Category Archives: Natural History

On Our Western Juniper Survey in Redmond’s Dry Canyon

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This is an explanation of the importance of the survey work being done by the Friends of North Dry Canyon Natural Area, FNDCNA, and it’s role in the creation of a broader management plan, and a fire management plan, that addresses both community safety needs, as well as those of the Western Juniper and Sagebrush steppe plant communities in Dry Canyon. This is a 160 acre portion of the Canyon Park that stretches 3.7 miles, north to south, through the City, a remnant of one of the canyons formed by one of the previous courses of the paleo-Deschutes River, (There were at least two, one some distance east of Redmond’s location, joining with the Crooked River at present day Smith Rock State Park. The current Deschutes River flows 4 miles to the west of this location through a canyon carved in its earlier stages by Tumalo Creek.) Continue reading →

On Biology, Ecology, Evolution: Health as a Product of an Engaged Life Aided by Science

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Biology, the ‘life sciences’, botany, evolution, cell biology, ecology, health and disease, plant communities, our relationship as humans with each other, geology and the life around us, are all topics that interest me. My most recent reading choices have focused on embryology and an organism’s capacity to maintain homeostasis, what is meant by ‘health’. Earlier I focused on the big question of ‘What is life?’ I’m an integrator, an intuitor, an assembler of conceptual puzzles. For me understanding is the goal and that usually involves understanding the ‘pieces’ of the puzzle and fitting them together into coherent wholes. That’s what I do when I select books and read. While my fiction choices are relatively wide and varied, when it comes to this question, I am far more focused, purposeful. I am not overly concerned with being correct in terms of conventional thought or even regarding that which is accepted as being scientifically correct. I’m looking for what makes ‘sense’. I ‘test’ what I read.

Science is conservative and rightly so. It works to define a foundation from which we may build on. Many, if not all scientific advances, came at the expense and pain of researchers who reach beyond the established to address the problems that accepted theory has revealed as the process advances. Egos and careers can get crushed. Arguably, every significant advance in science began as a controversial idea. Over time, with repeated experimentation, advances in technologies that enable scientists to address questions not previously possible, new insights and ways to ask the ‘question’, the new gains support, or alternatively, is revealed to be ‘wrong’. In this process other questions arise, that move us toward a more complete ‘truth’, a truth that enlightening and revealing, can never be the ultimate answer. What preceded it was not necessarily ‘wrong’, but more likely incomplete, unable to fully explain the world as our understanding of it itself changes. Science becomes a process of understanding at an ever finer scale. What once served, still does, but in a coarser grained way. Occasionally, it demands a radical rethink of our basic understanding of reality. Continue reading →

I Contain Multitudes: An Excellent Starting Point for the Beginner to Understand this Life

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Ed Yong’s, “I Contain Multitudes” takes a different angle into the biology of organisms, looking not so much at the functioning of the individual as it does those countless single celled organisms, protists and tiny ‘critters’ that live within and upon us, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, viruses, dust mites etc. There are bacteria living within larger, multi-celled organisms with viruses living inside these….And these are not unusual relationships. Such relationships dominate all of life. Their exception is the rare event. Together, in their multiplicity, these constitute living communities, living in the very specific ‘biomes’, found on larger, seemingly independent organisms. Numbering in the thousands, millions, billions, even trillions, these tiny residents live in dynamic symbiotic, mutualistic, parasitic and antagonistic relationships with their hosts, often filling more than one role, depending on the host, the conditions and constitution of the biotic community. Whew! Yong’s book introduction, of the reader to this world, should lay to rest the idea that ‘we’ are truly ‘individuals’. The countless microbes that occupy and ‘invade’ us, have previously been considered unnecessary or consistently compromise our health, sources of disease.…The idea that we can ‘sterilize’ our way to better health denies the necessity of these organisms, or at least most of them, in the health of individuals.

No, he presents a variety of cases which illustrate the absolute dependence of an individual on these microbes, bacteria that breakdown our otherwise indigestible foods into forms that we can then absorb and utilize. Others that may live on our skin, defending us from attack, by providing a defense against other microbes that could otherwise infect us. Their are microbes that infect other microbes (see Martinez Arias’ book, “The Good Virus”), tiny ‘organisms’ that infect that disease’s vector, killing it before we become infected or blocking the disease causing microbe from infecting the vector, keeping it free from the organism which can cause disease in us. Continue reading →

On the Danger of Being ‘Normal’ and Exclusive: The ‘Queer’, Diversity and its Essential Nature

