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!!

How Spring Happens Here, Part One: Old leaves, new leaves

In our mild Pacific Northwest winters, some plants keep a portion of their leaves all through that rainy season. It's as if, in the fall, environmental signals aren't quite harsh enough to push plants into total dormancy. In spring, bursting buds push out fresh growth to contrast with the leaves still left from last year.

(Questions: how much energy is gained from wintered-over leaves? seems introduced plants from harsher climates are most likely to display this pattern, true? is there a pattern (location?) as to which leaves are kept? and, when are these kept leaves finally lost?)

it's happening!

There is a certain small evergreen bush I spend most of my time overlooking, but every year at the very earliest part of spring it snags me by the nose. Sweet and promising, unexpected perfume of its freshly opened, hidden flowers sits in clouds along city streets.

Other spring precursors:

 

Stellaria media happy and green, growing as a mini-forest on urban mulch unmolested.

An arrangement of green-headed matches, suggesting buds yet unburst.

Tuesday, January Six

Ceremonial deforestation in Pioneer Square 

Christmas 2014 is over

precocious growth

Soft new leaves of the next growing season: waterleaf, Hydrophyllum
Spotted in Marquam 12/27/2014.

Circling

Today my patch of urban forest felt like the BIG woods. Shortly after noon I set out for a short loop hike; the sky was clear and blue, and I could pinpoint the location of the sun in the sky: low, as we near the winter solstice. The air was sunny and warm, yet creeks were noisy with recent rainstorm run-off. This unusual combination took my imagination to much, much larger forest systems.

As I left the canopy to return to boxes and paved streets, I saw chunks of cloud flying north across the sky, then a grey mass covered the recently sunny southern sky. A REALLY gusty system blew in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I move about the city by foot or bike, I often experience conflicts with motorized traffic, much of it mental (or nasal, but that's another story). Why do we devote our cities to over-sized, noisy, stinky machines? My attitudes range from fear, to aggression, to imagining traffic as a great herd of metal cattle. Recently, this story jumped to mind and seemed most apt (retold in my own words as I don't know the source):

One day, the wind said to the sun, "See that woman there? I bet you I can take off her big coat."
So the wind blew down upon the woman, but she only tightened up the buttons on her coat. The wind blew harder, but she wrapped her arms about herself.
Then the sun said, "Let me try." He looked out from behind a cloud, and the woman relaxed her arms. He stepped full into the sky, warming everything below, and the woman took off her coat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

winter here
curl into a ball under covers
gently hold my heart

think of ice mountains
on a scale i can not fathom
be still, till clarity of mind returns

(journal entry Nov. 2010)

February Fungus in the Urban Forest

Various fungus found in the urban forest this month. Some are perennial but others have just come up. Does the urban heat island expand the mushroom season of the urban forest, by bringing warmer temperatures deeper into the rainy season?

Frilly orange polypores, exploding out of an (alder?) log

Fresh, beautiful, black mushroom

 

Massively varnished, impressively layered conk

Itsy bitsy bright orange fungus

An old puffball, with moss growing out of it! Still expired spores when I poked it.

Marquam in the Snow

 

The eve of Snowpocalypse 2014 was cold and clear. Before scurrying on to some place warm, I stopped by Eagle Point, a mysterious spot and unsigned park.

Notice the rhododendron leaves above my bike - they're tucked down and curled under - yes, it was very cold.

Next afternoon the snow started to fall. And actually stick. And build. Here we see cars flooding down the hill from OHSU, getting out before steep hill roads grow more difficult.

 Immediately adjacent to machine madness, Marquam was calmly taking on the light dusting.

Usually bright, smiling, and green in cool, wet winter weather, licorice fern curled up in the cold. Was it simply drying out, or utilizing dry weather for spore dispersal, or both? Anyway, check out those sori!

 

 The next day, we had accumulation.

 Mini-mountains of snow mounded on spiky holly leaves.

This is a snow-topped, ivy-covered snag of some sort. Strange beast.

On Monday, things began to melt. Sheets of ice were slipping from the Marquam shelter roof.

And by Tuesday, the snow had its sentencing - warmer temperatures were in. Many urban streams were running chocolate-mud brown.

A record of strong foot traffic was kept by the snow... despite, or because of, the snow.

This 'sneckdown' shows there could be room for a bike lane or sidewalk (or raised bike path-sidewalk combination) along the short section of SW Sam Jackson Park Rd leading to the park's main entrance. More space allocated for bikes and pedestrians here would make accessing the park by non-car a lot less sketch.

After windy woods

Went for a walk a few days ago after a windy night in the urban forest.

Lots of material had been shook loose from the canopy. Including this nest:

Ivy is showing its winter colors.

While licorice fern stays a light green.

 

The sun shines briefly but brightly through the cold, open canopy.

So, this is my first attempt to layer a short exposure over a long exposure to create an image with more depth. It's just slightly unaligned.

Winter Woods

On December 10th of last year I had the pleasure of visiting a small patch of forest in Washington's southern Cascades.

There were snow-topped shelf mushrooms,

the recent work of a Pileated Woodpecker,

and a Western Redcedar (Thuja plicata) growing in a unique way.

The crunchy snow underfoot had lain for quite some time, with conifer seeds accumulating on its surface.

These seeds are winged, and spin down from the trees like maple seeds. The largest is in the center right, but the smaller brown specks are also seeds (along with a few shed needles). Probably, the large one is from a pine (genus Pinus) and the small ones from Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla).

A month later I revisited the Cascades when fresh snow was falling. In the morning I went for a walk through the powdery snow that was nearly flawlessly white, yet here and there a seed had fallen. I thought of the crusty, older layer of snow below with its seasoning of seeds, and how this fresh snow would be after a couple weeks of collecting everything that fell from above. Now that's cold stratification!

January Flowers

I found a tree covered in these flowers in the south park blocks. Very striking and unique flowers (genus Hamamelis -- witchhazel)

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is flowering in the PSU community garden.

This is chickweed (Stellaria media) which seems to do really well in the winter here.

And this is Tobaccus cigarettebuttis, in full bloom.