2020, gosh so many changes we all went through! Here at the end of 2020 I am settling into my own place after three years, celebrating my return to strong health, and welcoming a new love (and doggies) into my life. Somehow, in the midst of coronavirus, this has been one of my richest years…thus this extra-long 2020 slideshow.
There are three things you'll see alot of in this slideshow. The first: images of the Willamette River taken while biking to/from work, about a 20 mile daily commute. Why?: to celebrate my return to good health following myeloma treatment in 2018-19. Thank you again to all those who held me in their thoughts and prayers; I've now been in remission since June 2019. If it ever returns (which it likely will), I have many treatment options and a strong body in my favor.
The second thing you'll see is progress toward my new home!: an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) for me to live in behind the house we purchased in 2019, all a part of Portland's densification strategy and our family plans. Here is the start in February. Altogether, construction took about five months, with completion mid-July.
The third thing you'll see alot of is wood. Here's a big black oak from our Canyonville forest that fell in a storm. Why not use this dead/dying black oak for the flooring of our new ADU?...a great idea that nonetheless required many steps and nearly a whole year to realize.
What a difficult year for our Lewis & Clark students! There were some beautiful places I could not take them in 2020 once covid restrictions set in: one was the Klamath Basin, the intended destination for a late spring overnight field trip, that I checked out in early January.
One of my environmental studies classes did, however, do an overnight field trip in late January, before covid restrictions sent us to all-online instruction. At one of the stops heading up the Columbia Gorge, students learned about CRITFC, the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, as part of their course on environmental engagement.
Another trip I took pre-covid restrictions was to celebrate the 90th birthday of dear Gerda Carmichael, my host in 2018-19 when I traveled to Birmingham AL for myeloma treatment. Gerda and her longtime partner Dick have been on dozens of adventures; here are just a few. What a loving/giving example for us young folks to follow!
(I do sometimes bike to work early...will do so again in spring 2021 for an 8 am course.)
The big black oak that's now under my feet in Portland has been leaning for a long time, thus the little trail sign. Its stump is in the background.
The dying oak (dark) in middle of image is another I used for the ADU floor. Why are California black oaks (Quercus kelloggii, much more abundant in CA) dying on our Canyonville land? Many are apparently shaded out by younger Douglas-fir. We are now mapping and planning better care of the black oaks remaining on our land.
The ADU foundation, a mere 12x24 feet of our back yard where I may well spend the remainder of my existence! (I use the basement and garage for storage.) Joy and Elise live in the main house as we had planned, and I enjoy my own space again, for the first time since 2017.
For a scholar of Big Words (those fuzzy slogans people commonly invoke across the political spectrum), 2020 has been a bumper crop. I have two books close to contract that will explore Big Words and related environmental shortcuts.
In March we took a trip with Phil Rich to the top of Canyon Mountain above our home in Canyonville. This was where the Milepost 97 fire of summer 2019 came within a mile of our land...here, looking basically south, is a survey of the changes to these forests.
Joy and Elise looking down from Canyon Mountain on the burned (largely replanted) and unburned forests to the south of Canyonville from the Milepost 97 fire.
Our first load of wood from the Proctor forest delivered (thanks again to Phil and his truck) to J&B Hardwoods, a drying/finishing facility in north Douglas County. This was a load of Pacific madrone, ubiquitous on our land (in contrast to black oak), and destined for windowsills and miscellany in the ADU.
Our Irvington neighborhood is an historic district, and all new structures must comply. So, as the ADU takes shape you'll see what looks on the outside like a classic structure...but not on the inside.
Speaking of our house, Joy (with help from Elise and Bongani) have put a lot of love into our front area, first installing a rock wall, then all sorts of flowers for passers-by. We are slowly settling into this 1906 structure, and learned this year of its notable history among Portland progressives.
Back to black oak, and time in May following the end of spring semester for me to yard this log to a level spot on our land to be milled into boards. These are big, heavy logs!...but we did it.
Also as of May, the interior of the ADU is taking shape: it's one big room, basically (with a pocket door to the bathroom), and a sleeping loft above.
The first hint of new beings coming into my life later this year. It's mid-May, and I took a bike ride up the Willamette with my friend Georgia, who frequently commuted to/from school with me along the river. Such long conversations you can have on bikes! We discovered a great deal in common in spite of our difference in age.
More wood: now the black oak is mostly milled in Canyonville, with a bit left to go before hauling to J&B Hardwood.
