and CBT Nuggets as the newest additions to the. Arboretum's Business. Partner
Program. With the help of community partners like these, we will continue to ...
Winter 2014
Volume XLIV, Issue 1
T HE
M O U N T
PIS GA H
A RBORET UM
QUA RT ERL Y
Winter is Nothing to a Gopher
N EWSL E TTE R
by Fran Rosenthal
Reveling in the abundance of life forms at Mt. Pisgah, few hikers have a passing thought of the thriving community below ground. Riddled with long windowless passageways leading to bedchambers, toilets and storage sheds, the earth beneath our feet is an underground condominium for the most efficient rototiller known to humankind– the gopher. Subsisting mainly on bulbs and roots, this staunch vegetarian employs powerful front claws and impressive incisors to plow through the hard-baked clay soil of the Willamette Valley. One might think– what a mouthful of dirt!, yet the gopher’s lips seal tightly behind his teeth, preventing just that. Well adapted to a subterranean lifestyle, the gopher’s tiny eyes are cleansed by tear ducts and his small hips allow for easy maneuvering in close quarters. Even the hair of a gopher is designed to make life easier underground– the soft, reversible pelage defies ‘bad hair days’, allowing swift movement in both directions. The Pocket Gopher, named for the handy carrying pouch or cheek “pocket” used to transport food, is active year-round. The dry fur-lined pockets, stuffed full of plant material, are turned inside out for emptying and cleaning. Elusive in nature and not a social animal, pocket gophers emerge to mate or gather food, always returning to a mutually hostile solitude. Although on guard for Gopher snakes and long-tailed weasels, life underground for a gopher is relatively safe, and females produce only one litter per year. Many a farmer or gardener has witnessed vegetables sucked subterraneously by a voracious gopher, who cuts the stems from below ground and yanks the plants into his chamber. Employing multiple means to battle these culprits, it’s important to remember their role on the greater stage of nature. In their flurry of activity, gophers serve to aerate and mix the soil, preparing a healthy bed for seeds to germinate. Much of the food they store is not eaten and decomposes, fertilizing the soil from below. Porous and penetrated with burrows, the ground holds rainfall that may otherwise cause erosion to occur. It’s a difficult challenge to observe animals that live underground. But underground is not such a bad place to be during an Oregon winter. Winter in Oregon means nothing to a gopher. In fact, one gopher connoisseur in Utah, studying the impact on his garden, estimated that a good population of motivated gophers could move all of Utah into Colorado in 100 years! (Left: Pocket gopher. Photo credit: August Jackson)
Join Our Team of Nature Guides!
Have a little time to help students in our community reconnect with nature? Free training covers local natural history and teaching techniques on the trails. Orientation Dates: 3/12 or 4/1 - 6:30-8pm Call or email for more details and to RSVP: 541-747-1504
[email protected]
Special Volunteer Opportunity
Mid-sized pickup truck Mac, late-model desktop Fridge, quiet and attractive 36” round wooden table Mr. or Ms. Fix-It, volunteer
Were looking for an organized person to help with our Festival Plant Sales. Responsiblities include advance coordinating of plant donations, assisting with set-up, and collecting donor information. Does this sound like you? 541-747-3817
[email protected]
Message from the Executive Director 2013 was a very positive year for Mount Pisgah Arboretum. The work we did in 2012 to re-examine our mission resulted in a clearer understanding of who we are as an organization and how we want to move forward. With the site’s prime examples of all the major ecosystems of the Southern Willamette Valley, our vision is to establish Mount Pisgah Arboretum as the premier destination for all who want to learn about our region’s trees and ecology. In 2013 we committed to a new strategic plan and completed work on our Master Interpretive Plan aimed at finding new ways to engage people in learning about nature at our unique and beautiful site. Our new clarity also led to a strong surge in community support. Donations and memberships were up, and we built new partnerships with local businesses that will help grow our capacity to serve the community and achieve our longterm goals. Last summer and fall, community support helped complete the multi-year project to rebuild the Arboretum’s largest footbridge. Thanks to generous financial contributions and a massive amount of donated labor, the newly re-constructed Adkison Bridge was open to the public on October 25. The Arboretum will host a bridge dedication to honor all those who helped on March 20 of this year. Please check our website for more details as this date draws near. In 2014 we will focus our energies on implementing the new Interpretive Plan. The first phase will include some new road and directional signs, and construction of the muchanticipated wildlife viewing blind in the water garden. Thank you for continuing to support Mount Pisgah Arboretum as we embrace our bright new future while continuing to be the welcoming place that our community has come to love and enjoy over the last forty years.
