Last post, you’ll remember, I was fretting about pumpkins. I took this photo Thursday, on the way to friend Molly’s Sauvie Island pasture. (Be sure to click on the photo to get a real sense of the place.) “I think it’s not so bad,” Molly said, commenting on my post. “I think the left-over lantern type pumpkins are sold for animal food. Cat food, I’m pretty sure. Or fed to the grower’s own animals. Or plowed under.”

(One thing I like about writing this: I worry about something, or complain, and one of you writes to answer questions, clarify, reassure. Perfect! Thank you!)

Anyway, I’m still concerned about the unsold pumpkins at the grocery stores. They don’t really taste good, so it’s into the dumpster for them, I’m afraid. If you have to carve a pumpkin, maybe get one of the smaller, sweet, edible variety? They’re very healthy, and oh, stop yawning. I saw you.

Saving the world, one pumpkin patch at a time. But you want to know about Molly’s Great Adventure. Like mine, her inner farmer woke up one day last year, and she went out and bought a horse. (Her next novel will be available on October 28 in bookstores, on line, and on Audible. Called “Falling From Horses.” Go to her website to learn more because she’s a great writer: Mollygloss.com)

Her horse, KoKo is an Islandic and about as cute as horses come. Molly pastures her on a small holding on the island along with another horse and miniature mule named Russell. It’s a lot of work, and I tagged along as she hefted flakes of hay, shoveled manure, rearranged hoses and sprinkler heads, which chores have be done once a day. She and another woman share responsibilities, and the pay-off is getting to ride out on the open fields and pastures of the very beautiful, rural island along the Columbia River. To smell the hay in the shed. To watch autumn come to the land.

She’s crazy in love with her new life, and said that much of it is the sense of mastery she has come to feel. Just a hard-ass woman who can shovel shit with the best of them.

So me and my skirt? Molly’s way ahead of me, but she shows me where I’m going. The mastery I want isn’t so much physical, it’s about knowledge. I’m frustrated at the moment by the inertia forced on us by the slowness of road-building bids. When we started, I thought that time wouldn’t matter — we’d do what we could do in the time we have and enjoy the process. Now I think it does matter. We wanted to get the road built before the rains come, and can’t do much else until we do.

Well, I could research apple trees. A very good idea, and if you’ll excuse me, that’s exactly what I’m going to do now. I think they will need to be ordered soon, and planted in the spring.

Oh wait. That means we’d have to have the deer fence up, and . . . we can’t build the fence until the house is built, and . . . we can’t build the house until we have the road.

See what I mean?

Driving down I-5, early morning with the sun orange behind the smoke from the Estacada fire, I’m sleepy. We already had gym, lattes and Lara bars, and now we have to be at the farm by 9:00 to meet the Mainline folks who will test the old well.

The colors are muted, strange. A field of pumpkins has us wondering why we’d use all that land, water, sunshine to grow something that no one will eat. Carve a face, light a candle, Trick or Treat, and throw it away. Well, guess that’s not different from growing flowers. No one’s going to eat them either. Still . . .

We already had the old well tested, but if we’re going to consider using it in place of the newly drilled one, we have to check for nitrates in the water. We’ve just turned into the old house driveway when Mainline’s truck pulls up. But it’s Shirley at the wheel, not her husband Larry, whom we expected. Thinking that he’s on his way, we greet Shirley as she climbs out of the pickup. Starts unpacking gear, talking. She fiddles with the wires attached to the well head, and it begins to appear that she’s it. Really?

She hikes her flipflop-shod foot onto the huge tire of the truck, flings her somewhat chubby leg over the rail, adjusts something on the generator and gives the cord a hefty pull. The woman is in business.

She engages a wrench to open the water pipe, attaches a short length of garden hose, unwinds some wire off the probe reel. I’m feeling pretty silly in the skirt I chose to wear this morning. We have a meeting with Linsey at the County later in the morning, hence my attire, but still. I want to be Shirley, and Shirley is not wearing a skirt. But flipflops? Okay, got it. And what about that surgical wrap on her left wrist? Trigger finger surgery, she tells us. Doesn’t slow her down. I can see that Larry would like to offer to help, but we both realize that would be a bad idea.

