January 18,2010

The four seasons of Portland are like no other I’ve experienced. I love the Alaska seasons of “winter” and “not winter”, but when you have distinct breaks in the calendar that correspond directly to a myriad of opportunities, jobs, and things to do, it’s tough to get excited about “fishing” season and “hunting” season.
It’s still winter here although the so-called ‘cold snap’ ended a few weeks ago and we sit comfortably in the mid 40’s to mid 50’s. I’m still raking dead leaves, now turned nearly to mulch as the wind has blown so hard that the fences around town act as wind stops. Leaves are a funny thing here, not something I paid much attention to at home because when the leaves fell they were, in good time, buried by old man winter. Then come spring, they were a muddy mess along with the rest of the state.
Portland has a leaf problem. I’ll say it right now. No one cares about the leaves, and their problems getting to where they need to go. It is a green city in more ways than one with the abundance of trees littering the streets and the proliferation of live local bumper stickers now in vogue. I am finding that yard maintenance is not just gardening and watching things grow, but also seeing things die (and hopefully come back) and become hardened to the coming season. It’s also about keeping it free from the falling cherries in the summer, the broken cottonwood branches in the fall, the empty walnut husks and the pesky critters (ya you, raccoons and jays and squirrels!) who are constantly out looking to cause trouble.
We planted strawberries, radishes, kale, spinach, lettuce, garlic, chives as well as decorative bulbs and a whole new native grass lawn. Sunflowers, bamboo, a curly willow, a huckleberry or two also went in. Can you see any life now? Of course not, as death has overtaken the garden, but with another edition of raking today, I did see some new green shoots coming out of the previously leaf covered ground.
The leaves though seem to come out of nowhere, as just when I thought the last ones had fallen, more suddenly appeared while we were away and I cursed the damn trees for shedding AGAIN. They make the roads slick for bicycle tires, they clog drains, they make unruly mulch piles, they de nude the trees, and now the amorous squirrels high in the cherry tree have no cover for their lovemaking.
Yard work and leaf raking is like a second job for most (my only job) and I wondered about Alaska’s leaf population and knew that no one in their right mind has time for raking in the fall. Then the snow flies and the point is moot anyway.
I have loved the seasons so far but it is hard to keep up even if you are unemployed. I have seen firsthand on a near daily basis the transformation of our favorite park a few blocks away from this vivid imaginarium of color to the sodden worn down brown it now wears. I still like walking there because it is different every day and sometimes Abby plays good ball and other times she is distracted and out of sorts so I end up playing toss and fetch by myself. Rain or shine, cold or warm, I am rarely the only one there and with today’s break between lows coming in from the coast, there were kids playing basketball, guys tossing a Frisbee, and dogs with happy owners galore.
Just another day in the park.