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Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland.
In Old Town Portland, Chinatown has lost most of its character from bygone days. Its in the oldest part of the city of Portland. After multiple attempts to revitalize this area and emphasize the Chinatown aspect, it remains small and quiet. However, there is one vibrant and much-visited place: Lan Su Chinese Garden.
This is my last post on stuff Will and I did together. We had two weeks to enjoy the Pacific Northwest and now he’s far away in Rhode Island again.
The name Lan Su is formed by combining the name of two sister cities: Portland and Suzhou, China. Suzhou is famous for its gardens, and Lan Su was built by Chinese artisans from Suzhou and is one the most authentic Chinese gardens outside of China. But of course, care was taken to choose words that have another meaning, and “lan” means orchid, and “su” is arise, or awaken.
Admission is $10.95 with discounts for students and seniors. A ticket gets you into any event happening in the garden for the entire day, to include guided tours and cultural events. There are classes to teach Chinese games, live music in the teahouse, calligraphy and poetry demonstrations and classes.
All of this is in the center of a bustling city that somehow you forget while you’re inside. The design is so well done that from inside the garden you can hardly see the buildings outside, and you honestly cannot hear much of the street noise.
Skyscrapers are barely noticed from inside the garden. Instead, I noticed the architecture inside, the variety of plants, and the peacefulness of the setting.
I carried a laminated flower guide with me into the garden, that was provided as we entered. I thought with the early season that I would be lucky to find any of the blossoms. To my surprize and delight, I found almost every single blossom in the brochure. It was like a game to find them all, and the added bonus was a reminder that Spring is really on its way. Lan Su also provides plant-specific tours for both home gardeners and professionals in the fields of horticulture and botany.
Blossoms were small, and few, but unmistakably all over the garden.
This garden was created with an extraordinary attention to detail, with symbolism tucked into every viewing angle, and poetry all around. If you wanted to zip through in 15 minutes and get a good look, it would be easy, as the place occupies a single city block. However, if you wanted to spend your entire afternoon there, followed by evening tea, that would also be reasonable, as the longer you gaze out across the waters, or through the branches, the more you see.
Symbolic fish, peaches, and bats adorn the top of one building.
Weak spring sunlight highlights early buds.
For many more photos, from a trip to the garden in 2015, please see my other Lan Su blog post.
Saline Courthouse in Rose, Oklahoma
Looking along the porch.
In 1841, two years after the Cherokee in Oklahoma had adopted a new constitution, they organized into eight districts, and in 1856 a ninth was added. One of these was the Saline district, the center of which today is in Rose, Oklahoma: due east of Tulsa and north of Tahlequah. In 1883, the Cherokee government voted to build courthouses for all of its districts. Of the nine courthouses built, only the Saline district courthouse survives.
The Saline Courthouse closed in 1898 and passed into private ownership. It remained a private home (and sometimes a party pad) until the Cherokee Nation was able to purchase the structure and surrounding property sometime in the 1980s. The building was in serious disrepair at the time, and required some major rescue efforts from the Saline Preservation Association, Preservation Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma Parks Department. Today the site is the Saline National Park.
I can’t think of a historical building in the country in a lovelier setting, though with all the gorgeous places in our amazing country, maybe there is a place that will give Saline a run for the title.
The spring house, just down the slope from the courthouse.
Beneath the front awning of the spring house, this inviting structure is built, to encourage you to take the water. It’s hard to tell, but the dark hole opens to two feet of crystal clear, cold springwater bubbling up.
The creek as it continues down the slope from the spring house.
A different view of the creek, as I made my way to the cemetery. One of our group pointed to the rocks and said, “This is limestone, and” he pointed out several spots revealing water bubbling right out of the rock on all sides of us, “This is limestone-filtered water. Any real Kentucky bourbon uses limestone-filtered water, just like this.” Since I’m a bourbon fan, this was of particular interest.
The courthouse, while not necessarily beautiful – since it was built for function not form – occupies an irresistibly green, sun-dappled place. It sits on a sloping hill above a generous spring that bursts from the ground nearby. There is a stone building built atop the spring, with sheltered access to the pristine and sparkling pure water from inside and outside the building. So much water gushes from the spring that it’s instantly a creek, that winds its way through trees, rock outcroppings, and the lovely Oklahoma hills till it reaches Snake Creek nearby.
The preservationists have addressed the courthouse itself, attending to the outside preservation first, by restoring the siding the roof and the vandalized window glass. Inside is gutted, but dry and clear and ready for the next step.
The kitchen area inside the courthouse.
Upstairs chimney restored.
At the top of the stairs.