The process is slow. She has to measure the depth of water in the well, control the flow of water, fill a gallon tub for one minute and measure the volume. This will go on for four hours, or until she has the information she wants.

We talk, she and I. She had been the office secretary for Corvallis High School until she retired several years ago and went to work for her Larry. She has a pretty face and sweet smile, and I’d guess the kids in that school would have loved her, would have known not to mess with her.

She gossips about our neighbors-to-be. One she calls a “one punch.” One punch? Yes, you know. When he opens his mouth you just want to shut it for him with one punch. She illustrates with her fist into her open hand.

The man who sold us our property owns the land across Lewellyn and it’s for sale, she tells me. Oh no! I think about the 16 story building scheduled to be built across the street and down one block from our condo. But the prospective buyers here want to create an organic fruit farm. Whew.

We have to leave to meet Linsey at the County offices. The ruling about “decommissioning” the old house on our property is difficult to understand, and we don’t want to make a mistake. We do want to get it down this winter while nothing else is going on, but we’ve learned that the County, like Shirley, is not to be trifled with. Linsey is tall, quite beautiful, young, and I worry that she is not the final arbiter of County decommissioning statutes. She tells us that we can take the house down whenever we want to.

Are you sure?

Yes, she is sure. She says nothing to back her conviction, but there it is. We have to take her at her word, I guess. I want to ask if we could talk to her supervisor, but sense that would be not be helpful. So we leave, taking some forms with us regarding the process and some information about the flooding to which the county is subject.

Back to our property, we find that Shirley is closing up shop. She’ll test the new well, make some recommendations about how we can manage what is becoming a rather difficult water situation. Larry and I leave to have lunch.

In the car, I begin to realize that some insect unknown has been nibbling on my legs. They itch, and the itching intensifies as we settle in for a quick lunch at the Irish pub we’ve found in Corvallis. The worst bite seems to be on the inside of my upper thigh. Unfortunately this is not a place that can be comfortably scratched in a public setting. Especially while wearing a skirt. Stupid, stupid!

Tomorrow we meet with our architect, who is back from Alaska and eager to have things well underway by the time we have to leave on the 28th. Yeah, me too!

Just back from meeting with Mark (heretofore known as the Cow-guy). Windy today, and the dust from the nearby farmers dragging their fields is a bit sobering. Gorgeous, but let’s hope that the woods between us and those real farmers will keep their fields from reassembling inside my new little house-with-apple-tree. Hmm.

Mark was accompanied by two of his daughters, Cecily and Charlotte, perhaps 8 and 6.5. Blonde hair into neat ponies, skinny little jeans with beaded/bling belts, cowgirl shirts and well-scuffed cowboy boots. And there are three more at home with Mom, the youngest being 3 months old. Five girls, showstoppers. Cecily stayed with Dad while we talked, but Charlotte busied herself picking a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace for Mom, and when the wind blew it out of the cup she held it in, she just laughed.

And why, then, did we think that they are 1.) being homeschooled, 2.) practicing some fairly fundamental Christian faith? (Mark did say that Mom was going on a retreat for the weekend, taking the baby, but that he’d have care the other four, so there’s that) — but it could have been a spa retreat to recover from childbirth? Nope. Retreat probably means retreat in the Biblical sense. From their appearance, those little girls are every good thing. Every little girl should have scuffed cowboy boots and a dad whose pride in them shone out of his smile and the way he told them they should shake our hands on their departure. No, don’t start thinking something dark. Just be glad for a child who can pick flowers and watch the wind blow them away. Darkness will come soon enough.

But, about the cows. We talked fences, white clover for forage improvement, rotation, water. Feeling pretty darned rural, but Larry felt obliged to remark at one point that we’re city people. Mark probably wouldn’t have been able to tell, otherwise. He’ll send us a proposal, but is fine with fencing off the wetlands and the stream. We’ll have a one-year lease, and reconsider in another year when we see how 2014/15 rolls along. We’ll keep our farm tax deferral. His crew will put up the electric wires to keep the cows where they belong, come by weekly to check on them. We are planning to fence off 4 – 5 acres for the house, so they won’t be poking their noses into my sheets hanging on the line.

