June 16, 2026

Governor Ferguson's advisors visit our forest; more visitors; Mom and "the shadow knows;" Shyou Ishida's "We'll Prescribe You a Cat;" reading poetry on the back patio

From the Woods

Visit from Governor Ferguson’s Staff

Last week, we hosted five members of Governor Ferguson’s staff for a tour of our forest. Dad and Merc Boyer invited Owen Rowe, Ferguson’s Senior Policy Advisor in Natural Resources, and Owen brought four other interested advisors. We were thrilled to walk them through our 6-month-old stand of Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine, show them our DNR Douglas-fir seed trial acre (thank you Jeff Debell for joining and explaining the process), discuss issues related to climate change in our 90-year old stand, explain the difficulties of marketing “low-value” wood (wood that isn’t structurally sound enough for lumber, but can be used for paper products, biochar, stove pellets, etc) in a twenty-five year old mixed stand of pine, cedar, and fir. We walked silently through fifteen year old pine and fir, then 125-year old trees listening to birds, feeling cool forest air, letting the trees share their calming chemicals.

The beaked hazlenut bushes were showing off their frilly pink and green husks just in time for the tour. I hope Owen and his team felt the beauty of our working forest in their bones.

(the photo cut off some very important guests! Nina Boyer, Kelly and Chris Starling, and Rachel Boyer)

More Visitors!

Ellen and Cody, members of Bishop and Wilde’s bookclub, came from Portland to wander our trails. A great horned owl gave us a good show—swooping from one tree to the next, then resting on one—too far for a photo, but close enough to awe.

The pink and green of the vine maple resemble the colors of the beaked hazlenut husk.

People Older Than Trees

Mom talks about listening to The Shadow on her family’s living room radio.

Entertainment in the tree farm living room was almost as ancient. We had no TV, and radio reception was sketchy. My brother, Steve ruled airwaves with LPs on the record player. His high school music—ZZ Top, AC/DC, Johnny Winter—are some of the only non-hymn songs I can still sing by heart.

Mom also played guitar and had a roster of songs we kids would perform with her. I wish we had photos or videos, but none can be found. A few of her favorites:

What I’m Reading

One of my summer bucket list goals is to do more reading for pure pleasure. I got this book for Dad since he’s so in love with Shima, our cat (who disappeared for 36 hours last week!!!!). Mom read it, enjoyed it, and so now I’m reading it. Dad will get his chance next. It’s a quiet, moving story.

Stumptown

I can’t let a week go by without mentioning my current author obsession, Maria Popova. Tom and I sat on our porch in Portland last week and read a few poems to each other from her The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals of Wonder through Science and Poetry.