Tag: Jacksonville Woodlands Association

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. Ecclesiastes 1:7

It’s now the season when water flows visibly and robustly in Jacksonville Forest Park’s creeks. For a brief time, this essence of life makes its way to the sea with a pleasant melody of bubbles and gurgles and splashes and swooshes. It’s the most alive thing in the forest at the moment. But, in a few short weeks, when the first leaves and grasses and wildflowers of Spring emerge, the waters will have begun to recede. By summer surface flows will largely be gone. But their passing will have set the stage for the biotic abundance that is the Forest in Spring and Summer. Life will go on.

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We got enough rain a few weeks ago to officially break the summer dry spell but it was a paltry effort (hundredths of an inch / a few mm). Over the weekend we finally got real rain (2 in / 50 mm). More than enough to finally quell the last of the wildfires and wash the summer’s grit off everything. Enough to knock down the last of the colorful leaves of Fall and kick start the delightfully fragrant process of plant-based decomposition. Sadly, along with the rain came the predicted winter surge in the Big V, with cases, hospitalizations, and bodies piling-up exponentially, both here and elsewhere. Oregon is going back into a partial lock-down in hopes of fending off the worst of it but it might be too little, too late. A combination of quarantine fatigue, fatalism, ideological intransigence, and lack of coherent federal leadership has brought us to this impasse, which will probably persist until Spring. It didn’t have to be like this but it is. 😥

Continue reading “Ruminations in the Forest (Southwest Oregon) 16-Nov-2020” →