You think? We’ll see!

With nothing much happening on the ground, let’s turn to the house plans.

I said nothing much happening, but the Road-guys did come out and stake a center line for the driveway, and Larry has logged hours on the phone with the pump people, a surveyor, County folks, and Mark, the Cow-guy, with whom we’ll meet tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this evening, we’ve been fighting to install a new printer in my office. This has nothing to do with the farm, exactly, but I realized that I want to print my blogs in the event that the web host suddenly expires or an electrical storm wipes out my computer . . . I don’t want to lose my record of the big adventure. Alas, we’ve lost the fight, the printer won’t print, and the USB SuperDrive won’t wake up so that I can read the instruction disc. Situation Normal, AFU. Wish sweet Andrew lived nearby!

Right. So where was I? House plans. We’d reached the point where Gordon could go no further with our plans and it was time to hire an actual, certified architect. Enter Rod Graham, long-time friend, a part of the Greater Whitman Crowd, around which L and I circle like a distant planet.

We gave him all the drawings that Gordon had created, talked about our intentions, goals, etc. Gordon said that Rod would have his own ideas, and so it has been. He took the basic elements of Gordon’s work, arranged the rooms in a rectangle instead of a square, lengthened the side dimensions, erased part of the covered porch. Drew the garage and a breezeway connecting it, and suddenly we had a courtyard with what look like outbuildings added on over the century. Magic. Then he, Rod, departed on a cruise to Alaska, told us to think about things, and sailed away.

Okay, think about things. I’ve already pored over a dozen books, consulted my varying advisors on Pinterest — by the way, now Pinterest thinks it knows me and suddenly I’ve become the recipient of catalogs, magazines, emails offering me farm products. One of my faves is from Amish country in Ohio with amazing wringer washing machines, canning supplies. Actually, I love this one and have it piled up with the rest of the library. But back to the theme of thinking. Why not try Houzz?

Good idea. I type in “Country Kitchens,” thinking I’d start small. Ha. Seriously, there are 1,101,204 photos of country kitchens on this web site. Can there be that many country kitchens in all of North America? Better narrow it down. I type in “Vintage Country Kitchens.” Much better. Only 48,903. Doing the math, I find that, at one second per photo, I can get through this collection in an hour and a half.

So what does a kitchen need? A stove, a sink, a refrigerator. Countertops and cabinets, or some sort of storage capacity. Drawers for stuff like silverware and salt and dish towels. Do we even need an automatic dishwasher? I’d say no, but Larry is the family dishwasher, and he says yes, for sure, what are you thinking? Okay, we’ll have the dishwasher.

But while I’m definitely guilty of assembling unnecessary kitchen gear, all this material on Houzz, and even Pinterest, kind of sickens me. A little house, an apple tree. That wringer-washer is starting to seem appealing! Sure, says the princess. But I really do want an outside clothes line. Remember how sheets smell when you take them in out of the sunshine? Are you even old enough to remember clothes lines?

We’re waiting for estimates on building the road. Supposed to be here by this week. The thing is, we want to get the road going before we leave for France on the 28th of Sept. Not looking very promising. It’s going to be hard to be gone for three weeks, even if we’re going to Paris. I know, but I did say I’m a princess.

And tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you what our future in Cows looks like. Please stay tuned!

We’ll be driving down the Interstate at 70 per when Larry will say See him? He has spotted a coyote far off in a coyote-colored field of grain, or a tufted owl deep in the forest, or a field mouse grooming his whiskers — things no other mortal will notice, at least certainly not I. Where? I always say and he’ll say, Oh, sorry, too late.

Which is why it’s more than strange that this huge fir tree went unnoticed by either of us. Joe called on his cell Monday to say that he’d found the perfect drill placement for the new well on our property. “Right by the big fir tree,” he told Larry.
“What fir tree? There aren’t any fir trees by the oaks,” Larry said. “Didn’t think there were any fir trees down there at all.”
“City people,” Joe must be thinking. “Don’t know a fir from a rosebush.”
A form of oak-blindness, I think.

