Cate Kennedy

RESIDENCY, the last day

/ janpriddyoregon / 8 Comments
In case you are unfamiliar, this is what in 1850 the British called a “monkey-puzzle tree” and some Native peoples called pewen (scientists call it Araucaria araucana), which is native to central and southern Chile and western Argentina. Because it resembles prehistoric species, it is also sometimes called an “animate fossil.” It has long been a seed-grown garden tree in west coast US gardens, including Seattle, where I spent most of my childhood and knew this tree as a child. It is usually dioecious, with the male and female cones on separate trees. Midway up and nearer the top in the photo are the cones that, on female trees, produce seeds similar to over-sized pine nuts. These seeds have been gathered and consumed by indigenous peoples through the millennia, and the trees themselves are sacred to some indigenous Mapuche. The Chilean pine has been protected in Chile since 1972. All logging was banned in 1990 and its conservation status was listed as Endangered by the IUCN in 2013. [The species is protected under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meaning international trade (including in parts and derivatives) is regulated by the CITES permitting system and commercial trade in wild sourced specimens is prohibited.]

Several of my students went on to Pacific University, but that is not the reason I am fond, of course. Today is the last day of events scheduled for the MFA residency.

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RESIDENCY, day 6

/ janpriddyoregon / 7 Comments

Today is Wednesday, which is noted at the top of today’s residency schedule, but which I find myself in need of reminding. Wednesday, and the last day, the day of graduation, will be Saturday. Count the days. [3.] I will introduce one more faculty reading, celebrate this 20th anniversary of my MFA program, and then leave after graduation on Saturday. There will be bagpipes!

In the center of this photo is a mature Douglas fir tree. “Mature’ but not first growth, 30+” wide and looming, but not as big as a Douglas fir can become left to itself for another century. Many trees on the Pacific University campus are enormous [watch for the redwood I’ll post tomorrow), but all of these trees are second or third growth or planted trees. Farmed forests in the Pacific NW are logged off every thirty or so years. East of our coastal home, there used to be the stumps of old growth, trees several feet across, a sixteen foot or larger circumference. There is little of that left. Molly Gloss’s novel Wild Life is set in the period when the great old-growth forests were vanishing.
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