Me, on the stairs in the courthouse.
There was no jail at the time this was used as a courthouse. None of them had a place to lock up criminals except the Tahlequah district, which had a jail. When criminals were on hand, they were chained to a tree or a wall and guarded until they could be taken to Tahlequah. Unfortunately, this is exactly what was occupying Sheriff Jesse Sunday when a storekeeper was shot September 20, 1897. He was far away, guarding prisoners when he got the news, and deputized someone nearby to take his place and headed back to Saline to see what was going on. By the end of the day Sheriff Sunday and the newly elected Sheriff Ridge had also been shot, in what people now call the Saline Courthouse Massacre. The murderer escaped from prison, but then then served a short tour in the Army and came back to Saline and lived the rest of his life in the community. Talk about a get out of jail free card.
I wandered in a wide arc around the area, along the creek, through the trees, and found myself at a cemetery. From the dates, you can see that these people lived here during the time this place was used as a courthouse, and was actually the center of a community.
A small cemetery sits beside the road, not far from the courthouse.
Next we went to see the Cherokee Nation Buffalo Herd. Our Chief is very excited about the buffalo and proud to tell us while we were in Tulsa that we would soon be able to see them. His excitement was contagious for many of the people attending the conference in Tulsa.
I was not appropriately impressed because buffalo herds are not that uncommon in the West. It seems like they would not be that uncommon in Oklahoma too, but perhaps I’m wrong. I’ve grown up seeing buffalo herds here and there, raised like cattle, and I’ve seen buffalo on the menu and in the meat counter. I’ve been close to buffalo herds multiple times in Yellowstone NP.
But still….buffalo are cool. And maybe here’s the difference: the Cherokee buffalo herd is out there just being buffalo. Not being fattened for market.
The sight was pretty spectacular, and I think you’ll agree.
One of the TV buffalo poses for me.
I wouldn’t mind being one of the Cherokee buffalo herd, if it meant living here.
Cherokee tourists.
On our way to the caretaker buildings, we spotted them from the road. The vans stopped and people exploded out into the gravel road with glee, stepping through thistles and nettles and cockleburs to lean up against the barbed wire fence to snap shots. The buffalo ignored us and we soon moved on.
When we arrived, we consolidated into only two vehicles and followed the caretaker (who lugged his year-old grandson on his hip the entire time – adorbs) as he drove us in a careful trek in a road defined only by the fact that you could tell cars had driven that route before. We crossed hills, forged valleys, and finally came out: on the other side of the buffalo! I was puzzled and frustrated about this. We weren’t allowed out of the vans and since I was squished in the back, and on the wrong side, I was not able to use my camera most of the time.
There are 92 buffalo in this herd, and they are living the life. I was glad to have seen them, their massive, massive bodies lumbering to get away from our vans, flowing over landscape changes like you see in movies. You know, that surge of giant bodies moving like a brown liquid into dry creekbeds and then up over mounds and splitting to flow around a tree.
Cherokee tourists now trapped in a van.
The “wild” buffalo. You can tell. Can’t you.
Looking back, as they make their escape from us.
Cherokee tourist beside buffalo sign.
Finally, when we had all returned and were talking in the shade, the caretaker explained that our buffalo have segregated themselves into two smaller herds. “The TV buffalo – those are the ones you saw when you came in,” he said, “and the others are what I call the wild buffalo.” The TV buffalo? Turns out, the group we saw beside the road don’t mind people, and tend to hang out by the road. When Oklahoma television crews come out to do a story on the buffalo, those are the ones they shoot because it’s such an easy shot. The other buffalo don’t like people, don’t go near the road, and don’t even mix with the TV buffalo. “I wanted you to see the wild buffalo,” he explained. “That’s why I took you out so far to see them.” Ok. All is forgiven.
A chipmunk feeding on the seeds I leave about for them.
Life springs forth in Spring. It’s irresistible.
I have chosen my home office location well, and have the welcome distractions of birds, squirrels, and chipmunks outside my window. This time of year I am also finding delight in Springtime blossoms.
Daffodil or narcissus?
Pacific Bleeding Heart.
I love the deep purple of the vinca.
Tulips live a short life but give such pleasure during that time. I don’t think there is such a thing as too many tulips.
Friday (yesterday) I worked a typical 10-hour workday (I work a compressed schedule), and the weather was spectacular! It reached 69 degrees here, and for much of the day there was not a cloud in the sky. I work at home most days, including yesterday, and racked my brain all day long for reasons to leave my desk and go outside. I really wanted to develop some kind of mild sickness that prevented me from working, but I couldn’t dredge up a sufficient illness. Sadly, I was well enough to stick it out all day long at my desk with my computer screens.
