It’s About Time – July 2013
f you wanted to carve a dugout canoe from a log, is it better to chip out the inside first? Or should you first shape the outside and then scoop out the inside? The answer at the end may surprise you. Continue reading
Outdoors: Page 29
Going Up
Annual vines provide color in late summer
This time of year, an abundance of annual vines suddenly appears in garden stores. Annual vines are inexpensive to grow and fun to play with, and have the added virtue that they are at their best in August and September, when flower gardens can be in need of a lift. Plant them in the ground or in containers, and try something different every year. Vines are wonderful for softening blank house walls, concealing unsightly fences and adding instant height in young or temporary gardens. Continue reading
It’s About Time – June 2013
June is a big gardening month. Early winter greens have been used up and cleared away while the sugar snap peas should reach maximum production. The solstice, June 21 this year, marks when the bush beans should have been planted. I like both peas and beans because they are so easy to grow from seed. The critical issue is protecting the seedlings from sneaky herbivores like pill bugs and sow bugs. These nonnative pests hide in mulch or between rocks of the raised beds. They creep out at night to devour the tender plumule just as it starts to emerge from between the cotyledons. Continue reading
Oakridge Explorations
Spring along the Middle Fork Trail
The Willamette River is the lifeblood of the valley that bears its name — though by the time it reaches major population centers it has been dammed and otherwise mutilated by humans. Thankfully not far from Eugene one can hike or bike along the banks of the Middle Fork of this mighty river. Continue reading
Urban Disc
Alton Baker Park blazes the disc golf trail in Eugene
“Golf is a good walk spoiled,” Mark Twain once said. In that vein, I would add that disc golf is a good walk enhanced. On several Sundays this spring, my partner and I have filled a bag with the candy-colored rubbery discs — drivers, putters, mid-rangers — and headed down to Alton Baker Park’s new course. Continue reading
Hashing for Hops
I drank beer and ran several miles with a bunch of hooligans
Convening in the parking lot of an unspecified hardware store, passing around “vessels” filled with delicious beer and cracking sexually explicit jokes at any given moment, the Eugene Hash House Harriers will really throw you for a loop if you’re unfamiliar with the tradition (or if you can’t take a joke). The “hounds” do their best to follow the madcap path laid by the “hare,” and once they reach the end, it’s time for more fraternizing. Continue reading
Kickin’ Balls
Adult league sports
Akickball outfielder hits the turf at Tugman Park in South Eugene. Play is halted while she’s carried to the sideline. Is it a twisted ankle — or worse? “Need some ice?” teammates ask. “Get her a beer — STAT!” responds a teammate helping her from the field. She ices down the calf cramp with a cold one, cracks it open and is soon sitting with her friends, laughing in the shade. Continue reading
To Finish is to Win
Hitting the long trail, horseback
endurance |enˈd(y)o͝or-ns| noun • permanence, duration • the fact, power or ability of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way: she was close to the limit of her endurance • the capacity of something to last or to withstand wear and tear Continue reading
A Win for the Bees?
Europe takes action while U.S. bees take a hit
On April 28, the European Commission (the governing body of the European Union) voted to impose a two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid insecticides on food crops attractive to bees and other pollinators. Neonicotinoids, now the most widely used pesticide class in the world, are suspected of contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees, and their use is already restricted in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. Continue reading
It’s About Time – May 2013
This truly is Wildflower Month, as the majority of our valley native plants achieve their peak of bloom in May. The blue camas is at its peak early in May. People driving south should keep an eye out for the ivory colored camas that is found along the freeway from Sutherlin to Riddle. Its ivory petal color is different from the pure white of albino forms of the related blue species. Continue reading