Trust

Yesterday from the Skyliner chair I watched a man ski beneath us, fast and confident, making pretty turns. I thought at first that he was a course worker. He carried a lot in his arms; I thought he was probably carrying poles or stakes.

In fact he had a child in his arms. As they skied beneath us I heard the child laughing.

Do you remember trusting someone else's abilities that completely?

Or your own?

Smells

The neighbor who lives immediately behind me commented that she missed seeing my laundry blowing in the wind. At first I thought she was being facetious -- her back windows look right on my clothesline -- but then we talked for awhile about the clothes-drying habits of our grandmothers. Of course ever since, I've felt guilty for my reliance on the electric dryer. I mean, if anyone should dry their clothes on a line, it's desert-dwellers.

So, so. Yesterday I hung a load of laundry in the sunshine, leaving it all day -- it is only 38 degrees -- and now our clothes smell like wood smoke.

I like it, actually.

Pine pitch

I said that ponderosas are so straight and tall with branches starting up so high that they can't be climbed unless one is an acrobat.

While that's generally true, of course it's not absolutely true. Photo taken yesterday near Lava Island falls.

One detail I remembered yesterday: climbing ponderosas is sticky. You smell like pitch afterward.

Etcetera etcetera

Henry's ponderosa tree is not just his best friend; that tree is Henry's hero.

All ponderosas are rather heroic trees. Noble. In a mature forest they grow so straight and tall, with branches starting up so high, that they're just above people -- like an eagle, like the sky. One walks on roots. Ponderosa pine needles are as long as a person's foot or longer; their pine cones fit one to a hand. Their bark is thick enough to withstand fire, and in fact ponderosas prefer a good burn. Clears out the detritus. Their trunks scald, they might drop a few lower branches, and then they nod thanks.

Henry's tree, as I have said, is not like those others. It's quite tall but it lists; it grows out over the river. It asks to be climbed. And so Henry climbed it.

The first time he met that tree, Henry and his family had pitched a tent nearby. School had just let out. Later in the year they would hike to camp spots in the High Lakes; this place so close to town was a kind of early summer camping practice. The kids practiced falling asleep near their parents. The parents practiced letting their kids roam. Henry tended to roam far, so his parents were happy when he found a nice climbing tree that would keep him busy but close.

The second time he found the tree I described to you already. That was the time he discovered the tree could hide him, and he threw pine cones at his sister like some mad squirrel.

The third time he climbed the tree, it saved his life.

More about Henry and his ponderosa tree

Because Henry's ponderosa tree is crooked, it has branches low down on its trunk. Climbing that tree is like climbing a ladder, although rougher under the hands.

One day last summer Henry discovered he could disappear into that tree. His parents had been roasting hot dogs over a fire, his sister playing hop scotch in the dirt. Henry, bored, wandered over to his tree and climbed it -- climbed it higher than ever before. After awhile his sister came to tell him that dinner was ready. She called and called, she even looked into the tree, but she didn't see him. Finally he tossed pine cones down around her, which scared her half to death. (Never do this. It was very bad of Henry. Ponderosa pine cones are so big and heavy they could really hurt a person, especially a little sister.)

After that Henry always climbed into that hidden space. He could watch the world go by but the world never saw him. It was like being let in on a secret. Once he spent hours watching people hiking the trail below. Once he turned his back on the hikers and looked over the water instead. A blue heron stood on a rock. All kinds of smaller birds flew around. It was still early enough in the summer for the tree frogs to be talking, although he didn't see any; but he did once see a river otter, or thought he did. As he sat, the wind would sweep through all the pines in the forest and they'd make a sound like the roar of traffic, like cars in the distance. The tree moved hardly at all. It held him.

Falling down

I set myself a couple of goals this month, one of which was to write a blog post a day (for writing practice). Then the US financial system began to implode -- a few months after our local economy came to a screeching halt, by the way, causing problems for quite a lot of people -- and writing about plants and children, as I always do, seemed inappropriate. When debris is falling, one ducks, right? Runs for cover? It's foolish to stand here with an umbrella talking about my funny, adorable kids.