But I did grab my camera and run around during breaks and capture some of the blossoms in sunlight.
Oregon grape bursting with yellow flowers.
Narcissus along the driveway.
A closer shot of the narcissus.
Research shows me that all of the blossoms I call both narcissus and daffodil are under the category of narcissus. I grew up calling the flowers with a large trumpet daffodil. Those bloomed and passed already. The daffodils on my property are all a deep, sunshine yellow. Now I have new blossoms of white petals with yellow or orange trumpets that are very short. I call these narcissus.
I mentioned recently to fellow blogger Derrick J Knight that the deer ate my camellias over the winter. I included a photo below. Luckily they only ate the leaves off, and left the plant to try and recover. I see small buds of regeneration already, and I have learned the important lesson that some plants need to be covered in the winter. At my place, this includes camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas, honeysuckle, and hellebore. I believe all of them are still alive, but rather decimated. I will be a better steward from now on.
Volunteer grape hyacinths add colour along the path.
Pitiful camellia after the deer ate it this winter.
Peony looks very healthy.
This morning, chilly and wet, the scenes from the same window were still captivating, as I caught hummingbirds and a chipmunk going about their days, much less concerned about the rain than this fair-weather human.
In my last post I commented concern that sugar water would not be enough to provide a balanced diet for hummingbirds. So I looked it up and discovered that sugar water is a supplement to a hummingbird’s diet that includes small insects and spiders. Multiple organizations that profess to have a hummingbird’s best interests in mind assure me that the sugar water is a good thing for them. Just no food coloring.
Sugar-loving hummingbird, returned from her winter playground.
The chipmunk seems unconcerned that I loom at the window with an enormous lens pointed at her.
I did glance out the back window and spot another heron. I have poor eyesight, so I spotted only a great grey blur out in the grass. It is rather exciting to train the camera out there, focus, and see this enormous, elegant bird, on his way to eat some of my fish or frogs from the pond. They move quickly, and I am slow with the manual focus, so… I apologize that the image is blurry.
You may recall that I can never get a great shot of the Great Blue Herons who fish in my pond. This photo proves nothing has changed.
One of the pieces of my character is that a sense of beauty always gets through the static and fog of whatever else is going on. If I am consumed by a particular veteran’s case at work, if I am worried about my Tara making their way through the world away from home at college, if I can’t make a reassuring plan for how to pay all the bills, if I remember that I am lonely, or that I miss my mother, or that refugees are suffering, or women still do not have their rights protected… no matter how powerful the dark thoughts, beauty pierces the cloud and makes me smile. How grateful I am to be human and to be able to comprehend beauty.
Looking toward Portland along the Columbia River on a typical April day.
Ok, to be honest, it’s mostly still raining. But that’s what the weather does around here: it rains. The trick is to look at the other details.
The sun actually does peek out every so often, and it’s a warm, invigorating sun this time of year. A sun that means business.
One trick to avoid letting the rain get you down: take photos when the sun comes out, however briefly.
The temperatures average in the 50s now, instead of the 30s or 40s. Warmer temperatures bring calm to me. (Maybe it’s simply because I’ve stopped shivering!)
Things are sprouting. Buds are opening. Daffodils are blooming. I thought for sure I’d have a photo of some of the exciting new growth, but alas. I dug through all my recent photos and I see nothing. But the growth is there and it fills me with smiles.
Hummingbirds are back! They are sucking through the sugar water like they’re starving to death! It got me to thinking the other day: how can that be good for them? I’ve always made hummingbird juice by boiling sugar water into a light syrup. But…is that truly what they survive on? There’s no vitamin value in it. I think I will do some research. The hummingbirds have so far been too hard for me to catch with my camera, so have some ducks instead.
Ducks in the pond. This was only a few weeks ago, but already it is much much greener on the banks.
Reflections
I’ve been lucky enough to catch a couple of videos of the critters around here. I hope it isn’t boring to you that I always post new photos of the animals I see. I find unending joy in them. These big beautiful animals so wild and different…and so close to me!
I had been seeing elk sign out there, but finally got to see the magnificent beasts themselves one morning.
Tara came home over Spring Break. It’s always fun and calming to have my kiddo home again. That side of the house gets opened up, and the heaters come on and there is music blasting and the shower running, and ahhh…. all is right in the world.
My college sophomore. Tara has dyed their hair dark green this time (can you tell?). I can never predict what will happen next with that hair!
