Meandering on the Way — July 12 to 19, 2025

Friday, July 11th

We went down to Eugene today. E wanted to visit the Lululemon store there. Strangely enough, the shop is just across the street from the Euphoria Chocolate shop, which is just two doors away from a very nice Thai restaurant. What a serendipitous non-coincidence! On our way back to Corvallis, we stopped at Peoria Gardens, a big wholesale nursery. E had just found out that for two weeks a year Peoria Gardens opens to the public and that this was one of those weeks. We wanted to check it out.

Hot weather seems to have settled in pretty good around here, so maybe this is not the best time to be adding new plants. But the prices! We ended up getting three plants for just $21. Now, do we have the strength to get them into the ground?

Saturday, July 12th

Well… E struck first, getting her new sunflower planted early this morning. Two more to go.

Later in the morning, we went to an event put on by the Letitia Carson Legacy Project out on Tampico Road, just north of Corvallis. The LCLP is jointly sponsored by Oregon Black Pioneers, Oregon State University, Black Oregon Land Trust, and Linn-Benton NAACP. Carson was a farmer and homesteader who first came to the Corvallis area in 1849 and hers is quite a story. She was born into slavery in Kentucky around 1816. By September of 1844 she was living in Missouri with a man named David Carson, a naturalized Irish immigrant and the father of her unborn child. In the Spring of 1845 the two joined a large group of immigrants on a journey from Missouri to Oregon. Their daughter Martha was born in June of 1945 as they were crossing Nebraska. In late 1845 they reached Oregon and David filed a homestead claim for 640 acres in Benton County just north of Corvallis. They built a house on the land in the spring of 1846.

The Carson land claim is now a part of Oregon State University and is managed by the Department of Animal and Rangeland Science. One way in which the University supports the LCLP is by giving permission to hold outreach events in an area that is normally closed to the public. When we arrived, the pasture gate was open and cars were parked on the grass. We met our hosts and the other tour members under a canopy, signed our waivers, and set off for a two-mile walk. Our guide led us out of the pasture and into a riparian area of large trees and thick understory on the banks of Soap Creek. The project had recently created a path through this area leading to the site of the Carson residence. The path begins at a place where some young trees have formed a kind of archway.

On its way to the homesite, the trail passes a number of large fruit trees which have been long untended. The oldest of these is this huge pear three that is estimated to be around 200 years old. It is possible that the Carsons walked past this tree when it was a youngster.

There were a number of other large apple and cherry trees in the area, all growing wild. They are not nearly as old as the pear, but they are almost certainly descended from trees planted by early settlers. At the same time, the area hosts an array of native plants including large oak, maple and ash trees, as well as many types of understory plants, some of which are also growing in our back yard. Unlike our yard, however, this small area is real wild land, settled 175 years ago but neglected for the last hundred or so.

Nothing remains of the Carson House; but the trail does take you to the spot where the house probably stood, right where E is walking in the photo below. Just behind the main mass of foliage in the picture, there is a year round stream, which would have been their water source.

The meadowland portion of the Carson claim was located immediately to the east of the homesite, so they would have been able to keep an eye on their stock. Nowadays–one hundred and seventy-five years later–there are still cows pastured where theirs were, as the area is part of the range of OSU’s Cattle Research Herd.

The Carson homestead seems to have thrived for a time and in September of 1849, they had another child, this time a son. In 1852, however, David Carson fell ill and died. Letitia’s status at this point was unclear. As Zachary Stocks puts in his Oregon Encyclopedia article, “While Letitia was likely Carson’s slave at some point, she would later claim to have been his free domestic servant and identified as his widow after his death.”

Upon David’s death, Benton County authorities determined that Letitia had no right of inheritance or any other claim to the property, which left her and her two children homeless. The land and goods were auctioned off and the proceeds were distributed to David Carson’s relatives in North Carolina. But that was far from the end of the story. First, we know that Letitia attended the auction and paid $104.87 to buy back what she could of her own possessions: a washtub, a pot, a skillet and lid, six plates, a bed and bedding, two cows, and a calf. Next, she joined another group of settlers headed for another land claim area, this time in Douglas County, 160 miles to the south.

In 1854, while living in Douglas County, she engaged a Corvallis lawyer and filed a lawsuit seeking damages for her losses in Benton County. The suit went to trial and ended with a hung jury. The case was then retried. In the second trial twelve white male jurors unanimously found in her favor and awarded her damages. There was then a third trial concerning the separate matter of who owned the Carson’s herd of 34 cattle. During this trial a neighbor testified that David Carson himself, in the year before his death, had stated that “only seven of cattle were his and the rest belonged to Letitia.” All told, Letitia Carson was awarded $1500 plus $230 in court costs.

In 1863 Carson filed her own homestead claim on a 160 acre tract near her new home in Douglas County. In 1869, after making the required improvements, she applied for and received certification of her claim. She is the only known black woman to have accomplished this in Oregon. Her story was the inspiration for Jane Kirkpatrick’s 2014 novel A Light In The Wilderness. Carson died in 1888, leaving her land to her son. Her daughter, Martha, married a French-Walla Walla man named Narcisse Lavadour with whom she had seven children.

Sunday, July 13th

This time it is M who gets up early and puts his hebe plant into the ground.

Monday, July 14th

And finally E and M join forces to plant the last of their purchases, a Russian sage. M digs the hole and E plunks in the plant.

Wednesday, July 16th

Having completed the purchase of the frivolous toy car, we must now move on to the serious real car. The lease on our Ioniq 5 expires next month. It has been a wonderful car and our lease agreement has a buy-out option. So we could just keep it. But the buy-out price specified in the lease agreement is higher than the price of several identical 2023 Ioniq 5‘s that we currently see advertised in the used car market–about $10,000 higher. We love the car, but don’t love it that much. So we need to make a change. What shall we do? Go back to a gasoline or gasoline/hybrid car? Not a tinker’s chance. Lease a new Ioniq? Buy one? Maybe.

So today we went car shopping, starting out early in the morning because the forecast was for a highs in the mid nineties. We got to Beaverton around ten and went to check out a Kia EV-6. Nice. Very nice. Then we headed back south to Salem to check out what the newest Ioniq 5 is like. On the way we stopped at a rest area and had our lunch– dry roasted peanuts, generous portions of nicely chilled gazpacho, and two pieces of chocolate. This got us ready for the next dealership.

Which was Withnell’s in Salem, where we looked at the newest Ioniq-5’s. They’re nice too, both the dealership and the car. The only great flaw in the 2023 model was the lack of a wiper for the rear window. For 2025, that lack has been remedied. So now we have a lot to think about. Both the EV6 and the Ioniq 5 are made in the U.S. and thus currently qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, so that’s a wash.

Thursday, July 17th

We had a number of responses to the question of whether or not to keep the BMW’s RDSHARK license plates. All were in favor. And that’s how it’s going to be.

Friday, July 18th

We called the Kia dealer in Beaverton and asked about our chances o get a blue EV6. Our salesperson said he’d check and get back to us. What he found was that there were no blue ones available for dealer swap anywhere in the Northwest. But…he said that his very dealership has a blue one on order. It is expected to arrive in the first week of September. Hm. That wouldn’t be too bad. The new car would arrive two weeks after we turn in our old one, but we maybe we could deal with that. E could cruise around in the truck, leaving M stuck with the Shark. Or vice versa. (In the immortal words of La Botanica, “Step on it, Ev!”)

Saturday, July 19th

But enough about cars. Tomorrow we’re going camping. It’s taking us a while to get ready. Must focus!