Groveatopia

What's the Cache?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 05:07:00 +0000

This bridge has a secret. Nearly every GroveAtopian knows exactly where this bridge is and exactly where this picture was taken. So that's not the secret. The bridge's secret is something else.

To find this secret you have to enjoy hunting. But not the kind of hunting that uses guns or other weapons. The only weapons you need for this hunt are patience and your phone.

People who try to discover this bridge's secret will look a bit odd while they are trying to figure it out. They may walk slowly one way, then turn and walk the other. They may cross the street and wander seemingly without reason along the the other side. People who recognize you and wave to you as they go into the feed store will tell you as they come out, "you don't seem to be making much progress on your walk."

"It's not a walk," you tell them as you smile at each other knowing the next time you see them they are going to ask you what you were doing.

Back and forth you walk across the bridge, your had slowly tracing across both the top and bottom railing while you check every nook and cranny. Before now you never realized how many there were on this bridge.

You check under the bridge. Maybe the secret is there. But no! Oh dear! Is someone living under there? Now you are kind of sorry you looked because that is something you didn't want to know. Plus there's more garbage down there than you care to admit.

But still you look. In the tree branches that hang near the railing? Is the the secret there? You really can't believe it's even possible the secret would be in the branches. There are so many of them, it would be downright cruel to hide a secret there.

Looking at your phone, you try to decipher the hints. Some of them mock you by telling you how easy it is to find the secret. How could they be so mean?

Finally, the most tenacious one in your group finds the secret and it is so very small and rather cleverly hidden. It turns out it's pretty much right where the hints said it would be. And many others have found it before us.

How do we know? Because when you find the secret, it tells you so.

Trucks use River

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 04:33:00 +0000

We already know that GroveAtopia is a little bit magic what with talk of fairies who occasionally appear to help us out when our story needs some help moving forward.

Apparently they are at work again, but this time they've communicated with us directly. They've left us a sign in a very busy spot over by the Woodson Bridge. They've told trucks to swim. Or float. No roads for them, because, as the sign says, "Trucks Use River."

Now some may wonder if this is a description of something that's already happening - just letting everyone know: Trucks Use River, so be careful. In that case the next sign might say "Cars Use Road." And the next could say, "Bicycles Use Sky" or "Pedestrians Use Trees." But now we are just being silly.

Maybe the sign is a command. "Hey Trucks! Use River!" In that case the next sign would say "Not Road!" because most trucks would assume they could use the road. But not here. Not in this place were trucks use the River because the fairies told them to.

Prison Gardeners

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Some time ago we established that GroveAtopia continues whether we write about it or not so there is no need to address the fact that we've been absent for over 3 years. That's longer than any written excuse can handle, so let's just skip it.

That said, over the years, writing and reading about GroveAtopia has been in the back of our minds, hasn't it? Some have even asked where it has been. That was surprising. The truth is that it been in the place where writing is before it hits the screen, wherever that is. Imagination? Fantasy? Some part of the brain called "time crunch?" In any case it has not been here.

But the other day, driving by City Hall an unusual gardening occurance was taking place and frankly, there is no better place to share it than here. It was so unusual that it took several awkward drive by attempts to photograph it, so please excuse the poor results. One plus of poor results is that people sometimes stick around for the explanation. Let's see if that is the case here.

Here is the first picture.

See? You were warned. It's not very good. So let's explain. The guy in the stripped suit. What is he doing? Why is he wearing what looks like prison garb straight from a cartoon?

Because he is a prisoner in the GroveAtopia jail. Yep, GroveAtopian prisoners have to wear cartoon clothes while they serve their time.

Now seeing a prisoner out and about on a pleasant Saturday afternoon might give one pause, but only if you don't realize that the brown door in the background of this picture leads directly to the police department. So given the combination of cartoon prisoner garb and proximity to the police department, this guy is probably not up to anything we should be worried about.

Actually, it turns out he's up to something that makes us happy in that mixed up kind of way you feel when you see a good thing being done by someone who is accused of having done something bad. At the very least you drive around the block and have another look.

And when you do, this is what you see. TWO guys in cartoon prison garb pulling weeds in the little patch of flowers between the police department, jail, city hall and the Territorial Seed call center - all right there on Main St.

Lest you think this is a common site here in GroveAtopia, well, it's not. We've seen prisoners washing patrol cars a few times before, so we know they are put to work.

But we've never seen them gardening, so when you drive by and the words "prison gardeners" pop into your mind, you simply have to tell someone about it.

More on Hot Stoves

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:35:00 +0000

What a surprise to read this in today's Register Guard:

Efficient stove solution

International visitors attend a workshop in Cottage Grove to see how stoves can help impoverished areas

BY BOB KEEFER

The Register-Guard

Published: Monday, Jan 24, 2011 05:01AM

COTTAGE GROVE — Here’s one way to look at it: The folks at Aprovecho Research Center want to save the world, one small stove at a time.

And, from the looks of things on Sunday, they may be slowly succeeding — with help from the United Nations.

“In Africa and in Asia, in rural areas, the issue of energy is one of the biggest problems,” said Valentine Ndibalema, one of about 20 people who assembled at a former hog-processing plant on the edge of Cottage Grove this weekend for Aprovecho’s 2011 Winter Stove Workshop.

“We need to find a way to reduce consumption. We are quite interested in seeing how things are done here.”

