Lost Valley Nature Center
For archive of e-newsletters, articles, species lists, trail map and directions, etc., scroll to bottom of page.
Lost Valley Nature Center Photo-Letter, December 9, 2008
Sometimes pictures say more than words--even when those words are big ones,
like "symbiosis," "transformation," and "regeneration."
Below, some moments at Lost Valley...
All photos were taken the morning of December 8, 2008.
Special thanks to Usnea longissima.
Dear friend of the Lost Valley Nature Center,
It's been an extraordinarily busy year here, and almost five months since our last e-newsletter. In the interim, Lost Valley has hosted both an eight-week summer and a four-week fall Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program, a three-week late-summer Eco-Homes course, and a number of other events. The Nature Center has created a series of engraved signs for a Land Management tour, and we've also completed extensive wildfire mitigation work through an Oregon Department of Forestry grant. Chris' new position as editor of Communities magazine (see communities.ic.org) took him to Missouri for two weeks in September as well as yielding a Fall 2008 "Politics in Community" issue including several eco-oriented articles and a soon-to-be-published Winter 2008 "Scarcity and Abundance" issue featuring Lost Valley's land steward, Rick Valley, on the cover. Vegetables from the Meadow Garden (featured in that same photo) weighed in at nearly two tons for the twelve-month period ending on Halloween, including over 1000 pounds of winter squash and an abundance of salad greens, cooking greens, garlic, and other crops that have kept us well-fed throughout the year. Harvests from the Creek Garden and from other sources on and off the land (including bountiful acorns from nearby oaks) have helped us increase the amount of local and seasonal food consumed here. Recent events helping the local community connect with our local ecosystems have included an Eat Here Now potluck at Aprovecho, the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival, and several Acorns as Food workshops held at Maitreya Ecovillage.
Chris, Penelope, and Marcus have taken a series of classes with our neighbor Dave Bontrager, including a Field Natural History class and a Bird Banding Class. A few weeks ago, we heard three of our four resident owls (Barred Owl, Great Horned Owl, and Western Screech-Owl) all calling on the same night. Our fourth resident, the Northern Pygmy-Owl, did not vocalize that night here, but we'd captured one during the Bird Banding class not long before. We also got up-close looks at nearly three dozen additional species (including more than 150 Swainson's Thrushes), giving new meaning to the phrase, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." That's especially true when studying bird structure and how it relates to behavior and habitat, or when learning to appreciate age, gender, population, and individual differences.
As the rains set in, we look forward to catching up on several Nature Center-related projects that have been put on hold during these busy months. And we're planning for next year's 20th anniversary events here at Lost Valley. Please see the attached "Valley Voices" newsletter for a more comprehensive overview of recent Lost Valley developments and how you can be involved over the coming year.
Thanks for your interest!
Chris
photos: top row: Lost Valley winter squash, garlic, and corn; Rick Valley in the Meadow Garden
middle row: Northern Pygmy-Owl (photo by Steve Cafferata); a Swainson's Thrush in the hand
bottom row: Lost Valley autumn color; Oregon White Oak aerial twins at Mt. Pisgah; Douglas Fir at Mt. Pisgah
Lost Valley Nature Center Update, June 20, 2008
In the two-and-a-half months since the last Nature Center e-news, an unusual amount of water, both literal and figurative, has passed under the bridge. After a protracted spring-reverting-into-winter, featuring more cold and wet here than anyone can recall during these months, we are happy to welcome summer, which seems finally to have arrived. Wild strawberries, osoberries, and salmonberries have all yielded ripe fruit; bear, bobcat, and an abundance of breeding birds have been in evidence; and more has been happening every day on the land than anyone could shake a stick at, let alone document. In the human world, Nature Center intern Kerry is continuing to edit the transcripts from last May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering while doing botanical surveys in Colorado (she is missed here). In addition to coordinating Lost Valley's Meadow Garden and trying to keep up with the plants and birds of the Nature Center and environs, Chris has accepted a new position as editor of Communities magazine (see www.ic.org). His first issue, focused on "Politics in Community," is due out in September and features several ecology-themed articles. Meanwhile, his mother Nancy Roth's book Grounded in Love: Ecology, Faith, and Action (see www.kenarnoldbooks.com/grounded_in_love) has just been published, with a foreword by David Orr and advance praise from, among others, Bill McKibben, David James Duncan, and Sr. Miriam Therese MacGillis. Watch for notice of a talk and book signing at the Nature Center, probably in 2009. Dave Bontrager's bird song and bird ID classes, an Oregon White Oak restoration tour at Mt. Pisgah, a Willamette Valley Indian Cultural-Ecological Restoration Workshop in the West Eugene Wetlands, and a birding expedition to Malheur Wildlife Refuge have all been off-site highlights of the spring. Dave Bontrager's Field Natural History class, in which three of us are enrolled, starts Sunday and meets periodically throughout the summer. Lost Valley's own Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program summer session (see www.lostvalley.org/EPI/Courses/EPCP) started this week, and enrollment continues for the fall session and for late summer's Eco-Homes program (www.lostvalley.org/EPI/Courses/EcoHomes). Additional upcoming events, including monthly Open Mics, can be found at www.lostvalley.org/events as they are scheduled.
