Home

This week, I said goodbye to Missoula. I spent time with the remaining friends who hadn't yet left for various summer jobs and international excursions, stocked up on microbrew in cans (no PBR on multi-day river trips for me!) packed my life into my blue subaru and drove over Lolo Pass back towards home.

In many ways Missoula feels like home now too. On Tuesday, I walked along the river at dusk, watching the pearly pinks and oranges of the sunset over the river and the almost full moon rise behind the "M". I thought about how much Missoula has seen me go through, how many new connections and friendships have been created, how the seasons have cycled back to almost the same point as when I first met Missoula, back in August. Instead of just being there by default, Missoula is a home I have created. I went from knowing no one and nothing to feeling like I have a community and a niche.

Yet Moscow will always be home too. I arrived to my mom and brother seated around our red formica kitchen table and a very, very excited head butt from my dog.  It was good to sleep in my old room (second story and east facing, a stark contrast to my Missoula basement), catch up with high school friends, hear Josh Ritter on the stereo and go for runs around the neighborhoods I know by heart. Moscow is a place where I can't go downtown without seeing someone I know. Most of the people in Moscow have seen me grow from toddler to hyper elementary school kid, to bratty pre-teen, to semi-normal young adult. There is a certain comfort in everyone knowing your life story, and also certain limitations. Definitely no anonymity here, especially when Mr. La has become the "teacher/mtnbikeguy/renfairking/raftguy/etc. with brain cancer".

Dad is on a Middle Fork trip and is completely out of cell and internet service. It is strange coming home to three (I include the dog as a family member) instead of four. Home isn't quite home without him here making phone calls, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table and kissing my forehead goodnight before I go to bed. When he is gone, even when I know it is just a five day raft trip, I can't help but thinking "This is what it might be permanently".

I don't know how to discuss this topic delicately.

The reality is, my Dad may live for another 6 months, 6 years, or 30 years. There is no way to know. I am not ready for our family to shrink from five to four, but then again, there is no way I ever will be. I guess the best I can do now is be thankful for the present, knowing he IS just gone on a week long trip and that I probably have plenty more goodnight hugs, chance REI encounters, and phone conversations about dry suit features and CFS to come.

In a truly Unitarian Universalist, agnostic-y way, I know that even if my Dad isn't just a cell phone call away, he is still with me. He is in the rivers I raft, the powdered slopes I ski, the swaying pines on Moscow Mountain, the messy morning hair of my younger brother, the laugh of my mom, and the tail wag of my dog. My Dad has taught me how to love and recreate in the natural world, to stop and watch a swirling rapid, to find spirituality in wild places, to climb just one more ridge over, to bike instead of drive. He has taught me to love the home we all share in common: the earth under our feet.

And he will always reside somewhere within me, letting me know I am loved and will be okay. Even when he simply 200 miles away in the Frank Church wilderness, this is a consolation.

1000 New Gardens

My volunteer project last semester was with a group called 1000 New Gardens. Wait, just ONE volunteer project? What happened to the days of high school when I had four or five? What happened to weekends jam packed with event after obligation?

Irregardless. The mission of 1KNG (get it?) is "to revitalize Missoula's legacy as the Garden City by promoting household organic vegetable gardening by sharing resources, techniques and information throughout the community. The objective of 1,000 NG is to create one thousand new organic vegetable gardens in Missoula on land that has been underused or planted as lawn." It was started last year by a UM student and a Missoula community member.

New gardeners are a mix or community members and college students interested in starting a garden and almost all of our Dig Day volunteers are students from the University of Montana.  Volunteers for Dig Days meet at a park by the river where we give instruction, sign liability forms, and form into groups. These small groups then disperse to different garden sites around Missoula. Once at a site they remove sod, reclaim the dirt from the sod, create a compost pile, and work composted manure into the soil. New gardeners are given resources such as access to the IKNG website (where they can blog, ask questions, and connect with other new and experienced gardens) and information about gardening resources around Missoula.

