Today we went to a place called the Luckiamute Landing State Natural Area and walked through the gallery forest along the west bank of the Willamette River. In olden times, so we are told, gallery forests grew on both sides of the Willamette as it meandered its way through the lowland prairies of the valley floor. Most of this gallery forest has disappeared because modern farmers saw no reason not to extend their fields all the way to the river’s edge.
The LLSNA is located just north of Albany, Oregon, at a place where two different tributaries flow into the Willamette–the Luckiamute from the west and the Santiam from the east.
Besides some riverside forest, the natural area also includes a former agricultural field that is in the process of being restored. At the edge of the field native plants are still thriving. The plants above are yellow mahonia and red flowering currant. This mahonia, by the way, is Mahonia aquifolium, which grows to a height of eight feet. It is not to be confused with Mahonia nervosa, or Mahonia repens, both of which only grow about a foot tall. How do we know that these are not to be confused? Because, alas, we have spent a lot of time being confused and we still aren’t quite sure which ones we planted where in our back yard.
Hundreds of native plants have recently been placed into this old field. Hopefully the planners were a bit more careful than the yahoos who manage our holding.
And of course no walk would be complete without finding an overturned school bus rusting in the woods.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Yikes! We woke up to see snow falling; huge wet flakes that melted on contact, at least in our neighborhood. We had planned to walk in the forest today–rain or shine–so off we went. As we walked up into the Oak Creek area, we gradually gained 500 feet of altitude. Here’s what it looked like up there.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Now, today, it’s mostly sunny. We extricated the Porsche from the garage and drove up to Independence for dinner at the Pink House Cafe. The Pink House offers fine food and the possibility of having dinner in an upstairs bedroom. We tried that once, but we were unnerved by the number of eyes staring at us from the doll collection in the corner. Since then we’ve stuck to the main floor.
Sunday, April 17, 2022
And then it was Easter. The Andees came down for dinner accompanied by their canine pal Frankie. E made soufflé and salad and stuff–including marinated radishes served with pre-dinner sherry. After dinner we had Easter candy, some of which is shown below.
These have a core of fudge surrounded by a chewy marshmallow shell covered with coconut. To serve, remove and eat the faces; then slice the bodies crosswise. What a culinary wonder! But maybe once a year is enough.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
It’s been rainy and cold. And more rain is forecast. This gets tiresome after a while. Out in the forest the rain was steady and the temperature was about forty degrees. But boy was it green out there.
And a bumper year for fawn lilies.
Friday, April 22, 2022
The one sure thing about death is that when a person dies, somebody has to deal with the body. Ideally, the surviving family could just do it themselves: dig a hole and bury it or maybe throw it in the ocean somewhere. But most people would rather hire someone else to deal with it. And who are we to go against the stream? So off we went down to the mortuary and talked to a woman about pre-paid end of life plans. It took about and hour and a half, but we got a lot of information, including two estimates, one for cremation and one for green burial.
For a long time it had seemed to both of us that cremation was the obvious way to go. But cremation is not exactly earth friendly. First of all, cremation ovens are powered by fossil fuels and each cremation releases about 540 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s equivalent to burning about 24 gallons of gasoline. Plus, a human body is almost 25% carbon. Presumably, a lot of that also goes up in smoke, so to speak.
Most of our conversation was about money. Basically, we listened to her explain, in some detail, just how it was that they could justify the total costs, which were, as you might expect, almost beyond comprehension. But in the end we knew that actually it all makes sense, especially to anyone with a degree in marketing. One thing we noticed was that there were two fees related to the actual burning of the body, which she said would take place in their own in-house crematory. The larger of the two fees covers the cost of taking the body to the crematory location, burning it up, and collecting the ashes into a container. (Container sold separately.) The smaller fee ($295) was called a “Crematory Service Fee” and covers the cost of everything else that the crematory does. Except that the crematory doesn’t actually do anything else. Death is such a mystery.
But hey, not everything is mysterious. One fee involved in a green burial, for example, is the extra $550 that you have to pay to address soil subsidence. In a “traditional” burial the newly buried body lies in a sturdy casket inside a concrete vault, with everything built to last. In a green burial you’re in a flimsy wooden box or an even flimsier shroud. The whole idea is that none of it is meant to last. But what happens as the body molders away? The soil on top of it starts to sink. That leaves a body-shaped depression in your plot. Oh-oh. In a well-run cemetery this is unacceptable and the maintenance people will need to remediate the problem by adding more dirt. This adds cost. Plus, if you don’t buy an expensive casket and a vault, the funeral home loses out on the profits to be made from those items and how can that be fair? The $1,500 cost of the shroud is also easy to justify. We’re not talking about a used bedsheet from Goodwill. These are top quality items, purpose-built, with handles. If someone else offers to sell you a shroud for $299, ask ’em if it has handles.
Well, we’re still thinking about it. But meanwhile, moving from death to death’s opposite, let’s go into the back yard and look at some spring flowers. It’s tulip time these days, with phlox and mountain daisies in supporting roles. One of our photographers took advantage of a brief moment of sunshine.
Got home from Eugene airport at 2:00 AM this morning. Hmm. Weren’t we up at 2:00 AM Sunday morning also, back there in the SLC train station? Probably best not make a habit of this. Over the course of this day, we did some grocery shopping and some serious resting.
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Went to B and B’s for dinner. There was a cake to help extend the celebration of E’s birthday. Also salmon. We got a nice picture of E and B sitting on a new couch.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Went for a two-mile walk in the forest today. Nice to be back outside.
Thursday, March 17, 2022
We visited two different plant nurseries today, and somehow found a few things to buy. The selection of natives at Garland’s was disappointing, so from there we just got a white rose, a bargain shelf tulip, and some pansies. We had better luck at Home Grown Gardens, where we were very happy to find camas, a small Indian plum tree and some interesting looking spirea.
Friday, March 18, 2022
Going to the plant nursery is one thing–it’s fun and not too strenuous. But if you buy plants…then you have to plant them.
In the afternoon we had PF over for “Tea at Three.”
Saturday, March 19 2022
We both worked in the garden workday, weeding and planting. The three camas lilies are now in place, along with two yarrow plants and one new, out-of-phase tulip.
Sunday, March 20, 2022
E tried out one of our four free antigen tests today and came out negative. Then she went off for a dog walk with some friends. There is a new baby in J and B’s family and E is eager to meet her.
Monday, March 21, 2022
We are headed to the mountains to hopefully do some cross-country skiing. Conditions get iffy in the spring, but we thought we saw a window of opportunity. The weather forecast called for new snow in the night and early morning hours, changing to rain by noon. And so it turned out. We left Corvallis at eight and got onto our skis at 10:00. Lovely conditions: four inches of new snow, light snow still falling, no other humans in sight.
The skiing surface was really nice and we had a blast for the first hour and a half. At that point we noticed that the light snow was turning into the predicted light rain. That would have been the right time to turn around and head back. But, oh no, we instead decided to push on to the Brandenburg shelter where we could have a nice lunch out of the rain. The ski surface was still nice and we were dressed for rain, so it seemed a plausible idea. We had forgotten that the last mile was the hardest part of the route, a half mile uphill followed by a moderately difficult half mile traverse. We eventually got there and had a nice lunch, but it was a bit of a struggle.
A last look at the shelter where we ate our lunch.
Afterward, we had a three-mile slog back to our car. Even though the rain continued, the snow surface stayed pretty good, a little soft, but okay. The bad part was that we were getting tired. Around the halfway mark we decided to rest a little. We lay down in the snow and put our feet up. We don’t remember ever having done that before–lying on the snow in the rain. The air temperature was 40ish, so we stayed warm. It was really quite nice–but not nice enough to linger for long.
Once back at the sno park, we revived ourselves with a thermos of coffee. Then we were off to the town of Sisters where we had reserved a room at the Sisters Inn. The Sisters Inn doesn’t look like much from the outside, but we found that the rooms had been much refurbished since our last visit. A nice surprise. We then had dinner at the Sisters Saloon and Ranch Grill, which is located in a 1912 building that once housed the Hotel Sisters. The decor was interesting; the food was just okay.
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
We both slept about ten hours and awoke feeling surprisingly good. We decided to get ourselves over to the Sisters Bakery to get breakfast. E suggested that we walk the three quarters of a mile to the bakery; M said that that would be a great idea…for an alien life form on an upside down planet in a galaxy very far away. However you get there, of course, the Sisters Bakery never disappoints. Following breakfast, we zoomed back to Corvallis in time for E to make it to her HEPAJ meeting at 1:00.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
We were both a little stiffer today than the day before, but it was time to walk. We were rewarded with lots trilliums in bloom. Seems like a big year for them.
In the family news arena, we note that A has been appointed to the Washington State Veterinary Board of Governors.
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Tertulia with J and R this morning. We sat outside in the tent at Coffee Culture. The temperature was 41 degrees or so, not unpleasant. While comparing notes on wildflower sightings we learned that there are two types of trilliums in the forest. One type has flowers on a one or two inch stem; on the other the flowers are lower. It’s the first type that are flowering now.
After tertulia M was off to get his implant (diş implantı, as shown in Fig 2 below). It came with what they call an International Implant Card. One side of the card has information about the date and location of the implant plus also the name and address of the implant maker. The address info includes both their post office box number and their street address, just in case M feels like dropping by. The other side of the card has more information about the particular titanium screw that was used and also has the phrase “dental implant” printed in 26 different languages.
