22 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
BOOK SHELF // GLIMPSE // WILDLIFE // POP CULTURE // WORDS // Q&A // FOOD // FUN
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
MILL POND
[MIL PÄND]
Also, millpond or mill-pond
noun
1. a small body of water
used to either power a mill
through damming a natural
source of running water and
diverting the fl ow to a wheel,
or, in the case of a log pond,
was a calm body of water used
to store fl oating logs before
they are processed in a sawmill
2. Mill Pond Village:
a 16-acre residential devel-
opment built snugly around
a 3.7 acre former log pond
on the Riverwalk just east of
downtown Astoria. Zoned as
a mixed-use project, the high
density neighborhood was
erected upon the razed site of
the Astoria Plywood Cooper-
ative, which operated as the
central lumber hub in the area
for over 120 years and was
Astoria’s largest employer
when the employee-owned
operation shut down in 1989.
Designated as a brownfi eld
site due to toxic contamina-
tion, the city and state spent
four years in the 1990s clean-
ing up the site, which includ-
NW
word
nerd
ed the removal of 6000 cubic
yards of soil and sediment and
discharging over 57,000 gal-
lons of clean water. In 1999
Venerable Properties acquired
the scrubbed land from the
city and began development
of the neighborhood, which
includes four public parks
Origin:
The compound was fi rst
recorded in English around
1640, though mills had been
widely used in the British
Isles since the medieval
period and appeared in many
different cultures of antiquity
before that, including ancient
China, ancient Rome and
ancient Persia. Mille arrives
around 1390, formerly mylne
before 1225, which developed
from the Old English mylen,
all of which referred to ma-
chinery created to grind grain.
Around 1300 ponde enters
use as a variant of pound,
meaning an enclosed place.
This additional meaning of
pound still exists today in
reference to animal shelters.
Originally ponde only referred
to an artifi cially created body
of water. In May 2017 the city
of Astoria offi cially dedicated
The 14 th Annual
Cannon Beach Cottage & Garden Tour
T HREE -D AY E VENT
S EPTEMBER 8 TH - 10 TH , 2017
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
6:00 p.m. Kicks off with concert & reception fea-
turing Kelsey Mousley. Refreshments by Sweet
Charity at Cannon Beach Chamber Hall (207
North Spruce Street) Tickets $15
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
12:00 p.m. Luncheon by Sweet Charity & Lecture
by Dr. Doug Deur at the Cannon Beach Cham-
ber Hall. Tickets $25
12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Home & Garden Tour of
north Cannon Beach. Tickets $35
6:00 p.m. Thistle & Rose Concert & Reception
(Fall raffl e takes place at this time (included in
cost of Home & Garden Tour ticket))
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
11:00 a.m. Garden Tea & presentation by Dawn
Hummel. Takes place at Cannon Beach Cham-
ber Hall. Tickets $20
Weekend packages are $75 with discounts for members
Advance Ticket purchases recommended
For tickets call 503-436-9301 or visit www.cbhistory.org
the water feature of Mill Pond
Village as the DeMuro Mill
Pond to honor the late Art
DeMuro, the founder of Ven-
erable Properties, who was
instrumental in spearheading
the rebirth of the blighted
property with an eye toward
sustainable, environmentally
sound architecture.
“Palmberg Construction
company, Astoria, will begin
dredging out the millpond to a
depth of four feet below mean
low water next week, using a
specially-built pipeline suc-
tion dredge that has just been
completed.
The pond, long used by a
sawmill that formerly occu-
pied the plywood mill site,
has been silting up for years
and is now dry except at high
tide.”
—“Plywood Mill Opening
Near: Astoria Project Makes
Progress,” The Sunday Ore-
gonian, May 6, 1951, P. 26
“Lasting evidence of De-
Muro’s attachment to Astoria
was his request to have his
ashes deposited in the mill
pond.”