The Nature Center's most significant recent on-the-ground accomplishment has been completion of a thirty-five station Sustainability Tour, marked by engraved signs. A new downloadable brochure includes the complete text of the signs. While we hope this brochure is instructive on its own, it is even more useful when read while exploring the features it describes at Lost Valley. Please arrange a visit and enjoy the tour!
Thanks for reading, and happy summer solstice,
Chris
Lost Valley Nature Center News, April 4, 2008
Notes from Nature Center intern Kerry Cutler
In this early part of spring, all things are possibilities. The emerging cascara leaves show their veins dark and distinct: tiny, more perfect versions of what they soon become. A lacewing, hatched in the women's bathroom, unfurls wings which harden pristine and unspoiled, and I wonder what his/her plans are. Beautiful enough, she certainly isn’t in need of any grooming. The weather is mild, but ecstatic; first pinching us with frost in the morning, then warming to a glow that shimmers with webs and other signs of life, always with the possibility of enthusiastic gusts of wind or hail. With hail, the rule appears to be the more unexpected, the better. It seems that nature enjoys most to bring hail at the very moment when you have gradually yielded to the sun and laid first the raincoat, then the sweater, then the long underwear on various tree branches here and there.
In early February the Synthyris reniformis started blooming, and it is scattered around most of the paths and trails at Lost Valley still. For a time the Snow Queen really was queen as we all relished the first thoughts of spring it heralded. I don’t know what advantage its early blooming lends it, but the honeybees were very appreciative of the early nourishment. Sometime over the winter, one of our hives ran out of honey and the defeated honeybee bodies littered the front stoop of their hive. It is with great focus and apparent enthusiasm that the rest of the hives gather pollen as fast as the flowers can deliver. They seem to take little notice of all the other things coming to eat or gather at the same flowers. Bee Flies and Mason Bees and a variety of hemipterans come to probe with their long proboscises into nectaries. The mouthparts of the Syrphid Flies probe the stamens for the pollen instead, reminding me of horse lips grappling with large golden hay-flavored lollipops. The fawn lilies have leaves like ballet slippers. Their heads rest on stems like swans and their petals are satin dancers. These are blooming everywhere at the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum, escalating in number with the rarefied air as we climb the hill to old Ole’s Oak.
Always with spring comes the relearning and learning of names of all the newcomers. A name can be a useful thing. The name can sometimes further our adventure and allow us to perceive more of what we are seeing. A certain character with a dark waving pattern on the leading edge of his wings and long proboscis appeared next to me in the meadow, looking dazed and cleaning himself. If I knew then what I knew now, that he is called the Greater Bee Fly, Bombylius major, then I might have learned that as a larva he ate the young of burrowing solitary bees. If I had known, I would have looked around for a little hole that might resemble such a cave of carnal delight from which he emerged into the daylight. Along the Creek Trail and on our other wanderings, Chris and I examine vegetation, seeking out leaf patterns and the shape of rosettes, and try to identify the young things before they are betrayed and outdone by the distinction of flower and color. The act of conjuring the names also summons images from far-flung mountains and meadows and the events and people that are linked to those places. Words like “Lousewort” and “Saxifraga” help to call back all of the fragments of my past and connect me to a larger story, delightfully complex and full of color and texture.
On one of the warmer days in February, I climbed up Eagles Rest to get a different perspective on the hills and forest around our Lost Valley. On the way up, I came upon a particular lichen that had a shape like one I am familiar with, except that it was brilliant chartreuse, like a strange appendage separated from its extraterrestrial. The fragment that I put into my pocket was either lost on my way home or sent through the washing machine. I didn’t see that lichen again until recently. At the base of a big old grandmother fir tree, I discovered another one like it, fallen from its perch higher up in the canopy. I think I have found a possible name for it and to call the thing Letharia gives it a measure of solidity it didn’t have for me previously. I know it wasn’t an anomaly or a dream or a trick of the light, or something an alien left in the woods. It was something that happened, and something that happens still, particularly on pines and junipers, according to my reference book. I haven’t sent it through a dichotomous key or found a species for it, but it is a place to settle for a while, the way the flies and bees do on the crabapple flowers. It gives me hope that I will see it again, and I look forward to being surprised again by some other aspect of it and its kin.
