As the world turns...

Meet Lizzie and Jennie,  friends from Kent, England, and Vancouver, Washington, vacationing together on the Southern Oregon Coast, on the path to the Coquille River Lighthouse in Bandon, Oregon. They came up a walking path as my husband and I were walking toward them, having a loud argument, as our eyes kept a look on the pavement, trying to avoid the ups and down of a foot path that was not too safe for older folks like us. I was complaining that the red paint indicating the uneven pavement did nothing to prevent falls. "I'd have to keep my eyes glued to the floor!" I was arguing, frustrated that nobody had thought about smoothing the path and throwing wood chips over it to soften the blow of a fall.

The ladies said hi, and "peace today", as they passed us. We apologized for our loudness. Their smiles never left their face; they bubbled a few remarks about going south after that walk, and we recommended they stop in Port Orford and eat at Redfish. We took each others' pictures. We teased them about their last election in Great Britain.

A world apart, they in matching red coats and bright smiles; we, still trying to find a path of mutual understanding after their arrival had stopped the arguing.

They were on their way to California.
We had left California to retire in Oregon.

We could have told them of all the treacherous road conditions they might encounter on their way down. But then, we would have spoiled their enthusiasm. We actually did spoil their enthusiasm when we mentioned they should stop at Cape Blanco where they might meet migrating whales . One of them was holding that thought as a surprise for the other.

Oh What a Night...

Instead of watching Jeopardy last night, I drove to Pacific High School Auditorium, where the graduation stage and chairs were still lined up from last Friday's eve event, this time to celebrate the end of the school year with Driftwood Elementary Band. I almost didn't go. After all, the school had hired a new music teacher just last fall, and there had not really been a band in the past years.


Our Song Along the Driftwood Shore
We are pleased to present a selection of vocal and instrumental pieces with a special performance media presentation.

They, k-8 students, rocked the house last night, from ballet movements of the lower grades to a jazzy band of the upper grades who could play  anything given them, including a piece they wrote, arranged and expertly "taught" the audience how they put the piece together.
Many children had  solo parts, both as presenters and as performers.

The talented  piano/voice of Nathan Malamud received special recognition.

Would you believe these band members have only been practicing together for one year?

 Way to go, Driftwood.

 The house was filled with families and community members like myself, enjoying the dances, the music, and even a film written, acted, and produced by the 4th/5th grade media class.

Kudos to the performers and to Mr Morganti, the music teacher and director of all productions, who harnessed the talent and imagination of the children through hard work, practice and sheer joy that comes when a job is well done and shared easily.

Indeed! Every child was enjoying himself/herself, and family members beamed the whole time. I felt transported to the times my own children were young and in school productions. But this performance didn't take place in a big school, with a big budget and hundreds of parents with special skills.

I close with a quote from Mr. Morganti on the back of the program:
"...We have found Port Orford to be a warm, honest place that values quality education for its young people..."

Our thanks to Mr. Morganti, staff and support groups, who value education and their young people to see that the arts and all academic areas are of high quality.

All we need is Art!

Here are five members of our local Arts Council, ages 30 something to 80 something, representing a town membership that sports representatives from most arts specialties, posing here  at our latest yard sale where the community could pick up art supplies, including fabric samples and a music mixer for free.

Port Orford is an arts colony in the true sense of the world. Each person in this photo is an artist and patron of the arts,  also a volunteer in schools, senior centers, veterans' centers and local cooperatives. Retirees and young mothers alike have taken up painting, dancing, music, weaving, wood carving, metalwork, ceramics, glass, bas-relief, basketry, writing, garden design...


The town has more galleries than grocery stores; more studios than businesses, more residents who embrace a lifestyle that is simply dedicated to making art, sharing art, appreciating art, than any other life pursuit. Your housekeeper can be the person whose painting you bought a few months before; your handyman, the sculptor whose award-winning pieces are hanging in the Smithsonian. Down the street and painting in your watercolor class is one of Hollywood's famous directors whose life now is dedicated to other pursuits.

The philosophy here is that the arts help us understand life.

A day in paradise

This is what I see out of my back windows: the ocean and dunes in the distance, the lake, my fenced-in garden plot with vegetable boxes built last summer and planted again this spring. The boxes are made of local Port Orford cedar, a wood that turns grey with age, rot resistant.

Cultivating these boxes is easy for any age, especially mine.

I stand up the entire time; I can stretch across to weed and to plant, and since I am short, I do very little reaching or bending down. I've made only two planting mistakes last season. The first one is the planting of artichoke plants, the tall plants in the top row. I'll have to wait until they die off from the main stock, and then transfer the little shoots on the ground.  Artichokes take a lot of room and need space to expand as they send shoots that will continue to produce for a few years more.

The second mistake was to plant strawberries in the bottom right box with cucumbers and nasturtium all of which sent shoots out, everywhere.  For this season, the strawberries will keep their own box.

Looking up from my boxes, the sea and the sea stacks across the lake, and dunes and clouds offer their own version of a day in this paradise. I never tire watching, listening to the waves and the birds, delighting in the small and big things that continue to surprise me every time I look this way.

This is whale migration season, and we are accustomed to see spouts from entire families on their way to Alaska stopping around here to feed and play.

I can do some fishing here on this stack of rocks, just dipping my pole in. People do catch marvelous eating fish here. I might just do that!

Under severe weather warnings

We are used to severe weather here. Every winter, trees topple, electricity goes out, rivers engorge, the ocean breaches the dunes and spills into the lake that separates my residence from the sandy shores.  There are days when white-caps surge like monsters in mythical stories.

