SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
Brice Creek
Continued from Page 1B
by providing visual cues, much the way lights on a
runway guide airplane pilots. In this way, the insect
gets the food it needs and the flower gets pollinated;
both parties benefit.
Nectar guides come in a variety of patterns: lines,
dots, dashes and bull’s eyes. Some are visible to the
human eye and some can only be seen by bees and
butterflies. Flowers reflect ultraviolet light, which is
out of the range of human vision but completely vis-
ible to many insects. A flower that appears yellow or
white to us may look bright blue to a bee. Some flow-
ers reflect light in a way that creates a glowing blue
halo around the blossom, an effect that attracts polli-
nators but remains unseen by us. In fact, bumblebees
are so sensitive to floral cues that they can detect the
slight static electricity emitted by a flower’s petals.
The weak electrical charge pulls on a bumblebee’s
hairs, drawing them in to forage.
The trail leads us up a rise to a natural terrace above
the creek. A long stem with heavily veined leaves
leans across our path; a pyramid-shaped cluster of ti-
ny white flowers presents itself to all who pass by: the
unmistakable bloom of false Solomon’s seal. I lean
over to smell its heavenly fragrance. This sweet per-
fume is another way that flowers attract and assist
pollinators. Floral scent is a complex mix of chemical
compounds created within the petals. Pollinating in-
sects use scent to distinguish between different plant
species and between individual flowers within a sin-
gle species. A flower’s scent is strongest when it is
ready for pollination and diminishes after it has been
pollinated; the decrease in olfactory clues sends in-
sects to flowers whose stronger aroma promises a
maximum nectar supply. When bumblebees return to
the colony, they carry the aroma of nectar-rich flowers
with them, letting their sister workers know where to
forage next. My companions and I each take another
deep inhalation of floral perfume and then hike on.
Our trail traverses a wooded hillside high above the
creek. The slope is a scene of mass destruction: hun-
dreds of old-growth trees toppled in a severe 2019
winter storm lie in jumbles above and below the path.
Giant root-wads still stand upside down where their
falling trunks jerked them from the saturated soil. The
fallen trees left gaps in the forest canopy, allowing
sunlight to stream down to the forest floor, where
young sun-hungry conifer seedlings and flowering
plants grow rapidly with the infusion of light.
The February storm dumped 19 inches of heavy wet
snow on Eugene; downed trees closed major high-
ways for over a week and decimated local trails like
this one along Brice Creek. When spring arrived that
year, volunteer trail crews cut logs and restored trail
tread. We owe a debt of gratitude to these trail angels
for their work reopening our beloved hiking paths.
Walking ahead of the group, I arrive at a long foot-
bridge spanning Brice Creek. As I wait for my friends
to catch up, I scan the forest floor for tiny wildflowers
and find a treasure: the western fairy slipper, also
If you go
Directions: From I-5 at Cottage Grove (Exit 174),
drive east on Row River Road for 19.4 miles to the
junction of Layng Creek Road #17 and Brice Creek
Road #2470. Turn right on Brice Creek Road and drive
3.3 miles to the West Brice Creek Trailhead on the
right. The trail starts across the road from the
parking lot.
Best month: May and June
Length: 3.5 to 11.0 miles roundtrip, depending on
how far you choose to hike
Duration: 2 to 6 hours
Elevation gain: 200 – 500 feet
Age range: suitable for kids 8 years old and up
known as Calypso orchid. It’s the most exquisite wild-
flower in the Pacific Northwest woods. Five slender
magenta petals splay outward from atop a purple
stem no more than two inches high. A white slipper-
shaped pouch, speckled with pink dots, hangs below
the petals. The interior of the slipper is dark red with
thin white stripes. Tiny white hairs line the lip of the
slipper’s opening.
This little nymph never fails to take my breath
away; on hands and knees I sniff the delicate scent of
vanilla and study its intricate details. The small or-
chid is equipped with all the cues – bright colors, nec-
tar guides, enticing scent – to attract insects to sam-
ple its nectar, but it’s all an elaborate ruse to trick in-
experienced pollinators. The fairy slipper actually has
no nectar at all. When a naïve insect visits a fairy slip-
per, it crawls all over the blossom searching for the
expected nectar reward. Finding none, it will fly on to
the next fairy slipper and search in vain for its nectar.