Sometimes, though, I prefer the soft focus approach to my surroundings. I find myself in lovely dusk light with stars overhead, heavy tree branches still bare that twirl as I pass them, all serenaded by the evening songs of newly arrived birds and I don’t need to know what star? What tree? What birds? In those moments, it is less important to be separate individuals than it is to all be part of one beautiful place.
Notes from Nature Center coordinator Chris Roth
On twelve field trips to East Elijah Bristow State Park and Dexter Lake between January 20 and March 9, Dave Bontrager's bird class counted 73 bird species in total. The class focused not on compiling lists, however, but on observing behaviors, characteristics, habitats, and interactions of birds within the park. Through our many return visits, we became familiar not just with species, but with individuals. We also encountered 64 elk one morning, a dozen or so western pond turtles, and every kind of weather imaginable from sun to clouds to rain to hail to snow (often mixed together).
I returned Sunday, March 30, and again experienced most of that weather, this time in a single day. I encountered 34 species of birds in about three-and-a-half hours, including some newly arriving migrants (orange-crowned warbler and black-throated gray warbler) and another year-round Lane County resident (purple finch) not seen during our classes. Here, for birding fanatics (and because the "poetic quota" for this newsletter has already been used up), is the list of species observed during our classes, with an asterisk placed next to those also observed on March 30 (many of the others, with the exception of some waterbirds we'd seen early on the lake, were undoubtedly present as well; our average species-count-per-field trip was approximately 30, so my partial sampling was fairly typical):
common loon, pied-billed grebe, horned grebe, western grebe, Clark’s grebe, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron*, snow goose, Canada goose*, wood duck, green-winged teal, mallard*, gadwall, American wigeon, canvasback, redhead, ring-necked duck*, lesser scaup*, common goldeneye, bufflehead*, hooded merganser*, common merganser, ruddy duck, turkey vulture*, osprey*, bald eagle, northern harrier, red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk*, ring-necked pheasant, American coot*, killdeer, spotted sandpiper, Wilson’s snipe, ring-billed gull, California gull, rock pigeon, mourning dove*, belted kingfisher*, red-breasted sapsucker*, downy woodpecker, northern flicker*, Hutton’s vireo, Steller’s jay*, western scrub jay, American crow*, common raven, tree swallow*, violet-green swallow, barn swallow, black-capped chickadee*, chestnut-backed chickadee, bushtit, red-breasted nuthatch*, brown creeper, Bewick’s wren*, winter wren*, golden-crowned kinglet*, ruby-crowned kinglet*, hermit thrush, American robin*, varied thrush*, wrentit*, European starling, yellow-rumped warbler*, spotted towhee*, fox sparrow, song sparrow*, white-crowned sparrow, golden-crowned sparrow, dark-eyed junco*, red-winged blackbird, pine siskin
Kerry and I are also enrolled in Dave's upcoming bird song and bird ID classes, starting mid-month.
Two American dippers have been quite active in the vicinity of our pedestrian footbridge over Anthony Creek. I have more questions than answers about what is going on with these aquatic songbirds. Because both individuals sing, I presumed from the outset that they were both males, having a discussion about their territorial boundaries and possibly about breeding competence. However, when I consulted The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, I was reminded that both males and females sing year-round. The males are slightly larger, but I have not gotten a good enough look since learning that to compare the sizes. One of the birds seems to inhabit the upstream portion of the creek, and the other to inhabit the downstream portion, but they occasionally fly side-by-side or hop on adjacent rocks, either upstream, downstream, or under and around the bridge. Are these behaviors examples of chasing/combat, or of flirtation/courtship? I figured that either they are a male-female pair (or pair-in-the-making) who still like to keep their distance from each other most of the time but will ultimately reveal a pair bond, or they are two non-paired birds on adjacent territories, debating with one another who can lay claim to the "bridge" zone.
Then I got to thinking more--primarily about dipper politics. Depending on who lays claim to that bridge area, it could be seen as either a "bridge from the past" or a "bridge to the future." Or if they turn out in the end to be a pair, "on the same ticket" as it were, perhaps it is a bridge to both. They are generally dark birds, slate gray--they are certainly not the "white males" who have been known to dominate many bodies of water historically. However, they are not purely dark either. Their white eyelids are distinctive, visible each time they blink, creating just as vivid an impression as their overall grayness. Do we think of them therefore as black birds? Or as white birds? Or are they the products of, or participants in, a kind of black-white partnership? Will the first black presiding bird watch over this bridge area--or will the partner of the first, a jazz musician at heart? Or do they transcend color differences altogether? Of course, their gender identities are still a mystery to us too; they each manifest potential characteristics of both male and female. The difficulty of distinguishing these calls into question the ideas of strict gender delineations and of black/white dichotomies.