Ndibalema, a Tanzanian, is a senior environmental coordinator for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.

He came to Cottage Grove last week, as did people from Sudan, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Kenya, to spend five days exploring how to build a better stove. The workshop is being put on for staff from the U.N. World Food Programme.

The word “stove,” by the way, means something quite different here from your typical kitchen range. We are talking about the kind of small wood-burning stoves that are in common use by very poor people throughout the world, whether they live in a remote Latin American village or in a crowded refugee camp in Sudan.

Ndibalema works with displaced persons camps, where people cook using whatever fuels they can scrounge and where having a better stove can make a huge difference.

“There is a growing understanding that there is a suite of issues that need to be addressed that have to do with how people cook their food in the developing world,” explained Tom Skeele, the center’s corporate operations officer.

“This relates to air pollution, indoors and out. To safety — people getting burned, especially kids. To lung disease. To deforestation. In refugee and displaced persons camps, women are going outside the camps to find fuel and they are being raped. If we can increase the effectiveness of stoves, then more time can be put into getting a woman or her children an education. Or getting a job.”

The research center focuses on stove design and construction, creating stoves for single-family use (these are about the size of a five-gallon bucket) or for institutional cooking (think 55-gallon oil drum). Aprovecho has even designed a wood-fired autoclave for sterilizing hospital instruments. A small family stove costs about $14.

Outside next to a small garden, Fred Colgan, who is co-director of Aprovecho’s Institutional Stove Project, put his ungloved hand on the bare metal chimney of a big green stove that was boiling a kettle of water in the open air. (It was Colgan’s meeting with Ndibalema in Rome last year, while on his way back from Nigeria, that brought the U.N. staffers here to Oregon.)

“This doesn’t burn you,” he said. “It’s safe to touch anywhere even while the stove is burning.”

That’s because the stove, which is literally built from a 55-gallon drum, is so efficient that the heat goes into boiling water, not making the outside of the stove hot.

“This stove will boil 30 liters of water in 22 minutes using just 1,200 grams of fuel,” Colgan said proudly.

(For the metrically challenged, that means it will bring about 8 gallons of water to a boil using just about 2.5 pounds of firewood.)

The heat is conserved by, for example, designing the stove to wrap around not only the bottom but also the sides of a 60-liter cooking kettle, so that the stove’s intense heat blasts nearly the entire surface of the kettle. As a result, the institutional stoves are up to 90 percent more efficient than stoves generally in use, Colgan said.

While that big stove burned away in the open air, a smaller, family-style Aprovecho stove was boiling its own smaller pot of water atop a concrete pad inside a closed room.

Amit Singh, an officer with the U.N. World Food Programme in Darfur, was standing right next to the stove, just as a cook might. But he was monitoring the air quality in the room with a variety of sensors.

Despite the unvented stove, the air was tangy, but not choking by any means.

Singh is working with Aprovecho to bring 200 of its institutional stoves to Darfur, paid for by the world food program. “We will give them to the schools there,” he said. “We are feeding kids there when they go to school.”

Another participant in the conference is Habib Iddrisu. He grew up in a small village in Ghana, but came to the United States and married a Eugene woman.

Iddrisu wanted to see about bringing Aprovecho stoves back to Ghana.

“People use open fires to cook on,” he said. “I didn’t realize just how bad that was until I came here. I went back there with my wife and family this summer. We realized how much this stove technology could benefit life in Ghana.”

The conference continues through Wednesday.

Warning: Hot Stove!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:12:00 +0000

Depending on your point of view, the objects in this picture may look really interesting or they may look just the opposite. But whatever you think about the objects themselves, as is so often the case, the story behind them is interesting, no matter what your point of view.

So let's start with the obvious question. What are they?

They're cookstoves. They're fueled by wood or charcoal and they were developed right here in GroveAtopia at the Aprovecho Research Center.

Now I'm pretty sure you don't know what the word aprovecho means but oddly enough, there are two places called Aprovecho in GroveAtopia, so it's probably worth taking a moment to at least explain what it means. Both Aprovechos used to be related, but now they're not. We'll talk about that in another post. For now suffice it to say in GroveAtopia we know there is "stove Aprovecho" and "sustainable living Aprovecho." Clearly we are talking here about "stove Aprovecho."

As for what aprovecho means - don't worry, you aren't alone, because that's the first thing most people ask when you start talking about it - aprovecho means "to make the best use of."

So what you have in the picture is the main product of "stove Aprovecho." It's called a StoveTec and it's a low-cost, low-emission cookstove designed for use wherever people do most of their cooking over an open fire.

If you think about it for about a nano-second you realize that quite a lot of the rest of the world cooks over an open flame - sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors. But you probably didn't think about it much more than that.

If you did though, and the people at Aprovecho most certainly did - in great detail for many years - you would realize that cooking over an open flame presents problems. One is that it's basically not healthy for the people and air they breath - especially if they are cooking indoors. The other is that it can be hard to find fuel. Especially if you live in the same place for a long time. Eventually you run out.

So for the past 29 years, the folks at Aprovecho have been working to solve this problem. Their solutions keep getting better and better, and as they do they keep getting noticed more and more. If you clicked on the link to their website you know they have won an award from none other than Prince Charles, been featured in the New Yorker and even made an appearance on Martha Stewart.

