Nature Center Update, June 20, 2008

In the two-and-a-half months since the last Nature Center e-news, an unusual amount of water, both literal and figurative, has passed under the bridge. After a protracted spring-reverting-into-winter, featuring more cold and wet here than anyone can recall during these months, we are happy to welcome summer, which seems finally to have arrived. Wild strawberries, osoberries, and salmonberries have all yielded ripe fruit; bear, bobcat, and an abundance of breeding birds have been in evidence; and more has been happening every day on the land than anyone could shake a stick at, let alone document. In the human world, Nature Center intern Kerry is continuing to edit the transcripts from last May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering while doing botanical surveys in Colorado (she is missed here). In addition to coordinating Lost Valley's Meadow Garden and trying to keep up with the plants and birds of the Nature Center and environs, Chris has accepted a new position as editor of Communities magazine (see www.ic.org). His first issue, focused on "Politics in Community," is due out in September and features several ecology-themed articles. Meanwhile, his mother Nancy Roth's book Grounded in Love: Ecology, Faith, and Action (see www.kenarnoldbooks.com/grounded_in_love) has just been published, with a foreword by David Orr and advance praise from, among others, Bill McKibben, David James Duncan, and Sr. Miriam Therese MacGillis. Watch for notice of a talk and book signing at the Nature Center, probably in 2009. Dave Bontrager's bird song and bird ID classes, an Oregon White Oak restoration tour at Mt. Pisgah, a Willamette Valley Indian Cultural-Ecological Restoration Workshop in the West Eugene Wetlands, and a birding expedition to Malheur Wildlife Refuge have all been off-site highlights of the spring. Dave Bontrager's Field Natural History class, in which three of us are enrolled, starts Sunday and meets periodically throughout the summer. Lost Valley's own Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program summer session (see www.lostvalley.org/EPI/Courses/EPCP) started this week, and enrollment continues for the fall session and for late summer's Eco-Homes program (www.lostvalley.org/EPI/Courses/EcoHomes). Additional upcoming events, including monthly Open Mics, can be found at www.lostvalley.org/events as they are scheduled.

The Nature Center's most significant recent on-the-ground accomplishment has been completion of a thirty-five station Sustainability Tour, marked by engraved signs. A new downloadable brochure includes the complete text of the signs. While we hope this brochure is instructive on its own, it is even more useful when read while exploring the features it describes at Lost Valley. Please arrange a visit and enjoy the tour!

Thanks for reading, and happy summer solstice,

Chris