Perhaps we'll ultimately find out what's going on on that little stretch of Anthony Creek. By the end of August, we should at least have discovered whether they are a pair. Who really ends up in charge of the bridge, we probably won't know until November. One or both of them seem to have a good shot, especially given the inherent charisma of the archetypal American dipper, that perfect blend of black and white, male and female, air, water, and earth. It has become one of my favorite birds, singing up and down Anthony Creek. Watching this story unfold should be exciting!
Meanwhile, I have other things to pay attention to today...like the presidential primaries.
In December, we sent a general Lost Valley fundraising letter to all Lost Valley Nature Center members and event attendees. We received some donations in response, for which we are very grateful. However, a number of you also expressed a desire and preference to help support the Nature Center or other individual projects directly, instead of donating to a general fund. We are now making that possible. Because of budgetary shortfalls, Lost Valley does not currently have the resources to do all that it wishes to do in 2008--but instead of giving up on those things, we want to give those interested in supporting our work another chance to help us financially. Together, we can keep Lost Valley moving forward in fulfilling its educational mission through such projects as the Nature Center, Ecovillage and Permaculture Programs, internships, and site-development work. Thanks for your support!
Sponsorship Opportunities:
Lost Valley Sustainability Tour:
We are creating a series of more than thirty engraved interpretive signs to educate visitors about sustainability features of our developing ecovillage. These signs will explore such topics as bike/pedestrian-friendly design, local food, reusing/recycling, and the ecological benefits of cooperative living, and will explain features such as the cob welcome kiosk, cob phone booth, solar water heaters and showers, solar wood-drying sheds, sustainably harvested wood floors, solar cooker, hayboxes, photovoltaic system, cordwood sauna, papercrete pumphouse, forest gardens, energy-saving retrofits of existing buildings, and more. Please help us complete this important project with your contribution today!
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $1000 $500 $200 $100 $50 other: $___
Nature Center Handbook and Trail Guide Development:
Work on a Nature Center informational handbook has been partially completed, but has stalled due to time and funding limitations. A Nature Center Handbook and Trail Guide would complement the already-existing trail signs and plant identification signs to make our trail system much more educational for visitors. Your contribution can help move this project toward completion.
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $1000 $500 $200 $100 $50 other: $___
Native Plants and Permaculture May 2007 Conference Proceedings:
We recorded every session at May's Native Plants and Permaculture conference--all that remains is to finish transcribing the presentations and discussions, edit the transcripts into readable form, and publish. It's not a minor undertaking, but with your help we can bring it to completion. Sponsors will be the first to know about and to receive the finished results.
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $1000 $500 $200 $100 $50 other: $___
Shrub and Tree Planting, Carbon Emissions Offset:
One of the most effective ways to offset personal carbon emissions is through the planting of trees and shrubs to sequester carbon. Our permaculture designs and ecological restoration efforts depend on our ability to acquire plants, including nursery stock of species and varieties that we cannot grow ourselves. Your contribution will help us establish edible, useful, and ecologically beneficial plantings here at Lost Valley, increasing both our long-term sustainability and our ability to educate others.
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $200 $100 $50 other: $___
Ecovillage and Permaculture Design Program Scholarships:
Help those who cannot afford to pay full price for our Ecovillage and Permaculture Design courses to be able to attend. We are especially interested in reaching diverse and disadvantaged populations with these courses, which provide essential information and skills that empower individuals and communities to design their lives more sustainably and live more cooperatively. Please help us continue to share this important work with those who need it most!
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $2500 $1000 $500 $200 $100 other: $___
Lost Valley Internships:
Some of our most essential work is done by interns--those who come to us for periods of three to twelve months to assist us in our various project areas (kitchen, garden, land, outreach, technical support, etc.) while acquiring valuable skills and learning about community. Hosting, housing, and feeding interns entails expenses to us (approximately $200 per intern per month). Your support in this area will allow us to accept more interns, which in turn will enable us to accomplish more work, more effectively. Please let us know what areas you would most like to support with your sponsorship.
Sponsorship levels (circle one if applicable): $1000 $500 $200 $100 other: $___ (or monthly amount: $___ for __ months)
Please make checks payable to Lost Valley Educational Center, and mail to LVEC, attn.: Nature Center/Sponsorships, PO Box 55, Dexter, OR 97431, or contact Chris Roth at chris AT talkingleaves.org, 541-937-2567 ext. 116.