It might visit a third and fourth blossom before finally
wising up to the deception, but by that time pollina-
tion has occurred and the fairy slippers have accom-
plished their mission.
Once the fairy slipper has produced seeds, it relies
on another organism, a fungus, to help the seeds ger-
minate and grow. Orchid seeds are the smallest of all
flowering plants; each one is about the size of a speck
of dust. A seed this tiny has no room for stored food to
sustain the developing plant. When an orchid seed
hits the ground, it only has enough energy to send out
a single miniscule root. If a compatible fungus exists
in the soil, the fungus will connect its root-like fila-
ments to the fairy slipper’s root to provide carbon, ni-
trogen, phosphorous and water to the embryonic or-
chid. Later, when the fairy slipper has grown strong, it
will return the favor to the patient fungus by giving it
carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis in its sol-
itary leaf.
I share my discovery with my hiking buddies and
soon we are all lying on the moist forest floor, iPhone
cameras in hand, trying to capture the beauty of this
tiny flower. On the hike back we joyfully greet each
flower we discovered on the way in, reveling in the
childlike joy that only a day spent with wildflowers
can bring.
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2021
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3B
Pandemic
Continued from Page 2B
and education environment transitioning into the
digital world, it’s important to be able to communicate
and collaborate effectively using online tools such as
video conferencing.
Problem solving and critical thinking. Complex
problem solving and critical thinking allow students
and employees to pinpoint challenges, and find solu-
tions. The pandemic pointed out the value of innovat-
ing and acting quickly in unpredictable situations.
Social and emotional inner strength. Companies
and schools are encouraging employees and students
to have professional resilience and adaptability. They
desire self-motivated individuals willing to grow and
be able to bounce back from adversity.
As we all well know, these last two graduating class-
es had to face an enormous amount of change and un-
certainty. However, after witnessing their strength
and resilience, I know that these young adults would
rather be known for their ability to adapt and determi-
nation to succeed. Now those are skills any company
or college is certainly looking for in new applicants!
Victoria Neer is a Willamette Connections Academy
Senior Advisor. Willamette Connections Academy is
now enrolling for the 2021-22 academic year. To learn
more about the school or to begin the enrollment proc-
ess visit www.WillametteConnectionsAcademy.com
or call 888-478-9474.
Loyalty
Continued from Page 2B
yourself, get plenty of rest and practice habits for good
health.
h Be charitable – make it known that your custom-
ers are special to you and your business.
h Be patient – things take time. You want to build a
business, not just a financial machine.
h Be faithful – remain steadfast and be consistent in
all you do.
This list is challenging. But what an awesome op-
portunity this pandemic has offered us. We get to get
real, with ourselves and our business.
As Brené Brown quotes in her book Dare to Lead, "It
turns out that trust is in fact earned in the smallest of
moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or
even highly visible actions, but through paying atten-
tion, listening, and gestures of genuine care and con-
nection."
Can we run a business in this way? Listening and
paying more detailed attention to business behaviors -
in love. Showing kindness and clarity within each
communion and interaction we make. Together we
can create a loyal place that feels like home - no matter
what the economic outcome of what rainy days and a
pandemic may bring.
Need help with your business? Want to hear more
tips on how to improve your customer loyalty? To
learn more and to connect with a business adviser,
visit
the
Oregon
SBDC
website
at
https://oregonsbdc.org and find your local center.
Sarah Whitney is the Business Adviser at the Che-
meketa Small Business Development Center. The
Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the
Center. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@cheme-
keta.edu or call (503) 399-5088.
Public Notices
PUBLIC NOTICE
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
Review Body: Planning Commission
Hearing Date & Time: July 13, 2021, 7:00 p.m.
Hearing Location: Silverton High School Li-
brary 1456 Pine Street with a Teleconference op-
tion via Zoom with a telephone call in number.
Masks required in the Library and occupancy
may be limited.
The instructions to listen to or virtually attend
the meeting will be included in the Planning
Commission meeting agenda which will be post-
ed on the City’s website and outside of City
Hall, 306 S Water Street, on July 5, 2021. This
will include a hyperlink to the meeting and a
call in number to participate by telephone.