ADKISON BRIDGE DEDICATION March 20th Join us on the Adkison Bridge as we honor the donors and volunteers who helped rebuild it. Please check our website for more details as this date draws near
A Tradition of Quality Outdoor Education Continues 2013 saw Education Manager, Fran Rosenthal leave the Arboretum staff after twenty-two years of service. During that time, she created and/or sustained some of the Valley’s most valued and respected outdoor education programs, and touched the lives of thousands of children and adults. Because of Fran’s work, generations of local citizens are more engaged with the natural world, and the Arboretum has become recognized as a hub for environmental education in our community. Her leadership in education, as well as her many other contributions have been invaluable. We wish her all the best. After an extensive search, we were very lucky to find Jenny Laxton to help lead our education programs into the future. Jenny’s background includes directing programs at the School Garden Project of Lane County and coordinating outdoor science camps for OMSI. Please help us welcome her to the Arboretum. We are thrilled to have Jenny on our team as we roll out our new interpretive program and re-imagine environmental education with fresh ideas and new offerings.
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Board of Directors Anne Forrestel, President Chris Culver, Vice President Lann Leslie, Secretary Trever Campbell, Treasurer Scott Altenhoff Clare Bennett Nathan Cawood Aryana Ferguson Tim King David McLean Sarah Ulerick
Arboretum Staff
Brad van Appel, Executive Director Tom LoCascio, Site Manager Jenny Laxton, Education Prog. Coord. Charlotte Kreitlow, Office Manager Peg Douthit-Jackson, Special Events Coordinator August Jackson, Site Assistant Julie Hubbard-McNall, Bookkeeper Mandy Schultz, Events Svcs. Coord.
Contact Information
Office Phone: 541-747-3817 Education Phone: 541-747-1504 Fax: 541-741-4904 Email:
[email protected] Website and social networks: www.MountPisgahArboretum.org www.twitter.com/MtPisgahArb
facebook.com/mountpisgaharboretum
TREE TIME is published quarterly by Mount Pisgah Arboretum. Mount Pisgah Arboretum is a non-profit organization with a mission to enrich lives and community by growing our understanding and appreciation of trees and showcasing the ecology of this beautiful site. Facilities include miles of riverside and forest trails, picnic areas and a pavilion for events. We host outdoor programs to foster appreciation of the natural world. Please join us and help keep the Arboretum growing.
Mountain Rose Herbs Steps Up Its Support for MPA Over the next four years, Mountain Rose Herbs plans to invest $40,000 to help Mount Pisgah Arboretum realize its potential. Mountain Rose Herbs has long supported the Arboretum’s annual Mushroom and Wildflower Festivals, and more recently the Arboretum has begun hosting educational events presented through Mountain Rose’s Free Herbalism Project. Late last fall, Mountain Rose Herbs indicated its intention to contribute $10,000 in each of the next four years to help the Arboretum grow its organizational capacity and implement its new interpretive plan. Mountain Rose Herbs joins SeQuential Biofuels and CBT Nuggets as the newest additions to the Arboretum’s Business Partner Program. With Mountain Rose Herbs at a recent Arboretum festival the help of community partners like these, we will continue to enhance our habitat restoration and environmental education efforts, create new interactive exhibits to engage visitors with nature, and establish Mount Pisgah CBT N uggets team presenting Arboretum as the premier destination to explore the trees and ecology of the their large ch eck! Southern Willamette Valley. Call us to find out how your business can become part of this exciting new vision and leave a positive mark on your community.