There’s just no telling how useful this card may turn out to be…
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Walked around the OSU campus today. Just two miles but maybe too far for M. Back home he was feeling listless and had a mild fever.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
M slept off and on all day. Fever 102. We are starting to worry. M gave himself a COVID test just in case, and it came out negative. But still, he seems to have something.
While M is out of action, E mows the back lawn.
Monday, March 28, 2022
It rained for an hour or so in the middle of the day. It was wonderful, soft and silent. Nice time of year.
M has a bit more energy today but is still feverish. E has decided to postpone the lemon merengue pie party that she had planned for Tuesday. Sad.
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
The Oregon Health Authority has announced 86 new COVID deaths in the last five days, which sounds pretty serious. But is it? Only 13 of the deaths are from March. Twenty-one of them are from January; and 49 are from February. One is from October and two are from December.
We have no idea what to do with this information. It appears that if we want to know how many people actually died from COVID so far in March, we’ll need to wait at least till the end of May. That seems pointless. At this point we are planning to create one more of our lovely blue charts and then shut down the PD database.
E went down to Grass Roots today and got us a new jigsaw puzzle. We both like the picture. M says it looks like it’s going to be really hard. But that’s probably just because he’s sick. E thinks it will be easy. But that’s probably because she’s actually from another planet.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
M made us some Dr Oetker brand instant flan today. It was pretty good. We were a little curious about finding a Dr Oekter product in our store; the brand is very familiar to us, but mainly from way back when. We remember seeing Dr. Oetker products on grocery shelves in countries in Europe and the Middle East. We started wondering: Where did this brand come from? Was Dr Oekter a real person? Well…of course he was. August Oetker (1862-1918) was the German fellow who invented–or at least perfected–baking powder. A former pharmacist, he started a baking goods business which has since grown into a major multi-national known for things like cake mixes, puddings, and especially pizza.
August Oetker had one son, Rudolph, who was killed in World War I. Therefore, when August Oetker died soon after, the future of the business was unclear. At some point in the 1920’s, however, Rudolph’s widow, Ida, remarried, this time to a man named Richard Kaselowsky, who raised Rudolph Oekter’s son as his own. This child was named Rudolph August Oetker and was of course the grandson of the founder. During the thirties and early forties while Kaselowsky was running the company, Rudolph August was active in the Waffen SS. The company did a great deal of business with the German military during this period, supplying both pudding mixes and munitions. It has been reported that during the war, some Oetker factories used slave labor.
Kaselowsky was killed by Allied bombing in 1944. Rudolph August Oetker then took the reins of the company and ran it very successfully until 1981. The company remains today a family-run business; the current CEO is one of the founder’s great grandsons.
Flan…such a simple dish, and popular in so many places around the world.
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Still working on the new puzzle. It’s ridiculous.
Friday, April 1, 2022
In honor of April Fool’s day, PD herewith publishes another blue chart. It shows the effects of the Omicron surge, which lasted–in Oregon–from early January to about the middle of February. The chart has no data for March because no reliable data are available. Ah well, it’s time for a break from charts.
Saturday, April 2, 2022
Nice day. E went walking in the forest with N, who proved to be a good luck charm, as they found lots of flowers.
Still working on that puzzle…
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Finished at last! One piece had to be retrieved from a support platform underneath the table, where it had made its way through a narrow space between two table leaves.
The birthday season begins with a wonderful dinner at H and T’s house. H made her famous Slovenian style Szegediner goulash. To give you an idea, here’s a recipe from the internet; we don’t guarantee that it’s as good as H’s. For dessert M contributed a birthday cake from the Konditorei in Salem. We were joined by H’s grandson N, a high school senior who is occasionally late to first morning class because it takes him a while to get home and shower after his weightlifting sessions that start at 5:00 AM. Other than that he is living a fairly quiet life–if you don’t count the motorcycle license classes, the job at Starbucks, the skydiving, the upcoming trip to a party island in the Mediterranean, and some other stuff that your correspondents have forgotten.
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Today the celebrations moved north to Portland. We met A for a walk at Mt. Tabor Park, and then descended the hill and stopped at the Portland Nursery. Here, the birthday girl got a chance to pick out her birthday presents. She didn’t get plants because it’s a little early for that. But PN has a wonderful selection of tools and E was excited to get, among other things, her very own personal shovel.
After that we checked into our hotel to rest a bit before our gala evening out. A and A took us to a sushi restaurant for dinner and then to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The performance was a showing of the movie Coco with its musical score being played live by the Portland Symphony. Despite the hassle of needing to stay masked throughout, we had a wonderful time.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
In the morning we went to breakfast with one of the A’s–the other one had to work–and then visited C to see her new house. C was a close friend of Becca and we’re always pleased to see what she’s up to.
And then it was off to the mall for more birthday present shopping. We found several items that E had been wanting and then stopped for a coffee at Peet’s before heading back to Corvallis. It was a long drive home through heavy rain, but when we got there we were consoled by the realization that a considerable portion of birthday cake remained uneaten. We tried to eat a light deli supper before diving into it, but we ended up making ourselves a little sick anyway. (This is a cake called Barney’s Blackout. Not only does it have E’s favorite kind of frosting, it also has huge thick slabs of it.) Even E couldn‘t eat all the frosting, but she saved some in the fridge…and M is predicting that it won’t stay there long.
Monday, February 28, 2022
A plumber came and fixed our freeze damaged outdoor faucet. E had a FaceTime with The Plant, did her yoga class, took a walk, and did grocery shopping. M must have done something.
This was a day of very modest food intake at all three meals; nevertheless, yesterday’s leftover frosting has somehow disappeared.
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Rain again today. Warm temps and mostly just showers and drizzle, but still…dark and wet for the fourth straight day, with more on the way. E did a Zoom meet-up with S and Mrs H, during which they did embroidery. M went grocery shopping and also paid a visit to the new Corvallis branch of Coastal Farm Supply, which has opened up in a large space that used to be a K-Mart. Coastal is quite a place! M was looking for a pair of jeans, but soon got lost in endless racks of pants in all shapes, sizes and price points. Besides work clothes and work footwear, Coastal also has big selections of handguns, fishing stuff, and zip ties. Before he want to Coastal, M didn’t really understand the true scope of the zip tie experience. He knew that zip ties came in different sizes. But when you see a whole aisle of zip ties in many, many sizes and many, many colors, well, M says that’s when you finally understand what kind of world you’re living in. Coastal does have some bags of animal feed, but the selection seemed pretty slim. Compared to the selection of zip ties, downright pitiful.
Meanwhile, death is sweeping through Ukraine as the Russian invasion continues. The guns for sale at the farm store–dangerous as they are–looked like children’s toys. The real weapons are elsewhere. They are mostly in the hands of grown-ups, but sometimes grown-ups go mad.
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
More rain today, but it is time, sayeth E, to check up on the fawn lilies. So off we go into the OSU Forest on the 36 Loop Trail to one of places where we usually see them. Fawn lilies (Erythronium, also called trout lilies or dog tooth violets) aren’t really rare around here, but they are very picky about exactly where they will thrive. It turns out that we were too early to see flowers, but the leaves were well up and many of the plants had visible buds.
The plants are quite small, but they’re easy to spot due to the distinctive color pattern on their leaves.
Meanwhile, down on the flat land around Oak Avenue, the first narcissus blooms have appeared…
…and something is happening in the peony bed.
Friday, March 4, 2022
A little rain today, but also periods of sun. And a sunny weekend is forecast. M has space to fill in his newly expanded Hummock #1. He had meant to wait a few weeks, but in these conditions he cannot resist a trip to the nursery. He finds milkweed, tufted hair grass, a big Spirea douglasii and an 18” flowering currant. This last was outrageously priced, but it looked so healthy…Will it ever look this healthy again? Never mind. The two milkweed plants, on the other hand, didn’t look so good. In fact, they didn’t look like anything.
Potential is what we’ve got here. Lots of potential.
Saturday, March 5, 2022
Oregon Health Authority figures show that the rate of positive tests has fallen to under 5%, with the result that new case numbers are quite low. Hospitalizations are also down. Mask mandates are scheduled to be lifted on March 12th in Oregon, California and Washington.
It seems likely that the number of people dying from COVID is also down significantly, but there is still a long delay in the release of death counts. It appears that for any given month, it is taking OHA about two months to come up with anything like a complete report. In the most recent weeks, for example, OHA has reported few or no new December deaths. This leads us to hope, at least, that they’re done with that month. They don’t seem to be done with January, however. They’ve reported more than 20 ‘new’ January deaths in the last three days.
Sunday, March 6, 2022
We’re starting to think about our trip to Utah next week. The plan is to fly there, visit with L and J for a couple of days, and then take the California Zephyr to California. J and L live just outside of Heber City, northeast of Salt Lake City. We checked the weather forecast for Heber City. On the days immediately before and after our visit, it’s supposed to be pretty nice. But while we’re there the forecast is for highs around 30 and lows around 1. Yikes.
Monday, March 7, 2022
Grocery shopping day. We walked to and from the Co-op. That is, E walked to and drove from; M did the opposite. Beautiful day, cold in the morning, then sunny and warm most of the day. M went out weeding.
The COVID test positive rate in Oregon over the past seven days has fallen to around 3.5%. Nice.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
We went again to the forest looking for fawn lilies. After two miles uphill what did we find? Well, the plants were up and budding but still no flowers. We went back down to the flats and consoled ourselves with lattes and Vietnamese baguettes.
