Love at First Flight: Elkton Butterfly Pavilion

Okay, so it's a few days past Valentine's Day, but it's never too late to feel the LOVE.

In fact, I am still seriously crushing on a place I visited awhile ago: The Elkton Butterfly Pavilion.

Though I adore so many towns in Oregon, Elkton is one near the top of my list. Located half-way between Eugene and the coast, this historic hometown is simply a small-but-mighty-sweet surprise. Such a muse is my Elkton, I am suddenly feeling the need to compose in iambic pentameter.

[Read on accordingly in your best Shakespearean accent.]

Love at First Flight

by one fairly infatuated farm girl

There lies a dream-like sweetly scented trail

Where time stands still amidst the amber vale.

And blossoms gently lilt to kiss your cheek

Whilst velvet grasses comfort tired feet.

Like curtains then the briars and brambles part;

Light floods the path to this pavillion's heart--

A nursery-garden, screened against the sky.

Inside, ephemeral Monarchs flutter by,

Emergent from their shells in recent hours,

Alighted o'er bouquets of nectar flowers.

How does this insect course from worm to wing?

Just there--chrysalises faintly swirl and sing

Of life that morphs from gold to green to black

Until the queen steps royally from her sack.

In pomp and glory coloured of the flame,

Bold, cape-like wings befit her mighty name.

She finds her prince; they sip perfumed milk

Hence drying their cloaks of powdery, spotted silk.

Surveying kingdoms come, they float around

O'er painted petals, brushed across the ground.

Perchance a starling, perched upon a ray

Will chirp and twitter, heralding the day

Move closer, softly, witness here his view

Of verdant meadows brimmed in blush's hue.

Then flitter o'er the hedges toward the buyer

Where native species huddle and conspire

To oust invasive salients from the land

Returning God's estate to faithful hands.

'Tis but a place for meeting a chance friend

Or chasing dusty byways 'til they end.

There, gather fleeting moments whilst you swirl

Like childhood's innocence, lost as they unfurl

For Monarchs' sunset steals such precious time

To understand life's miracles sublime

So step forth from the shadows of your life

And planting beauty, conquer age's strife.

Breathe deeply, 'neath the Heavens' sapphire light

Embracing fleeting joy from love's first flight.

Nana and Papa's Garden

Sometimes, when you've just arrived at the home of a friend or family member, and you haven't been there in quite awhile, it's nice to bumble around their house and see what's changed while you were away.

Furniture might be rearranged. Accessories might have been added. Family photos may have been updated. It's interesting to witness how people organize and display their lives, their style, on the palette that is their home. We evolve as days, months, and years unfold before us; we morph to meet our daily challenges and discover meaning in life. The insides of homes offer insights into our personal evolution.

As do our gardens.

My mother- and father-in-law have been interested, if somewhat haphazardly, in gardening for as long as I've been part of their family and, I assume, a few decades before that as well. Each time we visit, there's always a home-grown treat in the yard to enjoy: blueberries hanging heavily from the old trees, blackberries dripping off yards of untamed brambles, potatoes needing digging, and a pot or two of tomatoes adorning the front patio.

This past year, however, their interest in growing edibles evolved from a few pots here and there (to go with the perennial berries) to a full-fledged family garden. Out with the lawn. In with the veggies. This was the [outdoor] transformation I'd heard so much about and was dying to explore. Camera in hand, I made a bee line for the backyard.

This is their garden, viewed from the back patio. In a space that is approximately 15 x 20 feet, they grew enough food last summer to keep in fresh fruits and veggies all season and freeze and can a substantial amount for the winter, as well. The two large trees in the back are mature blueberry bushes that have apparently been there "forever." With a little extra TLC and bird netting stretched over white PVC piping, they were able to harvest and store bumper crops through July and August. What you can't see in this photo are the blackberry bushes to the right, raspberry canes to the left, and a raised bed of about 60 strawberry plants further back.

From this perspective, it's hard to differentiate any plants in the mass of green stems and leaves. Let's get down and dirty and look a little closer.

These beautiful, pink blossoms unfold at the top of potato plants. I think they're pretty in and of themselves, but what lies below is a sight for hungry eyes.

One errant spud has emerged from above the soil. Rest assured he has many friends, hidden, just a few inches down.

Potatoes are on my list of things to try for the first time this year. In fact, my seed potatoes are sitting on top of the piano right now, just itching to get in the ground as soon as I have time. I know my childhood piano teacher would be mortified to know that my antique upright piano is now serving more as a dumping ground for random farm fare and gardening implements than it is an instrument for producing tunes of any kind. I've read that some gardeners actually play music to their plants under the impression that it helps them thrive! Don't worry; I won't be doing that any time soon.