For more than a decade, Talking Leaves enjoyed bioregional, national, and international distribution, first as a journal of "deep ecology and spiritual activism" (in its early days in Eugene) and then as a journal of "our evolving ecological culture" (when Lost Valley Educational Center became publisher). Talking Leaves featured articles, interviews, stories, poems, reviews, reflections, and artwork from contributors both well-known and little-known, including Dolores LaChapelle, David James Duncan, Winona LaDuke, John Seed, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Pete Seeger, Chellis Glendinning, Paul Hawken, Joanna Macy, Al Gore, Cathrine Sneed, Alan Kapuler, Nancy Roth, David Orr, Diana Leafe Christian, Dennis Martinez, Tammy Davis, Bob Dylan, Dianne Brause, Ernest Callenbach, Katsi Cook, Ethan Hughes, Amy Martin, David Kupfer, Devon Bonady, Rick Valley, Hannah McCargar, editor Chris Roth, and dozens more.
Complete sets include all available Talking Leaves back issues, dating from 1996 through 2006: 29 issues in all, each covering a specific theme (listed below). The magazines are housed in an attractive Talking Leaves-themed cardboard holder. A limited number of sets are available for $49 per set, or $58 including shipping. (We estimate the actual value at three times that price, but don't want cost to prevent readers from having these.) Talking Leaves won a number of grants and was voted "Best Local 'Zine" in the Eugene Weekly readers' poll. These are the last available copies, and we want to put them into the hands of people who will appreciate them. We are also happy to send them to libraries, schools, friends, etc.--just let us know where to mail them, and whose name to put on the sponsorship/gift card. Please order them while you can! Thank you!
Talking Leaves Back Issues:
(This list includes all issues published starting with 6.3. Volumes 1-5 were in tabloid form, and are unavailable; magazine issues 6.1 and 6.2 were very limited printings; Volume 7 consisted of only one issue; Lost Valley started publishing with Volume 8.)
Water: Life Blood of the Earth (6.3)
In Balance with Nature (6.4)
Fire Ecology (7.1)
Education for an Ecological Society (8.1)
Art and Ecology (8.2)
Visions of an Ecological Future (8.3)
Cultivating Community (9.1)
A Sense of Place (9.2)
Human Time, Natural Time (9.3)
Listening to Elders and Children (10.1)
Politics, Change, and Ecology (10.2)
Relationship (10.3)
Tools for Sustainability/Eco-Humor (11.1)
Spirituality, Religion, and Ritual (11.2)
Diversity, Wholeness, and Healing (11.3)
Food and Spirit, Grief and Hope (12.1)
Ecopsychology, Self and Place (12.2)
Eco-Shelter, Coming to Our Senses (12.3)
Animals, Earth (12.4)
Communication and Eco-Culture (13.1)
Community with All Life (13.2)
Voices of the Earth: People in Harmony (13.3-13.4)
Person and Place: Adventures Here, There, and Everywhere (14.1-14.2)
A Day in the Life: The Many Faces of Eco-Community (14.3)
Transformation: Endings and Beginnings (14.4)
Family Values (15.1)
Deep Ecology, Permaculture, and Peace (15.2-15.3)
Lost Valley Educational Center: A Journal (15.4)
Lost Valley Annual Digest 2006 (16.1-16.4)
We hope this long-delayed Lost Valley Nature Center News finds everyone well in the new year. Various circumstances (including a wind-felled tree, which severed the Nature Center's internet connection) have conspired to delay its completion. There's much to catch up on, and it would be impossible to present a full picture of the last few months in this update...but here are some glimpses:
On Wednesday, November 14, a ruffed grouse crashed through an upper window in the large dormitory, shattering the glass and losing some feathers but eventually emerging, apparently unharmed. A day or two earlier, Kerry had spotted a Cooper's hawk in a tree near the footbridge. We suspect a connection between these two events. In fact, earlier in the year, Chris had seen three juvenile Cooper's hawks in the woods between the lodge and Lost Valley Lane. The Cooper's hawk is an accipiter, with relatively short wings and a long tail that allow for easier maneuverability through the woods. A ruffed grouse would be choice prey. A grouse can also fly like a cannonball, which we discovered when it exploded out of the dorm room (sending those of us in the hallway reeling), down the hallway, and through the open door.
Later in the day, a striped skunk was found under a blanket in the same building. Was it a mere coincidence? The jury is out (although those with scientific training answer: Probably).
Kerry and Chris also took two bird courses with Dave Bontrager in November and December--Diurnal Birds of Prey, and Birds in Winter--involving, between them, three evening sessions and five weekend field trips. We saw many birds, and also experienced some of the challenges of being a bird (or birder) in inclement winter weather. Birds which have repeatedly made their presence known at Lost Valley in these darker, colder months include golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets, black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees, spotted towhees, dark-eyed juncos, other assorted sparrows, Steller's and scrub jays, northern flickers, varied thrushes, winter wrens, and a host of others, including a great-horned owl whose unmistakable call rang out one recent early morning.
