The Unexpected

Prudy's Japanese Maple survived the transplant

The Northwest is suffering from a serious lack of rain... record level for some parts of Oregon. The other day I was down in one of the gardens to find the clay ground already cracking. Thankfully the ground isn't cement-hard like it gets in the summer. However, I'm late in getting the taters into the ground- the unexpected weather has put me behind in the planting.

Over the years I've been slowly putting in drip irrigation and trying different things. This year it is full tilt boogie in getting it installed... though with this weather I'm not quite finished with the timers, etc.

It is always a question about how much money to put into our gardens. When it comes down to it, I'm a practical guy- how much do I put into the garden and how much does it cost to buy it. There is a quality of food that comes with being able to eat directly from the garden- nutrient retention. I also think there is an energy linkage between the soil and earth that we live on and the harvest. The aesthetic part of me likes to put my hands in the soil, to design beauty into the place I live, and to give food away to people.

Prudy's Irises mdae it too.

It was a year ago that we had Prudy's service- my mother-in-law. She loved the flowers that came up in the spring.  Then unexpectedly, she died. She will be with us through the plants in the garden.

I think how we deal with the unexpected is a mark of our character. The land, climate, soil, rabbits, deer, turkeys, rainfall... they all inform ourselves about where we are in our own personal evolution. Are we moving through our own self-centeredness, irritations and toward accepting the ebbs and flows of life? It is something I ask myself regularly.  The evolution isn't toward perfection, but through balancing the pushing of life and accepting things as they are. 

The Sprinter Season

Sunlight melts the frost from the meadow. The last droplets cling to the eaves as they continue their journey from ice crystals to ground water. Rainbow light paints the ceiling- courtesy of some unseen prism. It is springish this morning- sunny, leaves budding, a few flowers coming out and barely above freezing. It is the time between Winter and Spring: Sprinter. It is an appropriate name for this time of year: birds are starting to sprint, gardeners sprint outside when there is a few good days, cyclists go out for quick rides, and people's attitudes surge forward into thoughts of spring and summer (Sprummer?).

Yesterday's paper and online weather reported  that today would be rainy, but now the reports are for a sunny day. My expectation was that I'd have a day indoors with a short time outside. Some days the report is the reverse and we wait and wait for the day to get nice. Being so close to the Pacific isn't the best place to be if someone wants consistent weather.

Stability, do we ever really have that? We certainly don't have that in the climate, along rivers, or the side of a steep hill. As people we don't have that either. It seems that we, as people, want this mythic state of mental/physical/emotional stasis. Maybe that is why so many "snowbirds" draft behind the vultures and hummingbirds in the winter. People have their ups and downs- some more severe than others. Some experience the pain and suffering of life as if they were in the Arctic: dramatic cold in the winter and excessive heat in the summer. Others are "Equatorial"- there really isn't much change throughout the year. We idealize the equatorial person- strong, confident, competent, and seemingly unflappable.

The Willamette Valley is mild and we are not used to extremes. Out here we may get temperatures in the teens (not this year, VERY mild winter) or a few days of 100 degree weather (we'll see what happens). A true "temperate zone".

Summer balance

I love this time of year. There is the slight hint of Fall in the air, but the days are still warm... if not hot. In the morning my meditation happens when the moon is bright, some stars still shine, and dawn is just etching the darkness with color and light. The stillness is only broken by the conversation between two Screech Owls or the bass call of a Great Horned Owl. Occasionally, the darkness of a bat shows against the almost-darkness of the dawn. Then a bird of the morning calls out... sometimes it is a dove or a Towhee or some other bird calling out its territory... or just to let the world know that it is alive. I really love the stillness of morning before the wind moves or the dawn brings too much detail to light.

Of course, it is great that we harvest the fruits and vegetables. The two-year old peach tree brought forth 13 peaches this year! They are gone. The squash and pumpkins haven't been doing well. They have produced a lot of leaves, but they are blighted by the powdery mildew. I didn't even know what it was until a friend showed up and showed it to me. Now I see that it is spread throughout the whole crop. We'll see what happens next. We're still getting squash and pumpkins.

The deer have also been well-fed on squash (they take a few bites and move on), almond tree leaves, cherry tree leaves, pear tree leaves, not to mention apples off our favorite apple trees.