—“Editor’s Notebook:
Mill Pond rose from the
ashes of the Astoria Plywood
Coop,” The Daily Astorian,
Friday, May 6, 2016
“The Astoria Co-Op
Grocery has signed a lease
to build a new store on the
site of the former Astoria
Plywood Cooperative at the
corner of 23rd Street and
Marine Drive.
The new location in Mill
Pond, at more than 11,000
square feet, will increase the
co-op’s retail footprint from
2,100 to 7,500 square feet and
is expected to nearly triple the
current staff of 25.”
— Edward Stratton,
“Astoria Co-op Grocery fi nds
a new location,” The Daily
Astorian, Wednesday, May
31, 2017 CW
DRAGONFLY
By LYNETTE RAE
McADAMS
FOR COAST WEEKEND
All across the globe, on
every continent save Antarc-
tica, wherever there is water,
there are also dragonfl ies.
Strange and beautiful,
these unique insects, whose
species number more than
7,000, all belong to the
scientifi c orders Odonata
and Anisoptera, meaning,
“toothed, with an uneven
wing.”
Beloved by humans, these
striking, colorful fl iers have
inhabited Earth for at least
300 million years — plenty
of time, apparently, to perfect
their charms while honing
their survival skills.
Compared to most other
fl ying insects, whose wings
hinge on a single muscle,
dragonfl ies are highly
specialized instruments of
fl ight. With four iridescent
appendages attached along
the thorax to four individual
muscles, they have near-
ly perfect control of their
maneuverability, cruising
through the air in all six
directions, at speeds up to 30
mph. Their added ability to
hover perfectly, for seeming-
ly endless lengths of time,
has made them the envy of
aeronautic engineers the
world over.
As well adapted as they
are to the skies, it comes as
some surprise that very little
of a dragonfl y’s life is actual-
ly lived on the wing.
Hatched from an egg,
it gets its start as a nymph,
spending up to two years
in the water before making
its fated, primordial crawl
toward land. Emerging from
the natal pond, it takes a
few moments to adapt to the
air, and then, with a sudden
PHOTO BY DAVID O’BRIEN
Southern Hawker Dragonfl y
forcefulness, its exoskeleton
cracks in half and a fully
formed dragonfl y unfurls
itself from the wreckage.
Once emancipated — its
fresh new wings primed
with blood and oxygen — a
young dragonfl y’s fi rst step
turns quickly into a fi rst
fl ight, and for the rest of its
short life, which can last
from several weeks to sever-
al months, it will hardly ever
stop fl ying.
Even while eating, a
dragonfl y can remain in
fl ight. One of nature’s most
successful predators, with
a 95-percent kill rate and a
sophisticated taste for other
fl ying bugs, it snatches its
victims mid-air, holding
them tight with its legs, then
crushing and devouring them
with a set of jagged, vice-like
mandibles.
Fortunately for humans,
such terrifying traits are
lessened when they come
from something as small as
a modern dragonfl y, but con-
sider this: Fossilized records
of this creature’s ancient
forbears show they once had
a wingspan of almost 30
inches.
Equally as impressive
as its wings are Odonata’s
eyes. With 30,000 facets
each, they encompass almost
the entire head, offering the
insect nearly 360 degrees of
visibility. Additionally, extra
specialized, light-sensitive
proteins in the eye help en-
rich a dragonfl y’s perception
of the world. While our eyes
also contain such proteins,
called opsins, we have only
three, and see all colors as a
combination of red, blue and
green. Dragonfl ies, however,
have up to 30 opsin in each
eye, and visualize colors we
can’t begin to imagine.
Culturally, dragonfl ies
have long been perceived
as having magical, spiritual
properties, and are a symbol
of good luck and self-actu-
alized metamorphosis. In
China and Japan, parts of the
dragonfl y are still used by
practitioners of traditional
medicine. In Indonesia, adult
fl iers are caught by hand,
then deep fried in hot oil and
served as a delicacy. CW