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  • I’m a thematic reader, certain topics appeal to me. My tendency is to dive in when they fit into the puzzle that intrigues me, particularly the big one about life; what it means to be alive; what organisms share in terms of their biological function as well as what connects us…all of us, as a species and more broadly across species; the ecology of life, how we fit together, necessarily; how this life would not exist  were we truly individuals, separate, isolated, independent organisms and how we delude ourselves when we insist otherwise. One book often leads me to the next. Sometimes several. So I read about quantum physics and how as we integrate that into biology, it transforms that science, adds an element of ‘magic’ to it. Neurobiology. Ecology. Evolution, The embryogenesis of that single egg cell to the the dividing undifferentiated blastula, to a mature organism with its multiplicity of differentiated cells, unique tissues and specialized organs. Metabolism. Gender and sexuality. Perception and consciousness, its complexity and variety. Relationship, function, communication, internal ‘signaling’ and ‘switching’.  How concepts of sentience and beauty, language and art, the soul, all spring from the complex act of living…. Integral to it. How species and individuals all play roles, simultaneously in every level of ‘community’ in which they belong/participate, indispensable and replaceable, all related parts of an ongoing, evolving, process; one that we are so embedded in that we cannot possibly discern the value of anyone ‘member’s’ contribution, each an element in the larger dance, a ‘process’ which itself, is the point. As Shakespeare once wrote in his play, “As You Like It”:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts….

We do not and cannot know the ending. There is none, or rather each ending marks a beginning, any guess that we might offer of an ultimate purpose, of a goal, remains unknowable, beyond the continuing unfolding of life…endless change.. Progress? It’s difficult to say as the earth system collapses and ‘reboots’ over time. The expression of the whole is observable only in moments, in its parts.

The aphorism, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, begins to get at what it means to be alive, that we all depend on each other, connected, related through the dynamic processes of being, of the flow of energy and its ‘in-forming’, its translation into matter and form. We are each a unique expression of this process. If we are ever to fulfill our potential, if we will ever be able to discern what that might be, we must recognize these connections. Our individuality is a selfish story we tell ourselves, one that fires our ambition to differentiate ourselves, to put ourselves ‘above’ others, to claim exceptionalism, and in so doing, lose the larger game playing out before us. As ‘individuals’ we are incomplete, hobbled in our larger social and ecological roles, we devalue ourselves when we fail,  and in so doing see ourselves as separate, individuals rather than the ‘collectives’ that we are. We may act individually, actions which are informed by both our past and the actions of all around us, but are in fact linked directly by lines of dependency, recognized or not. We are forever a part of something much larger than ourselves. We are bounded composites, never truly independent, as both individuals and a species, communities integrated into these unique wholes, even our consciousness is a product of this collective relationship. ‘Shaped’ by and shaping the conditions in which we live. The synapses in our brains both fluid and solid, responding to the world around us and with in, with our use and disuse. Connected in countless unseen ways, essential and impactful never the less. Continue reading →

The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue, a Review

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Global climate change, in our current political climate, has been relegated to a secondary status. There is so much ‘shit’ hitting the fan right now that it gets largely lost in mainstream media coverage. The science that supports it, continues, although at a slower rate. Our transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy has slowed along with the republican denials, their actions to ‘deBidenize’ America, cutting funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act, ‘seed’ monies to fund needed infrastructure investment, along with their cuts to the funding of research into the supporting science and technologies. The topic has been rendered into one of ‘belief’ as if its consequences will have no real world effects, a simple argument of the uninformed, like ‘Ford beats Chevy’, pointless and personal. Author Mike Tidwell, an obvious long time ‘believer’ and lobbyist, has worked over the last 30 years to move the political dial toward climate action, amongst his neighbors, his home state of Maryland and Congress. Here, in his recent book, “The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue”, he tells his and his neighbor’s story, in his DC area neighborhood, of the real world impacts they’ve observed and are attempting to combat. Amongst his neighbors are  Congressman Jamie Raskin, his friend, Ning, a college prof who has been working tirelessly on getting a novel carbon sequestration program up and running, a local state legislator who has been working to get massive scale wind generators built off shore and others working in smaller ways, dealing with the fall out of a climate already changing around them which, among other things, is causing crazy weather perturbations, changes in rainfall and temperature swings that are leading to things like a large increase in Lyme disease, because the milder winters are killing fewer of the disease carrying ticks, while also leading to the massive die off of mature trees across their neighborhood. Continue reading →

Holodiscus microphyllus, Rock Spiarea in Dry Canyon

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Another less common slope dweller is Holodiscus microphyllus, or Bush Ocean Spray, a deceiving name, or Rock Spiarea, which is also somewhat confusing. Confusing because Spiarea is the genus name for an entirely different genera of shrubs. So I call it simply Holodiscus. ( Botanical names can be confounding to the uninitiated. I’m not a big user of mnemonics, but I still remember first learning this plant’s close relative, Holodiscus bicolor, and the phrase immediately came to mind, ‘Holy Discus, Batman!” I know, silly, but I doubt I will ever forget that plant.)

