Blue camas (Camassia spp) is a tall elegant lily that blooms during the spring in the Pacific Northwest.  Meriwether Lewis on June 12, 1806 noted that “The quawmash is now in blume and from the colour…as a short distance resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deseption that on first sight I could have swoarn it was water.” Vast camas meadows were common features of wet prairies in the Willamette Valley bottomlands prior to the arrival of Euro-American settlers.  They were an exceptional, highly nutritious food crop for the Kalapuya people in the Valley who harvested and roasted the bulbs in earthen ovens, and stored them as dried cakes.  Lewis and Clark noted that consuming the roasted camas cakes caused some stomach distress.  David Douglas, the renowned Scottish naturalist and explorer, remarked that “they produce flatulence; when in the Indian hut but I was blown out by strength of wind.”

A beautiful blue ocean of camas in south Benton County.

Last Saturday, a collection of Greenbelt Land Trust friends, board members, trustees, and staff journeyed to south Benton County to walk the broad Willamette River floodplains of Harkens Lake.  Greenbelt acquired conservation easements on nearly 400 acres of land at Harkens Lake and has been actively transforming the landscape into bottomland hardwood forest and prairie over the past three years.  The group walked through an emerging forest of young black cottonwoods, Oregon ash, big-leaf maple, some Oregon white oak, a scattering of ponderosa (valley) pine, and a mix of understory shrubs such as snowberry, Oregon grape, vine maple and ocean spray.  In 2013, the plants were 12-15 inch bare stems and are now robust 4-8-foot young saplings or flourishing shrubs providing nectar from flowers for insects and seeds for future generations.  We stepped over a large western pond turtle that had ventured into the young forest likely to deposit eggs in a shallow earth cavity.  Matt, Greenbelt’s Stewardship Manager for the Willamette River projects, described the restoration trajectory for the floodplain which included creating more avenues during high water events for the river to flow into the floodplain through swales and backchannels.

Board, Staff and Trustees pause at Harkens Lake

Our next stop for the tour was a prairie in eastern Linn County.  Part of the property contained a wet ash/tufted hair grass community.  In early April the open meadows of the ash forest were covered with the short, yellow, asymmetrical flowering umbels of Bradshaw’s lomatium or desert parsley.  Bradshaw’s lomatium is an endangered plant endemic to the wet, open grasslands of the Willamette Valley.  It has mostly disappeared from its historic range but was found in abundance on this remnant patch of wet prairie. During our Saturday tour, the lomatium were no longer blooming, but the prairie meadows were filled with an ocean of blue camas. We spotted another lily with white flowers interspersed in the canopy of blue.  This plant was death camas (not a true camas), and apparently the bulbs are highly poisonous unlike blue camas.  Perhaps someday once the young trees at Harkens Lake have become gallery forests of giant cottonwoods, they will be partnered by adjacent prairies overflowing with undulating waves of blue camas.

An up-close shot of blue camas reveals a diversity of hues.

Outdoor Education & Life Lessons Continue reading →

When I first entered Corvallis, the city’s population size sign was one of the first things to greet me besides the beautiful panorama. The sign says 56,535, but as of this week, this number can be increased by a whopping… wait for it…one! Continue reading →

Oftentimes I run into people who do not know what a land trust is – maybe it’s a distant family member or a high school acquaintance that I’ve run into over the holidays. Back in 2009 when I first started at Greenbelt Land Trust I remember fumbling my way through the description, watching eyes glaze over as I explained what a conservation easement was, or how we work with private landowners on voluntary conservation. I quickly realized that this wasn’t the way in for people to connect to our work.

As I struggled to frame a definition of the work of conservation, I realized that I knew it when I saw it.

I saw it in the smiles of kids as they dug their hands into the wet clay mud to plant a seedling or squeal at finding a frog.

I see it every time we crest the hill at Bald Hill Farm, unveiling a grand overlook of the valley below, framed by the coastal mountains.

I feel it as friends laugh on a warm summer evening, sandals strewn about in the pasture grass.

I know it as I watch a field of cows step closer and closer to listen in on our farm tour.

Or as someone rests against the trunk of an oak tree padded with moss, reminding me of the oak tree of my youth where games where played and afternoons idled away.

These are the moments when the WHY of Greenbelt Land Trust becomes so clear. After seven years working here, when asked what a land trust is, I now start by telling my own story of the oak tree and the creek that I grew up knowing and loving.  Where is the river, tree or trail that feels like home to you?

Regardless of where you are from, every one of us has similar stories and places that we connect to. These stories of nature, no matter how small, define our lives. When we find ourselves talking about those stories, the work of conservation becomes clear. A land trust is working to protect these moments, these places that define us, that nourish us.

And, yes – we’ll get to the business of explaining conservation easements, data layers, or the intricate web of state and federal funding programs. But first, let’s go for a walk together – there’s a gnarly old tree with branches twisting into the soil that you’ve just got to see.

Blog post by: Jessica McDonald

After nearly two months of rain, winds and darkness, I may be ready for spring and summer.  My tennis shoes seem to be perpetually soggy from jumping over numerous mud puddles and my sense of humor slightly dented because I have been walking hunched over for two months in the downpours.  After last year’s drought and heat, I was ready for some long bouts of Oregon winter rain, but maybe it is time for a little different mix of weather.  Perhaps we should have a few weeks of cold sunny days.

I walked up the Mulkey Creek trail to Fitton Green on Martin Luther King Day and nearly every draw was filled with flowing water.  The trail had a different smell, appearance and sound after weeks of steady rain. I have always liked the resonance of water as it energetically weaves its way across landscapes.  The trail had a few miniature waterfalls coursing over down logs and falling through culverts that created a little white water acoustics.  I also appreciate that water seems to accentuate the brilliant, iridescent green hues of ferns and mosses growing on tree trunks and limbs in an otherwise dark brown and gray winter forest.

The human body is apparently composed of 60 percent water and our blood is over 92 percent water so it is not surprising that I seem to be attracted to oceans, rivers, streams and marshes.  I assume that within the vastness of our genome we still retain strong connections to our water-dwelling ancestors.  The primordial tetrapods that 365 million ventured onto land for the first time likely looked wistfully back to the waters that spawned their forebears.  People vary in the percentages of water that make up their bodies.  Our children are 78% water for the first year of their lives. The percentage of water in women is generally less than men. Just about everything that happens in our bodies is dependent on water.  Our brains use water to manufacture hormones and neurotransmitters and water regulates our body temperature through respiration and perspiration. Water transports oxygen throughout our body, lubricates creaky joints and is critical to the growth, reproduction and survival of cells in our body.  We are constantly cycling water out of bodies so need to replenish the amount by drinking 3 or so liters a day.  Perhaps a billion or so people on earth don’t have access to clean water.   Even more people live in arid regions with limited availability to water.  Many of us in water-rich environments like the Willamette Valley take water more or less for granted.  We open our taps with abandon, flush toilets and fill bathtubs without thinking twice about where the water comes from or goes.

The Willamette River has already reached the action stage (pre-flood) several times in a few areas this winter as a consequence of all the rain.  Last fall we slightly lowered a road-bed and re-contoured an existing swale to allow for more river flow on the floodplain at Harkens Lake.  We also installed two large culverts to improve the flow through a remnant backchannel. The higher river this winter will be a good test to see if the engineered work performed as expected or if we need to make a few modifications.  I expect that by mid-August I will be looking forward again to walking hunched over in a winter downpour with soggy tennis shoes.

Blog post by: Michael Pope, Executive Director