June 5 2010:
I am now in McMinnville, staying at a place that grows hay, straw, and a variety of fruit and veggies. My hosts, Barbara and Tom Boyer of Gourmet Hay, have been very kind to me so far. As well as serving customers here in the Yamhill Valley, the farm also sells to a few businesses that may be familiar to those of you in Portland. Two days ago we delivered a load of straw to Naomi's Organic Farm Supply in Sellwood. And earlier in the week I planted about 300 padrone peppers, which are sauteed and served whole at La Rumbla. The property fronts the South Yamhill, and I am glad to say that the riparian zone is well vegetated. Tom is converting some of his hay fields to conifer plantings, which should in the future provide that all important CWD. So it looks good from here, if we can just get some sunshine. Cheers.
June 21 2010:
Back in the metropolis after two weeks in wine country. Filled out my time with Ms. Jackie Dole at her farm. Three others and I shared a loft with twittering swallows. Enjoyed using compost toilet :) Jackie is an absolute sweetheart and if you are wwoofing the Yamhill Valley I encourage you to inquire with her. Her river frontage on the South Yamhill is weed dominated understory with decent native canopy...Premium pinot noirs are being sold below production costs under second or even third labels according to the NW Winepress. Vintners are concerned that this will affect consumer behavior even after this economic malaise lifts. I am sympathetic to this view, but when I buy a $7 bottle of Rascal at QFC, I recall fondly the days when Charles Shaw first sounded the call to bacchanal on the UC Berkeley campus...Overcast skies on the longest day of the year.
6.21.2010
6.07.2010
Scenery Sellers
I've recently come upon Wallace Stegner's nonfiction writing. How he previously escaped my attention, I don't know, but I've been captivated by him this past month. He manages to weave his emotional connection to western lands in with his knowledge of regulatory history in such a graceful manner.
"The Westerner is less a person than a continuing adaptation. The West is less a place than a process. And the western landscape that it has taken us a century and three quarters to learn about, and partially adapt our farming, our social institutions, our laws, and our aesthetic perceptions to, has now become our most valuable natural resource, as subject to raid and ruin as the more concrete resources that have suffered from our rapacity. We are in danger of becoming scenery sellers - and scenery is subject to as much enthusiastic overuse and overdevelopment as grass and water....We should all be forced to file an environmental impact study before we build so much as a privy or a summer cottage, much less a motel, a freeway, or a resort....I really only want to say that we may love a place and still be dangerous to it."
- Excerpt from "Thoughts in a Dry Land", Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West
"The Westerner is less a person than a continuing adaptation. The West is less a place than a process. And the western landscape that it has taken us a century and three quarters to learn about, and partially adapt our farming, our social institutions, our laws, and our aesthetic perceptions to, has now become our most valuable natural resource, as subject to raid and ruin as the more concrete resources that have suffered from our rapacity. We are in danger of becoming scenery sellers - and scenery is subject to as much enthusiastic overuse and overdevelopment as grass and water....We should all be forced to file an environmental impact study before we build so much as a privy or a summer cottage, much less a motel, a freeway, or a resort....I really only want to say that we may love a place and still be dangerous to it."
- Excerpt from "Thoughts in a Dry Land", Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)