Dear friends of the Lost Valley Nature Center,
More than a month has passed since my last email to this list. There are several reasons for this:
1. Because of May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering, the list has grown considerably, and the informal "chatty" e-newsletters I used to send out have seemed less appropriate for this wider readership (however, read on).
2. The more that I learn and become aware of in the natural world, the more I realize that I do not know and am still unaware of. The e-newsletters I wrote throughout 2006 were full of "nature observations" which now seem like the charmingly enthusiastic effusions of a relative novice. Writing in that style no longer satisfies me. I am interested in learning, understanding, and perceiving much more, before I presume to write about it. I commonly find myself in "receptive" mode these days, sensing that I have a lot more to take in than to put out to others, at least via the written word. I believe that my attempts to write about any living creature or natural phenomenon right now could not possibly do it justice. Who am I to try to represent black bear, or beaver, or warbling vireo, or chipping sparrow, or nestling tree sparrow, or baby California quail, or anything else encountered in recent weeks here? Even a list like the one I just offered (reminiscent of the 2006 e-newsletters) seems hopelessly shallow, not to mention extremely incomplete. To come close to properly inventorying things happening on the land here would require many pages of writing every day.
3. Reasons 1. and 2. are related, in that many of the people now receiving these emails are much more experienced naturalists than I am. I am humbled not only by the complexity and richness I observe in the ecosystems around me but also by the depth of familiarity achieved by some of you who may be inherently more scientifically or environmentally oriented than I am (a liberal arts refugee with a predilection for vegetable gardening, community living, and folk music).
4. Summertime is busy. That is especially true for someone involved in vegetable gardening in an intentional community where musical and other opportunities also abound. The recent start of the summer Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program [0] , concurrent with Community Experience Week [0], several Heart of Now [0] programs, various other events, and monthly open mics, has left not a dull moment and barely a moment to fill. I have also been enrolled in up to three bird classes at a time over the last few months, all with local Audubon ornithologist Dave Bontrager. These have included Bird Songs, Birds of the Middle Fork Willamette River, Neotropical Migrants, and (starting soon) Birds of Elijah Bristow State Park. While I believe I have learned a tremendous amount during these classes, I have also learned how much remains to be learned (an infinite amount). It is also easier to talk about birds and bird songs when they are physically present to watch and listen to. For example, a chipping sparrow is singing outside my window as I type this, with an American robin and song sparrow in the background. Perhaps you can conjure that experience, but it would be far more satisfying for you to be having that experience than reading about it. Bird life has been abundant, spectacular, and sonically rich here in recent months (it probably always has been--my eyes and ears have been increasingly opened to it, however). And I can think of no way to translate that fairly into bits, bytes, pixels, or print.
5. Berries and wild fruit: osoberries, wild strawberries, salmonberries, wild cherries, serviceberries, red huckleberries, and dewberries; domestic gooseberries, currants, blueberries, and raspberries. Given the choice between (a) sitting inside at a computer and (b) communing directly with the natural world through the senses (or, more broadly, sampling the abundance of experience to be had in the living human and non-human worlds), only a highly domesticated animal would sit at the computer. With the arrival of spring, some previously domesticated animals show increasingly feral tendencies. This is not an excuse, just an explanation.
6. An excellent book: The River Why, by David James Duncan. My long-overdue first reading of this book took place this spring/early summer in a weekly reading circle here at Lost Valley. Why would anyone want to read Lost Valley Nature Center e-newsletters when they could be reading books like that? Why would I want to be writing a Lost Valley Nature Center e-newsletter when I could be reading books like that? It is highly recommended, in case you haven't read it.
7. Progress on transcribing the sessions from May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering [0] has been embarrassingly slow, so there is little to report on that front. In this case, reasons 4., 5., and 6. have all added up to 7. We may need some mathematical assistance here, since we are apparently not operating in base 10. If you are interested in transcribing any of the Native Plants and Permaculture sessions, that assistance may be appreciated too--please contact me.
8. Planning is progressing on our October event, but details are still not complete. We have been waiting to have a few more presenters and details confirmed before putting out a formal announcement, but I'll include a rough description here. We plan to send out a more complete description in the next few weeks. Please save the dates!
