8A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL August 19, 2015
O FFBEAT
Depth, soul populate
CT's 'Quilters'
Continued from page 4A
Diverse cast turns in a
powerful performance
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
I
n a message shared with the
Cottage Theatre audience
in the program for CT’s most
recent production, “Quilters,”
Executive Director Susan Goes
mentions some of the issues that
faced the cast of 10 women and
crew as they worked to bring the
play to life.
“Along the way to opening
night, this cast and crew dealt
with aging parent issues, major
surgery and the replacement of
a cast member just eight days
before opening,” Goes wrote,
continuing that “The emotions
brought forth through those
challenges add depth and soul
to the sharing of these stories in
‘Quilters.’”
The words ‘depth’ and ‘soul’
do much to describe the allure
of this production, an at-times
astonishingly complex story
of relationships, hardships and
joys, love and loss that was
handled with much grace and
elegance by a diverse yet cohe-
sive Cottage Theatre cast.
Set on the American prairie
in the 1800s, “Quilters” tells
the tales and showcases the
struggles of the women that
helped win the West, with fa-
milial bonds shaping a story set
against an often stark, harsh and
unforgiving landscape.
The play revolves around the
last days of Sarah, mother to
many daughters, who tells the
story of her own life and times
through the quilts she has lov-
ingly created since her own
childhood. Throughout the play,
a quilt’s many panels stand for
the pioneer woman’s many
loves, losses and triumphs.
“Quilters” manages to touch all
bases with regard to these strug-
gles, and to its credit, there is no
attempt by writers Molly New-
man and Barbara Damashek to
daintify the harsh realities of
living, loving and dying in an
unfamiliar wilderness.
Those previously unfamiliar
with “Quilters” (this reporter
included) learn early on that a
central aspect of the production
will loom large — its music.
The play is laced throughout
with a stark and haunting score
and effects played by musi-
cians Catricia Mayhue, Avery
Pratt and Delia House Lopez.
Its (very) complex harmonies
often involve the entire cast and
photo by Matt Emrich
Sarah (Eliza Roaring Springs) talks of quilts and life with
her daughter (Madeleine Sisson).
do much to tell a story of depth
and passion. Mayhue, who also
served as music director for
“Quilters,” deserves much credit
for bringing the stories of these
pioneer women to life in sound,
and each cast member can be
commended for a singing job
well done.
Kudos are also most certainly
due to Director Eliza Roaring
Springs, who brings Sarah to
life with humanity that’s writ-
ten all over her aged face. Roar-
ing Springs may also be com-
mended for shepherding a truly
cohesive cast through such a de-
manding production. Standouts
from the cast included Stefhani
Anderson, who plays an engag-
ing and earnest daughter, and
Madeleine Sisson, already a CT
veteran at age 16, who brings
much elegance and heart to the
play’s action.
The quilts of many in Cot-
tage Grove adorn the Cottage
Theatre for this production, and
many historical quilts will also
be on display at the Cottage
Grove Museum for “Cottage
Quilts: Piecing Together our
Past” throughout the month of
August. “Quilters” continues its
run at Cottage Theatre Aug. 20-
23 and Aug. 27-30.
explosion. Within a week or
two the authorities knew that
had been a mistake. Rumors and
whispers by Southern Oregon
residents quickly escalated into
wild and frightful speculations.
Loggers working the woods all
over the state started stepping
gingerly, and production plum-
meted, and fear levels started to
ramp up — precisely the reac-
tion the Japanese had hoped to
inspire. Belatedly, authorities
realized they’d need to come
clean, and so Archie Mitchell —
still shaken by the tragedy that
had befallen his wife and the
children of his friends — was
authorized to tell the reporters
all.
Perhaps it worked. When the
Japanese fi nally did surrender,
two months later, their balloon
bombs hadn’t taken any other
lives — although there’s reason
to suspect they did start a fairly
serious forest fi re, the 180,000-
acre monster known as the Third
Tillamook Burn, which broke
out on July 9 of that year.