And here's a scoop, tomorrow morning, NPR will be here to do a story on them.

This is all pretty heady stuff for our little town. Imagine international notoriety for doing good around the world. We in GroveAtopia don't have to imagine it though because it's already being done.

Our naked bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:39:00 +0000

Imagine what it was like to drive downtown the other day and find our most iconic bridge standing there, right in public, stark naked. Quite simply, it was a shock.

It wasn't the kind of shock you want the the little children to turn their heads away from, because this was not that kind of nudity. This was the kind of shock you feel when something utterly familiar has suddenly changed. In fact you didn't even know just how familiar it was to you until it changed. Overnight. Just like that.

This naked little bridge is known as Centennial Bridge because it was constructed in 1997, the year GroveAtopia turned 100. It is not a "genuine" covered bridge because covered bridge purists like to see the bridges where they originally stood, and preferably still carrying traffic. But it was constructed from timbers salvaged from two covered bridges that were taken down, so that gives it some genuiness, now doesn't it?

Genuine or not, the Centennial Bridge is probably the most photographed of our bridges because it is right downtown and because it is a pedestrian bridge. It's smaller than covered bridges that were built for vehicles, and in some ways that makes it even more genuine than its bigger cousins in the surrounding countryside, because nearly everyone sees this bridge every day and most have probably walked across it at least once. Okay, I just met someone who has lived here all his life and has never walked across it, but I'm sure he's the only one.

So just what is our bridge doing standing there naked in the coldest part of winter?

Well it's actually good news. The bridge was looking worse for the wear, so the Lions Club went in one Saturday and took off the siding. It will be replaced by new siding, and the lights inside and out will be upgraded. Plus the little window boxes full of flowers that originally hung outside each little window will be returned too.

The whole project is supposed to be completed by the end of February.

In the meantime here is your chance to see the outside of the bridge's insides. In case you wanted to know, when you look at the bridge now, what you are seeing are its Howe Trusses.

And you can still walk across it even though it's stark naked.

The elusive winter egg

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:25:00 +0000

We all know that it has been a very long time since you've heard anything from GroveAtopia. But as you know, that does not mean we have not been here. We didn't disappear or cease to exist, we just stopped writing about it for what turned out to be quite a while.

I'm going to spare you the promises, vows and commitments you are expecting to hear. You know the ones where I talk about how I will post more regularly and not let so much time lapse between postings.

But let's be honest. Let's not set ourselves up for disappointment, self criticism or guilt. Let's just enjoy what we have right now - another post from our favorite place - GroveAtopia. Whether we post regularly or not, GroveAtopia can take it. So let's just jump right in, shall we?

It's winter in GroveAtopia and as if rain, occasional snow, and the particularly menacing sounding freezing fog we experience during this dark season were not enough, we must also endure an egg shortage.

I know, it doesn't sound right, does it? Why not just go to the store and get a dozen? The stores have plenty.

But here in GroveAtopia, we do it differently. We only go to the store to buy eggs as a last resort. We'd rather get our eggs from our neighbor because in the GroveAtopian countryside chances are our neighbor has chickens and those chickens are not shy about producing plenty of eggs. In spring, summer and fall that is. Not in winter.

Before I came to GroveAtopia I didn't know this, and maybe you don't either, but it turns out chickens need a certain amount of light to lay eggs. So right around about Halloween, the chickens start laying fewer and fewer eggs until by Christmas, finding a farm egg in GroveAtopia can be nearly impossible.

For awhile I could get them at the Old Mill Feed Store. Then their source stopped laying. Then I could get them at Scott's farm stand. Then those chickens succumbed to winter. Then there were the terrible few weeks where I had to buy them at the store. Let's not dwell on that difficult time.

Lately I've been able to get them at Farmhand Feed. You are limited to one dozen per week - but last week I got lucky and got a dozen and a half. Jackpot! I'm so happy to find a reliable source of winter eggs I'm not even going to ask Mary, who runs Farmhand Feed, where she gets them.

It may not be convenient, but when you think about it, maybe that's how it should be. When you eat an egg, you should think about the chicken, or if you don't know the chicken well enough to think about it, at least think about the fact that a chicken was involved. Your GroveAtopian farm egg may not come from a chicken you know personally, but someone you know probably does.

So when I have my dozen winter eggs in my refrigerator, I feel happy. And if I have enough to hard-boil, well that's just a bonus.

What a contrast to the summer months, when there is plenty of light and there are plenty of eggs. So many in fact that I had dozens stacked in the refrigerator. But until those days return, I'll cherish my elusive winter eggs.

Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 05:56:00 +0000

The weather has been on the minds of many GroveAtopians lately.

That's because, even though we had a few days where we thought the Lovely Season was here, it turns out we were wrong. Those few days turned out to be just that: a few days. What we've been experiencing since then is anything but Lovely.

Usually by now, we are wearing our summer clothes, the sun is shining most days and we are basking in its warmth. We are as busy as the bees buzzing around our yards, puttering here and there, and usually have our garden pretty much planted by now. Even the warm weather plants.

But this year is turning out to be very different. It has rained nearly every day in June. And not just a little rain. A lot of rain. Sometimes buckets and buckets of rain fall from the sky for most of the day. Sometimes it just drizzles. Sometimes we have a day of so-called "sun breaks" - but between the breaks is rain.