And even more wood!: the old family dining table I and siblings knew as children, long hiding under a blanket in our barn, now unearthed and heading to Portland to be brought back to life.
Yes, more wood: some incense cedar we milled a decade ago from trees we felled to open up space for home construction in Canyonville. These boards would eventually constitute two garden planters in our back yard in Portland!...another connection between these two special places.
Gosh, so little Kojosho karate to report this year due to covid. John Knight and I did teach in person during the first part of 2020, but then with online instruction students just practiced on their own. We made the hard decision not to teach Kojosho classes at Lewis & Clark in 2020-21 due to its close two-person interactive nature. Yet on a Saturday late in May, the traditional first day of our annual Kojosho spring camp in New Mexico, several of us met via Zoom to work out...not quite the same but it honored the occasion. (A muddy late spring, as you see.)
Everyone helped with the ADU. Here is Elise putting artistic touches on the entry walk; we are also getting ready to transplant two fruit trees we selected for the back yard: a Montmorency cherry and Italian prune.
The eventual ADU exterior, fashioned to match the 1906 house as a sort of historically mandated mini-me. Building a house in 2020, however, offered us lots of opportunities for energy efficiency, smart materials selection, and so forth...it will last for a long time. Thanks to Birdsmouth Construction for their great work.
Here's some of the milled black oak in Canyonville ready to be delivered (again by our friend Phil) to the drying/planing facility.
One of Mom's favorite riparian plants was mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii). We were pretty sure the old mock orange had died a few years ago, but look at what we saw in 2020! Joy and Elise plan to do a bit of pruning to help those old ones along, and we've planted more...there's hope.
With IKEA (an affordable alternative for cabinets/fixtures) opening back up in June, we were able to finish the ADU interior. You can tell it's a bit more contemporary than the exterior. The countertop is more wood!: carefully managed white oak butcher block from the Willamette and Rogue valleys of Oregon.
The ADU in mid-July, now with with the planter garden growing all sorts of edibles. It was finished enough by mid-July for me to start living there!...so happy.
With the late spring Oregon rains we also enjoyed a lovely midsummer on our land in Canyonville. Here is the paper bark of a young madrone.
Brother Bob and his son Brooke's family traveled down from Eugene for a quick, covid-safe visit to our land, in part for the benefit of Bob's grandson Kahdo.
A super big thing Elise and Joy launched with partners in 2020 is Say Their Names Memorials, a BLM commemorative artistic/educational endeavor; check out the website/Instagram for what the initiative is now all doing across the US! Here is their first formal installation in Portland in late July, designed in part by Elise's boyfriend Craig, whom she met via his finish carpentry and architectural detail work on our house!
It's mid-August 2020, and for Georgia's birthday we went to the river east of Portland. By late summer our bike rides had turned into seeing each other more often. Soon (just see) she will introduce two more beings into my daily life!
Our family welcomed Georgia for the spark she brought to my life. Here's Joy—the event designer extraordinaire—setting up a birthday for Georgia.
How did I teach at Lewis & Clark come fall? I chose a hybrid in-person/online option, with all in-person interaction with students on outdoor walks or in temporary outdoor classrooms like this one. We had very few covid cases; thanks to everyone in the community for their diligence.
Sister Mary and I got together several times over 2020. Here is one of her many creations, an illustrated child's book to accompany the community garden where she volunteers in Tacoma.
Back to our black oak, now sufficiently air-dried and ready for kiln drying and planing. (See the smoke from regional fires in background?)
Another glimpse of the contemporary ADU interior...complete with a carved snake I brought home from Swaziland decades ago.
One need in our tiny ADU is efficient use of space! My keyboard now slides out from under our work surface. (And more recently with a much better sound system, thanks to Santa.)
In late September the Canyonville hardwood shipment arrived, including madrone at left and black oak at right, the latter ready to be installed as ADU flooring once acclimated to our interior.
Georgia has brought doggies back into my life!: first came Mary (Queen of Scots), the family dog of many years, a dear old border collie. It's been nearly six years since I lost Beagle Bailey; I'd forgotten how much I missed their love.
Georgia has done archery in past...and so, for sure, has Phil! Here they are in Canyonville with our Alder Creek Community Forest school coordinator Devin Hunt participating in the fun. (Given covid we have had to curtail ACCF school events on the land through the year, but Devin has been doing online teacher training across the state as part of our Story of Your Place geography education curriculum, and we plan to open for community education events in spring.)
