern
One of my favorite things about Halloween is coming home to a porch illuminated by glowing jack-o-lanterns on dark, rainy nights. I can think of few things that are so cheerful and spooky at the same time. Perhaps this ambiance has something to do with their history. Jack-o-lanterns have been around for quite some time, and are named after a phenomenon of strange lights flickering over peat bogs, ...
Devil’s Club
With Halloween around the corner, I thought this plant deserved a post. Devil's club or Devil's walking stick is a plant I grew up knowing, and one you will want to know too if you spend time bushwhacking in the woods. My main association with them from childhood is the pungent smell that filled the creek ravines I played in, and more importantly,"Don't touch!" The spines on the stalks break ...
Dream Pillows
When the nights get longer in the fall, there is more time to spend dreaming. It's the perfect time of year to pile extra blankets on the bed, get out those warm flannel sheets, and prepare for our winter slumbering. A tradition I enjoy in my house is sewing dream pillows for everyone in the family to slip inside their pillowcase, filled with fragrant herbs to promote restful sleep and peaceful ...
A Fall Fire Lookout Adventure
Of all the great places around Oregon to have a weekend getaway in the outdoors, I have found fire lookout towers to be one of the finest. Over the last decade I have stayed in a number of them all over Oregon, in every configuration of company. Sometimes I have gone with my family, sometimes with friends, sometimes as a getaway with my adventure partner, and even once by myself, and every single ...
The Flowers of Autumn
"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." ~Albert Camus ...
The Trail
I always loved reading stories of pioneers on the Oregon Trail when I was growing up. The idea of packing it all up and heading off into the wild unknown completely intrigued my imagination. I often pretended to be a pioneer when playing out in the woods, and on special occasions at school, we would play the Oregon Trail game in the computer lab, and I was in bliss. As an adult, I have tried to ...
The Things We Find in the Pumpkin Patch
Our pumpkin crop was hit and miss this year, leaving us in need of a couple of good jack-o-lanterns. I remembered our CSA had offered that members could come out and pick a pumpkin from the patch if they missed the farm celebration, so one day after school last week, the kids and I headed out to finally visit the farm that feeds us. Now, you might be asking yourselves why we still get a CSA share ...
Eureka!
Eureka! We struck Golden Chanterelles! Last weekend we made it out to our mushroom hunting spot and picked our first basket full of wild mushrooms for the year. I stopped by my Chicken of the Woods log from last fall, and was cheerfully greeted by clusters of the bright orange and yellow fungus that really does live up to it's name. Although the chanterelles were not extremely ...