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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 2016)
Wednesday, June 22, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 31 An indispensable backpack book By Jim anderson Correspondent Last Friday night, author LeeAnn Kriegh gave a standing-room-only crowd of people a warm, colorful slant on her new book, “The Nature of Bend,” at Paulina Springs Books in Sisters. She presented the attendees with the opportunity to look at her book using the senses: Sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. She also added a sense of humor and the sense of wonder. Right away she engages these senses at the begin- ning of her book by giv- ing us her whimsical look at Sisters Country trees, shrubs and bunchgrasses and by asking the questions, “Have you smelled a mock- orange bloom, or a grand fir needle? Or let the delicate seedbeds of Indian rice- grass tickle your palm? Or sat beneath a quaking aspen and listened to the leaves rustle like running water? Or tasted golden currant or wild huckleberries?” Then, right in the middle of her plants she dropped an owl pellet — just as an owl does in real life. But she doesn’t leave you hanging; she explains why owls throw up things that are not digestible, and what we can learn from investigating this phenomena. Just east of Bend’s signa- ture landform, Pilot Butte, there are thousands upon thousands of acres of “big sagebrush” punctuated by the unloved western juniper, a tree that furnishes thermal cover in winter for millions of animal life-forms. Kriegh tells us what to look for in these beautiful places: the bushy-tailed woodrat, Ord’s kangaroo rat, along with wildflowers, butterflies, rep- tiles and birds. When Kreigh arrived here from Portland she took one look at all the nature Central Oregon had to offer and said to herself, “It sure would be nice to have a guide to help me learn and experience more…” Then, she and her side-kick graphic designer Sarah Craig and 40-some odd contributors and photog- raphers did just that. The natural order of things, the magnificent com- plexity and natural diver- sity of ecosystems operating from the High Cascades to the Great Sandy Desert is awesome to describe. Kriegh has done it in a way that will make you think, make you sigh, make you laugh, and then, just as you’re falling asleep, make you want to turn on the light and read the next chapter. After you wake the next morning the first thing you’ll want to do is take your breakfast out to the wild places in your back- yard and become involved with what you read the night before. And it’ll be easy. Even with the 80,000-some- odd-people living in Bend, the wild nature of things is still there, and Kriegh has shown us how to find and understand what you meet up with. In the section on nox- ious weeds, Kreigh gives the reader some pertinent advice on using herbicides judi- ciously and avoiding insecti- cides which threaten friendly pollinators. She cautions us to be careful of how and what chemicals we use in our gardens. Want to know what the 10 best-smelling native shrubs are? You’ll find them on page 45. She also warns the reader about getting too cozy with native rodents, especially the photo by leslie lawrence leeann Kriegh (holding book), author of “the Nature of Bend” posing with contributors (l-r) ann Doggett, Katya Spiecker, ron halverson and Sue and Jim anderson, just five of the more than 40 photographers and naturalists who contributed to her book. grand moocher of them all, the golden-mantled ground squirrel. It is NEVER a good idea to feed any of our wild mammals. But inviting them to sit on your lap — as seen all too often at places like the Head of the Metolius — is really bad news: they are known carriers of bubonic plague and other nasty diseases. When asked why he jumped in as a contribu- tor, Ron Halverson — who is a retired botanist with the BLM — said, “This is some- thing I love to do, and from the way LeeAnn described what she had in mind for her book, I knew it would be a valuable tool to whet peo- ple’s appetite to learn more, and take it with them on camping trips and be fun to use.” Unique to this field guide is a scavenger-hunt chal- lenge beginning on page 270. Armed with Krieg’s book, which lists over 350 local plants and animals, you can participate in any of her 12 scavenger hunts within an hour of Bend and attempt to locate and identify the flora and fauna of that environment. “The Nature of Bend” is an indispensable item in your backpack — as well as your home. 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