On the other hand, perhaps we're in a tent waiting out a snowstorm; if so, we could spend the time talking about what interests us.

*

Did you hear the story about the boy -- his name is Henry -- whose best friend is a ponderosa tree? Henry has a ponderosa tree in his front yard, and it's a fine tree but it's not his best friend. His best friend stands in a forest of other ponderosas down by the Deschutes River.

Now, most ponderosas, like the one in his yard and the others in the forest, grow straight-straight-straight-straight (straight as a board) and their branches start up so high you'd have to be an acrobat to climb one. Henry's ponderosa is crooked. It leans out over the river. Its branches are low and thick. Henry can climb it without a worry; he can sit in it secure as a squirrel, peeling off pieces of bark and tossing them in the river below.

Henry's mother said he has a porcupine family to thank for his crooked tree. She said porcupines will girdle trees with their nests. Henry replied that he would say thanks, if he ever could find a porcupine to say it to.

*

I thought up this story the other day. Tt's not finished yet, of course. This is just a sketch... Sasha says there's no way a kid could have a tree for a best friend, but Blake thinks it's possible. What do you think?

A garden surprise

In the back yard of our new house is a flower garden. It's not very big: maybe 8' square. When we moved here in April the garden bed was the kind of mess you'd expect after a hard winter. I spent a day cleaning it up and -- before it bloomed, before I knew what I'd miss -- I cordoned off a section for my vegetable garden. I turned that soil over and amended it a bit. In May my daughter and I planted radishes, carrots, peas.

The flower garden bloomed wonderfully. It's still blooming now. The vegetables, however, were a disaster. The carrots and radishes never set, the pea vines grew about a foot tall. I thought that the area didn't get enough sun (it's shaded by the linden part of the day), but my mom said no; my mom said I just needed to fertilize like crazy.

So this afternoon I got out my compost and shovel and turned over the vegetable remains and ... clank.

Clank?

There's a cement slab under my vegetable garden. The previous owners laid a foot of dirt on top of a cement slab, and I tried to grow carrots in it.

I want to make a joke of this, but in fact it made me feel so sorry for myself. We bought this house because it has a large, private yard, a third of an acre! and yet there's no place for me to plant vegetables. The back yard is too shady (and underlain in places by cement) and the front yard is a slope frequented by deer and quail.

I know there's a solution to this but I am TOO SAD to think of one right now.

Ptttth.

Post script

It was a wood rat.

Was.

Bump in the night

A creature's living in our garden shed.

I saw it first one late spring day when I reached in the shed to get my clippers. A grayish blur scurried away from me quick as a squirrel escaping a dog, and in fact I figured a squirrel had gotten closed in there somehow. But I glimpsed it there again and again throughout the summer. It's startling and just a bit frightening. What if the creature is rabid? What if it's a mean old raccoon? It's probably not. But what if it is? Just in case, I throw open the shed door with a bang and a shout.

No one else ever saw this creature, neither my husband nor the children, and I don't think they quite believed in it. Jennifer's afraid of the dark, hey? Seeing ghosts! Last week, however, the creature made a mess in the shed. It knocked over pots, tore open my packets of seeds, gnawed on some boards and left scat everywhere.

So, so. On Friday I threw open the shed door with a bang and a shout, and the creature scurried out so I could clean up after it. I thought that if I made the shed inhospitable -- if I cleared out any hiding places or bedding material -- it might go away. I swept and made piles of things that could be recycled, things that had to be trashed. The kids kept coming by with various sized containers, hoping to catch it. No, it's bigger than that! I'd say. Bigger than that, too! Since I'm the only one who'd seen it, only I could say: it's as big as Raincloud the guinea pig! But with a long tail!

An hour later -- after I'd gazed in satisfaction at my (comparatively) clean shed -- I heard a noise. A gnawing, like the guinea pigs gnawing on cardboard.