They kicked my butt at Scrabble, due in part to their word skills, but maybe possibly also due to these rotten tiles? And yes, I posted this photo on facebook and got a dozen great suggestions for what to do with my hand. But it is TOO LATE you people!
I took my friend Vlad into the Gorge and we played in waterfalls in the rain. And why not? Since viewing waterfalls, one tends to get wet anyway. A rainy day is a perfect day to go the Gorge.
Bridal Veil Falls is just one of many astounding waterfalls along the Old Columbia Gorge Highway.
I liked this crooked old mossy tree branch as much as the arched bridge behind it.
The dramatic cliffs around here are, of course, the reason for the amazing waterfalls.
One of my favouritest, most beautiful, inspiring friends was diagnosed with cancer in January. She is another mom with a huge heart and an open mind and an honest gaze upon the world, that I put effort into keeping in my life because she’s the kind of woman I want to be when I grow up. Susie has been through chemo and radiation and is right now waiting to see what the next step is. She lives in Boston and I am so very far away when I want to be there to drive the kids to practice, and pick up some groceries, and mop the floor for her. I can’t do any of that. But I can send her messages of love and messages that don’t say anything about cancer, so maybe for 2 minutes, there will be no cancer on her mind. But I can be a forgetful, scatterbrained friend, no matter how much I love her. So I got the idea to dye my hair pink to remind me to send a note to Suz. It’s temporary dye, so I have to re-dye once a week, and I’ve been doing it since January. And I am proud to report that I have, indeed, remembered to send cards and notes.
Pink! And green! Look at that springtime hue behind me: woo hoo!
One of my many fires on the back of the property.
I’ve been cleaning up the land. Branches down everywhere, accumulated during the winter snows and rains and wind. I’ve been hauling them into piles and setting them alight. It’s a tricky thing to slog through the mud to a pile of wet wood in the rain and set it all ablaze, and I have gradually begun to perfect the art. And…very little chance of wildfire… so there’s that! 🙂
I hope you are enjoying the change in the season, finding your sources of joy, and making a way to connect to the people you love.
The Butchart Gardens in March offer a mood of dark quiet, wisps of foggy intrigue, and solitude.
Prior to our long road trip last month, M had called from Boston and asked me, “What’s the weather on the coast like in March?”
I exhaled with doubt and not a little cynicism, “Wet. Grey. Temps in the 40s, maybe around 50.”
“That sounds great!” he gushed. It left me puzzled for several minutes, till I remembered he was going to fly away from New England, and a record snowfall in Boston. Obviously rain was an improvement, and 40s sounded like a heat wave.
Though it was cool and wet, it suited me just fine and kept most of the other tourists and locals away. We practically had the grounds to ourselves, as you will see from the photos.
A road trip on the coast in March may be just what the doctor ordered, as long as you bring a bright fuchsia rain jacket and a friend with a great attitude.
My earlier blog post referencing our trip to Butchart Gardens included only a couple of lovely shots and a promise to post again. Here it is! Lots of photos. In fact, way too many for a blog post. If you really want to see a bunch of garden photos, please visit my Flickr page.
Jennie Butchart was the chemist for the family business, but her soul’s work was gardening. She and Isaburo Kishida began designing a Japanese Garden in 1906. Mrs. Butchart also had her eye on Robert Butchart’s quarry. As her husband exhausted the limestone quarry in 1908, Jennie was having topsoil hauled in to line the floor. One of the first things she planted was a row of poplars to block the view of the concrete factory, and those trees remain. Mr. Butchart was very supportive of his wife’s garden, and was pleased that the grounds and ponds were suitable to his own hobby of collecting birds.
The couple gave the garden to their grandson Ian Ross for his 21st birthday. Mr. Ross revitalized the garden and the couple’s home, and hosted events – such as the symphony – to share the place with the community.
By the 1920s, more than 50,000 people a year were visiting Jennie’s garden, and today visitors number nearly one million each year. In 2004 the garden was designated a National Historic Site of Canada. The garden has grown to 55 acres and spread well beyond the old quarry pit. In addition to the Sunken Garden (in the pit), other main gardens are the Rose Garden, the Japanese Garden, and the Italian Garden. (More info at The Butchart Story.)
The welcoming sign
The Sunken Gardens are one of the first things a visitor sees. It’s a truly amazing and beautiful garden in a hole left from a old quarry.
Ross Fountain, built by Ian Ross
Another view of the Sunken Gardens
The Carousel. Look at those wonderful animals!
This is where they prepare their own starts from seeds.
bells in the rain
Petals provide enough rays of golden sunshine to suit me this day
Twisty branch of Corylus with catkins
Cherry blossoms covered the ground as though it were snow!
