Oregon Thanksgiving memories

My dad's "leaning outhouse of Pisa." I have to admit I worry a little bit about it falling over while I'm in it! Copyright © 2013 Wendee Nicole

Right now I'm on the MIT campus in a 3-day Knight Science Journalism Energy & Climate Boot Camp I was accepted into. There have been some fascinating lectures, not to mention fascinating journalists doing cool work. I'm in the process of planning travel to Uganda, and hopefully to the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in Indiana which Elinor Ostrom and her husband founded, both as part of the Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative which I am now working on.

But first, I wanted to share my photos from Thanksgiving at my dad's in Oregon. But before THAT, I have to share my latest articles!

• Meeting the Needs of the People: Fish Consumption Rates in the Pacific Northwest. (or non-pdf version here. I'm proud of this piece, and it got a lot of positive attention.

  Native Americans have lived amidst the Pacific Northwest’s pristine rivers and estuaries for millennia, relying on bountiful catches of local fish and shellfish for their sustenance. Because Pacific Northwest tribal populations typically consume much more fish and shellfish than other people in the region,1 they are exposed to higher levels of toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate in aquatic life—polychlorinated biphenyls, metals, dioxins, and dozens of other toxics found in factory effluent, urban wastewater, and runoff from agriculture and cities.2,3 As a result, they—along with other groups that eat a lot of fish—face higher risks of developing cancer and other diseases attributable to these chemicals.

• PFOA and Cancer in a Highly Exposed Community: New Findings from the C8 Science Panel. PFOA is the stuff that lines Teflon pans, popcorn bags, and waterproof jackets. This is a news piece that followed another I did last year: Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension “Probably Linked” to PFOA Contamination
• I have a cool piece on a sustainable hog farm in North Carolina coming out in Discover Magazine's Notes from Earth department in April

And in no particular order…here are some images from my dad's place and my trip to Oregon. I didn't take any at Thanksgiving dinner - I was so busy eating the yummy food!

Before I went to dad's cabin for Thanksgiving, I spent a few days with my 7th grade BFF Kelli in Portland, and we went to her mom's cabin in Welches, OR and her family's restaurant, Skyway Bar & Grill - yum! I hadn't seen her mom since 7th grade!!
Kelli and I. She thinks she looks like a vampire here - haha!
Kelli and I at Skyway Bar & Grill. Her cousin gave us these cool tshirts from there!

During the trip, I got together with my two nieces, Kira (who was driving down to see my brother - her dad - with my mom and stepdad), and Mehz and her fiancé Jordan. Mehz is my brother's oldest daughter who was adopted through an open adoption 24 years ago.

Kira and I. She's growing up so fast!
Mehz and her fiance Jordan.
 
The frame of my dad's cabin

This ferny paradise looks so primeval! This is just down the driveway, before turning onto the rock road my dad's cabin is off of.

This was the forest of my youth. This fuzzy tree is just down the road from my dad's property. Love these huge mossy trees. My brother and I used to think we were so strong by pushing over old/dead still-standing trees. :)
 
A view of the cabin from the side. The front part is a greenhouse with plants.

The woodbox for the wood stove.
 
Ferns in the forest on my walk.

A view of the garden with the cabin in the distance

Another shot of the garden

Dad and Bev love to garden and I got to enjoy its bounty, both at Thanksgiving and in the stuff I got to take home.

Mint, sage, and a pumpkin from the garden.
Bev gave me homemade, canned salsa - with all the ingredients direct from the garden! It was sooooo delish. And the raspberry jam - Oh.My.God!!! Heaven!! I need to go back when the razzleberries are berrying in summer.
 
A mossy tree - maybe a huckleberry? Or maple.

I got to stop by the elementary school I attended in 3rd and 4th grade, Highland Park. What a trip!

I peaked inside a bit and took a photo before school folk came and chased me off because school was in session. I remember that my classrooms were upstairs.
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This is a view just outside the "mud room" and the main entrance.

A view right from the cabin of the sun through the trees.

When dad harvested some trees from this part of his property, he kept these three trees, which was where my brother and my tree house was located. They're bigger than they look in the picture.

Me, hugging a very large tree on my walk down the road.

Trees and sky...
 
Dad built what he and Bev affectionately call the "West Wing" about a decade ago. It wasn't there when I grew up. This is where I stay when I visit.

The road… I like to walk from the cabin a mile or so up the road to get some exercise.