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Packing and other prep for tomorrow’s departure to Utah, where the weather forecast continues to be sunny and cold. E is wondering why we didn’t just get on a plane for Hawaii. M cannot answer this.
Thursday, March 10, 2022
A pleasant Delta flight from Eugene to Salt Lake City. The SLC airport has just expanded and it was a long, long walk to baggage claim. Good exercise. Our Turo host met us in the rental car area and took us to our car, which was in the parking garage right outside. We had decided to try Turo because regular car rental prices are way up these days, more than $100 a day for very basic cars. Our Turo car was $110 a day, but it was an all wheel drive Infiniti Q50 and everything about the process was easy. It was especially nice that with Turo you can pick up and drop off the car anywhere in town that suits you. For us that meant getting the car at the airport and dropping it off at the Amtrak station. In both cases the transfer took all of five minutes.
Once in the car, we headed out on I-80, through SLC and up Parleys Canyon. An hour later we were at J and L’s place on a mountainside above Heber City. As predicted, the weather was cold and clear. Here’s the view looking down the driveway from the front of their house.
Friday, March 11, 2022
The temperature that night was below zero, but J and L know what they are about, and we were very cozy. In the morning we had this view from our window. The tracks in the snow are probably from a rabbit, possibly the same rabbit that was taken by a gyrfalcon and partially eaten just outside J and L’s bedroom window.
We dawdled over breakfast, giving the world a chance to warm up a little. Then we bundled up and set out to see Provo Canyon.
On the way we passed the lower part of Deer Creek Reservoir with Mt. Timpanogos in the background.
Bridal Veil Falls
Another view from our walk along the Provo River.
We followed up on our walk with a Peruvian lunch at a place in Orem. Nice.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Today J took us on a tour of the Park City area, where he has been a builder and site manager for many years. It was fun to see all the different homes that he has worked on. And Park City is an amazing place. The historic center of the city is fascinating, with steep hills and narrow streets. Lot sizes are tiny and preservation rules are strict, so houses are small, always in a traditional style, and all very expensive.
The historic section is a bargain, though, compared to the big ski in/out houses up on the mountain. Prices there range from seven million to forty-two million. Why so expensive? It’s not entirely location. Other factors are size (5k to 20k square feet), luxury features, sophisticated technology, and unusually high quality materials or construction techniques. J told us about the tile used for two bathrooms on one of his projects. The cost of the tile order was in the area of $170,000. At first that may sound high, but hey, it’s only $85,000 per room. Other added features, like a home movie theatre, can also run to six figures. Driveways and walkways can be heated to reduce or eliminate having to worry about snow removal. Eaves can also be heated to prevent icicles. The heating systems are computer controlled and have remote sensors to monitor surface moisture and temperature. They also have an internet connection so they can monitor local weather forecasts. Apparently the system is most effective if it turns the heat on before the snow starts falling.
M has poked around online and reports that there are other housing options in Park City. If–for some odd reason–you don’t need a vacation home in the historic district or a huge house next to a ski run, there are also lots of condos available. Amazingly, many of these are under a million dollars. When you think about it, though, that seems kinda cheap. Maybe those ones have bugs. You might be better off going for something else, like the 535 square foot condo that lists for $1,300,000.
After our tour we went and had pizza. Then it was back home to have a bit of a rest. And then, before we knew it, it was time to pack up and get back to town to catch a train. After we handed our Turo car back to the host, we masked up and went into the Salt Lake City Amtrak station. Utah, like Oregon, has lifted general mask mandates, but federal transportation related mandates remain in effect.
Saturday March 12, 10:30 PM to Sunday March 13, 1:30 AM
Our Amtrak station experience was….interesting. It was a small space, so whatever went on there was open for all to see. The first thing we couldn’t help overhearing was a fellow talking through the glass to the stationmaster about mask rules. He was wearing a blue blazer that made him look vaguely official, which we soon realized he was not. But he did seem to be a frequent traveler who knew a lot about the system. He wasn’t protesting the Amtrak mask mandate, but was talking about entry into some particular sports venue and wondering why he couldn’t just show his vaccination record. The station master was a cheerful fellow who listened politely and only occasionally made a remark of his own. Eventually the blue blazer guy went back to his seat and started talking to another passenger, who asked him what his job was. He said that he had to go to all of the games and take pictures and notes about what happened and then send them to the team social media coordinator. We had the distinct impression that while he may indeed do this, it was unlikely that it was any kind of job that a person would get paid for. But never mind that. Just then, a man came into the station without a mask. Our sports media person jumped up and said brightly “Didn’t you forget something?” The intruder was taken aback, but then, seeing that everyone else in the place was masked, decided that the best thing to do was apologize and go back outside.
Soon the station master came out from behind the counter and addressed the crowd, telling us that our train was delayed because of freight traffic on the line. It would likely be an hour and a half late. Hearing this did not cause anyone to get up and dance gleefully around the room. After a few moments, a young man went to the window and asked the station master “How did you get that information? I’ve been looking on the app and I can’t find it.” This caught M’s attention, for he too had downloaded the Amtrak app and had been confounded by how utterly useless it seemed to be. Unfortunately the stationmaster’s answer was inaudible. Next up to the window was a young woman checking a large suitcase. She wondered whether she would be able to get into it during the trip if she needed something. The station master advised her that this would not be possible and that she should make sure she had everything she needed. The woman said that maybe she should get out her prenatal vitamins, but she wasn’t sure. Soon after that several young hispanic men came in. They had limited English and when our blue blazer guy realized this, he started helping them out by telling them, in Spanish, about the train route and how it interfaced with various bus lines, which he seemed to know a lot about. His Spanish was rudimentary but effective, and pretty clearly he was of real help to them.
After another half an hour, the station master came out and again addressed the room. “I don’t really understand it,” he said, “but now it’s telling me there’s another delay. I’ve never seen this before, all the lights on the board just went red and now it says that the train won’t arrive here till 3:00 AM. But I know the train is already in Provo, so it doesn’t make any sense.” He raised his arms in a gesture of exasperated surrender. “We’ll just have see what happens.” It was terrible news, but a masterful performance. Probably none of the waiting passengers had ever had the exact experience of having all the lights on their board turn red, but we could relate.
Ten minutes later, a middle-aged woman came in sobbing. She went up to the stationmaster’s window and told him a pitiful story about how her Uber driver hadn’t been able to find the station and had just dumped her off in the middle of nowhere with her luggage, which she couldn’t carry by herself because she was disabled and she didn’t know where she was and it was just awful. The station master took this in stride and made sympathetic noises to calm her. Once her baggage was checked–how it had actually got to the station was unclear–the woman a took a seat and cried fitfully for a while longer before finally settling down. She then made a phone call, presumably to a family member, and started crying again. We all got to hear her side of the conversation as whoever it was finally helped her calm down. Then, a middle-aged man, who was sitting in our part of the station, turned to us and began–apropos of nothing–telling us about incidents he had witnessed involving unruly or disturbed passengers. He spoke rapidly and seemed to be switching from one story to another rather quickly. The only part we can remember was something like “…he was a big burly guy and those two black women conductors went up there and tried to drag him away from the driver, but he pushed them down. They were brave women…”
Soon after that, E decided she would like to go out and get some air. The station entrance had a little glass walled anteroom. To enter or leave you had to go through one door, walk through the anteroom and then go through another door. It happened that the blue-blazered sports reporter had gone out to stand in the anteroom, between the two doors, where he had taken off his mask. As E tried to edge past him, he held out his vaccination card and started talking again about how they really should have let him in to that sports event. E continued on past, saying she wanted to get some air outside. Alas, he followed her out because his story wasn’t done. He then wanted to have a nice loud conversation outside where E felt like he was trying to blow as much air in her direction as he possibly could. Somehow she slipped away.
Another hour went by and then, around about 1:00 AM, lo and behold, there was the train. It was two hours behind schedule but also two hours earlier than the worst prediction.
We took this picture as we were walking out to board. It was a cold clear night with a mostly full moon.
The beds were all prepared…
…and the passengers were glad to be there.
Sunday, March 13, 2022
We had a comfortable night and woke up just in time to see Elko, Nevada at 6:30 in the morning. We had gone through two time changes, one from standard time to daylight time and one from Mountain time to Pacific time. That meant that we had lost an hour and gained an hour over the course of the same night. At least…that’s what we think we did. Anyway, by 7:00 we were having a good breakfast in the dining car. Good food and coffee, but one ominous note: they had run out of orange juice and croissants. From Elko we could look forward to about 230 more miles of Nevada plus about 130 miles of California before reaching Sacramento, where we planned to catch a plane back to Oregon.
We made good time across Nevada, traveling at 60-70 miles per hour much of the way.
Winnemucca, Nevada is one of our favorite towns. (In a way.) It was nice to pass through on the train for a change.
East of Reno, the rail line follows along the Truckee River for a while.
Farther east, the line heads up toward Emigrant Gap and Donner Pass…
…and then begins a long descent into Central California. Those two cars at the back of the train are coach class. Coach fare from Salt Lake City to San Francisco is $86.
We arrived at Sacramento at around 7:15 PM, four hours late, so late that we were nervous about possibly missing our flight. But as it happened, everything went smoothly and it took less than an hour for us to get to the airport and make our way to the gate. From there we had a short flight to the San Francisco, so short that the cabin crew announced that there would be no time for beverage service. This made E grumpy. “They could have done something!” From SFO we flew to Eugene, where we had left our car, and finally arrived home at about 2:30 AM.