Oh no! I missed a box! It took that creature seconds, mere seconds, to make itself a new nest in the one box remaining in the shed.

Yesterday and today my husband has gone out to the shed armed with a flashlight, opening the door with a bang and a flourish just as I suggested ... and seen nothing. There's the box with a new hole it it, but nothing else. No creature.

Maybe we have a very messy ghost.

Hot, damn hot, real hot

I've composed about a dozen posts in my head but written none because I just realized that Bend's eight-week summer is nearly over, and so many things seem more important than writing!

The end of last week and through the weekend was freakishly hot. It was so hot, the squirrels played in my sprinklers. It was so hot, the deer and the dogs both leapt into the river. The soles of my burst into flame, flies spontaneously combusted, eggs fried before I put them in the pan...

Well, maybe not. But it was 106 degrees on Saturday.

This was just an ordinary August weekend but it felt like a holiday, perfect strangers gossiping and laughing together. Friday at Elk Lake I ran into a friend I haven't seen in a year, who was with other people I haven't seen in two years, children grown from fry to fingerlings; everyone was up in the mountains, the whole town, seemed like. That little beach at Elk Lake looked like the Jersey shore.

Rainwater

I woke this morning to a pummelling on the roof so deafening I thought it must be hail, and leapt to open the curtains and watch: but no. Just rain. From our bedroom in this new house I can watch the clouds and rain move from the western to the eastern sky: from the mountains to the desert.

About 9am another boisterous storm rolled right over our house, thunder and lightning and more pummelling rain. Rain rain rain rain rain! We don't get rain very often. I raced to open the windows and doors so the wind could rush through, and I dragged the kids onto the porch; but when we saw lightning strike right there, right over there, I figured that wasn't so wise... The thunder terrified Sasha, too, who would liked to have spent the storm in her closet.

According to KTVZ, a power line transformer blew near Drake Park, which must have been caused by the lightning strike we saw. They say lightning struck a tree at a golf course off Mount Washington Drive, which would be just a hop and a skip from my house.

*

At the library I found a book for the kids called "Wonderful Houses Around the World," which includes the homes of the Diola people of Senegal, whose roofs are shaped like a funnel; rainwater runs down the funnel and pours into a clay barrel. (The link shows the photos from the book.) So. During today's thunderstorm I imagined what it must be like to live in such a house during a storm: how exciting it would be! But -- how would you keep the kids from jumping in the barrel?

Under water

In Camp Sherman today I tried to photograph two footbridges. (I can't show you the photo because some computer cords went missing during our move.) My mother-in-law built one of the bridges when she laid some planks across the mud so that she could walk from her house to the meadow without losing a shoe; she built it a few years ago and now it's partially decomposed, lying under a few inches of clear, cold water. Above that old bridge, just barely above the water, is a new one built by my mother-in-law's oldest son: four wooden rails laying side-by-side. Neither bridge was ever especially sturdy. The original bridge had a wang in it, so that when you crossed your weight dipped you into the water. The rails my brother-in-law put down are strong, but they roll.

I thought about those bridges all day today. Someone placed a few leftover pieces of wood across the mud: a bridge. The bridge was nice but then it drooped too much and so someone else, someone younger and stronger, found some more wood and placed it across the mud. For awhile the two bridges stood together, sort of overlapping, until one winter that first bridge collapsed.

But also, you know, the first bridge is still there. It's still visible under the water, not shadowy like a dream but perfectly clear. You could touch it if you wanted.

*

I've rewritten this post five times. It's been shorter each time. Now it's 1:30am and this version seems to make the most sense but who knows? I can't believe I wrote all my college essays at this time of the morning. Imagine the grades I'd have gotten if I wrote at, say, 11:30pm.

Found objects 2

When my husband moved in with me he brought a lot of stuff: skis, bikes, clothes, lots of furniture and a reprint of Dali's Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man. I didn't mind any of it but the reprint, which I find creepy and disturbing. The skis could stay in the hallway where I tripped over them every day, but that poster -- no, I wouldn't have it around. So it went in the closet.