I turn around to spy the yellow squash. Mine are never this prolific! I wonder what their secret is. Remind me to ask them, later.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but these bush beans were so abundant that, toward the beginning of August, my in-laws just stopped picking them. Is there really such a thing as too many fresh beans? There must be, but I've yet to experience it!

Sugar snap peas, grown in pots and supported by tomato cages, punctuate the edges of the garden. This must be an advantage of the mild Oregon summers: I'm pretty sure snap peas in Southern California's summer heat are a climate-prohibited no-no.

A three-foot tall wire fence surround the garden. Its intended purpose is to keep the dog out of the produce, but it also serves as a pretty and practical hanger for curing onions. I love how they lounge, lazily, absorbing the afternoon rays of sun.

My father in-in-law also concocted a green house of sorts by securing sturdy, clear plastic sheeting over the top of an open carport. Giant peppers flourish in the warm, protected area, which is flooded with natural light.

My father-in law also grows sunflowers, but these are actually for the birds. After the flowers open and the seeds swell and harden, they leave them out in the yard through the chilly fall and well into the wet and freezing winter. The seeds are a special offering for the colorful, native birds that also call this garden "home".

I enjoy walking through the interior of friends' homes, admiring recent changes and gleaning ideas that I might someday incorporate into my own life. But more than that, I am positively bursting with giddiness as I head out back and tiptoe through their yards and gardens... just to take a peek and a few pictures.

When it comes to growing your own, there is always more to learn, there are tips and tricks to try, methods to re-evaluate, designs to imitate. Copying is, after all, the highest form of flattery! And when the end result of all of this plant-based plagiarism is both nutritious and delicious, how can you blame me?

Watch out--I may just copy your garden next.

Oregon Adventures in Sustainability, An Introduction

Although I am a native Californian, I have always adored the great state of Oregon.

As a young girl, I grew up enjoying family vacations in and around Central Point. Many of my favorite childhood memories are staged there, at the home of family friends, feeding gentle cows unlawful amounts of grain (I just couldn't get enough of it, and neither could they, apparently), fishing, swimming in the pond, and falling asleep to the noisy croaking of a million chanting frogs and the even noisier calling of wistful peacocks in the distance.

Those childhood memories led me to choose the University of Oregon as an undergrad. There, I spent four amazing years in the quintessentially college town of Eugene. After meeting my would-be husband, I did what any strong-willed So Cal girl would--I dragged him back down south with me.

Okay, I admit he may have moved willingly and entirely of his own accord.

One wedding, two kids, and ten years later, we now load the SUV and high-tail it 15 hours up the I-5 as often as we can visit hubby's family. They live in a little town along the Southern Oregon Coast. We are well-experienced in the art of long road trips with little ones [and tactics to make them as painless as possible for all parties involved]. Strategies may involve the following: an illicit meal (if you want to call it that) from McDonald's on the way out of town as bribery; a cooler jam-packed full of sippy cups of milk; blankies, pillows, and lovies galore; and for desperate measures, a bottle of Children's Benadryl. Just in case. If you are a parent, then you know that not all roadside emergencies can be solved with a spare tire, flares, or an AAA membership.

On the road, our objective is to stop only when necessary, which amounts to roughly four ten-minute breaks between here and there. We time it just right so that we roll into Sutherlin as the sun rises, revealing meandering meadows, verdant hills, rambling "cricks," and the Dutch Brothers Coffee Co. Drive-Thru window. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, then you can understand what I mean when I say that blue and white windmill signals VICTORY! With piping hot cups-of-mud in hand, we are armed with enough caffeine to make it the rest of the way to the coast.

This is a good thing, not only because we want to stay awake and reach our destination ALIVE, but also because the most beautiful scenery lies along Highway 38. Our eyes need to be open in order to, you know, see it.

During the next sixty minutes we wind down and along the mostly-two-lane road, alternating between pastures and patches of forest. Deciduous trees line the path like slightly scattered sentinels and, beyond their colorful formations, evergreen forests guard the low hills, proud and majestic. They are the emerald royalty of the Pacific Northwest.

My head spins from side to side, in a hurry to take in all of the fleeting sights that I crave: The century-old dilapidated barns with their mossy-green patina, historic yet sprightly white-washed farmhouses resting gracefully, unchanged. The Umpqua River, flowing and trembling in shallow pools as it slows near Elkton. The chestnut doe and her fawn, darting alarmingly from the tangle of wild blackberries every now and again. (They are the other reason our coffee stop is imperative.)

