forest

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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HOME TURF

/ janpriddyoregon / 12 Comments

Many years ago a famous author commented about the sloppy appearance of women in Washington State, where I went to public schools, Kindergarten through three undergrad degrees. She also talked about Puget Sound, using terminology appropriate to the East coast. Both comments irritated me, but non-locals talking about my corner of the natural world is particularly irksome. She spoke with authority and got details all wrong. I mean to write about two things today. First, a peevish rant about people misunderstanding my home.

I should have shared this photo before now. Christmas snow with a west wind. Most winters we have not seen snow. Some winters we have not even experienced a major frost on the coast—the impact of the largest body of water in the world right outside our door.

A mediocre mystery/romance novel set on “the Puget Sound” referred to it as “ocean,” which it isn’t. Look at a map for goodness sake. And no one born here includes that article “the” before Puget. As in: We took the ferry across Puget Sound to Orcas Island.

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