We are known for rain here in GroveAtopia, but even we have our limits. And so do our gardens. See the tomatoes and cucumbers in the picture? They were planted just last week. See the soaker hose? Won't be needing that for awhile.

The rain has really made nature even more crazy than it usually is during this time of year. It's great for leaves, but not so great for fruit and vegetables. The strawberries are still green, running the race between mold, mildew and rot and ripening. The garlic is waist high, but are the bulbs forming?

The slugs and snails are happy though. Those little cucumbers were planted with the complete expectation that they would lose the battle with the slugs, but now, a week later, amazingly they are still there. It's a completely different story with the broccoli though. It will have to be replaced.

The grass likes it too. The mighty grass of GroveAtopia is mightier than ever. And the pollen has been tolerable.

But despite all the weather oddities, we persevere. We keep planting. But as each plant is put in the ground, we bid it good luck.

Then we hope. Because really that's about all we can do - hope our little plants make it until the real GroveAtopian weather returns.

Burgerville: Still perfect

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:25:00 +0000

We know Burgerville is perfect fast food. We already said so, remember? Well guess what? Now they are even perfecter.

It had been some time since we visited our nearest Burgerville, which sadly, is about 60 miles away in Albany. There are a few in Portland and the outlying areas, but it's really Washington that's the lucky one. There are Burgervilles off just about every exit along I-5 from Vancouver to Olympia.

So when we were there today, we wondered if it was still as good as we remembered it.

Yep. It's even better.

They've always served their drinks with compostable straws but now they come in compostable cups too. They are serving fried asparagus spears - the nerve! And there's a new coho salmon sandwich on the menu that's delicious.

But the real piece of perfection is the receipt. Usually you take the receipt and shove it in your pocket, purse or in some crevice in your car and don't think twice about it. But for some reason this time we did think twice about it. We had a closer look and there they were. Nutrition facts.

But it wasn't just the usual nutrition facts. It was nutrition facts customized to your order. So you could tell exactly how many calories, and how much fat, carbs and fiber were in the items you ordered.

For example, we usually ask for no mayo on our orders. Hey, that knocks 100 calories off your meal. What if you order mustard? It'll cost you 20 calories. And the salmon sandwich? You knew it had a lot of calories with that lemon aioli on it. You were right. That sandwich is 500 calories. But they are such yummy calories.

The so-called smart receipt is made possible by a company called Nutricate. What a simple solution to a big problem - how to find out how many calories are in the food you eat in restaurants.

Even with the typical nutrition chart you receive at major restaurants - usually upon request only - there is a certain amount of guess work, particularly if you order something that's not exactly as it appears on the menu. But the smart receipt takes care of that because it reflects exactly what you ordered.

So as before, the question remains, if Burgerville can do it, why can't the others?

One more thing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 May 2010 17:51:00 +0000

About the museum exhibit opening - you saw one teeny tiny photo with yesterday's post. To see more photos look at Julie and Brinsley's great website.

Julie and Brinsley are GroveAtopia's best photographers. In fact while you are at their website looking at the museum photos, check out some of their others. One look and it will be immediately clear you are looking at something beyond the usual. We are fortunate to have them here in GroveAtopia.

A crowd

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 May 2010 07:09:00 +0000

Here is a crowd of people.

We have our share of crowd gatherings in GroveAtopia, but what is noteworthy about this crowd is that it is in a place where there hasn't been a crowd for a long, long time.

That's because there has been nothing here for a crowd to gather for in a long, long time. So what's everyone gathered for?

A few days ago you read our museum, the one that is so full of old stuff that it in essence serves as GroveAtopia's attic, was getting some much needed attention. A couple of teachers from Dorena school spend the last 9 months laboriously going through items big and small, pristine and rusty, identifiable and unidentifiable and piecing them all together into something most museums have. It's called an exhibit.

Everyone is gathered here for the opening of that exhibit. There was even a ribbon cutting, complete with giant scissors.

There were somewhere between 50-75 people at the exhibit opening. The mayor was there. A few city councilors were there. The museum board was there. So was the Historical Society. And just regular GroveAtopains were there too.

You see, the museum is smack dab in the middle of GroveAtopia's very first and most historic neighborhood, so its neighbors are the homes of regular GroveAtopians. Curious about the unusually large gathering in their neighborhood, many of them simply walked over to see what was up. Plus there was barbecue from Big Stuff. Even if you hate museums, you'd come for that alone.

Now our museum is really a museum. It has a real live exhibit, just like the grown-up museums have. We can now proudly take our place along with other small town museums and you simply must take the time to see it.

Not kaput

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 May 2010 07:03:00 +0000

Yes. It has been awhile. A long while. But even though nothing has been posted here in quite some time, GroveAtopia continues on. Like a good book where the characters seem to carry on even when you close the it, GroveAtopia is here whether we read and write about it or not. It is not kaput.

In fact, the Lovely Season has arrived and once again all is green, fluffy, mild and moist. The air is soft. The birds are busy. And the flowers we somehow manage to forget about every year have returned.

In a way it is a blessing that we forget because then every year we get to be surprised again at how lovely it all is. If you ever sigh with boredom at the reappearance of the Lovely Season, then something is seriously wrong. Consider seeing a doctor.

But for now, let's turn our attention to some of the many many many things that have happened while we haven't been writing about them.