Finally, the river widens and deepens and darkens. We drive through a small and sleepy-ish town that once was a logging mecca, full of hustle and bustle. Now, the sawmill has been closed for awhile, and with it went many jobs and even more citizens. Still, the slow and peaceful quiet of this place is a sound for sore ears. Being an elementary school teacher and mother of young children, quiet isn't something I get very much of. That is, after all, one of the reasons I love my vegetables so desperately: they don't ever talk back.

Finally, we pull into a familiar driveway. The exhausted Ford groans as my husband pulls up the parking break and turns off the ignition. He and I open the doors slowly, checking to be sure we can feel our toes before gingerly stepping out of the car onto the rough (and usually wet) pavement of his childhood home. But we are old and slow; the children have already ripped off their seat belts, tumbled out of the backseat, and exploded--all giggles and smiles--into the warm house and even warmer embraces of their Nana and Papa.

Although my children and their grandparents shared so many special moments during our week-long summer visit, that's not what I want to tell you about. I want to show you the amazing natural places we toured and the gardens I photographed and the sustainable wedding we attended and the veggies we picked and the ocean crabs we caught and feasted on and the pie we baked from the berries we picked. They were eye-opening and beautiful and delicious and inspiring to me, an aspiring farm girl with a newly-green green thumb.

I hope you'll visit back soon so I can share them all with you. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just a mite curious about living more sustainably, you might find yourself being inspired, as I am, by the picturesque Pacific Northwest.

Udderly Urbane

Some people dream of being rich. Or traveling around the world. Or meeting someone famous.

I dream of someday owning a cow. Or two. Don't laugh.

I said stop laughing!

It may be a strange little dream, but it is true. I fantasize about someday having two dairy cows, a Guernsey and a Holstein. The Guernsey will be named Ophelia, and the Holstein will be called Desdemona. [Once upon a time--before kids, that is--I read a lot of Shakespeare.] Can you see them in the distance, grazing on my organic someday pasture, just beyond my future crimson barn, lowing sweetly? I can.

Until I someday make my dream a reality, this will have to do.

This is the dairy cow at the La Habra Children's Museum. I went there with my best friends and my children this summer; it was worth the drive and the price of tickets, if for no other reason than... my children got to milk a cow.

How now, brown cow? Wither wander you?

Okay. It wasn't a real cow. And it wasn't wandering anywhere. But it sure was cute. I almost got down on that stool and yanked on the udders myself!

Mason practices to prepare for Mommy's future cow(s).

Is this pathetic that my child is "milking" a fleece cow staple-gunned to a plywood wall? Does anybody out there have a real live cow for this boy (or his silly mom) to milk? This picture is udderly urbane!

Nevermind about "Get[ting] thee to a nunnery," Hamlet. I need to get me to a dairy farm!

Foodie Field Trip: Eugene's Social Justice

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit an old friend. A wonderful friend, close to my heart. The kind of friend who reminds me of who I used to be, and at the same time inspires the person I someday want to become.

Every year I look forward to visiting her, if only for a day. But the problem is, as with any friend, that as time goes on we change. She changes; I change. And after ten years we sometimes hardly recognize each other anymore... which leaves me feeling a little lost, a little forlorn... because my entire life used to center around her, within her. Of course I'm not talking about a person, but a place. My favorite place: Eugene, Oregon.

This is the town where I took my first steps of independence, discovered and nurtured my interests, fell in love with my husband, and made big plans... lots and lots of plans.

It was ten years ago that my husband (then boyfriend) and I packed up everything we owned inside of and on top of two cars, and we drove away from her--from Eugene--to start a new life together in Long Beach, California. In some ways Long Beach reminds me of Eugene: its eclectic population, its energy, its lack of pretense. But in other ways, the two locales couldn't be more opposite: the climate, the environment, life's pace.

And though Long Beach has seemed to stay relatively the same throughout my twenties, Eugene has been transformed, developed dramatically. Most Oregonians herald this progress. As alumni and benefactor Phil Knight (of Nike) pours money into the campus, new super-glitzy structures of steel and glass spring up around East Eugene. There's the new basketball court. And the new baseball facility. Not to mention the new tutoring center for college athletes. These buildings may be modern, they may be expensive, and they may draw more students and serve them well.

