Embracing the Local Community

below is the start of a nice writeup.  be sure to check the link for the remaining posting

The Ozarks. The Sonoran Desert. The Green Mountains. Death Valley. In my life I’ve called them all home. Like so many people I move for work, for new opportunities. I’m a park ranger, traveling every season to a new destination, a new natural wonder, a piece of American history. And being able to travel and live from coast to coast, I have come to believe that there are unique qualities in every part of this vast country.

As a ranger I look at the land first. I love moving to new parks and new ecosystems, to suddenly be looking at a forest of cactus, or thick hardwoods, or a slow meandering river. The second thing I look for is a hike into this new territory. And the third thing? Town. I find the grocery store. The library. And it’s amazing, because every nearby small town is just as unique as the park itself. There’s the dusty failing boom town on the Nevada border. The small mom-and-pop towns scattered throughout southern Missouri. Or the pretty town greens of Vermont.

I believe that it is a combination of the land, and its history, and its people, that makes these places unique. I’ve seen it almost everywhere I’ve been. Communities protecting their local identities, embracing their local histories, and celebrating their local ecology. I’ve seen these communities struggling to re-claim themselves from an often de-personalizing and sprawling modern life. I believe that community-identity can be created, and like all of the towns I’ve lived in, this identity can be created by embracing the local woods (be they mangroves or fir trees) and by embracing the local community, with its markets and libraries, historical societies, and businesses.

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First Annual Mountain Boomer Day-February 2

First Annual Mountain Boomer Day On February 2^nd

Brightwood, OR. The First Annual Mountain Boomer Day Celebration will occur on February 2, 2012 at Barlow Wayside Park beginning at 9:30 a.m. Celebrants expect to see our own Boomer or Mountain Beaver show up to see if his shadow is visible and thereby determine whether there will be six more weeks of winter.

“Some think this day is all about another kind of rodent made famous by Bill Murray in the movie Goundhog Day,” notes Mitch Williams, a Barlow Wayside Park mover and shaker.. “In fact. February second began in England as ‘Hedgehog Day.’ Here we have Barlow Boomer and we so look forward to seeing him again.”

Everyone is invited to participate in the Boomer Day festivities. In addition to waiting for Barlow to show, a mile walk through a section of the new park is planned.

Mountain Beavers are also known as Boomers or Ground Bears or Poor Folks Guinea Pigs. The Mountain Beaver doesn't actually belong to the beaver family. It's considered to be a primitive rodent. In most cases Mountain Beavers have a brown fur, but in some cases they will be blackish or reddish. The tail is short. The weight generally ranges between 500 and 900 grams (18 to 32 oz). The length of a male Mountain Beaver is between 30 and 50 cm.

They live in burrows that have specialized chambers for food. They usually eat ferns or other fleshy herbs. The Mountain Beaver breeding season happens during the first three months of the year and each litter has 2 or 3 newborns. Their lifespan is between 5 and 10 years. For more information on Mountain Boomers, see http://viewfromcrutchersbench.blogspot.com/2011/04/mountain-beaver-or-boomers-or-ground.html

“Since February is breeding season for mountain boomers, we will be very lucky when Barlow makes his appearance,” explains Nancy Hegg of Brightwood, who knows and named our community’s own Barlow Boomer. “He might be joined by his beloved partner, Belle Boomer,” she continues.

Sense of Place - Unspoken Poetry - Silent Music

View from Crutcher’s Bench

Last night poet Paul Keller and musician Will Frank entertained 50 or so fortunate mountain dwellers at the Rendezvous Tap Room in Wemme, Oregon. Paul, who is well known in these parts as our mountain bard, has had works printed in auspicious literary journals but there are no collections of his work. Thus, chances to experience these rich words, evocative of our mountain land, its four-leggeds, its winged ones, are rare gifts enhanced when read by the artist.

This was my first experience of Will Frank’s voice and guitar accompaniment. The songs were folk/country with a little blues and one joyful piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Most used verse and humor to celebrate living this mountain life and the magic of our corner on this earth. Several were original. Frank’s full voice and flair with acoustic guitar were captivating.

                                                                       Paul Keller

Keller and Frank planned and delivered an evening that celebrated Mount Hood and the human and creature communities that populate its western slope. Year round mountain dwellers with roots at least forty years deep made up most of the audience. At one point Frank mentioned that some of his songs would seem utterly different, perhaps meaningless, to non-residents.

                                                                   Will Frank

I understood most references in Paul’s poems and Will’s songs, although by mountain standards, I am a flatlander transplant. I first visited this area in 1967, which is when my unrequited love affair with this place began. In 2001, I joined this beloved point on earth as a full time resident.

There was an unspeakable power that occurred in that room on September 15. And here I charge on in and try to describe that which words cannot possibly convey. That room was filled with people who know this mountain and its valleys and rivers, big cats and coyotes, ravens and stellar jays, old growth and peckerpoles, its very bones and stones. We know it, hold it, and love it in ways fierce and soft with all the in betweens.

Last night the "Vous’s" Tap Room was filled with people whose love was requited. The room held silent magic. Ignited by Paul’s verse and Will’s tunes, we became a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

(This event was sponsored by Tom Anderson and Kathryn Bliss, who own the Rendezvous, and conceived of and organized by Sandra Palmer, co-owner of Wy’east Book Shoppe and Art Gallery, located next door to the "Vous." Our community has got fingers and toes crossed that the event benefitted both businesses and so there will be many more).