One of them is the new exhibit at our museum.

We talked about it when it needed painting, then again when it got painted, and now it's getting a new exhibit. It's a big deal, because for a very long time the museum was, well, a museum, but not in the best sense of the word. It was really GroveAtopia's attic, chock full of things that people had left on the doorstep, or that relatives had brought by thinking the museum should have them simply because they were old.

Apparently the museum very rarely said no, and the result was a tremendous mish-mash of old stuff. There was so much of it, it was stored in the neighboring annex building. There was so much of it that the annex building was rarely opened. There was so much of it that no one could make any sense of it without a personal tour. Even then the stuff in there was, well stuff. It told snippets of unrelated stories about GroveAtopia's past, but no one had ever put it together into a coherent exhibit that told a coherent story about our town's past.

Until now. Through a series of fortunate events, two teachers from one of GroveAtopia's small schools were awarded a Teaching American History grant to do just that - teach american history. They decided to teach GroveAtopia's piece of american history by developing a series of small exhibits that depict life in Cottage Grove as it was in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The exhibit is called "Living Our History" and it opens this weekend. You can read about it here.

If you are lucky you can come to the opening, enjoy the exhibit and enjoy some food from Big Stuff BBQ. If not, perhaps you can drop by sometime when the museum is open. And by the way, the museum is open from 1-4, not 10-3 like it says in the newspaper.

So Blue So Sunny

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:16:00 +0000

It turns out there is a giant place that begins 174 miles south of GroveAtopia. Even though there is no visible dividing line other than a sign, the minute you cross into it you know you are someplace else.

First there are the exit numbers. Seven hundred and ninety-six of them. My goodness that's a lot of exits. Especially compared to our relatively humble three hundred and eight. So right away you know you something has changed.

Then there is the weather with its unending blue sky and sun. As you wend your way through the mountains and descend into the great valley, once again you realize you have brought the wrong clothes. That's because even though it's mid-March, down here it's 75 degrees. Your GroveAtopian wardrobe just won't do.

Silly you, you even brought along heavy sweater. You only brought one short sleeve shirt and that was an afterthought. Now you realize you could have brought your entire summer wardrobe and been just fine. But now it's too late.

What is it like living with all this sun and sky? Well it does whacky things to the flowers. They bloom everywhere, all the time. Nothing ever seems to die. Nothing ever seems to have time to rest. There is never that time when everything is dead, quiet or resting. No anticipation of the first appearance of this or that little green thing poking its head through the soil you were convinced was dead.

You might think with all this sunny weather that the people who live here would always be sunny too, but that's not the case. It's not their fault though. They live in a place that's so vast that even the smallest towns are swallowed up by their bigger neighbors. And because of their sheer numbers, by and large they live lives of anonymity. And that can make people cranky.

Even so, it's nice that things are so nice here so that occasionally we GroveAtopians may visit and enjoy them. Then, lucky us, we get to go back. Back to who and what we know. It's colder, nowhere near as sunny and nowhere near as blue, but we've been there long enough that we believe that's how things are and that's how they should be.

Others might not see it. They might not agree. But we love it and embrace it and we even defend it in the face of logic and evidence to the contrary.

That's because when we are back, as we pass each other we smile, whether we know each other or not. We don't depend on the weather for our sun. We depend on each other, and because of that, it's always sunny in GroveAtopia.

Decisions decisions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:08:00 +0000

Today the weather was fine here in GroveAtopia, so of course we were outside in the garden. And in the garden this is the time of year for decisions.

Until now we've been able to ignore the garden and pretend nothing was happening out there all winter. But now, we've had enough fine weather that we can no longer ignore the simple fact that indeed there have been things happening out there and now is the time to face them.

We've been doing a windshield survey of the situation gazing out the window now and then over the past few weeks, trying to assess the situation. We had that awful week of weather from somewhere else, where the temperatures were in single digits. What made it through and what didn't?

By now you thought you had a pretty good idea what the answer is. The ceanothus did not make it. But the forsythia did. The penstimon didn't make it and that was surprising. And oh dear, the lavetera looks completely dead. And you've been nursing that one along for 5 years now.

But today we had the chance to take a closer look. Yes indeed the ceanothus is gone. Darn! It was just starting to look great. That's a real loss. The forsythia is unscathed. Good. But the lavetera, it looks completely devesated. You raise the shovel, ready to uproot it - but wait! Look closely. Leaves! New ones at the base of the plant! Oh joy! Survival!

We make our way down the bed, pulling weed after weed, and yanking on last year's brown grass. Then it catches your eye. An unfamiliar clump. And now comes the decision. Weed or not? Pull it or leave it?

You search your mind's eye hoping to find a match. Have you seen it before? Last year, what did you do?

Now a real gardener would probably know in an instant what to do, but for the rest of us, these moments of decision can weigh heavily upon us. If we leave it, and it is a weed, will it transform into one of the vicious ones that, by the time you get around to pulling it will spray millions of its seeds in your garden?

But what if you pull it and it turns out that it was something lovely? Now that would truly be a tragedy. Plant by plant we make our decisions as best we can.

Sometimes we make the wrong one as the plant we just dug out by the root shows us the new leaves that we suddenly recognize, but it's too late. We are saddened and wish we could take it back. Maybe we can put it back, and maybe it will grow anyway. Maybe not.