It has also been a challenging year for water. Our well and reserve tank have gone dry. One time due my fault- left the irrigation on. But the others are still a mystery. We've taken to being really careful about water and it may mean that some of the vegetables don't make it. We are at the cusp of the rainy season. It is still reaching up close to 90 degrees and dropping into the upper 40's. So we will see when the well recharges. Hopefully soon.

I was walking along our creek about 10 days ago and we have a place where the water drops about 5 feet into a pool. There was still a little water pooling and probably 4-5 inches of water. As I looked at the water, something moved... it actually swam. It was so muddy it took a few minutes to reveal a fish! The next day a friend visited, we looked at it and then looked online to identify this 6 inch swimmer. The closest we came was a Cuthroat Trout! How in the world did that happen? The water was muddy and murky and there couldn't have been much oxygen. The water went away a few days later and the fish disappeared. Maybe the raccoons got it.

There is a fine line between when you intervene and when you let natural processes take place. We are applying an herbicide to poison oak since I react so strongly to it. We put out traps for the yellow jackets because Susan reacts so badly to them. It is about taking care of ourselves, but when do we just accept that there are things that are going to happen to us? When do we just let natural processes take their natural course? We can't protect ourselves from everything. I was tempted to scoop up the fish and release it in a stream nearby, but instead decided to add water to the pool. Didn't work.

We all have to take care of the land and the people. Sometimes we need to intervene and sometimes let things happened. I've stopped looking for the operating manual and know that I do the best I can in the moment.

Language and Reality

The land reveals itself in color, shape and texture these days. Whether it is the Calla Lily blowing among the Hosta or the male American Goldfinch painting a yellow streak through the air- there is a presentation of form. To express the beauty and interconnectedness of life into a form of language is the challenge. The artist/writer is skilled at it- of evoking a sense of place and connecting it with the experience of the reader/viewer. It is through the power of language that this place becomes a cultural experience.

Today, a vireo perched on the branches outside the kitchen window. Was is a Hutton's Vireo or a Cassin's? I think the later. But what is this inclination, this desire to name something? It is evident that it is important to us. All one needs to do is to look on the bookshelves of any bookstore, or online book seller, to see the world of identification books. Travel books identify the names of historic buildings, wildflowers are categorized and ready to be named. Many people don't retain the name they have just learned, but there is a sense of knowing that comes from having a word to identify it. Language allows us to fit things into categories of the known. It is the rare human being that is comfortable with seeing something just for what is present without wanting to call it something: bird, vireo, or Vireo cassinii.


The photo to the left is of the new raised beds behind the house. Our need to define is tied in to our need for order, structure, consistency. Most gardeners have lines and rectangles. The rows of plants or the planned randomness of a flower garden. There is this consistent need to bring order to our world- we cut down the things that ramble in favor of the orderly. Yet it is the curves, like the snake, that bring variety and pleasantness to our world. Disregard the aversion that you might have of snakes and see the elegance of the lines and the subtle shading of the scales. Now, we use our language to create a category called: like or don't like.
Language exerts hidden power, lie a moon on the tides. Rita Mae Brown, Starting from Scratch. 1988.

Saturation and catastrophizing

Two weeks ago we had record rainfall and subsequent flooding. Saturated soils were unable to retain all the water and it began it's downhill run into the tributaries and rivers. What had been a dry winter turned into a soggy one. Just when people were worrying (and creating catastrophic predictions) about dry wells, empty reservoirs, shriveled crops, burned up lawns, and massive wildland fires consuming the forests... all those concerns were washed away and sent into the Pacific via the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.

Walking through our gently sloped meadow it was easy to see water flowing downhill. The creek was high, but never came close to exceeding it's banks. The clay soil here absorbs a lot of water but when the saturation point is reached all the spaces between clay particlers are filled and the only thing left to do is for the water to pool or run downhill. Less than a mile from us people have sandy soils and the water percolates much easier (they also have a lot of problem finding water for wells) and it too began to pool. Eventually that water has to go somewhere- to the streams, rivers, roadways, basements, farms, and onto the city streets. A rainfall like this clogs up natural and constructed drainage systems. It is such an anomaly that the system isn't used to dealing with it.

