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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290 E. Cascade Ave., Sisters | 541-588-6614
Open Mon-Fri, 9 am-5 pm | Sat 10 am-4 pm
www.metoliuspropertysales.com | Fax: 541-549-6339
Kimberly Gorayeb
Jeff Jones
Principal Broker
Principal Broker
541-639-5551
kiminsisters@gmail.com
541-480-7201
jeffjoneslcl@gmail.com