Brood rainbow trout such as these behemoths at Roaring River are one reason a kid can get hooked on
hatchery visits. HENRY MILLER/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Miller
Continued from Page 1B
There is no admission charge to visit, other than
putting a quarter or two into the dispensers, turning
the handle, and getting a handful of pellets to toss to
the eager occupants that crowd close when they see
tourists at the vending machines.
On a personal note, I got hooked (pun intended) on
hatchery visits as a kid at a trout hatchery in Arizona
and, no kidding, a catfish farm in Missouri during a
pilgrimage to Mark Twain’s childhood home in Hanni-
bal.
A catfish as long as my leg. Great stuff, and memo-
rable family adventures.
As an aside, hatchery fish-watching has some of the
same appeals as actual fishing in that hatcheries are
found in places that fish favor.
Hatcheries tend to be in some pretty great loca-
tions.
Take Roaring River, a longtime fave of mine that I
visited on Monday to get pictures for the column.
You drive through some pretty appealing farm
country and even cross the historic Larwood covered
bridge and past Roaring River Park, a Linn County
Parks & Recreation Department gem, to get there.
Check out the park online at Roaring River | Linn Coun-
ty Parks & Recreation (linnparks.com)
Other attractions include crossing dams to get to
hatcheries such as Foster Dam en route to the South
Santiam Hatchery just east of Sweet Home and Lea-
burg Dam on the McKenzie east of Eugene.
And if you’re there at the right time, you can watch
salmon and steelhead come out of the Salmon River
into the namesake hatchery near Otis or into the Cedar
Creek Hatchery on Three Rivers east of Hebo.
As I said, it’s all great stuff and perfect for a family
outing.
For information online about Fish and Wildlife
hatcheries, including links to directions, go to Visit
ODFW Hatcheries | Oregon Department of Fish &
Wildlife (myodfw.com)
This week’s highlights
Item 1, Better and better: Shad counts through the
fish ladder at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River
passed 200,000 a day on June 16, with a high, so far, of
301,436 on June 17.
So a visit to Clackamette Park in Oregon City should
be on your to-do list. For updates on Bonneville counts
online, go to 7 Day and YTD Adult Counts (fpc.org)
Clackamette Park information is online at Clackamette
Park | City of Oregon City (orcity.org).
The original column that I wrote about shad fishing
also is online at the SJ website at Henry Miller: Cotton-
wood fluff is falling, so it must be time for shad
(statesmanjournal.com)
Item 2: Last shot for shovel action in June: It’s not
too late to cash in on the tail end of one of the best tide
series of the year, which runs mornings through Mon-
day, June 28. You can look up the times and tides for
the hot spots on the coast online at Tide Location Se-
lection for Oregon (saltwatertides.com)
And, as always, be sure to check before heading out
by calling the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s toll-
free shellfish biotoxin hotline at (800) 448-2474 or go
online to the State of Oregon: Shellfish - Recreational
Shellfish Biotoxin Closures
Quote of the week: From the recent obituary in the
New York Times for Leigh Perkins, the owner of Orvis,
on the main reason to go fishing. “To enjoy yourself.
Anything that distracts from enjoying yourself is to be
avoided.”
Contact
Henry
MillerSJ@gmail.com
via
email
at
Henry
Agenda Item #1: File Number SU-21-01. Subdi-
vision application request to divide a 5.15 acre
parcel in the 500 block of Eureka Avenue
(Marion County Assessor’s Map and Tax Lot
071W03A 00600) into 22 lots. The site contains a
total area of 5.15 acres and will be divided into
22 lots ranging in size from 6,345 square feet to
18,949 square feet for an overall density of 4.27
units per acre. The application will be reviewed
following the criteria found in Silverton Devel-
opment Code section 4.3.140.
Failure of an issue to be raised in a hearing, in
person or by letter, or failure to provide enough
detail to afford the decision maker an opportu-
nity to respond precludes appeal to LUBA based
on that issue. Additional information and/or re-
view of this application, including all documents
and evidence submitted, may be obtained at Sil-
verton City Hall, 306 South Water Street by tele-
phoning Jason Gottgetreu at (503) 874-2212.
Copies of the staff report will be available seven
(7) days prior to the public hearing and are
available for review at no cost at City Hall by
appointment, a copy can be provided on request
at a reasonable cost.
Silverton Appeal
June 30, 2021
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our Legal Clerk will return a proposal with cost, publication
date(s), and a preview of the ad.
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