Ashland's Wilderness Charter School visited us for a weekend in early November which included nature walks, a blackberry removal project, and leaf collection and mulching. In early December, we hosted a Middle Fork Willamette Watershed Educator training, in which both Marcus and Chris participated.
Weather has included everything from sunny spells to heavy wind gusts and rains. As mentioned above, one storm toppled a tree onto the DSL line which serves the Nature Center computer, snapping it and effectively ending any chance that this newsletter would be sent out before the holidays. Access is still intermittent, serving as a reminder that, despite temporary technological successes, everything wears out or breaks eventually. The old adage is true: Nature Bats Last. Another more recent storm finally snapped the top of the snag next to the barn, a dead Douglas fir in which various primary and secondary cavity nesters have been making their homes in recent years. The creek has been quite high in recent days, redistributing large woody debris, rocks, gravel, sand, and undoubtedly critters as well.
In the past few months, while digging ditches, tree holes, and garden beds, we've unearthed more indigenous tool material left behind by the Kalapuya. December's Permaculture Design Course also included a slow-baked underground earth-oven feast prepared in the traditional manner--the first here in at least one-hundred-and-fifty years. The meal received rave reviews.
Recent brainstorming about possible 2008 Nature Center events resulted in the following ideas:
Opening to Nature (words and music related to the natural environment)
Landscape management for wildlife habitat
Restoring stream ecologies
Wildcrafting and landscaping with edible botanicals
Native Plants and Permaculture II
Please let us know if any of these particularly interest you. Activities we plan in 2008 will depend largely on input we receive from those interested in our programs. With change in the air at Lost Valley right now, this is a particularly good time to offer your input on what you see as Lost Valley's and the Nature Center's strengths, and how we can best benefit the world.
Also in the works (partially completed) are a trail guide, the proceedings from last May's Native Plants and Permaculture conference, and a Sustainability Tour featuring interpretive signs. Again, progress on these projects may depend partly on what we hear from you. Where would you like to see us put energy? Would you be interested in sponsoring or volunteering to help with any of these projects or events?
In recent weeks we have met with representatives from both the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. As a result, we will be moving forward with plans to mitigate wildfire danger (in part through further nonnative blackberry removal) and to monitor fish populations in our creek.
A number of Nature Center members responded generously to our December Lost Valley fundraising appeal--thank you! You will receive confirmation letters once the Nature Center coordinator has settled back in after his two weeks' visit east, which just ended. Highlights included a day at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, whose Hall of Biodiversity was particularly impressive, and another in his hometown, where encounters with dark-eyed juncos, American robins, Canada geese, mallards, and other familiar birds also present in Oregon helped him feel a little less distant from his current home.
Since his return, an enthusiastically singing American dipper has welcomed him back every day near the spot where Anthony Creek crosses under the road above Lost Valley property. He might be imagining things, but it seems to be singing: Be here now. Of course, its intended message might be: This is my territory, and I'd be happy to have a mate. I'm ridiculously eligible--hear me sing! But neither of those messages precludes the other, and for a female American dipper, they might actually be one and the same.
Thanks for reading, and happy new year,
Chris
On a fall day here at Lost Valley Nature Center, the "peeer" of the Northern flicker reverberates through the woods. Oak galls pop underfoot. Beautiful autumn colors adorn deciduous trees and the ground below them. The sun makes a low arc across the sky as we humans gratefully soak up every available ray. We also welcome fall rains. Frost comes on clear nights, accompanied by a multitude of stars; cloudy nights are warmer. The winter squash have been stored, the garlic and fava beans planted, greenhouse-grown tomatoes continue to ripen, cool-loving salad and cooking greens thrive. On the outskirts of the gardens, flocks of sparrows, kinglets, robins, chickadees appear, disappear, and reappear, moving between food sources. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, and creepers navigate tree trunks in search of insects, while blue-uniformed Steller's and scrub jays assiduously go nuts. A few edible salal berries still await our discovery.
Many annual plants are recognized now only by their skeletons. Wind gusts bring dead trees to the ground and hang them across paths. Rebounding from its late-summer bare-trickle, the creek rises. Midday is the time for leisurely strolls; morning and evening walks need to be brisk. Several families of deer make themselves at home on the edges of the meadow near our dwellings, occasionally seeming to mistake us for fellow deer. Because of our no-hunting policy, their boldness is not a liability on our 87 acres. Now that we've reinforced our garden fences, their unashamed fixation on vegetation consumption is not a liability for us either.
