I've finally acclimated to the weather here. It's about 50 out, and I feel just about perfect. I think the acclimation will stay until the winter, and I'll be glad for that. Maybe at that time I will find a way to build a bonfire on the patio to stay warm.
This place is a beautiful place. I know I say it a lot. But this place is really a beautiful place. I've come to start thinking about why that is. Is it the stunning landscape? Well, maybe. I mean, it's beautiful and all, the trees and the mountains, but certainly west of here in the basin or east of here in the coast range you are going to get a little more stunning beauty. The proximity to stunning can't be beat. Maybe it is the people? They are eco-conscious, kind, there is no crime, nobody dresses up, uses an umbrella, or has any social hierarchy. There are more veggie-loving yogis here than I've seen anywhere. It's an active community for people of same-sex preference, people of all races, men and women. But I'm not always a people person, so maybe it's not that. So perhaps it's the cleanness? Recycle bins everywhere, clean streets, quiet, local restaurants preventing corporate megalomania. Or maybe the research community? We are the best funded environmental research school in the nation and likewise we are ranked number 1 (even against private institutions) in almost every environmental field. Forestry, meteorology, oceonography, geology, environmental engineering. The DOE, USFS, NOAA, NASA, EPA... they've all got stations here... it's not just the money, but the professional connections. Still, there are other OK research schools in the country-- other LTERS, NEONS, etc.
It could be all of those, but I think what is so appealing about here, overall, is a synergy of things-- there is just this incredible local consciousness. I've been thinking about Wendell Berry a lot lately. He is a professor at the University of Kentucky (or I think he is retired now), an avid writer, sort of a radical, and the leader of the propaganda for the Agrarian movement. Which actually is a political party in OR, according to my voter registration card. One thing WB emphasizes is that man reaches his maximum capability in research, life, love, and potential when he is inherently tied to his land. What I take that to mean is more than just a reflection on datasets vs.reality, it's a reflection on the complexity of the reality. I.E. this community is based on timber. Timber drives our economy. Sure, also there is agriculture, but look at any map of OR and you can clearly see timber. Hell, Weyerhauser's main plant is just 8 miles down the road. Weyerhauser! WOW. Everything in everyone's life here-- the prices, the lack of taxes (timber tax increase offset), the ecological conciousness, the knowledge of growth patterns and regeneration, wood structures, biodiesel and post-logging fuels, it's all driven by our enterprise. What we research--- carbon flow-- is just one process in the ecosystem that defines how timber works. We don't even really talk about timber. But ultimately what we do can make a tool so that the people who do timber can harvest smartly and effectively.
So everyday I wake up and my whole life is tied into this one timber synergy. The ag fields I run through show me alternative crops and teach me about the soil. The trails I hike expose me to ground vegetation and timber planting regimes. The mountains I enjoy show me airsheds and watersheds. The local products I buy help to bolster the economy in the face of a depressed real estate (and therefore lumber) market. It's something that can be magical for everyone-- a butterfly effect, or something, or "trickle down (I guess it would be "trickle across") environmental economics, maybe. What I love here is that it's all connected. It's not looking at single street trees, or a park isolated from the world. It's not just the basin, or the set of basins, or the watersheds. Nor the researchers, and how they work in collaborative groups-- it's this big, special synergy-- it makes this place a beautiful place.
I am a zealous n00b Oregonian.
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