So this is Joe, and drilling began yesterday.

Joe’s rig:

Larry, seated at the base of the huge fir tree, supervising the procedure.

We returned today to the drill site, and I’m sorry to report that the first attempt has not been a success. Joe estimates that his hole will only be able to produce 5 gallons per minute, which is threshold enough water to run a home in which people want to take showers and do laundry, for example. He has drilled down 100 feet and found a small seam of gravel sandwiched between layers of blue clay, but is convinced that he can do no better here by the huge fir tree. An estimate. He won’t know until he lowers a pump into the hole and gives it a try.

So now what? We had decided to drill a new well after being advised that it would be too difficult and expensive to pump water all the way from the existing well at the old house. (Which, by the way, offers 16 gallons per minute.) Different story today, as Cathy, Joe’s wife and assistant, has been regaling me with stories of other wells they’ve dug this summer. One such affair has the home across the highway and a half mile up the Coburg Hills away from the well. Do we believe this? Maybe not, but surely then, we could pump water from Well A to Homesite B. Oh, it’s about the money? Ah, got it.

Yet we have now altered the land. This is our first tangible entry into a beautiful landscape on which early people burned the grasslands, which is said to harbor an elk herd, deer and a threatened woodpecker. We have to take this seriously. Are we sure our presence here will be a positive intrusion?

At a pig-roast this past Saturday (yep, and it was delicious) I was interrogated by a friend who said she just wanted to know one thing about this adventure. “Why?” she asked. I gave her my stock answer, but the real answer is more layered. We want to care for this gorgeous land, and we want to do something important and meaningful with whatever time we have left, and we just simply love being outside, walking, discovering. We want to know things. I asked Joe if the aquifer beneath us has a name and he does not know, but I want to find out.

In the meantime, here are the berries which have homesteaded on the Hundred Acres, from which I’ve already made more jelly than we could eat in a year. But how can I leave them all for the birds, great flocks of which are certainly enjoying their share. Believe me, there are enough for the entirety of Benton County and well beyond. Come on down!

“Grandma, what does it feel like to be 74?”
Hmm. “I would say it feels about like being 54,” I tell my granddaughter. I realize this is not helpful, as she, of 14 years, doesn’t know what being 54 feels like, either.
She takes a pinch of my skin and admires the length of time it takes to resolve back onto my arm. I used to play this same game with my own patient grandmother.
“But when I look in a mirror,” I tell her, “I feel more like 94.” Maybe I’ll banish mirrors from the little farmhouse we plan to build.

Yesterday afternoon, we met with the road guys at the farm. These are Warren — not Farmlandia, although he does look the part — and Brick, son-in-law of friends. We were surprised, and pleased, when Brick showed up (makes sense that his profession is in the building trades, right?). We’d just begun to talk with them about the route our driveway will have to take when the well guys arrived. Not Joe, we’ll get back to him later.

Larry and I split responsibilities, and I got Road-guys. (Lucky, as they are super smart and funny and fun.) We set out in Warren’s truck, Brick in the back seat, up to the house site. Meanwhile, Larry climbed into Well-guys’ blue van, and the two vehicles lumbered up the hill. From my vantage the blue van looked exactly like a giant beetle with spare pvc piping strapped on top like antennae.

After thorough discussion, after Well-guys left and Larry joined my crew, further appointments made, provisional recommendations noted, I observed that I wanted to walk back down to check on the apple tree we had newly found. Yes! The seminal apple tree! “I’m so proud of you,” Brick said, on his departure. Sub text? Proud of us? Because we’re doing this “at our age?” Or am I too sensitive?

Okay, down the hill, through the gate, and we found another possible building site. “NO!” Larry making it clear that no, we are not reconsidering the hard-won primary site. But it’s very pretty, and I imagine a picnic table under the canopy of the little grove of oaks.

The apples are small, hard, green, abundant, and actually, quite good. No idea what variety, but for now, let’s move on. There are “streams” dissecting the property, which the Road-guys tell us must be addressed with culverts, practically the size of those governing water LA receives from Owens Lake. Huh.