It seems to me the human organism isn't too different. When we eat too much sugar or drink too much caffeine our systems are overloaded and can't get rid of it quick enough. Our nerves are over-charged and one way we discharge it is by "the shakes" or some other physical activity. This is also true of our psychological system. When our inner world is emotionally overwhelmed there isn't enough room to take in anymore. Our higher order thinking skills are hijacked by our survival instincts. In a way we become super-saturated and our systems rigidify. Our natural fluidity becomes more static and, if held in that state for too long, we get stuck. We either need to remove ourselves from the things that are saturating our system or to find something else to counteract it. Water, food, humor, sleep, comedy, or positive friends help.

The road shown above  is the one with the lowest water and my sole access to home.

Around here, if you drive a truck into deep clay and then let it sit until August, you won't get it out until the rainy season.

Our planet is the ultimate closed system. There is no other viable place to put the waste from 7 billion people. In 1968 I remember Jacques Cousteau saying that it is already too late to save the planet- that enough damage had already been done. I don't know if he is right or not, but I do know that we've successfully turned around some major environmental problems by recognizing that there is a problem and applying our ingenuity- and be willing to sacrifice some of the extravagances of our lives. Will we be willing to do that for the sake of others? Will we be able to adopt an attitude of service, kindness, and generosity to such a degree that we saturate the world with it? I know we have the capacity to do it.  

Patterns and Meaning

Aristotle observed that "nature abhors a vacuum." So do people. When things don't make sense, we make meaning of them even if it is erroneous. We go to great lengths to have patterns mean something; to create order. In general, we don't like disorder, chaos, and meaninglessness. Even people who say they like change mean that they like the change that they want.

So, what does it have to do with Aisling? Well, there are these undulations on the land. There is one that runs diagonally across the meadow. It doesn't follow the fall line of the slope and wouldn't be part of a disappeared waterway. I thought for a long time that it was a place where someone placed a waterline to gather water from the creek. Then one day our neighbor suggested that it is was the remnant of an old logging road. It makes complete sense. Truth or not, it does make sense.

There was another line than ran perpendicular to that line that could have been the remnants of a waterway. However, with the snow yesterday, it revealed itself.  In the photo, it runs from the lower right corner to the upper middle. A little bit of snow reveals that a road used go right through this section of the land. What type of vehicle? Horses? What stories could we recreate out of just this one little image? This isn't one of those great mysteries of the universe or about human existence, but it does help to understand this little piece of land that we occupy.

One of the amazing facts about humans is that we are meaning makers. It is incredible that someone can have just a few details and then make sense out of apparent randomness. Sometimes this doesn't serve us too well when we are quick to jump to a conclusion based on what we think should be true. One root of our environmental challenges is that we have a preference to act rather than reflect; to choose/judge rather than wait and see. The lands that we occupy need more of our reflection than action. The conundrum is that the means of production demand us to operate at a speed that doesn't afford a lot of time for reflection. I don't think there is a resolution to this, it is a balance that must be found even if it seems ineffectual. The need to make sense translates into preferring a world that aligns with our sensibilities. We are nearing 7 billion people on this planet and there are 7 billion ways of making sense of it and 7 billion solutions for dealing with the problems. It is amazing that we've lasted as long as we have.

Gray fog, gray clouds and dark days have colored the weeks of winter. The winds are stilled. The windless days mean that plenty of leaves cling to the trees- oaks and apples still have clothes on. Periodically, Ol Sol sheds its veil to entice us with the memory of shorts, t-shirts, and warm skin. Yesterday afternoon I got out on a mountain bike ride and was surprised to see my shadow.

A sliver of light at dawn or a silverish orb in the day are not the same as having a big blast of sun to warm the skin and brighten one's outlook. This persistent drabness often chases away the warm climate immigrant. Many people see Oregon in the beauty of spring or summer when the days are warm and sunny while the fields and hills
are verdant. Other people move here because of their memory of the Oregon Coast's iconic summer days. However, once they move here and experience the beauty of living in an Ansel Adams-like landscape they start plotting their vacations to places that express the chromatic tones of Georgia O'Keeffe. After the second or third year, maybe the fourth, they are browsing Monster.com for jobs in the lands of heat stroke, tornadoes, hurricanes, and Santa Ana winds. The weather here is not dramatic (we do have our moments) but it is persistent and relentless.