What did we think of the train? Generally it was pretty nice. It was slow and it was late. We had kind of expected that, but the reality was a bit much. Our particular train averaged just 40 mph over the course of our trip. Crossing the western U.S. at that speed definitely takes a while. The scenery on the route was really beautiful. Our room was small but comfortable and had a private toilet and shower. Once the beds were folded up, we had a comfortable single seat and also nice bench seat long enough for a person to nap on. Complementary coffee and bottled water were available right in our sleeper car, just steps away. All of the Amtrak personnel that we dealt with were very good. The dining car food, which is included in the sleeper fare, was pretty good, except when it wasn’t. Lots of things on the menu were not actually available and the system for seating people in the dining car was not actually a system.
About a week ago, M noticed that brightly colored heart-shaped boxes were starting to appear around the house. Being a quick study, he deduced that Valentine’s Day must be approaching.
Today, E, who is pretty quick herself, soon discovered a brand new box.
And of course, no one can live exclusively on bonbons, so the day also involved some gateaux.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Okay. Back to more or less normal, if there is such a thing. M has gone on an online buying spree. Some of the items, we fear, are somewhat frivolous. On the practical side, he wants some new kitchen cabinet hinges, and also a new pillow.
E went to a meeting of The Knitting Group via Zoom and enjoyed talking to old friends and colleagues. After supper, both of us had a you-know-what from the new heart-shaped box. Just one though, because we want to stretch out this box, at least for a while…
Then we watched some of Yanık Koza. We’re tempted to say that it is a really terrible show. We’ve only watched 50 episodes, though, so we will withhold any final judgment. M also watched the wild west episode of Around the World in 80 Days. He’s liking that well enough.
In very recent days, the number of new COVID cases in Oregon is down, not only because fewer tests have been recorded but also because the percentage of positive tests is trending down. We will call this encouraging.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
We went back to Lebanon, Oregon today, this time to walk along the Santiam River on the Old Mill Trail. Despite its name, the Old Mill Trail is brand new. It runs parallel to an older trail called the Eagle Scout Trail. The latter is a “soft surface” (i.e., unpaved) trail down in the river bottom area. The new trail runs along the top of a dike that was built in the 1940s, following a catastrophic flood. In the 1960s dams upstream made the dike obsolete for flood control. After languishing for fifty-odd years, the dike has recently begun serving as a long, level base for a concrete path. Though wide enough for a sixties Pontiac, the path is reserved for cyclists, pedestrians, and dogs. It sits high above the more humble Eagle Scout Trail. We took these pictures from the latter. There are lots of native cottonwood trees along the river, many encased in non-native ivy.
Friday, February 18, 2022
A dry warm afternoon. M mowed the shaggy part of the back lawn.
Saturday, February 19, 2022
E went for a dog walk with our friend A. E says that Pumpkin seemed to really enjoy the walk, which added to E’s enjoyment. M again went foraging in the forest, looking for suitable debris.
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Pleasant weather these days. Nighttime temps around 30, high temps in the 50’s. Early blooming plants are liking it fine: snowdrops and crocuses, a few daffodils, lots of buds on our maple trees.
We’ve started packing for our trip that starts on Tuesday. We made some lists and E put some stuff in the food box. According to our weather apps, our two days of camping at the coast will correspond with the two coldest days of the week. The yurt will be heated, but we’re not sure if they’re made for nights in the low 20’s. On the other hand, the days are supposed to be sunny.
We had a delicious international dinner today: leftover Mexican chicken enogada, leftover Indian aloo gobi, and leftover Eve’s red cabbage. Then bonbons.
Monday, February 21, 2022
Shopping and packing day. In the morning E got together with her pals J and C at the place where C is house-sitting. It’s a rather grand house and C gave E and J a tour. The house is in a beautiful setting and is filled with lovely artwork and décor. Also big closets. Really big closets.
Juce and Brane have decided they’d like to join us at the coast and have reserved a nearby yurt. The forecast is for 18 degrees Wednesday night. Oh boy.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Left Corvallis at 8:30 and got to Reedsport around noon. We parked at the Umqua lighthouse and had our lunch in the truck, looking out over the dunes to the ocean. We then proceeded ten miles further south and hiked the Dellenback loop trail, which is named for a politician who was a instrumental in efforts to protect the Oregon dunes from development. Then it was back up to Umqua Lighthouse State Park, where there are six ‘deluxe’ yurts, one of which was reserved for us, and another for J and B. Since it was not yet check-in time, we did another short hike, this time around Lake Marie, just next to the campground.
Once we got moved in, we had a chance to relax before getting together with J and B for dinner. Dinner was Mexican food that M fetched from Reedsport, which was only about seven miles away. The food was’t real hot by the time it arrived back at the J&B yurt–it didn’t help that M missed a turn on the way home–but the microwave made it better.
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
This was the day of the main event, hiking at Silver and Golden Falls. After breakfast, E made us some PBJ sandwiches and M made a thermos of half-caff with a spoonful of of chocolate powder. We packed up and headed out at around 9:30. Thirty-three degrees and sunny. At 11:00, we got to the trailhead, located about twenty-five miles east of Coos Bay. It was thirty-three and sunny there too.
There are three trails from the parking area: one to a Silver Falls viewpoint, one to the base of Golden Falls, and a longer one that goes past the base of Silver and continues to the top of Golden. This last was the one we had planned to take, but where that trail starts we came to a small sign informing us that trees had fallen onto trail and saying something about “no through hiking.” We decided to try anyway. Maybe we could find out what ‘no through hiking’ actually meant. Here’s what we found:
Two large firs had indeed fallen across the trail as it traversed a steep slope. Someone had been kind enough (and industrious enough) to cut some steps that made a crossing possible. We’re not saying we just pranced right up this stairway, but we did manage it. And as the trail continued, we were glad that we had.
First we came to the base of Silver Falls, where we loved seeing the ice on the rock behind the falling water.
Then we passed this very old red cedar stump. How old? We don’t know, but the new tree growing out the top is 50 to 60 years old and the original looks to have been much older than that.
The trail follows the route of a narrow road or pack trail that once led from Coos Bay to the town of Scottsburg. This portion was blasted out a cliff in 1916. This is the wide part.
We had lunch on the narrow part near the top of Golden Falls.
The cliff faces south and the sun was shining directly onto it. Even though it was still cold down in the trees, we had to take off our heavy outer layers to be comfortable up on the ledge. We had our traditional lunch of sandwiches, carrots and celery, chips, juice and chocolate, along with a wee dram from the flask. Here’s a video from up there at the top of Golden Falls
Later on, we went back to the trailhead and hiked to the base of Golden Falls. J and B, meanwhile, along with the indomitable Bento, hiked both the Golden Falls base trail and the Silver Falls view trail. Here’s Bento on the latter.
Once more back at the trailhead we took our thermos of artisanal instant half-caff mocha and sat at a picnic table in the sun. We didn’t linger, though; it was still just thirty-four degrees.
Thursday, February 24, 2022
In the morning M took the Coleman stove out on to the porch and cooked up a camp breakfast of potatoes, red bell pepper, eggs and cheddar. Not too bad. Then it was time to start packing up. Here are a few photos of yurt life. The first picture is from the web site of Pacific Yurts, Inc., but the scene in the photo seems very familiar and we’re pretty sure that the yurt on the left is the actual one we stayed in.
Unfortunately, we did not get either the kayak or the help of the kayak paddler. But it was too cold to be outside anyway. Here are some inside photos.
Friday, February 25, 2022
Now here’s another of our blue charts, the ones that track reported Oregon COVID death rates for each month of the pandemic. The chart shows that the November, December and January rates were all quite similar. By our reckoning, the first ten days of February were also roughly at that level. Beginning around February 11th, early figures show something of a decline. All numbers are provisional, as they say.
The old concrete and gravel have been removed and a sheet of road cloth has been put down. The old gravel was pea gravel, of which our man Claudio strongly disapproved, saying it is not a good base for any kind of pavement. No wonder our driveway was falling apart. (Of course it did last 58 years.)
Thursday, February 3, 2022
We had R over for dinner. E made minestrone. R and M’s book project is proceeding.
More driveway work today. Many inches of new gravel (crushed rock type) have been added, along with a layer of sand. Lots of noise from the vibrating compactor. By the end of the day, it looked like this:
Friday, February 4, 2022
E went for coffee H and N this afternoon. Both seem to be doing well. When E returned around 4:45, we tried to order take-out from Ba’s in Albany. They have a good, easy to use, online order system, but they are apparently a little busy. The system did not tell us exactly where we were in the queue, but it did inform us that our order would take three hours to prepare. Whoa! We settled for Pastini’s. Pastini’s is a regional chain that used to have a really crappy online ordering system, but lo and behold, they have changed partners and radically improved! We are moderately pleased.
In the evening we watched two episodes of Yanık Koza, a Turkish series whose title translates to Burned Cocoon. The story is about a wealthy family and how secrets and lies from the past continue to wreck havoc in the present. It’s from 2005-06 and consists of 105 45-minute episodes. It’s on Netflix, in Turkish with English subtitles. Today’s Turkish lesson comes from a line of dialogue in Episode 36. The scene is a hospital corridor, just outside the room where two minor bad guys lie badly wounded and only semi-conscious. Unfortunately for them, they know too much and everyone suspects that their bad guy boss wants them out of the picture. So a bunch of good guys are standing around the hallway in an effort to protect them. The speaker is Kadir, one of our hero’s loyal sidekicks. Kadir is short, round and tough looking.