These last few weeks, Lake Garrison has risen to precipitous heights, burying my vegetable garden under a thick layer of soot and reeds and occasional fish carcasses. The Elk, the Sixes, Hubbard Creek, and Floras Creek have swollen and erased boundaries, people have had to evacuate taking what they could with them.

We anticipate this kind of weather for a few more weeks.

Schools and businesses have had to close, roads too dangerous, and electricity out in many places: buildings couldn't be warmed; computers couldn't run.
Highway 101 south of Port Orford suffered a major landslide last week; all traffic to and from Port Orford to Gold Beach is down to one lane and forty five minutes delay. Since this is our ONLY highway, commerce, labor and recreation are all affected.

Supplies and deliveries have to be rerouted, adding extra costs of time and energy.

A few years ago similar storms caused damage to the roof of Pacific High School, destroyed an entire wing, and gave students two extra weeks of forced vacation right after Christmas. Since the roads were inaccessible, nobody left town, and most people volunteered to clear debris at the school.

Moose and elk and deer roam about in strange new places,displaced by rising waters.

I took a short walk to the end of the driveway to pick up the paper yesterday. The paper had not been delivered yet, and I was miffed. When I returned inside, I noticed how soaked my socks were.
I have new respect for anyone who works on roads,  transports goods, braves the severe weather.
Those services are most appreciated right now.

Where we should invest.

Under all this grass is a thriving river spilling into a lake, spilling into the ocean.  These wetlands, once, were thought to be a nuisance, full of mud, unnavigable, too wet for construction, too dry for water way.  This little estuary, and those like it,  didn't seem important at all until we began to understand the value of wetlands, the value of intermediary places where life begins for aquatic species.

This is prime real estate!
Priceless!
But, unmarketable.  You can't make money here.

In our capitalistic thinking, if we can't make money in a piece of land, we don't want it.  We look at this piece of land from a narrow perspective. For this wetland to be appreciated, we need to ask all the residents in these parts if they enjoy their clean waters, their healthy fish, their pristine surroundings.

What we should all invest in, collectively, without each of us making any profit out of these decisions, is the protection and expansion of these spaces, for they are true investments in our way of life, in healthy life cycles for all species.

So, go on. Stop by your planning commissioner and find out how your community protects and invests in the preservation of these places.

If you live near these places, if your community has invested in their protection, you are most lucky.
Before you invest in anything else, invest in your community well being by protecting their wetlands.
Water, my good friends, is our real gold.

Port Orford

Port of Port Orford

Yes. It is not an error up there: there is a working port in Port Orford, across the bay from Humbug Mountain we visited on the previous post.  This is a working port where boats are on dry dock until it is time to go fishing.  Then, they are hoisted down to the water and off they go.  When they return, they are hoisted up to the dry dock again.  The winds are so violent here that boats could not survive in the water; they would be tossed about toward rocks and islands that jut out on this bay all the way out to sea.  I'll be talking about this port in the next few posts.  Today, just enjoy the sunny day and  the clear air.

The fishing industry used to be huge. Now, there are about two- hundred local commercial fishermen and sports fishermen still using this working port.  Their products are sold live to top restaurants in the nation.  The halibut you purchase in your supermarket does not come from small ports.  It is shipped frozen from Alaska, Asia, Russia.  Locally caught fish is a luxury few people can afford to purchase.

A schedule of a life.

Wednesday: My Backyard.

Now that I put my life back on a schedule of sorts, remember, how Mondays are about Governance, Tuesdays are Education, Wednesdays are Our backyard....and so on......

I'm bound to follow this menu because you're coming in with expectations; and as a teacher, I must deliver what is on the weekly planner. Not that following a plan is always a good thing...

My front yard and back yard are in Port Orford, Oregon, the oldest town site on the Oregon coast, and the westernmost point in the contiguous United States. Contiguous, in this instance, means the forty-eight states. Cape Blanco, with its lighthouse and majestic vistas is ready for whale-watching ,next week. I will get out, and catch me a whale of a tail to show you.

Since my shoulder problem, for new people dropping by, my shoulder froze in place with much fanfare and excruciating pain. The MRI identified the problem as Bursitis, and today is my first physical therapy session. So, I'm still on heavy medications, am bothered by sleep deprivation and lack of comfortable movement, and look forward to a time when I can use both arms. I can still type this post; and that, amici miei, is a very good thing, indeed.

Now, I will leave you to enjoy your backyard. I plan on packing my new digital camera and carrying it everywhere. From authorblog, I'm getting very good tutorials on how to take pictures; with practice and determination, I'll begin to record pictorially. Most of the other pictures on this blog are mine; but they came from a phone camera. Not bad, if you ask my opinion. Not bad.

In life, though, we can teach each other in this open university called Blog land. Not only it is open twenty four hours a day, but it is also free. What? Yes. Like air, and good will: FREE. People like David at authorblog, a profession photojournalist who gives us a great deal of his personal time with hints and suggestions, walking us through the technical aspects of setting up and shooting as though we were picking fruit at a farmer's market, people like him make this adventure so much fun to pursue at leisure.

I'm off to Bandon, a town up the highway, home of my clinic and Bandon Dunes. If you google Bandon Dunes and Pacific Trails, you'll find that these are outstanding golf resorts, world class, designed like the original golf links in Scotland. They are worth every penny, I hear.

Perhaps, hubby and I will stop by and have lunch at the Dunes, and enjoy the same vistas as the players who have to dish out $300 or so to play one round. I'll do this research willingly. Besides, a good meal is worth its weight and calories in gold.