The four, caged feral cats in the back of our Subaru wagon were speechless. We’d collected them a few minutes before at the Jackson County Animal Services, where they had been neutered rather than euthanized and granted a ninth life. Now, freshly anointed “working cats,” they were on their way to their new assignment: rodent control on a small farm …

Note: I have spent much of the fall kibitzing my videographer friend Kathy Roselli on her latest film—on an unlikely topic: a 7,900 foot composting toilet on Mt. Shasta (30 miles south of Ashland). I prepared a brochure for the Sierra Club Foundation and K-Rose Productions to accompany the film, and I figured I’d share it here. It’s a long …

Early this fall, along interstate 5 just north of Ashland, the air sometimes smelled of skunk—not the sharp odor of roadkill, but a foul smell that hung like fog. I later learned that I was smelling hemp, not skunk, growing on fields next to the Interstate.  Hemp, you probably know, is a strain of non-psychoactive cannabis grown specifically for “industrial uses.” …

The winter holiday season is here—it arrived before Thanksgiving if you didn’t notice—and for some of us dedicated to an annual hunt for the best Christmas tree, the debate continues: real evergreen or faux.  The National Christmas Tree Association estimates that more than three-quarters of the Christmas trees on display in 2019 will be artificial. People who prefer artificial trees say they are …

At age 95, Agnes Pilgrim Baker deserves the title “living cultural legend” as much as anyone I almost know. After watching hours of videos of her talking about being a “voice for the voiceless,” I’m a big fan. Grandma Aggie, as she is known, is the oldest living female left of the Rogue River Indians, the Takelmas, who lived in Southern …

Farmers’ markets are the fasting growing segment of the U.S. food marketplace, with over 8,000 nationwide. USA Today just named the Rogue Valley Growers & Crafters Market, “our” market, one of the ten best in the country. I was brought up believing fresh vegetables were sacred, and I’ve always tended a vegetable garden. Just before my husband and I impulsively sold …

In the 1950’s, when I was growing up in New Jersey, Halloween was not a family affair. I couldn’t imagine my father dressing up as Captain America or my mother as a poodle-skirted Dream Girl and getting in on the action—nor, I’m sure, could they.  What I remember, actually, was the night before Halloween, called Mischief Night, when my friends and I …