At a critical moment Kadir says: “If those two are nurses, I’m Brad Pitt!” Now you may wonder why anyone would want to learn this phrase in Turkish But if you ever find yourself in a Turkish hospital, it could turn out to be more useful that you think. We know, from having watched several Turkish series, that many Turkish hospitals are frequented by hoodlums disguised as nurses who have been ordered to rub out key witnesses who are lying helpless in their beds. So here we go. In Turkish the line goes like this:
Bu ikisi hemşireyse, ben Brad Pitt’im.
bu ikisi = these two hemşire = nurse ben = I’m
Grammar note: “se” is the functional equivalent of English ‘if.’ It comes at the end of the clause instead of the beginning and takes the form of a suffix added onto the noun.
These two nurses if ,I Brad Pitt (am)
Bu ikisi hemşireyse, ben Brad Pitt ‘im.
Now practice pronunciation. Play the video. Listen and repeat.
More driveway work today. Not done, but coming along.
Saturday, February 5, 2022
We took a nice walk in the OSU forest. About five thousand steps and thirteen floors. (E supposedly climbed fifteen floors, but her watch cheats.) Along the way we saw the first new leaves of spring.
As we learned from one of our special correspondents, spring officially begins on February 1st.
Sunday, February 6, 202
M went out into the Coast Range foraging for yard décor. He found a nice chunk of wood and a few rocks.
E had a siblings meeting via Zoom. Ice storms in upstate New York. Very nasty. Hereabouts, in more temperate climbs, E’s amaryllis is coming along nicely. This is its third year.
Monday, February 7, 2022
More driveway work. Slow going.
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Driveway done! Good. It’s prettier and wider.
Thursday, February 10, 2022
In the first ten days of February, the Oregon Health Authority has reported 72 February COVID deaths. During the same period they have also reported 114 new COVID deaths for the month of December. Their count of total number of deaths in December now totals 338. Only about half of these deaths were reported in December and the first few days of January. Why the long delay in reporting the other half? Perhaps more importantly, when will this process end? Will OHA report another 114 December deaths in the next ten days of February or in the first ten days of March? We mention this not because we are obsessed with the month of December; at this point, that month is of only historical interest. But are we alone in wishing that we could get some idea of how many deaths are occurring now? As has been obvious from the beginning, death counts are the only way we have of determining how serious our situation is. We have lots and lots of numbers in Oregon–vaccinations, cases, positive test rates, hospitalizations, and more–but we don’t have the only one we really need in order to know what is actually going on.
Oh well. Let’s check in with the amaryllis.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Went into the OSU forest again, this time on the newish Vineyard Mountain Trail. Vineyard Mountain is just north of Corvallis and has long been home to a few broadcast and communication towers. Somewhere back in time, someone went to a lot of trouble to build a structure near the top of Vineyard Mountain. It’s hard to say what it was. Only the fireplace and the concrete pad foundation remain. From the foundation you can see that it wasn’t very big. But judging from the two-foot thickness of the pad and the rather massive fireplace and chimney, the builder meant business. A bit of a mystery.
At 9:00, E had her Zoom exercise class, the first one of the new term. It was hard work, she says. At 10:00 we talked with Claudio about our planned paver driveway. We put down a large deposit. Gulp. We had planned to do concrete. But as it turns out, concrete projects are crazy expensive these days. So pavers it is. They seem more earth-friendly anyway.
In other news, we’ve made a reservation to stay at the coast next month in a state park near the mouth of the Umqua River. We’re going to stay two nights in a yurt. But not a regular yurt–a deluxe yurt. We’re not quite sure what those are, but apparently they have microwaves and bathrooms. We’ll see.
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
M worked on R’s book project for an hour or two and then watched the final episode of Frontera Verde, a Colombian series on Netflix. (Eight episodes, in Spanish and indigenous languages, with English subtitles) It’s an atmospheric crime drama set in the Amazon River section of Colombia. Good quality production with some wonderful cinematography. The basis of the story is only semi-comprehensible, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a way of opening a window onto a fascinating part of the world, a place with a dark past and a problematic present. When they talk about rubber plantation slavery in the relatively recent past and criminal logging in the present, they’re not just making things up.
The Amazon river forms part of the border between Colombia and Peru. At this point the river is only one fifth of its eventual size. Six percent of the Amazon Rain Forest is within the borders of Colombia.
And what was E doing while M was wandering around South America? In the morning she was doing yard work: transplanting, pruning and weeding. It seems odd to be pulling weeds at this time of year, but there they are staring at us and they do come out easily when the soil is wet. Later on, she went to visit her seamstress, whose workshop happens to be just across the street from one of her favorite clothing stores…
Thursday, January 20, 2022
Damp weather for the last couple of days. Warm at times, with highs in the 50’s and lows in the 40’s. We had coffee with J and R today and it was quite pleasant out in the tent at Coffee Culture.
We’re not sitting indoors in restaurants much these days, but we did make a quick visit to Sada to pick up an online order. We shared a bento box. The bentos at Sada are big; ours had miso soup, green salad, seaweed salad, gyoza, salmon, tempura, rice, cheesecake and fruit. One was quite sufficient. Pro tip: wash it down with gin.
Friday, January 21, 2022
We got up at seven this morning, just in time for some striking sunrise colors to the east. By eight, though, we were fogged in and could barely make out the far end of the street. After breakfast, E went out and did bird feeder chores. At 10:00 we set out for the Finley Refuge, planning to walk the Mill Hill Loop. It was still foggy when we found the turn-off to the refuge but five minutes later the sun broke through. We were just in time to see a few traces of mist drifting over the ponds.
The first part of the trail leads through one of the biggest oak forests around. Oaks and firs are competitors at these elevations, and they say that if you leave things alone, the firs will outgrow and displace the oaks. That’s what has been happening here for the past 175 years. But now, at least in conservation areas like this, people are starting to intervene on the side of the oaks. We passed more than one fir stump today.
After the hike, we went to E’s favorite coffee shop for take-out lunch. You can get a nice healthy sandwich there–if you don’t get distracted and have one of their pastries instead. Not that we personally would ever do that, at least not very often.
Saturday, January 22, 2022
E went to the Co-op for groceries and tended to her correspondence. M went off to Albany to get bricks.
For dinner M made enchiladas and E baked an acorn squash. Nice. Pro tip: wash it down with gin.
At this point we have both read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. The story begins in the early 1990’s in a very remote tea-growing area of China. The inhabitants are members of an ethnic minority who are quite different from the dominant Han Chinese in appearance, language, and culture. The story strains credulity in many ways, but who cares, learning about the culture is still fascinating and you still want to see what happens.
Sunday, January 23, 2022
M’s latest project is an expansion of Hummock #1. Seems he can’t leave well enough alone.
Monday, January 24, 2022
B and B are coming for dinner. We’re preparing a meze with tabouleh salad, white beans, pickles, humus, pita, olives, dolmas, lentil soup, grilled haloumi, and kebabs. No gin.
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
We travelled east this morning, going deep into Linn County to the town of Lebanon. We went there because we have learned that there are 42 places named Lebanon in the U.S. and we’ve decided that we’re going to visit ev– No, wait, that wasn’t it.
We went there to walk the trails around Cheadle Lake and see what we could see. Originally a swampy area with a few seasonal ponds, the site was heavily excavated and reformed in the 1930’s to make a large and complicated log pond for a lumber mill. The mill buildings and equipment are long gone , but the pond remains. The pond/lake covers 11 acres and has a maximum depth of 40 feet. At this point the lake and the area around it form a de facto nature reserve. There are a couple of miles of easy trails and lots of birds. We saw redwing blackbirds, Canada geese, two kinds of ducks, a pair of mergansers, an egret, and a mysterious something that looked like a cormorant.
The lake’s shape is completely artificial. It is shaped like a hand with four long fingers. This is a view down one of them. The water tower in the background belonged, we think, to a completely different mill, also now abandoned.
The Geese Who Were Paying Attention
Cheadle Lake Park is also where the base structure for the world’s largest shortcake is stored when it’s not Strawberry Festival time. (I know we’ve all been lying awake wondering about that.)
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Progress continues on Hummock #1.5. Also pruning. E met with her HEPAJ group.
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Tertulia with J and R as usual. A little cold out under the canopy, about 30 degrees. Had to zip home quick for E’s jumping around class, as she calls it. Later on, we fetched the little car from storage and squeezed it back into the garage. M took a little drive just to make sure the car still worked.
Friday, January 28, 2022
M went to the dentist. E went to the DMV. Sounds bad, but in fact both were painless. E went to apply for her new Real ID license and was in and out in 15 minutes!
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Cold nights these days, down into the teens. Sunny and mid forties in the afternoons. A nice time to work outside, once the ground thaws. Good thing too, because there’s work to be done prepping for the driveway project. Several nice plants need to be moved out of harm’s way.
Warmer weather coming. Intermittent rain today, fairly light but still enough to keep everything pretty soggy. You do not want to walk through our backyard without waterproof shoes.
We stayed indoors and finished the jigsaw that we started on New Year’s Eve. Almost immediately a Lego shark turned up in San Fransisco Bay. Yikes.
Luckily, a Lego response unit was on the way.
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Much warmer today, high 50’s most of the day, touching 60 at one point. Something of a shock.