The streams are dry, just now, or mostly so. But deep. And we need to cross one of them in order to return to car, or retrace our many, many steps back up the hill. So Larry finds a likely spot, carefully jumps across, then turns to assist me. This is where I am reminded of that little conversation about being 74. This is crazy. If one of us misses, we crash about four feet into the crevasse. Really not good.

And then we have to cross again, and yet again. I begin to see pretty little foot bridges crossing these treacherous “seasonal water courses.” I reel myself back in, and we head for the Hilton motel in Corvallis where we’ll spend the night.

So what does being 74 feel like? Like just life. Being more careful. Not skiing anymore. Getting more tired after the 18 holes of golf we played the next morning at Trysting Tree on the OSU campus. Having lunch at a brew pub and noting a table of old women next to us, who have the same haircut as mine. (Must grow that braid I always imagined pinning atop my head.)

My dad famously subtracted 10 years from his actual age, down to government documents, down to lying to his doctors. At the time, it was a story I loved to tell. Funny. Like he could fool anyone. Now I know. Being 74 doesn’t feel different, but people treat you as if you are different. Disabled, in a strange way. So now I get it. Way to go, Dad.

Hot. A hundred degrees. This is how we fight:

I am silent. Why does he always have to be so negative? Okay, so it’ll be expensive to connect the electricity. It’ll be expensive to build the road. We knew that, we planned for it. God. He didn’t even notice the berries I picked. So what if we can’t find water up on the hill? It was just one man’s dumb opinion and anyway, we already have a well.

He is silent. Doesn’t she ever listen? The man said it was just clay, sticky, thick clay. No water. We were stupid to buy this place before we knew about the well. Stupid. Now I’ll have to pay to dig a well I already know won’t produce. And she just sits there like some Pollyanna, oh everything will be fine. It’ll cost a fortune to pump all the way from the old well, and there won’t be enough pressure when we do. Somebody has to be realistic. It’s not “fine.”

So we ride home without talking. We listen to the new/old Michael Connelly and the miles go by. Finally I ask a question about the story and the ice thaws a little. Nothing changes, we are who we are, and apparently always will be.

We drove down that afternoon, happy that the well guy had called back, that he could meet us this very day. Amazing! His name is Joe and he drove up in an old pick-up, of course. As Vik sometimes remarks, “there’s a Portlandia episode just writing itself,” and I wonder if there’s a rural Oregon corollary: Farmlandia. That’s Joe, the well guy. Jeans, of course, bit of a belly on him, bit of a 2 day beard, big smile. “Climb in, we’ll just drive up to the site, have a look.”

At least it’s air-conditioned in the cab of his truck, and we lurch up the hill. He looks for a bare spot of land on which to park, concerned that somehow his hot engine will start a fire on the dried grasses. All these lumps are ant mounds, he says, but when he kicks one over to show us, there are no ants. As before, when the septic feasibility agent was here. Ant hills, but no ants in sight. So? Aliens, maybe? Cows, I’m thinking.

Joe makes his observations, says he wants to examine neighboring well records, and we should drive around to see if we can talk to someone. On the way back down the hill, he shows us a photo of his new granddaughter, 6 months old, adorable. So old shoe, this Joe. Of course, I like him.

We approached the same neighbor that we’d met when John, the realtor, was scouting the area. She’s very friendly, helpful, and I’m glad to have met her. People don’t neighbor too much, she tells us, just go about their own lives, but are amiable enough when they meet. She couldn’t answer Joe’s questions about the depth of her well, but says they have never run out of water, and as they run a horse farm, use a lot for the animals. This seems to be good news, as her home is not far from our site.

Back at our place, the men talk. Joe has called someone, and they have a conversation by speaker phone about the land formation here. I take a plastic tub over to collect some ripe blackberries. So hot! I’m soon dripping sweat, and the berries are lush but mostly out of reach. I stomp down the dried weeds and thistles to reach into the brambles, thorns catching my shirt, my pants. I need loppers to let me get into the patch, but I manage to pick a couple of pints. I’ll cook them down, get the juice and add it to the first batch. Still not enough to make jelly, but I’ll be back.