Georgia and I found a couple good pumpkins near Canyonville to bring back to Portland.
A bit blurry, but happy!: Mary jumped right into a doggy trailer we got for her. If Georgia and I are going to keep riding bikes as much as we have in past, we'll need to tow our critters with us.
This first Mary bike trip proved a success...though just around the neighborhood.
Here's Mary asleep in the ADU. The interior settled all through the fall, both because I was busy teaching and to find room for the doggies!...yes, doggies in the plural...you'll see soon.
So, one doggy is never enough!: in late October Georgia adopted a rescue puppy from Texas named Lita. Here's Lita right when we got her from the transport van.
Here's a better picture of little puppy Lita in October...now so much longer (yes, nose too) in late December as you'll soon see.
Lita and Mary getting to know each other early on, in late October. Now Lita is taller than Mary!
Lita and Mary with Georgia.
A tag I ride by every day and ponder...since I know, and am friends with, members of this "MAGA cult" from my childhood days in southern Oregon. More Big Words.
I walked frequently through Lewis & Clark campus in fall, and am always grateful to have such a beautiful place to work.
Some of my late fall bike commutes were a bit chilly!
I ride by an odd juxtaposition on my commute: on one side of the bike path is Cottonwood School, full this fall of Big Word slogans...
...and directly on the other side of the bike path is the Homeland Security ICE building, boarded up and frequently protested at night. Some think all of Portland looks like this: it does not, but part of our downtown is still struggling to come back.
Lita learns yellow.
Remember that old family table stashed away in the Canyonville barn?? The table occupies a place of honor in our wood-themed (and otherwise quite contemporary) ADU.
Speaking of wood, we spent a week in Netarts on the Oregon coast while the oak floor was installed. Here's Lita alongside Georgia as the trip got underway.
Georgia and Lita at Netarts Bay. Lita is, um, a digger, so the sand was a perfect place for her to dig her heart away.
Me and Georgia. Georgia visited me during myeloma treatment, then we started riding bikes and having long conversations, and are now learning that an intergenerational relationship can be a beautiful—though never an easy—thing.
More beauty in late fall, just above the ADU.
So, how does one fit two doggies in a small ADU?: here's the answer. Not only do we have a piano under the work surface; we have a Lita (and sometimes Mary) under the old table!...works great.
Another biking-home photo, this one off Tilikum Crossing in the dark early evenings of late fall.
And this one from a morning soon following, en route to campus. What a beautiful place Portland is!
I guess I never showed you our Canyonville oak floor! Here it is, with the two girls sleeping together, and LIta in one of her typical positions. Mary somehow tolerates her little sister.
Some things to come starting 2021 on our forest in Canyonville: here are Brian Cuny of Fianna Forestry and Lyndia Hammer of Southern Oregon Land Conservancy touring a portion we will manage as part of the USDA Conservation Stewardship Program. (Lyndia wrote our forest management plan; Brian will oversee management efforts.) One big problem on our forest, like many, is fire danger: with fire suppression (understandable given nearby dwellings) the forest has grown up crowded with what are called ladder fuels. We'll be removing these fuels and converting them to biochar on this and another forest site over the next four years—and will explore related K-12 and lifelong education benefits via ACCF.
Devin Hunt, our ACCF school coordinator, helping me yard downed logs blocking one of our most popular trails for over a year. Now with the recent purchase of a skidder winch, ACCF hopes to use such blowdown as part of an annual firewood donation project for the community.
Another Canyonville-PDX connection: the annual Christmas tree. This one, a young incense cedar, somehow fit into my Prius for the ride home.
Georgia with the doggies out having fun in Irvington Park, just a block away...convenient.
In the mornings I take a run with the doggies to Irving Park a bit north of where we live, and they wait in the horseshoe pitch while I do my Kojosho postures...now a something-like-35-year-long habit.
For my birthday in late December, Georgia and I traveled to Tacome to spend time with sister Mary and her new doggy (yes, we are part of the covid puppy trend!). Here is Tacoma's Proctor District...for such a humble family name it proved a bit overwhelming for me to see our name everywhere.
And we leave 2020 with—why not?—another doggy photo, this one of our first go at fitting them both into the bike trailer. Possible!...but Lita is still learning not to lunge straight out and dangle on her leash. We four are all stretching to keep up with change, stretching to learn and grow, as the year ends. May each of you continue to discover, and live, your rich lives as well! Happy new year....let's look forward to a much better one for the many who are in need, and let's each find ways we can help.