The COVID news in Oregon is pretty much the same as a lot of other places: a very high number of confirmed cases, but also a general sense that things are not as bad as they might be. The number of hospitalizations is high but not quite crisis level high. We continue to have daily COVID deaths, but the numbers are lower than November and have not yet risen in response to Omicron–as far as we know. Here is the latest update to the Pandemic Diary curve chart:
During the last few months, the OHA has been reviewing records for the entire period of the pandemic. So far, this review has resulted in the addition of hundreds of deaths to the official COVID death toll. More than 150 of these newly added deaths occurred in November. These have been added of the Pandemic Diary database also, thus changing the height of the November bar on the chart. However, we are not going back and redoing anything before November in any precise detail. So you might be wondering: Is this home-made chart accurate? Well, accurate or not, you can’t get these numbers anywhere else! Committed to accuracy as we are, we have even taken on a new staff member in the statistics department. See that vertical bar on the far right–the one for December? E played a key role in generating that one.
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Quite warm again today. M had an allergy attack in the evening. And yes, these two things are related. It happens to a lot of people around here at this time of year.
Friday, January 7, 2022
The media narrative these days is that we are seeing a tremendous spike of COVID case numbers, which can be attributed to the Omicron variant. As always, the supposed “case numbers” are actually just counts of positive test results. But the number of people who get tested in any given period is just a fraction of the total population. How many more cases would be find if we could test everybody? We have no idea, which is scary. If the people tested on one day constituted a random sample, we could use that sample to make an estimate of the total. Let’s say we tested 10,000 people on a particular day in Oregon and we got 1,000 positive results. That would be ten percent. Oregon has a total of 4,200,000 residents. Our estimate would be that the real number of COVID cases in Oregon on that day was 420,000.
Unfortunately, the number of people tested in Oregon on a particular day is never a random sample. Some people are required to be tested, some people are tested because they are showing symptoms, some people are feeling fine but know that they have been exposed. In general, you might assume that the group of people being tested are in fact at higher risk than the general population. According to that assumption, if the group rate was 10% positive, the rate of the general population would be much lower, maybe 9%, 8%, 5% or 2%. Who knows? Or maybe you might assume that the group that gets tested are actually at a lower risk because they are generally taking better care of themselves and that’s the real reason they’re getting tested, in which case the rate in the general population would be higher than theirs, maybe 12%, 15%, 25%, or 50%. Hard to say.
But, not only do we know that the ‘new cases’ number doesn’t tell us much, we also know that the more people we test, the more new cases we find. Below are four days of recent COVID test results in Oregon. Of the four, the report for Jan. 6 is the one that made headlines. How could the number of new cases go from 4,540 on Jan. 3 to 10,451 in just four days? Well, note that there were almost twice as many tests given on the 6th as on the 3rd. That factor alone would account for roughly 85% of the difference.
Tests Administered
Percent Positive
Number of New Cases
Jan. 3
26,869
16.90%
4,540
Jan. 4
34,728
17.92%
6,223
Jan. 5
38,880
19.59%
7,615
Jan. 6
52,761
19.81%
10,451
So we have this number, (10,451 in this case) which tells us the result of some non-random testing, which therefore tells us very little about the total spread of the disease in the population as a whole, and which is nine times more dependent on number of tests given than it is on the extent of the infection. But it’s a number, so we jump right on it. You bet.
P.S. And by the way, what caused the number of tests to go up so much from the 3rd to the 6th? Could it be that at about that time the media really played up the dangers of the Omicron variant, causing a lot of people to get so nervous about COVID that they just had to go out and get tested? That would suggest that these semi-meaningless numbers have developed the ability to increase themselves over time, sort of like a virus….
P.P.S. This is not to suggest that Omicron isn’t real. The percent positive numbers–a somewhat more useful statistic–are very high for all four of the dates above. The number of reported deaths is not very high lately, but deaths are a lagging indicator; so we’ll have to wait and see.
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Walked in the OSU forest today, through the intensive management area and looping around Calloway Creek. Along the way we came across this disaster scene. Since there have been no high winds, and the ground is very wet, we are assuming the soggy soil is to blame for the demise of this venerable tree.
Monday, January 10, 2022
We spent a lot of time prepping for skiing, shopping for groceries, preparing food to take with us, and digging out all our various winter accoutrements.
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Left town at around 9:00 today and made our way to Willamette Pass to do some cross country skiing. Willamette Pass is in the Cascades about a hundred miles southeast of Corvallis. We parked at the Gold Lake Snow Park, put on our boots and skis, and started out on the road to the lake. Alas we never made it there. The trail was easy, somewhat beaten down and well trodden but with plenty of snow. The scene was beautiful and the weather was fine. We had some fun on the way, zipping down a few of the steeper parts and not once falling down, so we’ll call it a success. But after a mile or two we started to get nervous about the fact that the trail was leading us so far downhill, thus promising us a long uphill route on the way back. After descending for an hour and a half, we decided to play it safe and stop for lunch somewhere short of the actual lake, after which we headed back.
We spent the night in a ‘chalet’ unit at Willamette Inn in Crescent, Oregon. We made dinner out of our food brought from home and settled down to rest. M read a Robert Parker novel he found in the bedroom while E amused herself on the internet before starting to read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. We may have been the only guests at the inn. It was pretty quiet and pretty cold. Also pretty nice.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
The ski expedition returned to Corvallis in the early afternoon. All was well. But we were tired.
We Zoom watched a lecture/presentation on Bob Santelli’s Album Club. He was doing the album Blue by Joni Mitchell. What an album. He also played ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ from Ladies of the Canyon. An endless loop of that refrain is now trapped inside M’s head.
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Tertulia with J and R this morning out in the tent at Coffee Culture. The temperature must have been in the upper 40’s. Quite pleasant. J and R are having difficulties with the Hungarian exchange student who has been living with them. It turns out that both the student and her mother are distrustful of the COVID vaccines and although the girl did get two doses before she came here–as was required by the exchange organizer–that’s as far as she wants to go. This does not go down well with J, who has suggested that now would be a good time for her to get a booster, especially since one of her hosts has ongoing cardiac issues. It appears they are at an impasse. A new host family may have to be found.
Thursday is dinner out day, but rather than risk the exposure of restaurant dining, we chose take-out dinner from Castor. Very tasty. E was particularly enraptured by the extra sweet butternut squash tartine.
Friday, January 14, 2022
We walked today with R on the boardwalk through the Jackson-Frazier Wetland. It’s wet all right, but we have seen it wetter. We saw eight or ten ducks gathered at a new pond in the open space to the west.
Later on we had errands downtown. E took her old down jacket to the resale place and left it for them to examine to see if it was of interest. M went to the tea and coffee place to pick up a pound of Yemeni coffee. The variety they have there is called Yemen Mocca Kulani. Although the word ‘mocha’ in U.S. coffee shops refers to coffee mixed with chocolate, in other parts of the world it was for a long time just another word for coffee. Coffee almost certainly originated in Ethiopia but remained a local phenomenon for a time, perhaps several centuries. It only became known to the wider world when in the 1400’s when some enterprising traders brought coffee beans across the Red Sea to the Yemeni port town of Mocha (also spelled Mokha or Mocca). The earliest consumers and growers of coffee in Yemen were Sufi monks in their mountain monasteries. But soon, more and more coffee was being grown in Yemen, much of it being exported to other areas of the Middle East and from there north into Europe. For a time–perhaps as long as 150 years–the Mocha area growers were able to maintain a sort of world monopoly on coffee production by exporting only sterile beans.
So for a long time coffee was called mocha because that’s where it came from. Only later did Arabic speakers begin calling it ‘qahweh’ an Arabic word that originally referred to a kind of wine. Qahweh is the etymological ancestor of our word coffee.
M visited Mocha and took this photo in 1988. Mocha was still a town, but business was not booming.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
E returned to town only to find that her jacket had been deemed unworthy by the shop manager. She decided to go across the street and donate it to the OSU Folk Club thrift shop. This latter institution is famous in Corvallis for a number of reasons. It has been there seemingly forever in the same location; it has beautiful and interesting old things in the windows; and, finally, it is almost never actually open. They fact that the shop was open just when E needed it is a kind of miracle. M only found out about this later, as he had stayed at home to do a bit of compost stirring and moss raking.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
We managed to choke down a breakfast of waffles with butter, maple syrup, and maple cream. We weren’t really planning to add the maple cream, but E looked at the label and it said right there on the jar “Use on waffles.” So we did.
After a modest period of recovery, E went for a walk in the OSU forest while M walked over to visit R to consult about a book project that R is undertaking.
Monday, January 17, 2022
Grocery shopping in the morning; then a little bit of work on E’s transcription project. This involves four years’ worth of letters written by E’s uncle Charley while he was in the army during World War Two. During that time, he went to basic training, then to OCS, and later to the Europe in the last years of the war. The letters have become something of a family project. E’s grand nephew Ted scanned the letters, making an individual image of each one. He shared them on Google Drive. Now, E, A, and Ted’s father have begun transcribing them one by one so as to create digital text versions. M is helping a little with proofing and such.
Christmas soon, but four whole days to prepare. And we already did the grocery shopping–mostly. Must solve the problem of M’s prescription.
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Making sure to take a walk every day.
Thursday, December 23, 2021
How can it take so long just to wrap a few packages? New prescription still not approved. Renewed the old one.
Friday, December 24, 2021
The Andees came bearing gifts this Christmas Eve, accompanied by the valiant Frankie. For dinner, one of the A’s contributed mushrooms Logroño, the other A brought frosted sugar cookies plus several bottles from her wine-a-day advent calendar, E made besugo al horno, and M made millionaire cake.
