Cascade Raptor Center

The Cascade Raptor Center is a local non-profit that provides medical care to injured or orphaned birds of prey as well as educational programs about the important role these birds play in nature. Perhaps you've seen their ambassador birds at a local event or heard about their work rehabilitating injured birds and releasing them back …

Shotgun Creek: Marcola

Shotgun creek flows southeast into the Mohawk Valley, not far from the town of Marcola. As the story goes, one day many, many, many years ago, a young man was out hunting and forgot his shotgun along a creek. He had to go back to get it, thus giving this creek its name. Fast forward …

Easy Rider

Earlier this summer, we pulled our bikes out of a back corner of our garage, dusted them off, and hauled them down to Rainy Peak Bike Shop for maintenance. With the sun shining beautifully last weekend, we packed a couple PB&J sandwiches and hit the Row River Trail. My goal for this trip was a …

Bloom Time

Spring is here! Everywhere I go, I see mounds of brilliant yellow daffodils and smell the sweet fragrance of Daphne. After such a drab, gray winter, I am ready for some color. Luckily, we have a number of local parks and gardens where I can easily see flowers in bloom throughout the growing season. If you …

Lost Towns: Lane County Historical Museum Exhibit

In the days before log trucks, automation, or heli-logging, sawmills were built closer to the woods. Here in south Lane County, they sprang up along the O&SE Rail line (now the Row River Trail) to take advantage of the railroad. In some instances, whole communities would surround the mill, like the sawmill at Prune Hill. When I …

Luper Cemetery: Eugene

Just north of Eugene, surrounded by farmland, is one of the oldest pioneer cemeteries in the southern Willamette Valley, Luper Cemetery. I love wandering through old graveyards, looking at the headstones, and piecing together the family relationships. I wonder about these people's lives and history and I enjoy the markers their families had created for them. In this …

Connecting the Present to the Past: History Here, Eugene

As traffic streams by along West 11th in Eugene, four brick workers from the J. Marsh Martin brickyard silently observe the bustle from their poster adhered to a metal utility box. Three feet wide by four-and-a-half feet tall, the poster is basically a large photograph with a brief description of the people and places within …

Johnson Farms: North Eugene

Nestled  just outside of north Eugene, where urban growth butts against farmland, sits Johnson Farms. Established in 1915, Johnson's is a century farm -- a farm that has been owned by the same family for over 100 years. Johnson's began when newlyweds Alfred Johnson and Oma Davis started growing vegetables and raising livestock to sale. The …

Agrarian Ales

When you compare the number of breweries that I've written about on this blog (0) with the number of wineries (about 17) and distilleries (4) it should be pretty obvious that I'm not really a beer drinker. I enjoy a nice beer on occasion but rarely do I seek it out. That changed yesterday when …

Canoeing Fern Ridge: Shore Lane Park

With the bits of sunshine we've been having lately, thoughts of canoeing have been dancing in my head. It'll be a couple months until we haul our canoe out again, but that doesn't matter, there's a great canoe spot up at Fern Ridge Reservoir I haven't told you about yet. Shore Lane Park, off of Clear …