Edward Abbey memorialized environmental resistance to mindless development in his tome The Monkey Wrench Gang. It essentially endorsed sabotage to thwart degrading of the natural world, for instance, putting sugar in the gas tanks of bulldozers that are about to plow under a nice area. However, advances in surveillance make...
Redwoods
For starters, this “No Trespassing” sign isn’t on private property. It’s on Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation Lands that are open to the public as the Rock Creek Greenway, west of Portland Oregon. Fortunately there are many anglers who are simply crazed about catching fish and who would wade through Hell fire for...
I toss in my sleep, grabbing for the water bottle. I have to push the straw deep for the last few drops of precious cool water. Even the dregs are sweet. And in that moment between a memory and a dream, I was not sure if I was a hummingbird...
An Oregon developer of a proposed gas station next to a creek and wetlands has withdrawn his application. In short: Victory! Withdrawn App, how sweet the sound, Saving trees … thirty feet around. They were doomed on this place, but now are saved, thanks to Grace. The nearby neighborhoods’ coveys...
I’m Red Woodman, Senior Investigator for what we call the “Frog Court.” If I can just get through today, I can retire with a pension. But a whole bunch of new cases just hit my in-basket and I came to work to find a guy sobbing over a couple of baby...
It’s especially hard to organize folks these days. You can’t call a meeting. It’s tough to talk and listen with masks on. Yet suburban folks west of Portland Oregon are organizing against a developer’s plans to build a Chevron gas station/mini-mart adjacent to wetlands, big trees, and a Park Greenway....
A developer’s plans to site a Chevron service station and mini-mart hit a hurricane of resistance, in part to the valiant efforts of several Kos contributors, and many others. In some ways this is Daily Kos’ interim victory, since widespread publication of my earlier Daily Kos Daily Bucket, Save the...
You knew people were probably friendly the second they walked up. I wore a mask. We’d chat as long as they wanted. I could point at the big copse of trees across the field that are doomed. They’d take info about how to formally object. Some said they’d seen our...
I’m just an old race horse out to pasture, pawing the ground when the race track bugle sounds. I still read the local public notices about developments, reflecting back on 40 years of environmental challenges, wishing someone was doing some more challenging. And then something happened. I am terrible at this...
The Tualatin Valley of Northwest Oregon forms a shallow bowl, about 50 miles in diameter, with 1000-2000 foot tall eroded volcanoes walling in the lowlands, separating the region from the Coast and the Columbia River. I used to work near Banks, Oregon, and the vast acreages of of flooded croplands...
He wakes up at dawn and peeks out the window, looking for the heron feeding at the fishpond in the first light. No heron yet today. He starts the espresso machine, but cannot make coffee fast enough to clear out almost seven decades of fog from his head. He sighs...
While rival armies swarmed over hapless China during and after WW II, dedicated scientists struggled to continue their own research. Despite the risks, intrepid researchers pursued the legend of the secret Valley of the Tiger, filled with magical trees that co-existed with dinosaurs, but went extinct about when the Andes Mountains...
For over a decade, Great Blue Herons have visited my backyard ponds in NW Oregon. They’ve eaten some of my goldfish, driven away all of the hated bullfrogs, and provided many viewing hours of their heart pounding beauty as they strut between the grapes and lavender. My house is in the middle of...
This week of dire weather forecasts for the Pacific Northwest saw a year’s worth of snow fall on Seattle in a few remarkable days. Yet the lower elevations of Washington County, west of Portland, Oregon remained chilly, but stubbornly snow-free. Gaia took notice, and dumped hours of hard rain on NW...