Ten plus years later -- yesterday, actually -- while my husband was dragging stuff out from our storage area, we rediscovered the Dali reprint. Blake dropped everything to stare at it. He squatted in front of it for at least 20 minutes. I kept asking what he thought of it but he couldn't tell me... We brought it inside and he studied it while eating his snack; when Sasha came home, he shouted Look! and the two of them before it for awhile longer. Then Blake said, "I can't think about that picture with my eyes open," and he lay down in his bed, put his head under his pillow.

Why did he find it so interesting? What was he thinking? His reaction was strong enough that I am almost willing to allow it into the house.

Found objects

Yesterday I found a ponderosa seed in Sasha's bucket of beads, brown-black and as tiny as the bits of plastic. It had sprouted.

This afternoon, while exhorting the daffodils to duck back down into the earth for goodness sake it's only March -- and letting the tulips be, since they're for the deer -- I found the upper half of an action figure popping out of the dirt. It wasn't Spider Man or a Ninja Turtle; it was a farmer. She still had her hat.

Perspective II

Once upon a time and long ago, I lived in a hotel that was used by circus performers. The hotel sat on a cobblestone street adjacent to Dome Square, Riga's central plaza, where young men played violin and cello in the shade. The hotel had a lovely, aged facade; inside, it smelled like -- well, I've never smelled that smell in the US. It smelled like old air. Like 500-year-old air. Musty. Inside the hotel was spare as a cave and in fact the building seemed to me naturally-occurring rather than man-made. I had a room, just a room, four walls and a bed, with one glorious, hip-to-ceiling window. I lived there through a summer and sat on the window ledge every day, listening to the musicians and to people talking below and, in the evening, to the breeze. A young English journalist who worked out of the room next-door sometimes joined me. We'd sip shots of vodka and talk about life. The (shared) bathroom was not clean, the shower had no hot water and I slept in a sleeping bag laid on a bare mattress -- but oh, I enjoyed that place.

When I rented the room they told me that since it was the circus' hotel, I could only stay until the performers returned from -- wherever they were -- in the fall. In those peripatetic days I never stayed anywhere for long; the hotel was my third residence in a year; and I liked it that way. Moving around was a good way to experience the city. Also, it was easy. Everything I owned fit in a backpack.

*

The other day I ran out to the Goodwill truck, which very conveniently spends its days in the parking lot of a grocery store just a mile from my house. I gave away some clothes which no longer fit me, and vases I haven't used since they arrived at my doorstep bearing "Happy Valentine's Day" and "Happy Mother's Day" cards, and some other things, God knows what -- three backpacks full of stuff.

Locavore

Our garage floor is covered in cinders, crushed red cinders which fall off the wheels of the car. I sweep the mess out to the driveway and then into the grass and flower beds. (Every year my house is buried just a little deeper in lava.)

When snow falls hard and fast the city pours cinders onto the roads. When the snow melts, as it has done these last few weeks, the cinders remain. Rolling tires push the cinders aside, they mound beside the curbs. All our paved roads are turning to dirt.

The other day my son rode his scooter in socks -- why, I have no idea; didn't it hurt? wasn't he cold? -- which I discovered only after the hardwood floors and the leather couch and even the coffee table had been covered in those fine grains.

One of these days I'll take a microscope to my carpets. Cinders, ponderosa and juniper pollen, some food crumbs -- and, no doubt, the crushed remains of plastic children's toys.

*

For the curious: One of my neighbor's and I have decided to carpool. It completely relieves my need to leave the house before 10am on Thursdays and Fridays -- and on those days I never have to get in a car at all. I can walk anywhere I need to go. It is glorious.

Mrs. Brown part 2

When I first wrote that post about picking blackberries, it included these paragraphs:

As I gathered the berries a few people crossed the footbridge, grinning at my children but oblivious to me. Only one person, an elderly gentleman, stopped to chat, leaning over the railing as I looked up from the vines below. He told me about a plum tree which grows over by the bead store on Division. There's a plum and an apple tree there, he said; the apple tree is wormy but the plums, they're good.