I was drawn to IKNG because I was looking for environmentally minded volunteer work that was tangible and quantifiable. As important as education and “raising awareness” is, I think it is also very important to have work that shows direct results. There is something empowering about starting with a backyard full of grass and five hours later leaving with a garden that is ready to be planted full of vegetables.  Further, food production in today's industrialized society is incredibly inefficient and harmful to the environment. What is more local and sustainable than your own backyard? The lawn that was there before wasn't doing much good as species habitat, carbon sink, or food producer.

Yet, honestly, in February when I started volunteering with the group, I knew nothing about gardening. The garden at my parent's home is beautiful and produces huge amounts of vegetables, fruits and flowers. The extent of my experience helping out was the occasional weeding or buying starters and the farmer's market. So my involvement with the group was also for somewhat selfish reasons. I consider myself a "new gardener" as well. And no better way to learn than to jump right in.

Between weekly meetings and the three Dig Days in April/May I learned a huge amount about backyard gardening and met a whole lot of truly interesting people. I never once heard a person complain about the hard physical labor and most receiving gardens were incredulous that the service was free. We started almost thirty new gardens this spring. That is thirty people that may not have to buy their lettuce and tomatoes from California, thirty people who are excited about gardening and getting their friends involved, thirty people eating less food from the industrial, chemical and petroleum heavy food system.

And because I was only committed to one volunteer project instead of twenty, I had time to grow a garden of my own. I planted a couple rows of spinach, lettuce and snap peas, hoping they would mature before I had to leave Missoula. There was something pretty satisfying about watching what looked like a boring brown patch of dirt erupt with green (and not just grass and dandelions).

Check out the IKNG website here
Read the Montana Kaimin article about IKNG here
Read the Missoulian article about IKNG here
And a video...

The Lochsa River and the Kearl Oil Sands

I'm pretty sure I love the Lochsa River more than I will ever love any man. It is a gorgeous, slender but powerful, bubbling, frothing river that cuts through the Selway-Bitterroot Forest on the east-central side of Idaho. In spring, snow melt from the mountains surges into it's tributaries and the river begins to flood, making it one of the best stretches of whitewater rafting the Northwest knows. The water, so clear it looks deep emerald green,  is cold and clean, supporting a variety of plant and animal life. Narrow and winding Highway 12 that runs beside it is also a scenic byway, attracting it's fair share of adorable elderly couples ("Sweetie, are you sure that boat can get you through that water down there? It looks awful dangerous. Does your mother know you're here?") and picnicking families.

There have been times as I punch into a rolling wave or lay on the rocky river bank, letting the sun sink into my bones, that I feel completely and utterly content, connected, and loved by the landscape around me. The Lochsa River has an air of the sacred. The water whispers truths I only wish I could understand. It is a place that terrifies me, not only for the sheer power of the flowing water but also for the dependence I feel towards it. Having it destroyed or manipulated would break my heart. I don't say that in exaggeration or as a cliche. When I place my feet in the swirling, numbingly cold water, a feeling clenches my chest that can only be described as head-over-heels love.

Which is why my stomach sinks when I hear Exxon Mobile is planning to ship oil refinery equipment from the Port of Lewiston, along Highway 12, and up through Missoula to Canada. The Korean built machinery is huge (24 feet wide, 30 feet tall and 162 feet long) and construction has already begun along Highway 12 to expand the road so it has the capacity to accomodate the oversized vehicles. The road will be widened to create pullouts and wider turns with who knows what effect on river flow and riparian vegetation. Quiet, star studded nights along the Lochsa River may soon be replaced with the rumble of thousand ton trucks. Development will likely set a precedent for the cooridor to be opened to industrial shipping. Yes, Highway 12 as it is now is a dangerous road with blind corners and little turn out space. And I think that's how it should stay. If you need to get cross country at 80 mph, take 1-90. Even in a car, traveling along the Lochsa makes you slow down a bit, think about where you are going and why.