This typically occurs on the eastern flank of the Cascades and in the mountains of SE Oregon. The common name, ‘rock’, suggests its preferred sites. I’ve not seen one in Dry Canyon bottomland. It seems most common below the east rim north of the Maple Bridge. Continue reading →

That Gray Stuff? It’s All Sagebrush…Nope

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Part of the Dry Canyon plant series

Everybody knows Juniper and I suspect that a lot of people who think they know Sagebrush, that ubiquitous gray shrub you see everywhere, may be confusing it with other plants, blurring all ‘gray’ shrubs into one. Now this may not seem to be a big deal, but if you are trying to manage a landscape with these in them or trying to create a landscape which reflects the local plant communities, then it becomes much more important that you know what you have so that you can evaluate your landscape’s condition and decide upon what you may need to do, or stop doing, to meet your goals. Continue reading →

The Cut Leaf Thelypody in Dry Canyon

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[Plants of the Dry Canyon Natural Area – This will be the start of a new series focused on the plants of Redmond’s Dry Canyon. I’m creating them to be posted for ‘local’ consumption on the Friends of North Dry Canyon Natural Area. It’s a City Park including about 166 acres at the north end of Dry Canyon Park which the City has identified as a Natural Preserve. The group works as an advocate with the City, on public education and helping with on the ground work projects. I’ll identify each such post here.]

As you walk the trails below the canyon rims you will be seeing these growing scattered and in bunches. This is the Cut Leaf Thelypody, Thelypodium lacinatum. These are common where ever there’s a bit of soil between the rocks on the slopes below the rims growing amongst the tumble of massive basalt. I’ve seen these elsewhere growing in other eastside Oregon canyons with similar conditions.
These are members of the Mustard family, prolific seed producers and quite competitive. Another plant that, at least so far, doesn’t venture out into the canyon’s bottomland.
Elegant when it first starts flowering, like so many native annuals and perennials, these start declining while they proceed through their flowering season detracting from their appearance. What do I mean…each spent flower, begins to form its narrow, linear, Mustard seed capsule, quickly maturing its tiny seed and then drying, twisting and browning, while the inflorescence continues to bloom out towards its terminal end. A little messy, yes, but characteristic of these plants. We humans are relatively intolerant of such decline in our garden plants and so generally refuse them admission. Under the local wild conditions, as dry as they are, species tend to either be early flowering, when soil moisture is still most available or those like this that begin to decline before the show is over. Summer drought is a ‘cruel’ taskmaster. There are exceptions to this rule but….

https://oregonflora.org/taxa/index.php?taxon=8778

Mowing Firebreaks Across the Dry Canyon Bottom, Good Idea or No?

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Mowing weakens the native plant community and aids the growth of weeds.

Mown adjacent to unmown. Aggressive spreaders will fill in more quickly and because of the weeds already in place, they will sieze a larger proportion of the mown area as they grow and spread.

While recently walking home through the Canyon, last month in December, I noted 8 new  strips, presumably ‘fire breaks’, mown across relatively flat and uniform sections of bottomland, each maybe 50’+ wide, spanning the bottom between the paved eastern path and the the main dirt western bike path. While I understand the thinking here, removing ground level fuels, this is a single purpose treatment that works counter to the Park’s purpose as a natural area preserve. Mowing down the Rabbitbrush, a ruderal, transition species of the Sagebrush Steppe plant community, delays the development of a healthy native plant community and encourages an increased array and density of weeds and invasives. Mowing this way provides open space for weed species already in Dry Canyon, as well as those not yet here, giving them larger ‘launch points’ from which they can spread into the rest of the Canyon. Mowing weakens natives, which are naturally slower to rebound from the damage than the aggressive weed species. Continue reading →

From 0’ – 3,000’ in 70 Million Years:  Building Oregon, Dry Canyon, The Shaping of Redmond and the Geology of the Paleo-Deschutes, Part 3

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Cascade Volcanic Arc –

Over the last 2.5 million years, roughly corresponding with the Pleistocene Ice Age, there have been at least 1,054 volcanoes in a ‘belt’ from Mt. Hood running 210 miles south to the California border and then, after a break, continuing to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen, in a band 16 to 31 miles in width. These latter two, southern most of the Cascades, show no effect of glaciation from Glacial Periods. They were far enough south of the Glacial Ice to be unaffected. The material ejected and flowing from these many volcanoes and vents come from the crustal material of the subducting Juan de Fuca plate. The Cascades are a defining feature of our region in terms of aesthetics, but also as a shaper of climate, as well as being a physical barrier limiting the movement of organisms and thus goes to determining the ‘shape’ of our lives here. The Arc is still active, magma is still being ‘delivered’, building incredible pressure below through these same processes which have shaped this place to date. While we may assess its various mountains as ‘active’ or not, the volcanic arc, is still very much a factor in determining our long term future. Where it will next erupt from, and what form that will take, is impossible to say within any degree of confidence. But the earth’s tectonic plates are still in movement. Magama is still slowly, but inexorably, coursing through its crustal layers and the movement and pressures will continue to result in further eruptions. Continue reading →