But I will always remember what used to be there: a view looking out from my old dorm room towards the Willamette River; a breathtaking planting of daffodils that has since been paved over; an emerald meadow sprinkled with evergreen trees near the football stadium; and the Williams Bakery from which heavenly scents of freshly-baked bread wafted each and every morning of the four years that I lived there. These things are no longer.

Not only the campus community has changed. City-wide, visitors will find revamped shopping centers, monstrous billboards so low to the ground they practically slap you in the face, and space-age sculptural elements. The city has big plans for updating its riverfront property. Roads swerve in different directions around recent construction, and even the road signs are new. My husband and I drive, confusedly, up and down streets that were once second nature, second-guessing our routes and even our destinations. This must be what it feels like to have the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.

Near downtown, at the heart of the city, the largest, most obtrusive structure of all rises up before us suddenly, like a tidal wave. We almost slam on the breaks in surprise as we approach the new Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse. It shimmers and gleams as a few rays of fleeting, evanescent sunlight make their way through the pervasive, Pacific Northwest cloud cover. It looks like something out of Gotham City, not my brick and mortar Eugene of a bygone era.

Eugene's New U.S. Courthouse

We pull over on a [newly paved] side-street adjacent to the building. We stare, wide-eyed, through the passenger-side window, gawking at its monolithic stature for a moment. And then we look to the left.

On the other side of the road, just beyond the shadows of the courthouse, lies something amazing, something beautiful, something completely paradoxical, something organic. Inadvertently, we have parked beside the brand-spanking new Eugene Community Garden.

Eugene Community Garden

I had read about this project a few months before our visit, in an alumni publication I receive. But here it was, still unexpected. A University of Oregon professor had noted this land, sitting blank and unused beside the new courthouse, ripe with potential. With the help of many dedicated students, raised rows were dug, irrigation was laid out and connected to a fresh water supply, and a storage building was erected and fenced off.

Rows upon rows of vegetables grow in stark contrast between the new courthouse and the antiquated, dilapidated riverfront industrial buildings seen in the background.

A View Toward the Riverfront

Demolished hardscape was removed from the site and rests, like horrific haystacks, along the edges of the garden. You can just make them out in the middle, left hand side of the photo above. I assume that this debris will be reused or relocated in the future.

My family huddled in warmth of the car while I got out with my camera and meandered through the snow-sprinkled paths to take a closer look.

In the November cold, Brassicas, like these cabbage below, flourished to gigantic proportions.

Six-foot-tall trellises supported a variety of berry canes. Of course, there were no actual berries to be seen this time of year.

Rows were thickly mulched with fallen leaves and straw, natural resources which are in no short supply in the Willamette Valley.

Strawberry bushes huddled by the hundreds against this concrete wall, which was covered with pea netting (I suppose for spring crops to come). The plants look healthy, despite their light frosting of ice and snow.

In front of the strawberries stood a single line of fruit trees, a mini-linear orchard of apples and stone fruit. I imagine how full and lush this will look when the trees mature. Interestingly, the trees are underplanted with onions.

More onions emerge, nearby, from a straw-mulched, raised bed.

Artichokes cap off the ends of each row with a colorful burst of purple.

There were many more varieties of vegetables growing here, but because I was frozen to the bone after only a few minutes, I did not manage to snap pictures of them all. I recall, however, multitudes of Swiss chard, rhubarb, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and blueberry bushes. Many of these were ready to harvest.

Off to the side, down a grassy slope and next to a pond of sorts, lies a make-shift gathering place. Metal and plastic lawn chairs and tables are strewn, happenstance, alongside a Weber barbeque and assorted bales of hay. I envision a balmy summer evening here, the sweet perfumey scent of the Willamette Valley in July, college-age gardeners gathering at the end of a long afternoon harvesting vegetables for the local Lane County Food Bank. I see them lounging atop the hay bales, cracking open a cold one, sharing fresh food, relaxed conversation, and the leisurely comraderie of fellow farmers.

If I still lived there, and if I were a little younger, I would probably be one of them. But times change. Places change. People change.

As my head swirled back to reality, I turned to see my patient husband and two beautiful children jumping up and down wildly (the kids, not the husband), waving me back toward the car and my own current reality.

Practically numb with cold, I was picking my way toward the street, through the rows, when I stumbled upon a marker. Looking down, I found a hand-painted stone that said--simply--this:

Between the smoke and mirrors of the new courthouse, and the industrial, river-front reminders of yester-year, lies something wonderful. The Eugene Community Garden is the intersection of the past and the future. It is the embodiment of sustainability. Without trying, it is the most progressive new structure in the city of Eugene. And it didn't even cost $96 million dollars to build.

Now that is social justice.