I have problems with every part of this process. The four dams along the Snake River that make it a "port" (In central Idaho? Really?) have had huge negative effects on salmon runs and regional ecosystems. The shipment process from Lewiston to Alberta will have negative effects on tourism, traffic flow, riparian ecosystems and the general peace and quiet of Idaho and Montana. The Kearl Oil Sands have their own set of issues, from open pit mines to water use to habitat loss. Oh, and the fact that the oil will run out. The project will eventually become too expensive or there simply will be no resource left. If Highway 12 was being developed to ship wind turbines or materials to build sustainable low income housing I may feel differently. But this is Exxon Mobile. Look at their track record, the history of how they have treated the environment and the problems they have created. Their representatives say that they have had no major accidents in the last fifteen years. But wait, wasn't that what BP was saying about offshore drilling just a few weeks back?

Of course, the grand irony of it all is that when I head down to the Lochsa this weekend to meet my parents, camp and raft, it will be in my gas guzzling car. Yet I would rather pay $6.00 a gallon for gasoline than see anything happen to a river I love. Or even better, what if we put our tax dollars towards developing green transportation such as hydrogen and electric so I can ditch the gasoline guzzler all together? I'm tired of watching big oil exploit communities and landscapes that belong to all of us (or none of us? How can land like this be owned by a human?) for their own profit. I'm tired of hearing of oil spilling into the ocean, destroying once thriving maritime and wetland ecosystems and the tourism and other livelihoods associated. I'm tired of wondering if I will be able to share the places I love with my children and my children's children.

Enough already.

More info at the Lochsa River Conservancy facebook page

Spring Farmers Market

This is the first Moscow Renaissance Fair I have missed in a long, long time. This morning as I drank my cup of coffee I swore I could almost hear music from the main stage, see Tye Dye Everything t-shirts and dresses fluttering in the wind, smell Filipino food and sugary elephant ears, feel the muddy straw twisting under my shoes, watch the smiles of the community I know so well as they meandered by. I could almost hear Mom and Dad (elected King and Queen this year) laughing and joking, Dad deciding to put a down jacket and windstopper hat over his tunic, Mom's red converse (I hope!) peaking out of her long velvet dress.

But here I am in Missoula, Montana.

So to quell the tinges of homesickness I was feeling I  headed downtown to the first Missoula Farmer's Market of the season. Actually, correction: I headed down to the Clark Fork River Market AND the Missoula Farmer's Market. That's right, there are two. I'm not quite sure the reasoning or the politics behind it all (maybe just not enough space in one location?) but as far as I am concerned, two is even better than one.

I'm pretty sure I could have wandered in circles for hours, looking at the damp and fluffy lettuce, deep green spinach, brilliant yellow and red chard, speckled eggs, fragrant baked goods, hand-made crafts, and smiling faces...but three final essays waiting at home called me to get a move on. I bought a few leafy greens here, some swiss chard there, a bunch of rhubarb, some petite carrots, a dozen eggs from an adorable little girl who told me about her family's 40 chickens (and their pooping habits), and a scone for the trip home.

As I walked along Rattlesnake Creek, (breathing in that beautiful rushing water, riparian vegetation smell I love so much) I realized something. Going to the Farmers Market was the first time this semester I had bought food and felt truly good about it. I didn't have to battle traffic on Russell St to escape the Good Food Store parking lot. I didn't have to wonder if what I was buying was just an overpriced "organic!" gimmic. I got to see the faces of the people almost directly involved in growing the food. I carried my purchases home in a bag slung over my shoulder instead of the back of a station wagon. There were no flourecent lights, bar codes, or thick plastic packages.

Have I mentioned how thankful I am recently? Well, I will say it again. I have no idea how I got so lucky as to live in the thriving, vibrant communities of Missoula and Moscow.