Our stream is a drip. The longest night of the year and the driest December on record have come together. Last year the stream was roaring due to above normal rainfall and temperatures in the teens. The climate can get pretty weird. Thomas Friedman coined a phrase that best describes the shifting climate, he calls it Global Weirding. In his 1/17/10 Op-Ed in the NY Times he wrote,.."avoid the term “global warming.” I prefer the term “global weirding,” because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous." 

An Anna's Hummingbird is wintering over and we often see it drinking the nectar from the feeder. In the pre-dawn hours it is sometimes heard but not seen as it buzzes past and perches on top of the birch trees. Climate change doesn't account for their residency because it isn't a completely new behavior. Other people see "hummers" staying on throughout the winter. It is something to contemplate about how the plants and animals will adapt (or not) to the subtle shifts in climate. Is this hummer a clueless/hopeless creature that didn't know it was suppose to head south? Is it ahead of the evolutionary curve in adapting to a change in the migration pattern? Is it just that it likes to hang around us and the food supply? Your guess is as good as anyone's.


Winter plumage of birds mimic the muted tones of winter. This time of year the bright yellow American Goldfinch is brownish, the Rosy Finches aren't so rosy, and the flashy colors of hummingbirds have dulled. One bird that is noticeable this time of year is the Yellow Rumped Warbler (Audobon variety). The touch of yellow on it's side, the brush-thin streak of yellow on its head, and the splash of yellow on its rump appear to be in dramatic contrast to the muted tones around it. Yet when they are mixed in with the browns and orange leaves, the yellow is like camouflage. This 5 inch bird is often a ray of brightness  in the dingy light of day.

The American Robin, even though it is a resident, is much more noticeable because they (and the Red-Shafted Flicker) gather in large groups in the meadow at this time of year. The red breast just keeps "bob-bob-bobbin along" and contrasts with the rich greens of winter.

The darkest time of the year is painted with many different strokes.  The resident birds eat their fill from the feeders. The moles seem to love it because of the damp and easy to dig soil. For those people who experience Seasonal Affective Disorder it can be a time of emotional darkness. The snow skier anticipates this time of year with excitement and anticipation. It is the variety that adds richness to our lives and this planet. Amidst the dark, dim, gray, and wet I remember that it is the flow of light and dark that fills all of life. In closing, here is fog poem by David Whalen: (from PoemHunter.com)

My view of fog

People often view fog in one way only I personally don't see it that way, and... the feeling it conjures is more than just lonely It's totally different... as night is to day It depends on your age and your state of mind to be able to see fog in a different light To see it one way only is to be partially blind and most peoples vision is locked in... too tight Fog, coldly defined, is water suspended in air And while defined so, gives no true definition, and yet we know fog can defy easy description and, can tiptoe soft as a kitten....or slither snake-like from it's lair To a child, fog's a soft, hidey-place plaything, droplets of laughter, giggling out of the mist hiding in nothing, giving seek a new twist..and letting young imaginations take wing To young boys, almost men, fog's a tool to test mettle in a graveyard, on a dare, all alone fog and fear become one, and coldly come to settle chilling young challengers deep to the bone To men at sea, fog's a curse and a bane breaking out of the gloom, looms a tall prow fog's become predator, a creature profane bearing down on small boats like a plow To young lovers, a warm blanket, a caressing embrace Soft arms of mist massage and insist...that limbs, fog, and lips interlace To city dwellers, who walk the streets late at night Fog is a stalker pursuing the walker Waiting to pounce..when no one's in sight Ask any ten people, 'what's the odor of fog? ' And... you'll get different replies, from ten different guys, from brisk, briny sea smell, to smell of wet dog, to perfume worn by Neptune, essence of clouds and blue skies I think that fog is something and nought. A wraith of perception suffused with deception as easily at home.. in fact or in thought I hope in my musings, I've touched you with something made you nod and agree made you see things like me and... if not, like the fog, well then... It''s both something and nothing and whatever you feel it to be David Whalen