A TRAIL MAP FOR TOMORROW by August Jackson Check out this new map feature on our website: www.MountPisgahArboretum.com/about-mpa/trail-maps As a young kid, I loved to spend hours pouring over field guides, identifying birds and flowers I had seen, and studying for the next outing, with the intent of making those field guides obsolete. Of course, as anybody who buys gifts for me knows, reference texts are anything but obsolete. As I grew older and learned how to use Geographic Information Systems software, I hoped to one day create a botanical field guide that could link each species to accessible locations in the wild. As a kid I could never have dreamt of having such information at my fingertips. Technology (at least affordable technology) finally met me halfway, as Google continually expands its suite of public mapping software. It’s not perfect, but the result is an interactive trail map with clickable trails and points that provides an unprecedented level of detail. As more and more people begin to visit the Arboretum from out of town, out of state, and out of country, this map will allow users to better plan their visit. It will provide detailed descriptions of what one may encounter on each trail, eventually including the bird species most likely to be seen, and bloom times for some of the most prominent and spectacular of our native wildflowers. Of course, these features will prove just as valuable to our thousands of regular visitors, who will be able to access and explore geolocated photos and information about our native plant species, including links to ethnobotanical data provided by interns from the University of Oregon’s Environmental Leadership Program, as well as other botanical information. Researchers will be able to use the data to study plant distribution, and perhaps even as a starting point in studying seed dispersal. Finally, this map will be the first ever to present information about the pollinators that visit each plant species, revolutionizing the data presented to our local scientific community. For recreational users, we will be presenting a long-asked-for feature, with accurate distances for each trail, allowing visitors to calculate how much they walked or ran. They will also be able to view when the trail was last worked on. Unfortunately, the map does not integrate well with smart phones and is best used as an exploratory tool before and after visiting. We plan to roll out a more simple trail map for smart phones in the near future. Happy trails!
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SITE REPORT by Tom LoCascio Winter’s slow advance has kept the Arboretum creeks running low and brought fog into the valley, like a tide across the landscape, filling cracks left by the lack of rain. Familiar voices have returned. As Great Horned Owls call out in the darkness of the forest canopy, cackling howls erupt from coyote clans declaring mating territories throughout the meadowlands. Down below, Pacific Chorus Frogs chime-in from pond and seep to proclaim their arrival as they repeat cycles that have existed for many moons. 2013 was a transitional year for the site. A time for completing goals and repairing aging infrastructure while building new bridges both physically and metaphorically. The Arboretum has grown a lot in the past 40 years. With 23 bridges, 24 benches, information kiosks, educational exhibits and buildings, site staff spends a good portion of our resources working with volunteers building and repairing structures. So it was with great pride, when on October 25, 2013 (two days before the Mushroom Festival) the final inspection came through and the word was given: The new Adkison Bridge is open for business! It took four years of fundraising and support from many community individuals, businesses, engineering consultants and volunteers to complete this project. Once again we have a path over the Water Garden Pond to lead school groups on Discovery Tours and a means for visitors to experience the beauty and many varied ecological habitats the area offers. Two new memorial benches were also constructed. One designed with Oregon White oak slabs is located near the Service Road just beyond the Zig-Zag Trailhead. The other designed with dyed precast high tensile concrete with imprints of wood grain and oak leaves is located along the Creek Trail. The Tom McCall Riverbank Bridge was also rebuilt, once again with the support of a large and diverse group of volunteers. And, a new drinking fountain was built for people and their furry friends by the main creek entrance. As we transition into the new year our focus will be on upgrading the front entrance/parking core areas which will include repairing the parking lot curbing and designing structures to facilitate diagonal parking to increase the lots parking capacity. We are excited to be installing our first eco-node of our new interpretive plan, a natural, woven wildlife blind in the Water Garden, which will be a fun and interesting learning experience for those who participate. The Site Crew will also reinvigorate our invasive species control programs and look to get the community more actively involved in habitat restoration, an aspect of the site that has taken a back seat to other more pressing projects the last several years.