Mushrooms pop up from the forest duff. Tar spot fungus keeps patches of green chlorophyll alive amidst yellow and brown fallen maple leaves. Poison oak has also shed its leaves, which no longer serve as brilliant red warning flags on the equally rash-inducing stems. Various bees and wasps still cling to life, mostly sluggishly--discovered in ground nests, in folded-up plastic, and crawling on one's shirt. Moist and growing again after summer's dry spell, lichens and mosses share their subtle greens and browns on otherwise bare branches. Someone sits next to a woodfire composing a Nature Center e-newsletter. As always, there is more going on in the heavens and on the earth than can be dreamt of (or even hinted at) in such a forum. Luckily, it all keeps happening, with or without words.
On the weekend of October 13-14, the Nature Center hosted its second major event of the year, co-sponsored this time by NextGEN (the youth branch of the Global Ecovillage Network). Our thanks to the forty-three people who participated in the Fall Ecology and Harvest Gathering. Every attendee and presenter we've talked to seems to have had a high-quality experience. What the event lacked in numbers of people and in intergenerational mix (we'd been hoping for more of both) seemed compensated for by the quality of what happened: a rich mix of presentations, discussions, walks, and activities.
Left to right: Saturday morning presenters Dharmika Henschel, Jude Hobbs, Jerry Hall, Bill Burwell, Esther Stutzman, Rick Valley, Chris Roth.
Photo by Penelope Petropoulos.
Esther Stutzman started us off Saturday morning with an hour of Kalapuyan storytelling, history, reflection, and answering questions. Bill Burwell, Jerry Hall, Dharmika Henschel, Jude Hobbs, and Rick Valley then gave presentations and led the rest of the morning's discussion of indigenous tradition in this region and how it can intersect with and be reinforced by modern approaches such as Permaculture. The group continued the explorations of indigenous land management that started at May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering (see www.lostvalley.org/nature2007may), and Jerry and Dharmika also described their work with the Ethnobotany Resource Area Project in the West Eugene Wetlands (www.ifcae.org/projects/wewera). Jude and Rick will be co-teaching our upcoming Permaculture Design Course (see below).
Saturday afternoon, Rick Valley, Marcus, Lorusso, and Chris Roth facilitated a tour and harvest activities on the land, followed by a NextGEN presentation by Ali Rosenblatt (see http://ecovillage.wikia.com/wiki/Nextgen). The evening featured music by Dharmika Henschel, followed by a small-group singalong.
Sunday morning was also rich. Sharon Blick (former director, School Garden Project--see www.efn.org/~sgp), Jen Anonia (Food for Lane County Garden Programs Manager--see www.foodforlanecounty.org/Programs/Gardens/index.html), and Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still (the Seed Ambassadors Project--see www.seedambassadors.org) all talked about their projects, which seek to increase the connections with food that youth and adults alike experience through gardening and through the vital acts of seed-saving, -selecting, variety-preservation, and plant breeding.
On Sunday afternoon, ethnobotanist Tobias Policha (see www.foodnotlawns.com/contemporary_ethnobotany.html) and lichenologist Dave Kofranek co-led a fascinating walk through our woods, focusing on vascular plants, nonvascular plants, and lichens, all of which thrive here in great abundance and diversity (see www.lostvalley.org/files/Lost%20Valley%20Native%20Plant%20Species%20List%200407.pdf and www.lostvalley.org/files/Nonvascular%20Plants,%20Lichen,%20Fungi.pdf). We gave thanks for a sunny weekend and the harvest of learning, connection, and discovery that it brought.
Again, we are grateful to everyone who participated in this event or who helped us spread word about it!