This makes me sad… This was a tree stump on dad's property. In Oregon you have to replant when you log, but those trees are still very small and young. I somehow managed to not get any good pics of dad and Bev so I leave you with this awesome pic from their wedding rehearsal in 2009 - laughing as they often are!

A chat with Steve Squyres about... pooping undersea

The Gazebo at the Aquarius - underwater emergency air pocket, and, erm... outhouse? Photo from NASA

Blame it on my deranged mind, but I had to wonder to myself, when one lives in this tiny little undersea habitat called the Aquarius - the yellow-submarine-like-but-stationary-undersea lab that I dove to a couple weeks back - and they stay there for weeks or days at a time, how does the toilet situation work? It all started when I imagined myself living on board the Aquarius, as I'm writing up this article about it. I assumed there was a toilet in the lab itself, but that it would get a little, um, awkward and not to mention smelly, to poo in such tight quarters.

So I asked Steve Squyres about the pooping situation. If you don't know him, he is a Cornell Astronomy professor who pioneered the Mars Rover. He was one of 6 aquanauts to live in the Aquarius for several days while figuring out the initial stages of just how one would get around on a near-earth asteroid in space - the mission that started the day I was out at the Aquarius (he's in the pics on my blog post SEJ Dive Trip Extraordinaire). The weightlessness of the undersea world is a good analog for deep space. Got it? Good. Here's our email conversation (technically an interview for an article - not kidding there either - though somehow I don't think this will make it in). I was laughing out loud!

Me: How did the toilet work? I know most ships just dump right into the ocean but I’m thinking that’s kind of nasty if you’re diving all around there… did it get stinky in the "habitat" or was there aeration?!! I am curious…

SS: Ah yes... the toilet question. :) Aquarius does have a toilet, but as you can imagine it's hard to get something like that to work well for that many people in that small a space for a long time. So it is used only during decompression, when the habitat is sealed. The rest of the time, we simply go outside. It's not quite as weird as it sounds. Right next to the habitat is something called the "gazebo." It's got air, and its primary function is as a shelter in case of emergency. But it also functions as an outhouse. Once you are there, you are greeted immediately by many very enthusiastic fish -- mostly chubs and angelfish -- who will almost literally eat anything.

Me: What! How do you go #2 outside?

SS: In the water, with fish nipping at your butt. As I say, it takes a little getting used to. :)

Me: So what happens to the poo logs...

SS: That's what I was trying to tell you... the fish (chubs and angelfish) eat it all in a matter of seconds. It really is a challenge to make sure you don't get bit during the fishy melee that ensues.

Me: Ohhh!!! The fish eat it?!! Ewww!!!

SS: One of those weird personal sacrifices you make in the name of science. I never actually got bit, but a couple of the others did. Those guys have sharp little teeth!

Me: I sound like my teenage son (my fascination with poo that is)... I have to tell him this story.

SS: It really hasn't come up in any of my other conversations about NEEMO... even the lecture I gave to my class about it. You were the first to ask!

Well there ya go!! What people do in the name of science. Could you do it?!!! I am not so sure I could. Heck I can barely pee in the water, and then only if my life depends on it! And just so I didn't feel quite like such a weirdo, Wendy Watkins, who works in NASA Public Outreach & Education - said it is one of the most asked question. However, the astronauts apparently think talking about pooing undersea distracts from the interesting science they are doing. LOL. I think that people are very interested in the human dimensions of both space travel and undersea work, so, there ya go!

Here's a pic of Steve working the undersea "faux asteroid" rock wall. Credit NASA

The Crackerbox Palace

Window into my childhood ... my dad's log cabin where I spent some of my younger years
Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

I promised I'd share some photos from my visit to my dad's log cabin and here they are! So in 1975, a couple years after my mom and dad divorced, dad moved from L.A. to Oregon - somewhere halfway between Rainier and St. Helens in the middle of no-man's-land, built this log cabin from the trees on the land, and he lives there still. My mom had moved me and my brother to Eugene and I would go back and forth between her and my dad until 1978 when I went to live with him full time for 2 years before realizing it was too isolated for even me (as a young kid) so I moved back with my mom but spent every summer here. Back in the day, the really early days, we had no electricity and used kerosene lanterns. Dad had no running water until I was in college. We would collect up spring water in plastic Igloos for drinking, and collected rainwater for washing and bathing. Although dad got running water for the rest of the house back when I was in college, he has always had an outhouse (see below) and still does although before you know it, it will be gone! They have installed a septic system. This is the "back" view and this is actually the bathroom extension off of the main cabin which is one large room with a loft. Dad started to build the bathroom from the start but never finished its roof for many years and we never used it when I was a kid. I'm not quite sure why there's a ladder on the roof but I guess he's fixing the shingles! This is the sign for Canaan Road where the turnoff to my dad's cabin is. This is in the nearest town, and it takes about 20 minutes from here up winding roads... I think that the name Canaan has a lot of meaning to me now that was lost on me then. It's absolutely the perfect name for what this place did for my soul and spirit. Land of milk and honey. Literally! OK dad never had dairy cows but he did raise bees for a while.
A black and white view of the corner. I shot most of these with my phone's Vignette app - love that app. Dad decided to call it the Crackerbox Palace actually fairly recently. It's sort of a joke but it's from the George Harrison song. When I lived there we called the 24-acre property Running Springs Farm. But I am rather partial to the Crackerbox Palace.