Entrance to the rose garden. It was not rose season when we were there.
Entering the Japanese garden, I had M place a pebble onto the Torii gate for us. While I was in Japan, it was explained to me that, since the torii is a gate to the spirit world, the rock holds a connection back to your own world, so you have a better chance of being able to return. I don’t know if it’s a true Japanese tradition, but I love it. Torii that I saw in Japan frequently had pebbles along the top.
The Japanese garden is large and well done.
Lantern balanced on an uneven rock.
Path through a pool
Butchart Cove is directly behind the Japanese garden, and is picture perfect.
Part of the perfection of gardens is arranging features so that, when viewed from different angles, what you see forms a portrait.
Frogs in the Star Pond.
In the Italian garden.
M had been asking me periodically what the plants were called, how they grew, were they found in the wild. We walked into the greenhouse and our roles reversed! M talked with delight at how many of the plants we saw grew wild in Sri Lanka where he grew up, and he found it a delight to see those same plants showcased as “exotics” in the garden.
Dripping with colour
Like cotton candy
Orchids are my favourite flower.
Nothing says “Spring” like newly opening flowers.
Tara and I visited Laurelhurst Park a couple weeks ago to take advantage of glorious February sunshine. The park was lovely, as always, though not as advanced into signs of Springtime as we had hoped. I took plenty of shots, in my typical fashion, and nothing grabbed my heart until…these.
Reaching up hopefully to a weak Spring sun.
A tiny package of delight, reaching out to me.
The light behind these buds and flowers is inspiring!
Has that ever happened to you? You are walking along, looking around, taking all things in as more or less equal contributors into your environment, and then BLAM! An incredible snapshot is framed ahead of you. Terrible when you see it without a camera nearby. But what a treasure when the Nikon is slung around your neck at that moment. Carefully pull the strap over your head without breaking eye contact with that amazing view, switching it on as part of the fluid swish of motion, since – for heaven’s sakes the “on switch” is programmed into subconscious memory by now.
And the greatest treasure of all: when the photos look as wonderful on your laptop as they did in the tiny viewfinder.
I couldn’t get enough of the fuzzy flower buds. Tara was getting chilly, hopping from one foot to the other, while I was not aware of temperature at all.
Obviously, all the light and dark made me think of black and white.
Thumbnail moon through birch seed pods.
Out in my yard one evening, I looked up and spotted the moon through the branches of the weeping birch tree in my back yard. There is something very appealing and artistic about the shape of those seed pods, dripping down from the branches. I have noticed my birch tree several times during the last few days, and I am loving the changing views with the changing light.
Morning light makes dark shadows
Afternoon sun bursting between clouds lights up the pods to their yellowy fullness.
The old brown pods are gone, and the new golden pods are packed with life potential.
Do you see what I mean about their shape? The field of vertical rods contrasts the branches of the cherry tree behind them.
Cherry blossoms
Blossoms exploding in the sunshine like popcorn
{Oh, how clever this is! Click for what one crafter has done with birch seed pods.}
It’s the season for blossoms!
There is no better pink in the world than the pink of blossoms.
Flowers, sunshine, blue sky – if I’m not mistaken, it’s Springtime!
I just saw something very cool.
I was out in the back yard, breathing air which is not freezing anymore. I’ve got these beensy mini-daffodils coming up, and they’re brilliant. The Juncos have learned that when I show up, that is somehow connected to tasty seeds. So they start arriving. And I’m watching the tree where they are perching and thinking about tasty seeds and looking at me… and I see a hummingbird join them.
A hummingbird! Cool! I saw her on Saturday afternoon too. I guess I need to add some tasty juice to our back yard fare.
Then Mr. Hummingbird shows up and hovers 11 inches away from the Ms.
“Hello, hello? Check this out!”
And he suddenly goes up, up, up into the sky. Waaaaaaaaay up. So up that I can’t even see his teeny weeny bird body anymore. Then he DIVE BOMBS the tree and makes this awesome whining sound because he’s blasting through the air so quickly.
Ms. Hummingbird doesn’t move. She says, “hm.”
He does it again and again. It is SO awesome! I’ve heard of that, but never seen it. Waaaaaaaay up into the sky till he’s invisible, then whoosh! Bzzzzzing! and Zzzzeeow! he dive-bombs past the tree, somehow timing that whine to occur at the exact moment he passes the Ms.
Then he flew over to roost on a nearby rooftop and chirped at her for several minutes.
She decided it actually was pretty cool. “Ok, I’ll fly with you,” she said. And zoom! Off they went together.