So I’m happy. Joe has left, and I climb into our car. Larry says he wants to check on “that” pole, and disappears down the road. What that heck? Which pole? Where’s he going? I decide I’ll drive over and pick him up. He gets in. “Well, that was discouraging,” he says. “To say the least.” He slumps into the seat. Stupid. We are so stupid.

I turn the car around and we head home to Portland.

Okay, Pasadena isn’t all that urban, but I did wonder what the CA Viehls would think of our farm. Larry and I got there first yesterday, and suddenly the lower meadow/pasture looked dried out, weedy. The sun was too hot, a couple of turkey vultures circled, the blackberries were angry with thorns. You’ll note the change from the introductory photo at the top of this blog. No longer exactly your green, lush, countryside.

“Just exactly how big is a hundred acres?” Charlie asked as we hiked past the first row of hawthorne, into the second section before the hill.
“Put it this way,” Charlie, “Andrew said. “A football field is 1.3 acres.” This interesting bit of info (where did that come from, Andrew?) stopped us in our tracks.
“Including the stadium?” from Charlie.
“No, just the field.”

“Well, the swimming pool could go here, anyway” Charlie said, making lemonade from this lemon — a weedy patch of ninety-some football fields.
“It’s pretty far from the house,” I told him.
“Okay then, we’ll build a zip line. That’ll be very cool, because we can just let go over the water and it’ll be so great.”
While Charlie was dreaming of the improvements that could be made to this raw hundred acres, Andrew had his camera out and was recording the “before” shots. All of the photos on this post are his, and here’s another: (Be sure to click on the images to enlarge them!)

The above photo is from the building site, but the air was hazy with dust from all the harvesting round about, and you can’t see what is really there. Rolling hills, agricultural land under plow, and the coast range foothills to the west. I sound as if I’m trying to sell you something, and I think I am. I hope you like this place as much as I do!

Into the woods. Much cooler, in the old-fashioned sense of temperature. These are the oaks growing on the slope, which should be thinned by 60%, according to USF&W.

We descended into the eastern woodsy landscape by the creek. And I made the mistake of mentioning poison oak. Well, there is a little, and one sure doesn’t want to touch the stuff, but it does not, contrary to the alarms of my Pasadenans, jump out and twine about your legs. What with this concern, and the disappointment of the creek, Muddy Creek, let’s recall, I feared I’d lost them.

I should mention Amy here. Wonderful girl, fits between her two brothers like cool water between a tsunami (Charlie) and a deep, underground cavern (Andrew). She’s quite practical, and if there’s poison oak, she’ll simply step around it.

But Charlie is irrepressible and moves on. We should build a running track, so that he can train for the Olympics. That will be after he orbits the earth in his home-made satellite created from used M & M wrappers. And a climbing wall, adjacent to the swimming pool will be nice. He has turned his back on the creek, thank you, and will find relief and comfort in the tiled, blue waters of a California-style, ordinary, everyday swimming pool, with its adjacent in-ground Jacuzzi.

So we can see that we have quite a lot of work to do: dig a well, create a road, build a house, satisfy the aims of conservation we had in mind in addition to raising another Disneyland.

But I’m saving the best for the last. Finally, the county has responded and YES, we are approved to build a house on the site we’d selected. Now the work, the real work, not the fantasies will begin. On Monday we’ll contact a well digger. And continue to keep our fingers crossed that he/she will find water under our hillside.

Photo creds to Andrew Viehl for the gorgeous scenes. Thanks!

On my post of July 26, I discussed a document that Not-My-Doctor wanted me to complete called a PULSE. This morning, a friend gently corrected me, pointing out that the form is actually known as a POLST, meaning Physicians Order for Life Sustaining Treatment. So it’s not PULSE, it’s POLST, and I was too PISSED to pay sufficient attention.

Okay, it is a good idea. We old people never know when the shoe may drop and it’s good to be prepared.

Now, let me take this opportunity, when nothing is happening at the farm, to say how much I enjoy comments (and corrections) on my posts. Thanks, Sue for the above catch. Jeanne Ederer agrees with Charlie that we should abandon the farm idea, what with the cows and all, and just create a resort for the family. Sorry, Jeanne, not going to happen! Vik thinks I should reconsider the idea of a kerchief and lose the flip-flops. See what I mean? Great stuff, and I hope you all will keep it coming.