Fall Ecology and Harvest: An Intergenerational Exploration
co-sponsored by Lost Valley Nature Center and NextGEN
October 13-14, 2007
Tentative description: This event will focus on fall ecology and the harvest season here in the western Cascade foothills. We'll explore what is happening on the land at this time of year, and how we humans can harvest the bounty from our gardens, farms, orchards, and from the wild. We'll learn about the ways of the Kalapuya who preceded us here, as well as sustainable food growing and preservation, resource stewardship, ecological restoration, and traditional seasonal celebrations. We'll bring together people ages 12 through 112 to explore how we can learn from one another and pass ecological wisdom and insights back and forth between generations. We'll also learn about school gardens, mushrooms, building community, ecovillages, and more. Guest presenters include Esther Stutzman (Kalapuya storyteller), Bill Burwell (Kalapuya researcher), Jen Anonia (Food for Lane County Gardens Program Manager), Heiko Koester (Permacultural landscaper), Sharon Blick (former director, School Garden Project), Tammy Davis (mycologist), Dave Kofranek (lichenologist), Alison Rosenblatt (NextGEN--Global Ecovillage Network), and others.
More details will follow.
Thanks for reading, and hope you are enjoying the summer!
Chris
Chris Roth
Lost Valley Nature Center
81868 Lost Valley Lane
Dexter, OR 97431
541-937-2567 ext. 116
nature AT lostvalley.org
PS: As always, donations can be made at any time by going to www.lostvalley.org/donate [0], clicking on the "Donate Now" button, and choosing "Nature Center Membership" under the "Areas of Giving" pull-down menu. Better yet (to save us fees), you can send a check to LVEC Nature Center Membership, PO Box 55, Dexter, OR 97431. You're receiving this e-newsletter because either (a) you are or have been a Nature Center Member, (b) you've attended an event here, (c) you've helped us with species identification, or (d) you've expressed ongoing interest in the Nature Center or its events. If you'd like to be off the list, please email back and we'll remove you.
More than a month has passed since my last email to this list. There are several reasons for this:
1. Because of May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering, the list has grown considerably, and the informal "chatty" e-newsletters I used to send out have seemed less appropriate for this wider readership (however, read on).
2. The more that I learn and become aware of in the natural world, the more I realize that I do not know and am still unaware of. The e-newsletters I wrote throughout 2006 were full of "nature observations" which now seem like the charmingly enthusiastic effusions of a relative novice. Writing in that style no longer satisfies me. I am interested in learning, understanding, and perceiving much more, before I presume to write about it. I commonly find myself in "receptive" mode these days, sensing that I have a lot more to take in than to put out to others, at least via the written word. I believe that my attempts to write about any living creature or natural phenomenon right now could not possibly do it justice. Who am I to try to represent black bear, or beaver, or warbling vireo, or chipping sparrow, or nestling tree sparrow, or baby California quail, or anything else encountered in recent weeks here? Even a list like the one I just offered (reminiscent of the 2006 e-newsletters) seems hopelessly shallow, not to mention extremely incomplete. To come close to properly inventorying things happening on the land here would require many pages of writing every day.
3. Reasons 1. and 2. are related, in that many of the people now receiving these emails are much more experienced naturalists than I am. I am humbled not only by the complexity and richness I observe in the ecosystems around me but also by the depth of familiarity achieved by some of you who may be inherently more scientifically or environmentally oriented than I am (a liberal arts refugee with a predilection for vegetable gardening, community living, and folk music).