I'm not familiar with that particular tree, but I've seen plum trees in the older parts of Bend. I suspect they were planted by early Bendites and now -- now that people buy plums from stores -- they're ignored. I am allergic to that kind of plum, unfortunately. I thanked the man anyway and he left.

Later in the afternoon I saw that old man again. He was standing at the entrance to the Mountain View Mall (or whatever they call it now), near the stoplights. He had a sign in one hand, the other outstretched. "Whatever you can give!" he asked passing motorists.

I cut that part because -- what am I trying to say? That only I and the homeless pick wild berries? That a subculture of foragers exists, and I finally met one of them? That Sawyer Park is sketchy?

*

If blackberries are rare here, squaw currant is common as dirt.¹ It's under the ponderosas, under the junipers and in the disturbed areas. In spring squaw currant has white or pink flowers as small as my fingernail and shaped like a trumpet. In July or thereabout a berry forms. It looks like the currants you sometimes find in the store: translucent, tiny, varying from bright red to bright orange.

Currants are edible. I read that in a few places online: All currants are to some degree edible. So I planned to eat them. When I told my sister-in-law my plan, though, she said to be careful; she said there's a berry that looks like a currant but is poisonous. So I looked around and asked around some more, and all I got were contradictions. The squaw currant is edible but it tastes terrible. The currant look-alike is poisonous. My mom has a book which says that "in sufficient quantities" the squaw currant causes burning in the throat. In sufficient quantities? What does
that mean?

I couldn't find out. So although this summer the squaw currant bushes were loaded with berries, I limited myself and my children to 10 berries per day ... and they never harmed us. They taste great, actually. They look like they'd be juicy but instead they're mealy, like a blueberry, and tart/sweet. My daughter loved them.

But! For next year! I found this yesterday (I thank thee, O googlebooks): American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest By Carolyn J. Niethammer, page 61: a recipe for wild currant preserves with a drawing of the squaw currant bush. She says that the Indians said that large quantities of squaw currants cause gastrointestinal distress, but she also says that this admonishment existed for other Indians, who might be tempted to eat every berry on a bush. Also, she says, they're fine in any quantity when cooked.

So! I know what I'll be doing next July.

*

See, here's what interests me. Central Oregon has what they call a short growing season. The last frost can be as late as the 4th of July; the first frost was this weekend, mid-September. The first frost killed my basil, tomatoes, beans and squash. People say it's hard to grow things here; they say gardening in Central Oregon takes a fantastic amount of work.

But, you know, lots of plants grow here despite the frost. It's not just dirt and rock, not even in the Badlands out east. Lots of plants grow, and surely some of them, like the currant, taste surprisingly good.

I'm not saying that berry- and root-gathering could or should replace commercial food production, but surely it's comparable to hunting & fishing. I know people who supplement their diets with deer, elk, trout, game birds, and they're proud of it, they're snobs about it. Why don't I know anyone -- except the homeless gentleman --who supplements his diet with wild
berries?

¹Ribes cereum

Mrs. Brown and the environmental movement

Written August 31. I keep screwing up the datestamp -- sorry rss readers.

Yesterday afternoon the four of us drove to Sawyer Park, where blackberries grow under the footbridge. In the Willamette Valley this species of blackberry (I think it's the same species) is a thorny scourge, overgrowing highway medians and crowding other plants from streams; people are just as likely to poison the bushes as they are to eat its berries. Here in Bend, though, the blackberry is uncommon. I have only seen it growing in one place besides Sawyer Park. And the berries are so small, y'all would laugh.

I love to gather berries. I had wanted to drive to Salem to pick blueberries, but I was sick throughout July; I wanted to pick strawberries in Prineville but again -- too sick. Dammit, I said, I don't care how tiny those blackberries are. They're in season, they're nearby, they're mine.