Recent Event:
Fall Ecology and Harvest Gathering (October 13-14, 2007)
Recent Event (page includes readings and resources):
Native Plants and Permaculture: A Gathering of Plant Enthusiasts (May 11-13, 2007)
Please click here for: Lost Valley Nature Center News, February 5, 2008
Nature Center News (January 10, 2008)
Nature Center News (November 6, 2007)
Nature Center News (August 27, 2007)
Nature Center News (August 1, 2007)
Nature Center News (July 18, 2007)
Nature Center News (July 4, 2007)
Nature Center e-newsletter #20 (February 25, 2007)
Nature Center e-newsletter #19 (January 29, 2007)
Nature Center e-newsletter #18 (January 16 and 17, 2007)
Nature Center e-newsletter #17 (December 15, 2006)
Nature Center e-newsletter #16 (Thanksgiving, 2006)
Nature Center Update (October 30, 2006):
Lost Valley’s 87 acres, encompassing oak savanna, natural meadow, stream and riparian areas, ponds, and extensive forest lands in various states of maturity, offer unique environmental education opportunities. Over the past year, the Lost Valley Nature Center, which started out as a “glint in the eye” of some of us here at Lost Valley, has achieved remarkable progress, including:
• Development and re-definition of more than two miles of trails along Anthony Creek and through our new forest, including permanent, easy-to-follow directional signage, and a new trail map
• Installation of more than two hundred permanent tree and shrub identification signs (including scientific name, common name, and family name) along the Creek Trail, Thimbleberry Trail, Madrone Trail, Cedar Trail, Elderberry Trail, and Pond Trail
• Creation of more than two hundred additional movable identification signs for herbaceous plant species occurring on Lost Valley land, and more than one hundred signs for herbaceous vegetable, herb, and “weed” species growing in our gardens
• Establishment of the Woods Loop, a 1/6-mile self-guided walk between Lost Valley’s dining hall and dormitories, which features close to one hundred different plant species, also labeled
• Beginning compilation of comprehensive lists of Lost Valley’s native vascular and nonvascular plants and fungi (now close to 300 species) and nonnative plant species (more than 100), along with additional information that will serve as the basis for trail guidebooks, still in development
• Restoration of a formerly nonnative-blackberry-infested stretch of streambank along Anthony Creek to native plant species, through a grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, with hands-on planting help from Lost Valley’s children’s program
• Removal of substantial sections of nonnative Scotch broom from the new forest
• Regular public tours, several bird walks with local ornithologists, a bug workshop with a local entomologist, wildflower, moss, liverwort, and lichen surveys by expert botanists, a free neighborhood screening of An Inconvenient Truth, and self-guided visits from a wide variety of conference participants, residents, and wildlife
• Fifteen e-newsletters (to date), six pages of material in the Lost Valley Annual Digest, and an expanding on-site natural history library.
In this coming year, we anticipate several major activities:
• Development of additional written material about Lost Valley natural history, including trail guidebooks
• Continuing work toward legal status that would protect our 87 acres and its unique diversity in perpetuity
• Development of additional public programs for all ages as well as walks and workshops for on-site participants in Lost Valley’s other events and courses
• Several weekend-long events co-sponsored by the Nature Center, each focusing on the ecology of the season and tied in with Lost Valley’s Permaculture and Ecovillage work
• A weekend-long gathering focusing on Native Plants and Permaculture, in which the sometimes-separate communities of native plant enthusiasts and Permaculturalists will have a chance to come together and share their knowledge and perspectives
• Further evolution of the unique environmental educational potential of this site, with its rich mix of native species, its diverse geological features and microclimates, and its long history of indigenous use preceding European settlement
• Additional ecological conservation and restoration projects on our land
• Development of materials and programs that pull together the insights and perspectives of all of Lost Valley’s sustainability-oriented work, with a special emphasis on ethnobotany and on practical, ecologically beneficial ways of living on the land, not merely as students of nature but as participants in it.
Please consider joining us as a Supporting Member of the Nature Center. All contributions are fully tax-deductible. Membership categories include:
Friends of the Lost Valley Nature Center:
__ Pacific Dewberry Rubus ursinus $25
__ Salal Gaultheria shallon $50
__ Serviceberry Amelanchier alnifolia $75
Founding Nature Center Members:
__ Lazuli Bunting Passerina amoena $100
__ Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias $250
__ Swainson’s Thrush Catharus ustulatus $500
Nature Center Benefactors:
__ Douglas Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii $1000
__ Pacific Madrone Arbutus menziesii $2000
__ Bigleaf Maple Acer macrophyllum $5000
__ Oregon Oak Quercus garryana $10,000
Land Trust Angels:
__ Tiger Lily Lilium columbianum $20,000
__ Blue Camas Camassia quamash $50,000
__ Calypso Orchid Calypso bulbosa $100,000
You can make an online donation here (click "Donate Now" button and then choose "Nature Center Membership" from "Areas of Giving" pulldown menu). We appreciate whatever support you are able to offer and will do our best to see that it is the most efficiently-spent funding this side of Nature Center heaven. Thank you!
Chris Roth, Coordinator, Lost Valley Nature Center, 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431, (541) 937-2567 ext. 116, nature AT (replace with @) lostvalley.org
Archive: E-newsletters: July 4, 2007 * #20 * #19 * #18 * #17 * #16 * #15 * #14 * #13 #12 * #11 * #10 * #9 * #8 * #7 * #6 * Notes excerpt (4/4/06) * #5 * #4 * #3 * #2 * #1 * Announcement * Brochure * Nature Center pages * Trail Map and Directions to Lost Valley * Membership details and Ecoforestry photos * Creek Restoration photos * Sacred Botany * Woods Loop Species List * Lost Valley Plant List * Nonvascular Plants, Lichens, and Fungi of Lost Valley * Lost Valley Native Plant Species List