To make up for our error, we may leave that mysterious clump with fresh new leaves - even though we have no idea what it is. Let's just wait and see.

Then you step back for a moment and take it all in. Yes some beloved plants died. Yet others you thought would actually didn't. We try not to dwell on it and once the job is done, we don't.

But as we are doing it, plant by plant, weed by weed, for a moment we hold a tiny bit of fate in our hands. Decision by decision we move through the garden rediscovering yet again, just what it is we have growing out there.

While we were away

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:19:00 +0000

Even though we haven't been reading and writing about it, GroveAtopia continues on. It does that whether we note it here or not.

So while we were away, things were still happening. We'll talk about some of them here and now - others we will save for later.

Since we last discussed the phone booth behind the Pink House, several others have been spotted around town. Three to be exact. Turns out is a single phone booth at the Shell station on Highway 99 and a double phone booth at the Chevron station across from the Village Green.

So there. Now you know there are at least 4 phone booths in GroveAtopia and there may very well be more. But probably not that many more, and probably many fewer than there were in the days before cell phones.

Of the 4 phone booths we know of, the one at the Pink House is still the best, because it stands alone in a hidden place, not surrounded by any other bright lights, so it doesn't have to compete to stand out. If you are so inclined, take a look for yourself. You could even do a little tour. Drive to each phone booth, then judge for yourself. You'll likely agree that our original phone booth is the best of the lot.

As for the other things that have been happening in GroveAtopia, I will say this. They involve a barn, a bridge, and a hotel. All of them are in peril, only one has a certain and happy future. Which one do you think it is?

Check in now and then to find out.

The last phone booth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:15:00 +0000

While we are on the subject of phones, here's a relic. It's not as much of a relic as the answering service, but almost.

Do you know what it is? Of course you do, but come to think of it, you really haven't seen one in quite some time. That's because there are hardly any left any more. But we still have one. It's in the parking lot of the Pink House.

These used to be as common as the corner mail box - another relic - but now you rarely see one. Especially a "full body" one like this one. You can actually go inside this one although it doesn't have a door to close.

It's no secret why we rarely see phone booths anymore. They come from the days when we had to go to the phone, rather than the phone coming with us. Nowadays of course nearly everyone's phone comes with them everywhere all the time, and even those whose phones don't come with them everywhere can at least take their phone with them around the house now that phones are cordless.

Still, the fact that there is even one full sized phone booth left and that it is here in GroveAtopia, is comforting. Even though the world has forced us to modernize by using 10 digits to dial a phone number, we still have a few throwbacks to the time before that and this phone booth is certainly one of them.

Number please...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:47:00 +0000

In our last post we discussed the new complication to dialing phone numbers here in GroveAtopia. The modern age has forced us to have to use an area code no matter where we are calling, whether it be across the street or across the country.

Now we will turn our attention to the opposite. While GroveAtopia has many devices from the modern era - cell phones, cordless phones, answering machines, DSL and a new WiFi service - to name a few, we also still have things from the olden days. One of those things is a good old fashioned answering service.

The Cottage Grove Answering Service has been around for 30 years, but the switchboard is from the 1930s. Yep, to answer calls, Kitty Slack, who is the sole operator and on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, uses is an old fashioned switchboard - the kind where you pull the plug out of one mysterious hole, and put it into another. Miraculously the call is answered.

Why on earth would anyone still use such a service? Well it turns out in this day and age, people are getting tired of leaving impersonal messages and talking to machines. So if you use Kitty's answering service, your customers or patients or whoever calls you will, no matter what time of day or night, no matter what day of the week, always talk to a real person. Kitty.

Some of Kitty's customers have been with her from the very beginning. Others joined later. Still later she added to her service. She is GroveAtopia's only FedEx drop off point. She also collects payments for people's phone bills, water bills, electric bills, cell phone bills and insurance bills. And she sells some of her crafts in the store. And she has a pretty garden in her parking strip out front.

Kitty never leaves the place. She even sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor near the switchboard so she is always available to answer a call. But really she doesn't need to leave, because at one time or another, if you live in GroveAtopia, you will find yourself visiting Kitty for one reason or another. And when you do, you'll know you've just visited a place from the past. But it won't seem that way. It will seem just as natural as can be.

Next time you are here, be sure stop by. If you listen very closely you'll hear the fairies. They gather each day to watch over the place because they, like us are charmed by it. I think they even help her late at night when she may not feel like answering the phone. I think they it answer for her. After all, who would know?

Three little numbers. One big pain.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:41:00 +0000

541. We all know this as our area code here in GroveAtopia. In fact it is the area code for most of Oregon south of Salem. If you want to know exactly where, you can look it up.

Not too long ago all of Oregon only had one area code: 503. Then because of something having to do with cell phones and people moving here, the 541 area code was created. We got used to it.

Here in GroveAtopia, we are small enough that until quite recently we only had one prefix: 942. Gosh that makes remembering people's phone numbers easy. Not as easy as it was when we had the simple exchange where we could simply dial two digits and ring someone up, but simple enough. The other prefix is 767, but it seems so few people have it that it is not too difficult to remember it when we must. It usually, though not always, belongs to people who have moved here somewhat recently.

As it works out, 942 is the default prefix. You don't even have to say it when someone asks you your phone number. You simply say the last four digits. The 942 is assumed. If you have a 767 prefix, well then you must say the whole phone number.

