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Victoria Stoppiello
Weather is something we talk about, but...
Victoria Stoppiello
JUNES
Statues o f Greek goddesses, unicorns and gargoyles or a
fountain decorated with Puck playing the flute do not seem quite
the right style o f garden art to use here along the N.W. Pacific
coast; however, neither does the collection o f cement and
ceramic angels that decorate my garden. Mermaids, fish, whales
and sea birds might be more appropriate.
In all the years I ’ ve lived here at the coast I’ ve never
seen a real live angel. I also have a rather large collection of
cement and carved wooden frogs in various sizes. Some
resemble the small green tree frogs and one large cement one
looks like a huge Bull frog. I did have live frogs when the lawn
turned into a swamp after a heavy rainfall, but after I put in a
drainage system the frogs disappeared.
M y garden is also filled with many birdhouses and
birdfeeders. I stopped feeding the birds as I found out that the
sunflower seeds attracted rats. I have enough birdhouses for the
entire bird population to use fo r nesting, but so far only one
sparrow fam ily has used one. The Barn swallows have found a
perfect place to build their nest on each spring, the light fixture
above the back door.
Back to angels and frogs. I originally only intended to
place just a few statues throughout the garden, but can’ t seem to
stop collecting more. Also my fam ily and friends through the
years have gifted me with more for Christmas or birthdays. I ’ m
not complaining; it’ s just come to a point that a nice card or
telephone greeting for those occasions is sufficient to keep me
content and happy.
It’ s only recently that I ’ ve become aware it’ s time to stop
adding any more statues or other garden art.
A visitor seeing my garden for the first time commented,
“ M y you don’ t believe in leaving any bare space do you? Your
garden is quite colorful and you must feel protected you have so
many angels placed in every comer. If all the frogs were real
they could take care o f the bugs and you’d have a croaking
chorus.”
I replied only kiddingly, “ I guess all I need now is to add
statues o f Greek goddesses, a unicorn or a gargoyle or two.” I
hope my grandsons who gave me my first angel won’ t buy me
the fountain they’d seen and been taken by, a fountain that has a
half human and half beast spouting water out o f its mouth.
Besides, the “ beastie” might scare o ff the raccoons. They are
perfectly content drinking water in a large container that is filled
with sea shells and each morning I find a shell placed on the
deck next to the container.
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THE
Casual Dining
Overlooking the Hestucca River
If there’s one thing I want the new Mayor ol Ilwaco to do,
whoever he is, is change the weather. I don’t mean the winter
weather, either. A couple weeks in a sunnier clime in
November gets me through the winter. It’s the blasted rainy,
cloudy, fog-infested summer that gels to me. I’m
psychologically predisposed to expect warm aftemexins, meals
outdoors, balmy walks on the beach, and they just can't
happen. It’s not that I don ’t try— the weather just doesn’t
cooperate.
It’s not that I’m unaccustomed to the cold and wet. I was
bom in Astoria and raised on one bank or the other of the
Columbia downstream from Portland. I’m used to drizzle, but
I’m not used to the kind of weather we’ve been having the last
several summers. Perhaps it’s just that from the ages of 10 to
17 I lived in Clatskanie and Vernonia, coast range towns that
escaped summer fog. Now it could be that, despite my
childhood memories of Ilwaco being a relatively dark and
damp place, this really isn’t typical weather—or not typical of
the last 50 years. It could be that the weather is changing and
those scientists who say we’re not only having global
warming, but climate change as well, could be right. I tend to
put my money on their pony, because they’ve been collecting
information from polar ice cores that indicate things are
getting a lot warmer, a lot faster, than they have before, going
back thousands of years.
One presentation I saw recently at a renewable energy fair
showed that one or two degrees difference in ambient
temperature has big impacts on the number of salmon in rivers
and forests growing. Without arguing about the source of the
earth’s warming temperature, I figure the conservative thing to
do is not enhance the change. Whether it will be ultirpately a
good or bad thing almost doesn’t matter; we humans are pretty
adaptable, but not necessarily as quick to change as the
weather seems to be.
One set of data I saw said the earth’s climate has been in a
period of stability, preceded by a much longer period of
incredible instability. The beginning of stability w as quickly
followed by the development of agriculture. How about that?
No wonder I can’t get our tomatoes to ripen, even under glass,
and the boysenberries are molding this year: it’s the frustrating
weather. This is a case, however, when besides talking about
the weather 1 want someone to do something about it. That
someone is George W. Bush.
Turns out he is, but only privately. Maybe that’s part of the
reason he’s taking a four-week vacation right now. Texas in
August, especially at Bush’s new Eco-fnendly ranch house,
has got to be more comfortable than muggy Washington, DC.
Eco-friendly? Yes, you can read all about it in the
April 13, 2001, issue of USA Today. The house described in
the article is a passive solar house, augmented w ith a
geothermal heating and cooling system. Water is pumped 300
feet underground to take advantage of the earth’s constant
temperature of 67 degrees, then circulated through the house
to warm and cool it. Big overhangs keep summer sun out,
letting winter sun in to warm the concrete floors (solar mass in
solar design talk). There’s no air conditioning, just natural
ventilation. Rainwater, kitchen, bath and toilet water are all
collected, purified, and reused for irrigation. The building uses
local materials, including limestone discards. Outdoors, there's
a re-constructed w ildflower prairie. In other words, Mr. Bush
doesn’t walk his talk.
The talk he isn’t walking is that global warming is a
questionable concept and the American people aren’t ready or
willing to conserve energy. His own ranch house, however,
uses 25% of the electricity a similar, 4,000 square foot house
would use. As politicians go, we don’t expect them to be able
to deal with things like the weather, but G. W. Bush could
have an impact on the weather by getting us on the program to
support the Kyoto global warming treaty . He could develop a
national energy policy that looks more like his own house than
his rhetoric. I like his house and why wouldn’t I? Mr. Bush
has beaten me at my own game: We reduced our electricity
use by 67%, but he’s using 75% less. So, although the Mayor
of Ilwaco can’t impact the weather, the US President can, and
G. W. Bush even knows how. Or does he? Maybe it’s all
Laura’s doing.
Victoria Stoppiello writes from Ilwaco at the lower left comer
of Washington State.
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ANTHONY STOPPIELLO
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C h e f J e ff M e M a h on
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