4. Summertime is busy. That is especially true for someone involved in vegetable gardening in an intentional community where musical and other opportunities also abound. The recent start of the summer Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program [0] , concurrent with Community Experience Week [0], several Heart of Now [0] programs, various other events, and monthly open mics, has left not a dull moment and barely a moment to fill. I have also been enrolled in up to three bird classes at a time over the last few months, all with local Audubon ornithologist Dave Bontrager. These have included Bird Songs, Birds of the Middle Fork Willamette River, Neotropical Migrants, and (starting soon) Birds of Elijah Bristow State Park. While I believe I have learned a tremendous amount during these classes, I have also learned how much remains to be learned (an infinite amount). It is also easier to talk about birds and bird songs when they are physically present to watch and listen to. For example, a chipping sparrow is singing outside my window as I type this, with an American robin and song sparrow in the background. Perhaps you can conjure that experience, but it would be far more satisfying for you to be having that experience than reading about it. Bird life has been abundant, spectacular, and sonically rich here in recent months (it probably always has been--my eyes and ears have been increasingly opened to it, however). And I can think of no way to translate that fairly into bits, bytes, pixels, or print.
5. Berries and wild fruit: osoberries, wild strawberries, salmonberries, wild cherries, serviceberries, red huckleberries, and dewberries; domestic gooseberries, currants, blueberries, and raspberries. Given the choice between (a) sitting inside at a computer and (b) communing directly with the natural world through the senses (or, more broadly, sampling the abundance of experience to be had in the living human and non-human worlds), only a highly domesticated animal would sit at the computer. With the arrival of spring, some previously domesticated animals show increasingly feral tendencies. This is not an excuse, just an explanation.
6. An excellent book: The River Why, by David James Duncan. My long-overdue first reading of this book took place this spring/early summer in a weekly reading circle here at Lost Valley. Why would anyone want to read Lost Valley Nature Center e-newsletters when they could be reading books like that? Why would I want to be writing a Lost Valley Nature Center e-newsletter when I could be reading books like that? It is highly recommended, in case you haven't read it.
7. Progress on transcribing the sessions from May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering [0] has been embarrassingly slow, so there is little to report on that front. In this case, reasons 4., 5., and 6. have all added up to 7. We may need some mathematical assistance here, since we are apparently not operating in base 10. If you are interested in transcribing any of the Native Plants and Permaculture sessions, that assistance may be appreciated too--please contact me.
8. Planning is progressing on our October event, but details are still not complete. We have been waiting to have a few more presenters and details confirmed before putting out a formal announcement, but I'll include a rough description here. We plan to send out a more complete description in the next few weeks. Please save the dates!
Fall Ecology and Harvest: An Intergenerational Exploration
co-sponsored by Lost Valley Nature Center and NextGEN
October 13-14, 2007
Tentative description: This event will focus on fall ecology and the harvest season here in the western Cascade foothills. We'll explore what is happening on the land at this time of year, and how we humans can harvest the bounty from our gardens, farms, orchards, and from the wild. We'll learn about the ways of the Kalapuya who preceded us here, as well as sustainable food growing and preservation, resource stewardship, ecological restoration, and traditional seasonal celebrations. We'll bring together people ages 12 through 112 to explore how we can learn from one another and pass ecological wisdom and insights back and forth between generations. We'll also learn about school gardens, mushrooms, building community, ecovillages, and more. Guest presenters include Esther Stutzman (Kalapuya storyteller), Bill Burwell (Kalapuya researcher), Jen Anonia (Food for Lane County Gardens Program Manager), Heiko Koester (Permacultural landscaper), Sharon Blick (former director, School Garden Project), Tammy Davis (mycologist), Dave Kofranek (lichenologist), Alison Rosenblatt (NextGEN--Global Ecovillage Network), and others.
More details will follow.
Thanks for reading, and hope you are enjoying the summer!
Chris
Chris Roth
Lost Valley Nature Center
81868 Lost Valley Lane
Dexter, OR 97431
541-937-2567 ext. 116
nature AT lostvalley.org
PS: As always, donations can be made at any time by going to www.lostvalley.org/donate [0], clicking on the "Donate Now" button, and choosing "Nature Center Membership" under the "Areas of Giving" pull-down menu. Better yet (to save us fees), you can send a check to LVEC Nature Center Membership, PO Box 55, Dexter, OR 97431. You're receiving this e-newsletter because either (a) you are or have been a Nature Center Member, (b) you've attended an event here, (c) you've helped us with species identification, or (d) you've expressed ongoing interest in the Nature Center or its events. If you'd like to be off the list, please email back and we'll remove you.