Standing with Young Activists Against Gun Violence

Despite the sunshine that fills Southern Oregon these last days of summer, it feels like we’re living in a darkly satirical novel about the near future, when mass shootings have become so frequent that they are part of the daily routine. Every week or two, these past months, there’s been another slaughter, occasionally more than one on the same day. …

The Really Big One: Tsunamis and the Oregon Coast

As I write this, a Red Flag Fire Warning hangs over the Rogue River Valley. Distant thunder and dark clouds, a rare presence in our resolutely blue summer skies, raise the specter of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes. Last summer, a rash of thunderstorms one weekend in July set in motion 163 wildfires across Oregon, with Southern Oregon bearing the …

Beauty and Protest in Central Oregon

The far-flung  town of Burns in Central Oregon, is not, strictly speaking, where followers of Ammon and Ryan Bundy took over a federal building and plotted the overthrow of the American government in 2016. That is 30 flat and lonely miles south. Still, Burns is out there, in the middle of nowhere. It’s the population hub (at 2,800) of Harney County, the largest …

Rescued Horses: Equamore Horse Sanctuary

Today, I became a sponsor for a draft horse named Gandalf, a rescue horse who lives at the Equamore Sanctuary three miles from our house. He’s black with a white spot between his eyes, stands almost 16 hands (5.3 feet), weighs 1,700 lbs., and believes in second chances. As a girl, I never went horse crazy like my nextdoor neighbor, Eliza, …

Food for Thought: The Amazing World of Podcasts

We sat in a circle, eight of us, listening intently as the distant calls of moose in the Hoh Rain Forest filled the small room. ”Silence—the absence of manmade sounds—is an endangered species,” acoustical ecologist Gordon Hempton explained. “Quiet is the think tank of the soul.” This spring I taught a class on podcasts at the nearby Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) …

10,000 Steps

My husband of almost forty years has become a step-counter, a serious step-counter, with 10,000 his daily minimum. As I write this, he’s making his way up the Mike Uhtoff trail in the mountainous woods behind our house, logging his first 5,000. The app in his back pocket, when he carries it, keeps track. Often, I’m a partner. When we …

Small Wonders: Ashland Independent Film Festival

“What is it like growing up in front of a video camera?” an audience member at the Ashland Independent Film Festival (AIFF) asked 12-year-old Jonas Brodsky. His mother’s documentary about his being deaf, Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements, had just filled the big screen at AIFF’s opening night, after debuting at Sundance in February. The film shadows Jonas from …