After the cutters were finished, 50 acres of forested watershed near our home was pretty much gone. Familiar habitat was replaced by strips of trees surrounded by stumps, slash, and orderly heaps of logs — cash crop to grease the skids of our consumption. Read More
Some kind of crazy heroism
Logging and commercial fishing are neck and neck in a race for most dangerous occupation in America. During some years, as many as 118 loggers die on the job, a death rate nearly 30 times that of a typical workplace, with most of them killed by falling trees. Read More
Women of the Wakonda Auga
The women are the river, the meandering, silent river, the quiet riffles near the bank, where a severed arm raises a finger to the sky. The men are everything else – protagonists, loggers, action, jobs, bluster, egos, wind, and rain slanting down from low, gray skies. Read More
I am a Logger’s Daughter
I come from people that were unwilling to give up or give in to the confines of a place or an era or a lot in life. I come from people that were willing to take on the challenge to fight for a way of life, to persevere, to stick together, to be brave. Read More
Kesey’s Coastal Trip: A Field Guide to the Addled Earth
Ken Kesey, the man himself, loomed large during my Eugene years – an elder prankster, still generating a buzz and mild mischief around almost every worthwhile corner. To me, he seemed nearly as venerable, nearly as emblematic of the town’s gestalt and vibe, as the very university buildings that he ambled past – a man just as steeped in his place as the place was steeped in him. Read More
Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain
Last summer, I started reading Art & Physics on the recommendation of my son, who actually read it at the suggestion of a teacher a few years ago. Bottom line – get this book, even if you only look at the pictures. There’s a lot of great art in it, and the illustrations explaining the physics concepts are excellent. [Read more]
Correspondence
This is a strange time, is it not my Queen? With the valley shrouded in pooling fog, the days have darkened and the Elk have been proving themselves increasingly difficult to be tallied. Their hooves have forked in three directions: where the Root drinks from the Vein, where the Tongue burrows into sand, and where the Stones From Afar circle The Forest’s edge. [Read More]
No-see-ums, the entropy effect and non-linear time
So I awoke today to the morning light streaming in at just the right angle to reveal that the no-see-ums had invaded my bedroom via a teeny-tiny-itsy-bitsy unnoticed hole in the window screen. (Egads!) My room was a flutter with dust-mote-sized, blood-sucking denizens of suffering and I was feeling a bit helpless as I ran for the duct tape and realized that during the night my bug bites had multiplied 3-fold. (DRAT!) [Read More]
My Dogs, a Surprise on the Beach and The Angel
I was really in a bind. I was alone, no one else on the beach, and had this “situation.” Zeke was pulling hard now wanting to join his brother torture the baby seal. Al was getting more excited by the moment, and was circling the helpless baby. And I knew if I tried to walk Zeke over and grab Al, it would be all over for the baby seal. They would kill it. They’re not vicious dogs, but the excitement would turn into something awful if I let them both near the baby. [Read More]
What Could Be Described as a Commune of Elderly Alcoholics
What ate the daylight yesterday—and many days of the past month—was drinking cheap 5.9% alcohol per content beers with men 60 plus years of age. Cranky men, clinging onto beer cans as if their nostalgia depended on it. Maybe a lifetime of drinking dilutes experiences enough so that ageing and learning from life slips by unnoticed.
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