The blackberry vines at Sawyer Park grow under the footbridge bridge supports, tangled with willows and spiderwebs, thick and humid. To reach the best berries I had to stand in the thicket, moving carefully so as not to get scratched or hook my clothing. It was hot, uncomfortable work picking those berries, but I couldn't stop -- you know how it is? I'd think I had all the good ones, then I'd see another cluster and pick those, then see another... It's zen-like, berry-picking is. Or obsession.

Remind me I want to write next about squaw currant -- ribes cereum -- which is extremely common here and has a red berry that ripens in July. Sasha loves 'em.

Current

I have some photos to show you (I think) but my kids have escaped into the neighbor's backyard, so I will have to update this post later.

We were talking talking talking, the other women and I, just like a cliched flock of hens: talking talking talking, so that we ran aground in the cattails. I shared a raft with the Woman Who Drinks Only Water and Alcohol, but since between us we had just one paddle, I climbed out to push -- and sunk several inches into the muck. Giggle. The firefighter's wife, who had rolled off her mattress to push, too, lost a flipflop to the stuff. Giggle. We ran aground twice more and once had to half-swim against the wind, which was strong enough to blow our floats back upstream; but our trip was not really marked by excitement. We leaned back and talked talked talked talked.

A few years ago the city built a new bridge over the Deschutes River to accommodate all the new houses on the south end. Round about the same time, they legalized* swimming in the river. Almost immediately, floating down the Deschutes became Bend's greatest past-time.

Most of the people who float the river in summer are, as you'd expect, teenagers; but families float, too. My dad bought a six-person raft and has taken Blake once and both kids once. (The
river is quite cold, but Blake would rather be in the water, buoyed by his lifejacket, than sit peacefully in the raft. It's easier to take him alone.) And then late afternoon Wednesday, my girlfriends and I -- five of us altogether -- spent an hour and a half relaxing into the current.

My husband left work early that afternoon to take the kids off my hands. I cleaned the house as much as possible and had some dinner ideas for him, but they abandoned all that when my dad showed up, and instead they all drove to Mt. Bachelor, where they joined a lot of other astronomy buffs.

I know that many places on this earth are beautiful and beloved by its people, but I tell you: I hope I am able to live the rest of my life here.


*At least, I think so. My husband tells stories of getting busted for swimming in the river back when he was young.

Put your own oxygen mask on first

Last winter I put the kids in daycare three days a week. I worked two 1/2 days, and then I'd snowboard with my sister-in-law for half a day. It was a glorious time but short-lived; soon after ski season ended, the kids' beloved daycare closed and I had to move them to two days at a new daycare + Blake two days at preschool.

But! Beginning this month, preschool is done (Blake is jumping up and down shouting "Yea! No more preschool!") and I've started them again in three days of daycare.

Thus begins

TUESDAY MORNING MOUNTAIN BIKING

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! Skyliner Road is windy!
Can't drive down it.
Can't fly over it.
Have to keep riding.

Huff puff
Huff puff
Huff puff

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! The trail winds so tight through the trees!
Can't go off it.
Don't wanna turn around.
Have to keep riding.

Whee!
Whee!
Whee!

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! Traffic circle in the forest!S
igns only point backward.
Don't know which way to go.
But I have to keep riding.

Don't get lost
Don't get lost
Don't get lost

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! Uphill switchbacks over lava rock!
Can't go around it.
Can't get off my bike.
Have to ride up it.

Hoo huff
Hoo huff
Hoo huff

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! Trails split in four directions!
No signs anywhere.
Don't know which way to go.
Ride toward construction sounds.

Beep beep
Beep beep
Beep beep

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! 5000 square foot houses!
Can't buy one of them.
Can't rent one of them.
Have to ride past them.

Ri-dic-u-lous
Ri-dic-u-lous
Ri-dic-u-lous

I'm going on a bike ride.
It's going to be a good one.
What a beautiful day!
I'm not scared.

Oh oh! I made it home again!
Don't want to go back to work.
Don't want to go get the kids.
Have to keep riding.

With apologies to Michael Rosen.