And we’re back to waiting. When will we hear from the County re the building site? We need to dig that well, build that road (gravel,by the way) before the snow flies. No, you’re right. I should have said “before the rains of November.” I’ll let you know!

“Come on, Charlie, take these dishes into the kitchen.”
“In a minute, Mom.” Mom is Allison, my daughter-in-law, and the Peter Viehls have arrived at Black Butte for summer vacation.
Charlie is “pitching” his idea (his word) for the Hundred Acre Wood, which he has not yet seen. He would like to include a swimming pool, a ground-level trampoline, a tennis court, and an ATV racing track . . .
“Charlie,” I tell him, “you can swim in the creek.”
“Too cold,” he says.

Everyone can dream, of course. But there will probably not be any swimming in the creek or elsewhere on the property. I think we’ve oversold our “farm” to the grandkids.

Yesterday, at the property, we met a group of five habitat professionals from the above alphabet of agencies to walk about and see what should be done in the way of restoration. Not a few surprises were in store for us.

Larry began by outlining the situation. Like, we’ve only owned the place for two weeks. We pretty much have no idea what we have and what do with what we have. We just want to improve it, improve the soils, the grasslands, the oaks, the creek banks. Let’s take a walk, then, we all agree.

Down to the creek, and on the way, Sam, of NRCS (that would be Samantha in more formal context) identified the fragrant blue, low growing herb-like plant that the bees were harvesting. Pennyroyal, which was used historically for various remedies, including abortion. UNSAFE, says my source on Google, may cause death. Right. But it’s pretty, blue, has a mint-like fragrance, and is an indicator species of wetland terrain.

Down by the creek, Jarod, of USF&W pointed out a cluster of poison oak. Everyone looks with disapproval at my ankle-length pants, tennis shoes with footies. They all wear, I notice, sturdy boots and denim jeans. Check.

“It’s an island!” they exclaimed. “Fabulous! You’ll need a kayak to get around down here come winter.” Hmm. Doubt it, as I’m not your water-sport enthusiast. Can’t see myself paddling down the stream or over to the island for watercress, or whatever. But onward we marched.

Onto the portion of the place we’d identified as our wetlands. Again, great excitement from the pros. Seems we have a huge drift of tufted hair grass. Native! We feel proud. Sam, who works in wetland restoration is particularly pleased.

Now we headed up the steep oak woodland. Which we think is pretty and cool. But no. The trees are far too dense, crowded, and should be diminished by at least half. Whoa. That would be a huge load of firewood, and what would it look like? Tom, of NRCS, the oak tree guy, says they really don’t know, but expect that over time, the trees left standing would develop the typical rounded shape of Oregon white oak, and the canopy would provide the shaded understory the area enjoys now.

Up to the savannah. We learn about the grassland which is not, unfortunately, native at all. Bentgrass where there should be fescue or orchid grass. And it needs “disturbance.” As provided earlier by native peoples setting fires, or elk and deer herds. As these methods are not available to us, it means chemical application, mowing, or, ta da: cows! Yes! The cows are back in the picture. But they should be rotated, fenced in, of course, monitored. This sounds fine, if the cowherd (is that the correct word?) agrees to terms.

Whew. We had a little conference standing on the hoped-for site of our little house, and all those folk from the agencies offered advice, the most helpful of which was to relax, watch the seasons unfold, decide what resources we wish to apply to the challenges, and to understand that they are eager to help us with our overall goal of restoration. As proof of that, we both had emails when we got back to Portland from a couple of them cataloging agencies and contact info and, most astonishing, an aerial photo of the property dating from 1936. Wouldn’t recognize it!

On the way back to our cars, Sam observed that our pear tree was sure amazing. Huh? We have a pear tree? We do, about 18 feet tall, at least, and laden with fruit. How had we failed to see it? Now I want to find one of those tall fruit harvesting sticks with a little basket on the end so we can gather the pears before they ripen and fall to the ground. I love this!