Northwest

Join us for three fantastic days at the HJ Andrews Long Term Experimental Forest, along the Mckenzie River.

Guest post by Margaret Mils, Oregon WOWnet member

Guest post by Oregon WOWnet member Fiona Rhea
Twin Tree
by Fiona Rhea
Two seeds landed here because that is how God meant it to be,
Nourished from the heavens above, together they grew like twins, almost inseparably.
Alas, one grew tall, the other branched off from the straight and narrow call.
Yet in later years, changed it's spin to return next to its twin.
Their souls having found each other, touched  by the breeze,
rejoiced by the heavenly chime of the bristling leaves,

My mom is the reason I'm connected to our forestland. I'm shy to write about my land connection, which manifests as creative inspiration, much less talk about it, because my mom passed away over two years ago. Now the reasons for loving our stewardship forestland are so deep, so nuanced, and so filled with grief that I fear I might fall apart were I to explain it all. Simply put: all reasons lead back to my mom.

Every forest has a story to tell.

Antelope Valley, Idaho (a prose poem)

—Renée E. D’Aoust

 

In the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness you wait—gear ready—for Indian Paintbrush to shrivel and die. I pack your saddle bag: dried fruit, chocolate, quick oats. Catch myself falling toward you like the elk caught in your archer’s eye. Your arrow flies through Western larch, cedars, Ponderosa pines. “A clean kill,” you whisper. As the elk falls, I find solid ground. It is a good hunt: this looking for self through you.

 

"To my mind, we’ve had an increase in wildlife since recent logging by our neighbors, and we’ve also had an increase in wildlife traversing our land because of the dense forest of the USFS. Wildlife is not unfamiliar around our parts. We’re near the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness, so there are large tracks of land for black bear, grizzly, elk, deer, moose, and all sorts of little critters."

My mom kept the fridge on the porch. It was not convenient. But Mom despised the sound of the electric hum. “I’m living out here in the woods, and I have to deal with that sound?” she would ask, rhetorically.

I am so grateful during this season of blessings that my mom took the time over many years to speak with Dad and me about her deep love of our family forestland, her concerns about the forest, her desires for habitat renewal and stewardship, and her vision and goals. I am so grateful she and Dad planned for Mom’s passage by creating a trust, consulting a lawyer, creating a solid will, and communicating directly with me.

By David Stauth, Oregon State University Science Writer, News and Communication Services

Originally posted 7/29/12: http://bit.ly/OeHRH4

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, scientists have concluded, but they say those conditions will become the “new normal” for most of the coming century.

At the annual Idaho Forest Owners Association Field Day event in 2011, I had the pleasure of hearing Washington State University Extension Forester James Freed speak about non-timber products. In the Pacific Northwest and beyond his enthusiasm is legendary and contagious... Freed says that Americans will “pay whatever it takes to keep Fido happy.” He means that there is a market for Fido’s restful snooze, specifically, western red cedar shavings used in doggy beds. Pet supplies are a fast-growing market even in slow economic times, as we buy for our pets but not for ourselves.