Category Archives: Natural History

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 into 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 irreplaceable, 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, “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, the flow of energy and its ‘in-forming’, the translation of 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, individuals rather than the ‘collectives’ that we are. We may act individually, even ‘freely’, but our actions will always be informed by both our past and the actions of all around us. We forever linked across time and space, directly by lines of dependency, recognized or not. We are inevitably part of something much larger than ourselves. We are bonded composites, never truly independent, as both individuals and a species, communities integrated into 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, responding and working to shape the world around us and within. We are 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 →

From 0’ – 3,000’ in 70 Million Years:  Building Oregon, Dry Canyon, The Shaping of Redmond and the Geology of the Paleo-Deschutes, Part 2

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Clarno Formation – 54 to 39 million years ago.

Getting back to Central Oregon, the Clarno Formation formed much of the region’s base rock, an accumulation of volcanic rock, their sediments and soils in layers to as much as 6,000’ thickness. 6,000’. The area was what geologist call an ‘extensional basin’, a broad low basin between the Blues and Wallowa Mountains and the accreting and volcanic landscape forming to its west.

As the Clarno was forming so was Siletzia off the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, building up relatively rapidly from intense and volcanic activity between 56-49 million years ago to the west. Siletzia was then accreted to the continent due to plate tectonics. In Oregon this terrane became the area we now recognize as our Coast Range and Willamette Valley.

This area looked far different before this period than at its end. It looked far different again, from when it attained its maximum elevation, to how it appears today. Trying to tack all of this is a bit like trying to follow a 3 ring circus…with many more rings, all proceeding at the same time, with generous overlaps. When looking at our landscape we are faced with the problem of the never ending processes of ‘addition’ and erosive ‘subtraction’. The ‘end’ of the period we define as the Clarno Formation is not one of some final result. The regions canyons, have today been deeply eroded, cut steep, with broken slopes, below the rim tops we see today. These were very different 39 Ma and they will look far more different in another million or ten million years from today, likely unrecognizable to us. Even if we were able to somehow survive until then to observe them, our ‘snapshot’ and pliable memory of them would have likely transformed over the many centuries. Erosion will have been at work over the intervening time together with those forces working to ‘build’ and ‘lift’, the working of plate tectonics locally continuing to drive the process as they continue in their slow motion crashing, transforming the surface from below.

During the Clarno those forces continued with, explosive eruptions, lava and pyroclastic flows, lahars that poured down from volcanoes of the Mutton Mountains in the formations northeast corner and Ochoco Mountains area, just west and south of the Blue Mountains, along with their mudstone, and conglomerates derived from the erosion of both accreted terranes and that of volcanically ‘built’ structures. And thus was ‘built’ the Clarno and the later John Day Formation. The three largest volcanic structures of the period in the Ochocos remain today as the Crooked River, Wildcat Mountain, and Tower Mountain Calderas. These volcanos have not been active for many millions of years. The center of volcanic activity in the region began to shift westerly during the Clarno with the tectonic changes accruing to the expanding continent’s edge developing into what would be the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The Ochoco Volcanic Area remained an active factor on through the development of the John Day Formation Period. Continue reading →

The Much Maligned Western Juniper: The Role of Juniperus occidentalis in Central Oregon

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Old growth Junipers near Cline Buttes. These two rooted down long ago on top of this lava flow. Much of the lavas here were produced during the Deschutes Formation over many thousands of years more than 5 million years ago. Surface lavas, cliffs and slopes define the area with a few sediment filled basins dominated by Sagebrush and Bitterbrush.

The Western Juniper is the  singular native tree of Dry Canyon and the immediate Redmond area. I grew up with it here in Central Oregon. When we moved here in ’61 i remember driving north after passing through miles and miles of various Pine forests, which eventually yielded, riding in our VW bus, as we left Bend. Bend sits within the ecotone, the relatively narrow transition zone, between Ponderosa Pine forest and Juniper steppe. What were these trees? Coming from California’s Salinas Valley, the landscape could hardly be more different to a six year old. So different in form and detail, Junipers squatted darkly across the landscape, nothing like the tall, majestic Pines or Oaks I was more familiar with or even the Lodgepole Pine we drove through across the pumice plain of the LaPine area. Continue reading →

Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin, A Review

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Evolution, natural selection and Darwin are often triggers for many conservatives. On their announcement people will often enter into angry diatribes which nearly just as often sets off others into a defense of shared ancestors, adaptation and descent, sometimes with a reciprocal attack against a determining role for God. It quickly moves into a polarized argument, one side embracing a christian, all knowing and powerful God who created all things in their particular ‘fixed’ forms, with man in God’s ‘image’, railing against those who would have us descending from monkeys, as if one day a monkey simply ‘birthed’ a modern human, an idea that completely ignores the substance of Darwin’s theory. The public argument seems to remain the same despite the passing of decades with little change, the battle lines firmly established, arguments entrenched. So, it is interesting to read, “Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin”, by medical doctor and author, Howard Markel, which came out earlier this year, 2024. This divisive, get nowhere, pattern was set from the very beginning. Continue reading →