Clip this voucher and join us for dinner Feb. 24th!
Whether building bridges over the Water Garden or into our community there are many opportunities for those who are interested to learn and/or provide expertise while volunteering at the Arboretum. Give us a call or visit our website to find out how you can help out, and consider visiting sometime soon.
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Contributions Commemorations
In memory of Howard and Ardys Bufurd Carol Clemens In memory of Genevieve and Mason Davis Lorraine and Mason Davis In memory of Mike Shirk Velma Shirk In honor of Janet Leslie Tom Bettman In honor of Lauren Herbert Weldon Family
Business Members Cornucopia Donald R. Dexter, Jr. DMD Emerald Empire Kiwanis Club Eugene Garden Club Eugene True Value Hardware Mountain Rose Herbs Rainscapes Sally Marie, MD, LLC SeQuential Shelton-Turnbull State Farm Insurance Agency, Sherry Schaefers Sundance Natural Foods Wildish Sand & Gravel
In-Kind
Fuel SeQuential Biofuels MUSHROOM FESTIVAL Organic Coffee and Brewer Cafe Mam Bread and Baked goods Great Harvest Bread Company Organic Fruit Organically Grown
Firing all the clay figures Sue Dockstader & Steen Mitchell Chemical toilets and hand washing station Best Pots Lobster Mushroom Soup Sundance Natural Foods Two-way radios for parking Oregon Woods
October 5, 2013 to January 6, 2014
Donors
More than $5000 Barbara Dumesnil CBT Nuggets $1,000 - $4,999 Edwin E. & June E. Cone Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation Betty Dickson Bill & Beki Montgomery Jon & Molly Stafford Starbucks $500 - $999 Len & Deb Blackstone Sue Dockstader & Steen Mitchell Emerald Empire Kiwanis Tim & Linda King Richard Nelson Hugh Townsend Josephine & Peter von Hippel $100 - $499 Keith Bucher Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture Lila Creager Diane & Jerome Diethelm Roy & Jan Dwyer Jeffrey Eaton Ann & David Fidanque Bea Fontana Anne Forrestel A.J. Roslyn Gaines Found. Jamie Gillie Melinda Grier & Jerry Lidz Mary Grosh David & Lois Hagen Roger & Elizabeth Hall P. Reid Hart Robert Hausmann Jennifer Heiss Jeff Houck Helen & Rudy Hwa Diane Jeffcott Barbara Cowan & Richard Larson
Elaine Lawson Lann & Melody Leslie Lois & James Lobben Rich Locus Sue Mandeville Cheshire Mayrsohn & Ernie Chizinski Jeffrey A. Morey & Gail Harris Kimberlysue Morton Mary Nelsen Richard Romm Susan Rutherford & Howard Anderson Victor Steuber Tom Toyama Daniel Udovic & Rosemary Delgado Sarah Ulerick Alvin Urquhart Brodie Washburn Jerry Welsh & Becky Bent Melissa Woo Sandra Wu Less than $100 Bruce Abel & Gail Richards Edrey Anker Steven Baker John Ballantine Diane Banos Mary Jane Battin Nancy Beck & Dave Taplin Jane Beckwith Ann Bettman Walter Biddle Denis Biesecker Anne E. Bonine Rich Branchik William & Lynn Buskirk Bruce & Georgeanna Campbell Terrence & Anne Carter Linda & Gary Christensen Dottie & Dennis Davis Jacque Davis Dianne Dugaw & Amanda Powell Susan Engbretson