So here we were, merrily dialing each other, in most cases needing only to remember 4 digits. Then one day the phone company said no more. There are no more telephone numbers to give out in the 541 area code. Again, cell phones and new comers were to blame.

And the fix? Now we must all dial the 541 area code to talk to anyone in our area code. That means if we want to call anyone with a 942 or 767 prefix - which means anyone here in GroveAtopia - we must all dial 541 first. Now instead of dialing 7 digits and remembering 4, we must remember 4 but dial 10 and sometimes 11. That's because sometimes we need the 1 before the 541.

Dialing 541 applies no matter how far away the person lives. They could live clear out past London School or right next door, you still need to dial the 541 area code.

Once upon a time, an area code meant something. It was reserved for dialing long distance, to places far away. Now it just means, well, that there are lots of phones and people and not enough phone numbers to go around.

So it's going to take some time. Time to get used to. Time to get over being aggravated every time we forget to dial it. Time to make it as automatic as 942. Time to not think it's silly to dial an area code in a town as small as this when we just want to call the lady next door.

A bad thing happened to a good place

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:51:00 +0000

Like most towns, GroveAtopia is dotted with various small grocery stores and mini marts. Some are of the chain variety and some are just a little corner grocery store owned by a real person.

That's what Diane's Market was. A little corner grocery store owned by a real person whose real name was Diane. That's Diane in the picture over there.

Diane's used to be Rita's. And yes there was a Rita too. In fact it's been a corner grocery store owned by a real person for a very long time.

Four years ago when Rita's became Diane's it took us all awhile to get used to it. We kept calling it Rita's for awhile until we finally got it through our heads that it was now Diane's.

There were a few changes too. Diane brought in little tables and chairs. She started a free lending library. She had a very large Pez collection on the wall. And she sold paraphernalia. She kept it in a little case behind the counter.

Lots of people went to Diane's. Usually they would run in, pick up something and run out. It was that kind of place. No lines, just that stuff you need at the last minute, or that one item you need and don't want to wade through the vastness of Safeway to get.

But others, those who had no place else to go, didn't run in and pick something up and run out. They walked in and stayed. They hung out there.

Diane tried to be tolerant, but sometimes people did bad things while they were hanging out and Diane had to call the police. But Diane said the police wouldn't help her. The bad people kept coming back. She wrote letters about it to the paper.

So when a disgruntled employee accused her and her husband Dave of selling marjuana at the store and accepting the Oregon Trail card for payment, the police arrested them. They searched Dave and Diane's house and found Dave was growing marjiuana there. He had a medical permit to do that, but he might have been growing more than was allowed. Both Dave and Diane's mug shots were in the paper.

The charges were dropped, but the accusation lingered. People stopped coming to Diane's. They stopped paying their debts.

So now she has to close the store and leave GroveAtopia to move back to where she came from.

As for the rest of us, now we have to worry. Was someone we know falsely accused? Did an injustice take place? Where will the elderly people who live across the street shop now? Who will buy the store? Will it even keep being a grocery store?

But our biggest worry is this: were we too quick to judge?

My Favorite Moss

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:38:00 +0000

Most of the rest of the world has the usual seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Here in GroveAtopia, our seasons are different.

You've already learned about The Lovely Season. Well now it is The Moss Season.

You might think you've seen moss. Nearly everyone has. But you really haven't seen moss until you've been in GroveAtopia during The Moss Season.

Step outside on a gray and mild day and the moss is there. You can almost see it grow. It is hairier and bushier and leafier today than it was yesterday. It has almost devoured the birdhouse. The fence posts are barely visible and some of the tree trunks have such a lush green carpet of moss you swear they have lost their bark beneath.

Which do you like best? The moss that looks like lettuce leaves? The moss that looks like little green stars or the moss that if you look very closely looks like it would feel soft, but really doesn't?

My favorite is the slender spiky moss that has a little cup at the top that contains a small red, what is it? Well it isn't a flower, because moss does not flower. It's a little tiny dollop of something that clearly belongs to the plant. Fairies probably look at it as a special treat, it being practically the only thing that isn't some shade of green in the moss world.

When it gets cold, the moss shrinks away. We worry about it then. Is it dead? Will it come back? Without it everything looks like everywhere else does in winter. Brown.

But then the temperature gets warmer and the rain returns and so does the moss. What were you worried about? It always comes back. It is our own little miracle that shows us that even in the midst of winter things grow. It gives us hope and helps remind us there is more, much more, to come.

GroveAtopia, A-Z

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:52:00 +0000

GroveAtopia's favorite publication was in the mailbox yesterday. The new phone book arrived!

Our phone book is probably the most well-thumbed book we GroveAtopians own. We are always meeting new people, and since our town is small, we know we will see them again. Soon.

So when we meet them, we exchange talk, then, if it didn't come up in the conversation, we go home and look them up in the phone book to find out where they live.

Unlike big city phone books, the GroveAtopia phone book is manageable. It fits nicely in any drawer and does not require any special weightlifting training to manueuver. At 1/2 an inch thick and 150 pages it is large enough to be taken seriously, unlike the phone books of tiny towns that are not much bigger than a pamphlet. And, unlike big city phone books, when you leaf through the GroveAtopian phone book, there, on every page is at the name of at least one person you know.

