PORTLAND’S FARM TRIP

How Far Away Is Portland’s Farm, Portland’s Midwest? Not Far At All.

Do you ever imagine golden waves of grain while sweating it out in your hotbox apartment?

You wait for a breeze to blow through the crops in your mind while heat mirages rise off the asphalt beach parking lot.

Or you’re standing in suburban hell, moles making a mockery of the yard you rolled out with the best intentions.

Do wheat fields have moles? Oat fields?

All you want is to live at one with nature on a nice cul-de-sac. Not a farm, not a manor, just what passes for good.

And you’re failing miserably. If you’re a Portland baby boomer it’s not your first fail. It’s your duty to cushion the blow for others.Your neighbor goes after moles with everything from road flares and juicy fruit gum to a twelve gauge mole gun.

They’re practically begging you to save them.

Tell them about Sauvie Island and rows of corn, dirt roads, and country, lots of country.

Remember, you’re not recruiting for Green Acres, just providing someone space to cool down and avoid blowing their hand off.

Country living is nice, but a visit to the countryside without making it an all day affair? That’s Portland.

Sauvie Island had the crops and the flowers and the U-pick.

The visual part is enough, but if you need to bring something back beside memories, stop at a farm store.

Get a bouquet from the source.

The bridge to the island is right off Hwy 30 before Scappoose if you drive out from Portland.

Or ride a bike.

If you do ride, you’ll need a rest. Skip the store and pedal a short ways to Howell Territorial Park.

You’ll find an agricultural museum full of farm implements from days past, and a house full of furnishings from the same era.

If you look at the exhibits and silently give thanks you don’t live in those times, then you get history.

It wasn’t easy.

As you stroll the ground you’ll see a grove of evergreens. It’s a memorial fir grove planted in the late 70’s or early 80’s.

That’s one of the trees below center.

They’ve grown from seedlings to big in the past thirty five years. Big enough to harvest for timber? Paper? Chips? Probably, but this isn’t a renewable resource fir grove.

The first time I saw the tiny trees they were about six inches tall. What made it interesting was the field they were planted in.

Four feet high weeds covered the field and trees. It looked like a chunk of land given over to whatever might grow there.

The trees were getting choked out. The sedentary academic staff of museum professionals managing the park for the Oregon Historical Society were over matched by nature.

They needed a fearless twenty something tree lover to logger up and save those firs.

So I found the right tool, a man-killing mower with a helicopter blade out front, an old bush wacker that would take the weeds and trees down at the same time.

Instead of mowing it all and starting over, I stomped the grass around each mini-tree and mowed the columns, then trimmed around the trees until it looked like a proper little grove.

Year by year they grew and grew. Look at those trunks today. Look at that height.

Instead of another picnic area in the blazing sun, it’s a respite among Oregon’s finest.

No one calls this the BoomerPdx Fir Grove, but without years of care, and a broken knuckle when I started the mower with a knot-ended rope that popped me on the finger just right, these trees would have been on a burn pile or compost dump.

The next time you’re out of town, look around and recognize the work of those who came before you.

Oregon get more Oregon when good people tip their hat to good work.

The trees don’t care, but you should. Put Sauvie Island on the schedule.

Don’t forget to hug a tree while you’re there.