Saturday, December 25, 2021
It was rainy on Christmas morning, but somewhere in the midst of stockings and presents and breakfast, we noticed that the rain turned briefly to snow. It wasn’t for long and it didn’t stick, but it was nice. It also gave us a preview of what was to come. The snow started for real at about 10:00 in the evening.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Five inches of snow this morning, which is a very unusual occurrence in these parts.
For the first half of the day, we just sat back and enjoyed it. Then, around 1:00, we noticed a neighbor out clearing his driveway. Oh yeah, that. He was using a tool called a snow shovel. You don’t see those much around here. Do we even have a snow shovel? We think maybe we do. But where is it? (Ten minutes later) Ah yes, there it is, down there under that pile of stuff.
Monday, December 27, 2021
Three more inches this morning. Wow! No time to shovel though. because we’d arranged to meet our friend El over at the coast at 10:30 and we needed to allow extra time to get there. We didn’t know what to expect on the roads. There have been times when relatively small amounts of snow have paralyzed traffic on that road. But today wasn’t bad: a packed snow surface, mostly sanded and only rarely icy. We took it slow and did fine. We met El at South Beach State Park. It was a joyous reunion because we hadn’t seen each other in 10 years! We did a loop up the beach to the south jetty and back down on the inland trail through the trees. We met a friendly local guy with a very energetic border collie and talked to him for a while. Then it was off to lunch at Local Ocean. El wanted to try a number of things, so boy did we have fun. They weren’t too busy, so we got lots of attention. We feasted on scallops, crab, rock fish and black cod–all locally caught. Yum.
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Spent the night in a loft room at the Embarcadero, an old condo development that overlooks part of Yaquina Bay. Considering that the place is 40 years old, everything is in pretty good shape. Our unit had new floors, fixtures and furniture. Only the carpet sample coasters were vintage:
The Port of Newport has a considerable fleet of fishing and crabbing boats. The latter are having their busy season now. Newport is also the home port of several ocean research vessels, one operated by Oregon State University and several owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The calm waters of the bay give no hint of the dangers of crossing the Yaquina Bar, which has claimed many lives over the years.
The ocean is just a few hundred yards beyond the bridge. Boats go out under the high arch span and enter a channel between two massive jetties. The channel leads to a narrow opening in the Yaquina Reef.
Before heading home, we stopped to see the seals.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
We have been out and about a lot lately, and we were exposed to at least one person who was exposed to a known case. It doesn’t seem very likely that either of us is infected, but we decided to get tested anyway. We went to a drive-up place called WVT, which is located in a small building that once housed a Baskin-Robbins. Talk about sad transitions. When we arrived, instead of going inside to look at all the flavors in the freezer cases, we just stayed in our car. WVT has you register with LabDash before you go, which takes care of a lot of formalities. A staffer came out and scanned our LabDash QR codes and then gave us long swabs to stick up our noses and a couple of tubes to put the swab tips into once we were finished. After swabbing, you have to put the tip of the swab into the tube and break off the handle part, leaving only the cotton tip inside the tube. That last, of course, was the hard part. In order to see the one place where the handle breaks off easily, you kinda need to have your glasses on…
We were told that the results would be on LabDash within 24 hours.
Thursday, December 30, 2021
Friday, December 31, 2021
A rare sunny day. We went for a walk in the OSU forest, which was lovely. But the trail surface was icy in places and we had to take care. We saw that last weekend’s heavy, wet snow had broken off thousands–or millions–of small branches and also brought down a few large trees. Here’s a downed fir just beside the path.
As is our tradition, we spent New Year’s Eve with jigsaw puzzle and a bottle of champagne. It was fun to get several new year greetings by text from friends in other time zones. First came a message from Germany at 9:30 a.m., then one from Spain at about 3:15 p.m. on Dec 31. 2021. Then it was a message from El at 12:30 am on January 1, 2022. Did we manage to stay up till midnight our time? Yes, we did.
Saturday, January 1, 2022
Except for a few bedraggled remnants, that old 2021 snow is mostly gone.
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Tree down, lights and decorations packed away. As our Turkish friend Umut told us: Bir yıl daha geçti yine göz açıp kapayıncaya kadar. (Another year has passed in the blinking of an eye. )
He also wishes us a year of sevgi (love), hoşgörü (tolerance), neşe (joy), mutluluk (happiness), huzur (peace), sağlik (health), and sevdiklerimizle doyasıya güzel zamanlar (good times with our loved ones). We wish the same to all of you.
M went for a “wellness visit” to his “provider.” It was about time, says E.
Thursday, December 9, 2021
We watched a video lecture last night about an environmental restoration project being undertaken by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. The CTGR have purchased conservation easements on two 400+ acre tracts along the north bank of the North Santiam River near where it flows into the Willamette. (This is roughly 50 miles from Corvallis.) Historically, the whole area was of great value to the indigenous tribes and by the terms of two treaties that were negotiated in the early 1850’s, the area was to be reserved for tribal use. Neither of those treaties was ratified, however, and the lands were not included in the 1855 treaty that established the CTGR reservation. But the area still figures prominently in tribal histories and traditional stories. The presentation included two of these stories: Coyote and the Frog and The Skookum and the Wonderful Boy.
The area is in the flat part of the Willamette Valley and in its natural state was subject to extensive seasonal flooding. The river had many side channels and pools and the main channel would shift every few years. In 1936 two dams were built upstream to provide hydropower and control floods. With seasonal flooding much reduced, hundreds of acres of land near the river became more suitable for agriculture. Native trees and plants were removed, fields were planted, and houses and barns were built. In the 21st century, however, it seems that the fields were not so profitable. Many fields were abandoned and soon became wide swathes of invasive plants, chiefly Scotch broom and blackberry. Over the past few years, things are changing once again, at least in these two parcels. The CTGR project has removed about a dozen structures along with hundreds of tons of discarded equipment and household garbage. Many acres of invasive plants have been removed and replaced by native species.
In the lecture Q&A someone asked the project manager which native plants were being used in the restoration. The answer was ninebark, snowberry, and Oregon grape. Those names sounded familiar…
Snowberry and Oregon Grape growing in our yard
Friday, December 10, 2021
We had old friend and colleague R over for dinner. These are hard times for R, who has recently suffered the loss of his spouse, who was also our friend.
Rain off and on all day. Proper weather for Oregon in December.
Saturday, December 11, 2021
More rain today, hardest in the morning, but steady all day. It’s becoming a soggy world out there. In the late afternoon we got out the rain gear and went walking in the OSU forest. We passed by the lake at about 4:30. As the daylight was just beginning to fade, we saw a flock of seven or eight small ducks. They seemed to be actively feeding, not much perturbed by the weather.
The ducks were naturally camouflaged and hard to spot in the gloom–except when they popped up from a dive and showed their white breasts.
Sunday, December 12, 2021
Another damp day. M did a little yard work between showers.
Monday, December 13, 2021
Cold and rainy as we set off for an overnight at the coast. For us the roads were clear, but there may have been patches of ice earlier in the day. We were delayed for 20 minutes or so at the scene of a bad accident–bad as in a semi off in the ditch and a very badly mangled small car being hauled away.
We stayed at the Adobe in Yachats. By late afternoon the rain had eased off. We thought of taking a walk, but in the end it was fine to sit at the window and just watch the weather.
At low tide the gulls settled in on the rocks when they weren’t working.
At night when the tide was high, they settled down on the hotel lawn to sleep. The Adobe has lights that illuminate the surf all night long. While E and the birds slept, M spent a lot of time watching the big waves come in.
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Here’s what the dawn looked like. That’s Mt Fuji you can see there in the background.
There was a rainbowish thing far out to sea.
We left just after breakfast and headed back inland, planning to do a hike in the Coast Range. First we stopped at Ray’s Market in Waldport to collect some lunch supplies. When we left there, E took the wheel so that M could eat his donut. By the time we got to the trailhead the sun was shining and the skies were clear. It had snowed the day before and the trees had all got a coating of snow. That snow was now melting in the sunshine and as we entered the forest we found a whole lot of dripping going on. It was like walking through a rainstorm.
In the tops of the trees the snow was melting fast, but down below–in the shade–it lingered.
Our trial led steeply up to an old logging road where we turned west and eventually came to a clear cut. The rapid evaporation created clouds of mist that drifted across the mountainsides.
We had our lunch sitting on a couple of stumps out in the sunshine; then it was time to re-enter the forest and head back down.
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
E had a HEPAJ meeting today. A was absent but H’s daughter–Dr. T–was brought in to sub for her.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
As loyal readers may know, the Pandemic Diary has been indefatigable in its pursuit of information, even to the extent of reading Oregon Health Authority press releases in their entirety, right down to the very end. Although these texts are generally well written and informative, there is an occasional blip. This snippet–published today, December 16th–is one.
Oregon’s 5,513th COVID-19 related death is a 73-year-old woman from Josephine County who tested positive Dec. 1 and died Dec. 18 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.
Saturday, December 18, 2021
We travelled up to Portland today to see A and celebrate her birthday. On the way, we made a stop in Salem to pick up a cake at The Konditorei. We met A and her long-time friend C for brunch at Hudson’s Grill, one of our old favorite places. Afterwards we went to A’s house to have cake, presents, and drink flower tea. Very nice.
But then, alas, we had to drive home, two hours through the darkness with heavy traffic in a constant hard rain. Not so nice. Once we were home, having lived to tell the tale, we rewarded ourselves with ice cream.