Ruth & Brian Erickson Roberta Fair Hugh & Birgit Foley Patricia Franck Kurt Goldenstein Ann Heron Jaynese Louise Hiigel Constance Huff & Dennis Petty Sandy Itzkowitz Penny Jennings Richard Kelly Susan Laks Liz Lawrence & Aaron Brussat Kristin Lee & Mustafa Kasubhai Edith Leslie Newt Loken Marion Malcolm Jerry Maliner John & Lisa Manotti Paul Medaille Cindi Mertz Gretchen Miller & Sarah Hendrickson Laurie Monico Jack O’Donnell Connie Palmer Ellen Paulus Ernie & Greta Pressman Brian Price Sue & Hugh Prichard David & Cheri Reinhard Thomas & Barbara Roberts Myrna Seifert Matt & Sarah-Kate Sharkey Susie Smith & Alan Zelenka Bonnita Stahlberg Michael & Jennifer Strong Andrew Traisman Teressa Trusty Susanne Twight-Alexander Dave Ulrich Janet Wagner & Christopher Rubin Richard Weeks Weldon Family Pam Wooddell
New Members Jennifer Adriance, Karyn Aho, Yumi Aikawa & Vanessa Renhof, Benjamin & Corina Aleman, Leon & Hollie Atkinson, Mark Beach, Mark Beemer, Christina Bennett, Gary Bertelsen, Betsy Blume, Andrew & Caitllin Bradley-Dutterer, Kim Bruington, Mike Buchta, Emily Burton, Joe & Mandi Bussell, Fran Calciano, Sarah Campbell, Cara Collom, Naomi Cotler, Leah Croston, Aeden Dalena, Jeremy & Ashley Dice, Karen Dooley, Paul Dwyer, Kathleen Ebbage, Cody Evers, Gayle Faust, Ken & Lona Feldman, Pat Fischer, Rebecca & Sharon Flynn, Mirah Fodor, Jennifer Freyd, Bob Friedman, Daphne Gallagher, Lori Gendel, Sharon Gerl, Pam Gillen, Kurt Goldenstein, Laura Greene, Joanie Gross, Joy Haines, Peter & Rebecca Harlan, David Hascall, Kristen Higgins, Scott Holub, Constance Huff & Dennis Petty, Jenelle & Nate Hunt, Mimi Huxley, Lee Imonen, Anthony Jackson, Daniel Johnson, Jan Johnson, Susan Kelley, Sarah Kerr-Daly, Tom & Gita Kessler, Satnam Khalsa, Zach Kiyuna, Sheila Klest, Michelle Knapp, Kaisa Krafft, Jorah LaFleur, Andrew Lagerquist, Sarah Lame, Irmary & Ana Lara, Annabelle Leeson, Isha Lerner, Maria Loftin, John Lutes, Matt & Jessica Lutler, Caitlin MacDougall, Melissa Mann, Lauren May, Rachel McKinney, Andre Melloul, Katharine Miller, Thomas Mitchell, Anna Moore, Theresa Myers, Wendy Nessmith, Karen Norton, Daniel & Beverly O’Connell, Alina Padilla-Miller, Donna Parker, Matt Paul, Laurie Phillips, Douglas Price, Bob & Natalie Reeves, Kristine Rice, Carol Robe, Jim Robertson, Jeff Rose, Shannon Rose, Jared Rubin & Penny Joy Salus, Cathy Russell, Joel Saito, Toby Schaid, Erik Schulz, Emily Shack, Michelle Sheng-Palmisano, Erica Squires, Bonnie Stambaugh, Karen Stingle, Laura Stockford, David Stone, Alice Strong, Iain & Donna Stuart, Haley Stupasky, Grace Swanson, Jenelle Swartley, Dan Sweeney, Michelle Taft, Nora Talbot, Phillip & Elizabeth Thill, Joy Thomson, Titus Tomlinson, Rachel Turner, Sandra & Heidi van Brunt, Pete Venable, Robert Voss, Bill Ward & Katie Burden, Katrina Wolfe, Lori Wood, Matt Zhun 5
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pm May 18th 10am-5 Wanted: Potted plants for the Plant Sale! ator! Plant Sale Coordin Baked goods for the Bake Sale!
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