"I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace
We've been expecting you
You bring such joy in Crackerbox Palace
No matter where you roam know our love is true

While growing up or trying to
Not knowing where to start
I looked around for someone who
May help reveal my heart - someone said"
Another shot of the bathroom from the outside. Just because it's a bathroom doesn't mean it has a toilet!
Dad has always had tons of cats mostly because I think they're not neutered or spayed! He worked on that a while back I think... but anyway this is Dodger. I love long hair cats!
Dad rototilling the garden. Dad and Bev love to garden and the soil is very fertile!
After I helped plant some baby veggies we picked some fresh kale from the garden and made raw kale-avocado salad - yum!

This is a view of the "front" (although the door we enter from is in the back). It looks bigger than it is! The whole front area is a "greenhouse" with plants. The land has several fruit trees and rose bushes and there's a huge vegetable garden to the right of the picture. In the old days this was all covered in forest - it was very close to a coastal temperate rainforest though it may not technically be that exact habitat. When I go hiking in the Pacific NW the forest I experience is exactly what it was like when I was a child. I spent so many hours in those woods, pushing over the dead trees full of rotting rich red wood (we thought we were so strong!), playing with tree knots for toys, making tree forts, picking wild huckleberries, peeing in the woods...

Or, of course, if you have to go #2 you use the outhouse. Most everyone just pees in the yard or back when there were woods all around, in the woods, for #1. Mainly because the outhouse is stinky and gross! Because of the prominence the throne has played over the years I am going to have the following series printed and framed for my dad as soon as his actual flush toilet goes in! This is the "dreamy" look.
Same photo but in a Parisian hue - highlighting some colors and fading others.
Vintage outhouse, modern era.
The outhouse, straight up.
The stairs leading to the loft. When I was a kid these were Veerrrrry steep! They're still pretty steep actually. One time I was sleeping in a sleeping bag up there as a kid, and I fell off... lucky for me, I happened to fall onto the couch. Dad was still downstairs and I woke in my sleep but didn't remember it in the morning. Go figure!
We always used wood stoves to heat and cook. Today, he has a microwave and stovetop though. This isn't the same stove we had when I was a kid. Back then the potbelly stove we used to heat was named Smaug and the cooking stove was Gandalf.
This is the affectionately named West Wing. It was only added back in the 90s I think and is mostly for storage but there is also a guest room which is where I stay.
My dad!
The wall next to his favorite armchair. Malcom X and a Cross on the wall. I believe the painting is one that my grandmother did (his mom). Oh dad informed me grandma didn't do this painting but she did paint (as does my stepdad's mom Jane Leonard - who is/was a very talented artist).
A view of the back porch leading into the mud room. On the right is the West Wing which wasn't there when I was a kid. My brother and I used to climb onto the little flat roof over the porch here and just sit and hang out.
This is the door inside the mud room leading into the cabin. It has a plaque on the door that says "Peace to all who enter here"
We always had jars to keep things in - beans, pasta, etc. This is in the "mud room" on the way into the house through the back door.
This is what happens pretty much every night at the Crackerbox Palace! Dad and Bev asleep in their armchairs. Love these peeps! Just to give a little history - here is a photo of me and my older brother Tom (now called Lazer - yep that's right!) in the old garden down the hill - by some big strawberry plants. Wasn't I cute! My nickname was urchin because I was frequently grubby!
A rare snowfall on the cabin. Looks very "little house in the big woods" a la Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't it? I was a big fan of those books. Dad and me when he was building the bathroom "addition." I look like I was about 7 there or so. That's about right before I went to live there. Dad the lumberjack! I very much remember being in the woods with him when he was timbering trees with a chainsaw! Here's a link to an old post - hippie log cabin memories with a couple of other photos and stories.