Sunday, December 19, 2021
The rain continues today. It feels gentler because there’s no wind pushing the drops around. But it does go on and on. The clay soils that were dry and cracked just months ago are now saturated. Puddles are forming in all the usual places around the yard. Squishiness is everywhere.
E talked by Zoom today with S and Mrs. H. S is helping Mrs. H with her annual cookie packaging. Mrs. H has made hundreds of cookies, twelve different kinds, and S helped her to assemble them unto gift plates. Every year Mrs H gives away lots of cookies, many of them to the volunteers who help her run the food pantry.
E also spoke via FaceTime with her friend L, who grew up in Ballston Spa but has lived for many years now in Vanuatu. L asked if E remembered the name of the styrofoam factory that opened in Ballston Spa when they were children. They remembered going along the railroad tracks near the factory and finding small pieces of some strange substance on the ground. When they picked it up, it seemed quite amazing. E did indeed remember the name of the company: Tufflite Plastics. The reason L was thinking of the factory is that she finds that the once pristine beaches of Vanuatu are now strewn with styrofoam. She wonders if that styrofoam had its origin in Ballston Spa.
The Pandemic Diary has followed up on this a little. We know that Tufflite Plastics was founded in 1950 and survived into the 1990’s. The company produced a number of different products over the years. But what was their first product, the one that helped the business really take off? Was it (A) blue styrofoam insulation materials, (B) white styrofoam packing materials, or (C) green and white styrofoam materials for florists and crafters?
It’s been a frustrating month for M, who has faithfully tracked the ups and downs of the pandemic in Oregon for almost two years now. To do so, he has depended on daily and weekly reports from the Oregon Health Authority. OHA reports on such things as number of tests given, number of new cases, number vaccinations given, number of hospitalizations, and of course number of deaths. These OHA reports are published on the web for all to see. Nice and clear. Except that for the past several weeks things aren’t so nice and clarity is out the window. Let’s look at some recent examples:
Here are the opening sentences of three consecutive OHA daily press releases:
1. Issued on Nov 22 showing data for the period Nov. 19-21:
There are 103 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,016, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
2. Issued on Nov 23 showing data for Nov 22:
There are 51 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,067, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
3. Issued on Nov 24 showing data for Nov 23:
There are 50 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,116, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
That seems pretty clear, does it not? Doesn’t it seem that the OHA is reporting that 204 (103+50+51) Oregonians have died in the last five days? Well, you might think that, but you’d be wrong. Because the real number of Oregon COVID deaths in those five days was 27.
How, you might ask, does the Pandemic Diary know that these reports are not what they seem? Do we have a confidential source inside OHA, a honest and courageous individual whose identity we would never reveal even under threat of prosecution or torture? No, thank goodness, that’s not it.
All we did was read the finer details of OHA’s own data, which can be found way down at the end of the same press releases. That’s where we find that 177 of the reported 204 COVID-related deaths actually occurred in previous months, mostly September and October but also as far back as December of 2020. These deaths are only now being reported as COVID deaths and thus only now being added to the Oregon COVID registry. Or, as a different OHA weekly report puts it:
These recently recorded deaths reflect, in part, ongoing efforts to address a backlog of suspected COVID-19-associated deaths identified by matching death certificate records to previously reported cases of COVID-19.
Okay, but why not report these adjustments separately from current deaths? Why do they instead suggest that all of the 204 deaths are new? Tsk-tsk. More on this another time.
Thursday, November 25, 2021
We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our friends K and J in Salem. The Andees were there too, having come down from Vancouver. Good food, fine décor, and good group of people. K has started a run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is now focused on figuring out who his rivals will be in the Democratic primary and also, of course, on how to raise money. A and E have known K for many years now, ever since he was a friend of Becca’s back in their college days. We’re rooting for him.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Good as it was, the K&J Thanksgiving dinner lacked pecan pie. So we’re on our own for that vital nutritional component. We have all the ingredients–except pecans. Well actually we even have pecans, but we have pecan pieces, not whole pecans and that’s not satisfactory. E strongly prefers whole pecans because whole pecans are much easier to pick out and discard. Yes, E loves pecan pie, but she goes mostly for the filling. As for the pecans–yuck!
Saturday, November 27, 2021
So we got ourselves a Christmas tree and went home and strung some lights on it. Turns out we don’t have quite enough lights. We remember this problem from last year. Now we must find time to buy another string or two. Can’t do that right now though, as we have other priorities, such as finding some whole pecans.
Sunday, November 28, 2021
M got up and made a pie crust. E filled it with the necessary ingredients for pecan pie. Later M went outside and put up Christmas lights. It was a beautiful day to be out, 63º and mostly sunny. Also, we bought some more indoor tree lights. Haven’t got them on the tree yet though. Ho-ho-ho.
Boy, that was good pie.
Monday, November 29, 2021
The opening sentence of today’s OHA press release reported 27 “new” deaths. Near the bottom of the same document, the details of each death show that just 19 of these occurred in November.
We here at the PD have no problem with people who make mistakes or omissions and who then correct them. In fact, we like those people. Making mistakes is how people become competent and we surely have a need for as many competent people as possible. So the fact that OHA is making adjustments is not the issue. And all in all, their messaging shows that they want to be transparent about correcting the omissions; unfortunately, they just can’t quite get to the point of being completely transparent, which is of course another mistake. But there’s more to it than this. We’re not talking about one person here, we’re talking about a complex system of many, many people. The reporting of a death begins with the doctor who signs the death certificate, which includes the date and cause(s) of someone’s demise. The data then goes to county health officials who collect the local data and forward it to the Oregon Health Authority. At OHA the data is further inspected and then becomes part of the official registry. So the process involves a lot of people. Now we’re just speculating here, but it’s just possible that not all of those people see things in quite the same light. Specifically, they may not all agree on just what constitutes a COVID death. In fact, it is virtually certain that some disagreement will occur. (See M’s essay on the nature of reality.) Quite possibly, we are not really talking about mistakes or unintentional omissions related to the death count. Instead, if we ever get to the root of why these adjustments are being made, we may find a host of long simmering conflicts about just how COVID deaths should be counted.
In the evening we tried putting the new tree lights onto the tree. Failed. We bought the wrong kind of lights…the stupid kind.
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Breakfast today at Bodhi’s. They make a pretty good decaf americano. They have great croissants too–if you like them burnt on top. (Surely that’s a little peculiar!) But breakfast gave us the strength to go on. First, we went to the chocolate shop and got a few little items. Then we got another set of tree lights at Fred Meyer and then a couple of takeout sandwiches from the Vietnamese Baguette. Then we took a walk; then we prepared presents to send to the faraways; then E met a friend for coffee while M worked in the yard, then we put the new new lights onto the tree; and finally we had spaghetti and salad for dinner. Whew! We’re tired now.
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Another sunny day. M got the Boxster out again and went zipping around the countryside on those new sticky tires. He stopped to eat his sack lunch at the Thompson Mills State Heritage Site.
Back in Corvallis, it was time to update our long-term tracking of the severity of the pandemic in Oregon. As mentioned, the Oregon Health Authority has reported many “new” deaths that aren’t really new. Once these are filtered out, the November numbers show a very significant decline compared to September and October.
Of course all the numbers reflected in the chart are provisional. It’s funny how hard counting can be.
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Tertulia today with J and R at Coffee Culture. We sat outside in the cold, but one of the staff came outside to the big tent and lit up the propane heaters, which made it pretty comfortable. J and R have a new houseguest, a high school age exchange student from Hungary.
Friday, December 3, 2021
E had her first ever Zoom embroidery session with friend S in New York. Although not many stitches were made, the meeting was a resounding success. In the afternoon we had tea time with P.
Saturday, December 4, 2021
E made trucha a la Navarra for dinner. Our friend C was here to share it. We met C when we were all teaching at the monastery in Thailand. C is an inveterate traveler and he’s at it again, this time going up and down the Pacific coast by train. He’ll stay with us a couple of nights and then be off to his next stop.
Sunday, December 5, 2021
We took C down to the Finley Reserve to see the waterfowl–hundreds of trumpeter swans, Canada geese and ducks fo various sorts. We had a sunny day for it and the view from Bruce Road, with sun low in the sky behind us, was very fine. From there we went up into the Coast Range to see Alsea Falls.
There’s not a lot of water coming coming right now, which makes it easier to see the stairway-like ledgesat the upper end of the falls.
Some visitors on the exposed bank just below the falls.
Next, we dropped down into the Alsea Valley to see if we could find any Coho salmon in the river. We’d been told they come up to spawn at about this time of year. But the only thing we found was this sad reminder that once they spawn, the salmon die.
Having completed its task, this fish will likely to pulled out of the creek very soon by a raccoon, bear or coyote. All of the remains will enter the riverside ecosystem in one way or another. Tissue analysis of trees and other plants that grow near the river show the presence of micronutrients that can only be created in saltwater environments.
Next we drove up to the top of Marys Peak. From there, C took this photo of Mt. Saint Helens, 125 miles to the north.
As we came down from the peak, M decided to take the back road down to Harlan and go home that way. That route turned out to be more difficult to navigate than he remembered. Also muddier. We did get eventually get home though.
Monday, December 6, 2021
We took C back to the train station today. We had been thinking of a nature walk in the morning, but the rain was pelting down, so instead we headed for Albany early and stopped on the way at Margins coffeehouse. Good stuff there. C is on his way to Eugene where he’ll stay with another friend. C has friends everywhere and it’s not hard to see why.
Tuesday, December 7,2021
We are still working on decorating the our Christmas tree. Progress has been slow, but we think we’re about done.