But maybe you didn't know they lived out Mosby Creek way and those others live on Bennett Creek. You didn't know they lived right here in town, and just were is Valley View Drive?

Seeing so many people you know as you browse through the phone book is comforting. No, you don't know all of them. You probably don't even know half of them. But you do know enough of them that you feel good when you find your own name, because there it is, surrounded by more people you know, or will know, instead of by the tiny names of many, many, many people you don't know and never will.

Alley cats

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:03:00 +0000

Here in GroveAtopia we have alleys. And we have cats. So we have alley cats.

There aren't a lot of them, nor are there too many of them, but they are there.

It's the same with the alleys. There aren't a lot of them, nor are there too many of them, but they too are there.

The alleys run behind the businesses on both sides of Main Street. They are used for deliveries and storage, for garbage cans and boxes. And sometimes they are used as short cuts. That's when there can be trouble.

You see, the cats also use the alleys. Some live there. Some are just there because a kindly business owner feeds them there. The trouble comes when some people use the alleys as shortcuts they either don't know or entirely forget about the cats and that can lead to unpleasant encounters.

Of course the Bookmine has cats. One or two of them live in the shop itself, but then there are those who live in the alley. Gail feeds them there, so of course they linger, waiting.

So one day when Gail was talking about this problem with one of her customers, that customer offered to paint her a sign to hang in the alley. "Sure," said Gail. "Thanks."

Expecting a simple warning sign, imagine Gail's surprise when the customer presented her with this lovely piece of artwork. It's much more eye catching than the usual warning sign, don't you think? Plus it adds a bit of beauty to the alley, which, well let's be honest, is not the most beautiful place in town.

But with a sign like that, it almost is.

Happy New Year! Mystery Solved!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:09:00 +0000

Let's start the new year off right by solving one of GroveAtopia's great mysteries of 2009 - the Mystery boxes.

I'm sure you remember back in March, when we discussed the strange case of the mystery boxes that had been inexplicably been placed behind the bars on the porch of the historic First National Bank building on the corner of 6th and Main Street downtown. In case you don't recall, here is a picture to remind you.

Now do you remember? Those two boxes sat there in that exact position for nearly 2 years. Later a few more boxes were added, then some garbage. Clearly the situation was deteriorating. Who was putting them there? Why? All we knew was that they were coming from inside the building because those bars are never, ever, ever open. Why that is the case is yet another mystery, but let's not get carried away here. Let's stay focused on those boxes.

So you can imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I was driving by the building and gasp! The boxes and their accompanying garbage were gone. For the first time in at least two years, that entryway was clean. Suddenly. So now the mystery was not why the boxes were there, but why the boxes were gone. Face it, everything about those boxes a mystery.

So now for the mystery solved part. A week or so later a sign appeared on the building. It's for sale. So of course the porch had to be cleaned up. Funny how it did not need to be cleaned up for us, but now that guests might be coming, well, time to clean.

It turns out that I am not the only one who noticed those boxes and that they were suddenly gone. The frame shop owner, whose building is right across the alley from the bank building, knows the lawyer who owns the building. He says he kept bugging him to remove the boxes, but somehow the owner never got around to it.

Then, later a friend at a birthday party brought up the boxes. He too noticed they were gone and had wondered why they were there in the first place. He also thinks the building would make a great toy and hobby shop, but then he is in to toys and hobbies.

So if you want to buy a building that was built in 1911, is the downtown historic district, and does not, I repeat, does not have boxes in the front entry way, then here is your chance.

And if you do buy the building, please promise you will never, ever put boxes in that entry way again.

Where did your Christmas tree come from?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:32:00 +0000

I don't know where yours came from, but mine came from across the street. There's a small tree farm over there, and every year this little sign appears along the road.

If you walk or drive up the road, you'll pass the farm - a patch of about 1/2 acre of lovely trees, ranging from tabletop size to over 6', each one perfectly manicured to be shaped like, well, a Christmas tree.

Which to you prefer? The Grand, which is the dark green fluffy branched tree, or the Noble, which is the lighter green tree with short, thick needles with lots of space between the branches. Walk through the trees and take your pick.

Once you've decided on the perfect tree, Gary will come with his chainsaw and cut it for you. He's the one who labors and fusses over the trees. You can see him out in August, trimming and shaping each and every one.

Or, if you'd rather, you can bring your own saw and do it yourself. It takes about 45 seconds to cut a tree that took 8 years to grow. Then, if you are lucky, all you need to do is get someone to take the other end, and together you walk it down the road, across the street, and your tree is home for the holidays.

Now, if you live in the big city, you may want to make sure you are sitting down before you read this next bit, because it will shock you. Are you ready? Okay. Guess what the 6' Noble fir cost?

Twelve.

Dollars.

Not one hundred and twelve dollars, which is what someone I know paid for his city tree.

These trees cost just $12 and it is an simply an honor to have one in your house.

Happy, fun and cute

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:59:00 +0000

Happy. That's how it feels. Fun. Cute. That's what it makes you think.

A fellow GroveAtopian came up with this idea and made it into a bumper sticker. Don't you just love it? You probably even want one of your own.

Well you are in luck, because it just so happens you can get one of your own if you click right here.

Put it on your car and see what happens. Discover if you know what it's like to Feel Grove-y. It probably means something different to each of us, and we may not even be able to put it into words, but together, we know what it is.