A Calendar for the Willamette Valley

January

February

March

April -- Maple Moon (when Bigleaf maples expand their leaves)

May

June

July

August -- Blackberry Moon (when blackberries ripen)

September

October

November

December

To be updated!!

New Genera v. ii

More new genera, this time from eastern Oregon.

Chaenactis (Asteraceae)

Layia (Asteraceae)

Blepharipappus (Asteraceae)

Ionactis (Asteraceae)

Tetradymia (Asteraceae)

Amsinckia (Boraginaceae)

Alyssum (Brassicaceae)

Descurainia (Brassicaceae)

Lepidium (Brassicaceae)

Phoenicaulis (Brassicaceae)

Sisymbrium (Brassicaceae)

Holosteum (Caryophyllaceae)

Grayia (Chenopodiaceae)

Lathyrus (Fabaceae)

Camissonia (Onagraceae)

Gayophytum (Onagraceae)

Eriastrum (Polemoniaceae)

Navarretia (Polemoniaceae)

Ceratocephala (Ranunculaceae)

Myosurus (Ranunculaceae)

Plectritis (Valerianaceae)

season rolls on

In the forest, Oemleria is letting go of her leaves. Fast to get started on spring, quick to begin fall...

While thimbleberry still has scars from a spring hailstorm.

 

In the garden, pumpkins have long outgrown their hole-punched leaves, zucchinis hide and grow to surprising size + first ripe tomato!

heat of the day

First ripe blackberries, on Barbur! Oh yeah, dark expanse of heat absorbing and reradiating pavement.

Meanwhile, the sky:

Petal Sepal Confusion

How do plants keep petals and sepals separate? I found a trillium (Trillium ovatum) that doesn't.

This is a trillium, its three originally white petals fading pink in late spring. The petals rest on three pointed green sepals. Below the flower are three large photosynthetic organs, which I just learned are technically not leaves, but bracts!

And this is a trillium that looks to have merged its petals and sepals into one structure. Huh.

summertime begins

First thimbleberries (Rubus parviflorus) and osoberries (Oemleria cerasiformis) found ripe and eaten today + garden soil thirstily sucking down water = it's summer! 夏天！

Edible Invasives

Riding out highway 224 along the Clackamas River is one of the best ways to experience NW Oregon in late summer. I travelled this corridor in 2012 en route to forest camping.

Free refreshments were all along the road. I stopped often to pick sweet, sun-ripened blackberries.

A year later I travelled the route again, but vines that had supported fruit the year before were now just dead white bare branches, incapable of producing special regenerative berries.

Beans of the Summer

Scarlet runner beans are a peak summer vegetable with flashy red flowers and large, prolific pods. Immature pods are like a meaty green bean and the mature seeds can be used as a dry bean.

 

When immature, the beans are hot pink. Later on they develop dark speckles...

As they mature the pink darkens to purple, and even continues to deepen as the seeds age off the plant.

Last summer a trellis full of runner beans -- including scarlet and less colorful types -- fell over in my garden. I'd meant to save them for seed, but they weren't very dry when they fell. I shelled them and put them on a dehydrator.

 The treatment was too harsh, judging by the cracked seed coats.

Figuring the beans wouldn't store well and might not sprout at all, I rehydrated them in preparation for cooking.

But lots of them did sprout - go beans!

 Then I cooked and ate them.

Tepee Attempt

Tried to build a tepee this summer. The quest to recreate the simple, mobile, and graceful shelter of the Plains tribes is a recurring theme for me, and while this iteration didn't get lived in, at least it's an adventure worth sharing.

To begin, I had the help of two friends. Excellent bike handling skills and a sense of humor were required for the task ahead.

 

 We secured four giant bamboo poles on each of two bikes and set off to ride 5 miles through the city to the north.

 Motorized traffic was light on that Sunday morning, but there was still enough foot traffic to provide an audience. One man expressed the notion that bamboo carried by bike is more 'sustainable' than anything else in existence. This may be true.

Arranged into formation, the bamboo took on that beautiful form of a giant cone!

View from below.

Blue plastic provided a covering and a canvas for slug meanderings.

And it stood, reflecting the color of the sky.

Why the Trees Sparkle

In 2006, working in a dry area of Idaho (above), I remember noticing flashes of light near the tops of the pines. I couldn't imagine why the trees were sparkling, but I didn't think it was my imagination because I kept noticing it. This summer at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument on the dry side of Oregon I came across this tree growing in an obsidian flow:

And noticed that the tree had this cone:

Notice the bubbles of sap stuck to the cone

I'm convinced this is why those trees were sparkling. Now I wonder why the cones are oozing sap, and whether it is a particular kind of pine tree that does this. How many needles are in a bunch is diagnostic of species for pine trees, and from my picture it seems the needles are in bunches of five (Trees to Know in Oregon tells me Oregon native pines with 5 needles to a bunch are: western white, sugar, limber, and whitebark).