Four years later, the U.S.
Congress approved a bill that
paid a total of $20,000 to Archie
Mitchell and the families of the
slain Bly children.
F
resh vegetables can be
harvested most of the year
in many places in Oregon. In
fact, many cool-season crops
produce well in the fall and hold
through the winter if protected.
“You can plant vegetables in
mid- to late summer after you
harvest spring crops and as
space is available and in many
years have a year-round gar-
den,” said Ross Penhallegon, a
horticulturist with Oregon State
University’s Extension Service.
Some of the best vegetables
are produced during the warm
days and cold nights of fall, he
said. Light frost adds sugar to
sweet corn and crispness to car-
rots. Parsnips, kale, collards,
Brussels sprouts and Jerusalem
artichokes also improve with a
touch of frost.
Succession planting is eas-
ily accomplished west of the
Cascades, but east of the moun-
tains, newly planted crops may
need a cloche or cold frame to
keep plants alive into the cold-
er months and as protection
against rain battering. If you’d
like to build a raised bed cloche
to extend the gardening season,
fi nd directions in the free publi-
cation How to Build Your Own
Raised-Bed Cloche.
Certain vegetables are better
suited to fall and winter harvest
than others, Penhallegon said. A
complete list of recommended
varieties and how to grow them
can be found in the eight-page
guide Fall and Winter Vegetable
Gardening in the Pacifi c North-
west.
A key to successful fall or win-
ter gardening is location of your
garden. Choose the warmest
spot you have that is not prone
to early frost, avoid the bottom
of a hill or an area with lots of
bushes and trees. A south-facing
slope is best for winter sun, he
said. Be sure to restore nutrients
removed by spring and summer
crops with a light layer of com-
post or aged manure or a small
application of fertilizer. Do not
over-fertilize with nitrogen.
“During the rainy season,
good well-drained soils are es-
sential,” Penhallegon advised.
“Raised beds are best, and if
your soil doesn’t drain well,
amend it with organic matter
such as compost.”
Timely planting is another
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key to success. Crops need time
to become well established be-
fore cold weather and short days
curtail growth, but if you plant
too early, the young plants can
wilt in the heat or mature too
soon. Choose the fastest-matur-
ing varieties and pay attention
to the average date of the fi rst
killing frost in your area. Most
winter crops are planted from
July through August.
You can give seeds a head
start in containers or a nursery
bed, or buy starts from a garden
center.
Here are Penhallegon’s exam-
ples of summer-into-fall plant-
ings:
Pull out old pea vines and
plant carrot seeds in their place.
Yank bolted broccoli and re-
place with a crop of lettuce and
salad greens.
Harvest the rest of the beets
and sow a crop of kale.
Replace tomatoes in the fall
with an overwintering crop of
garlic or shallots.
Remove your spent squash
plants and put in crimson clover
(a cover crop) to protect the soil
over the winter.
Compost bitter lettuce and re-
place with a batch of scallions,
leeks or radishes.
Penhallegon suggests that a
crop that fails one year because
of an unusually early freeze or
abnormally cold winter may
thrive in a milder year. “Be
willing to experiment,” he said,
“and don’t give up if your re-
sults some years are less than
ideal.”
(Sources: Juillerat, Lee. “Bal-
loon bombs,” The Oregon En-
cyclopedia (PSU and OHS), or-
egonencyclopedia.org; Portland
Oregonian, 6/01/45, 6/02/45,
12/30/45, 5/10/49)
Finn J.D. John teaches at Or-
egon State University and writes
about odd tidbits of Oregon his-
tory. For details, see http://fi nn-
john.com. To contact him or
suggest a topic: fi nn2@offbe-
atoregon.com or 541-357-2222.
Looking Glass
Community
Services
Extend vegetable crop through fall by planting now
BY KYM POKORNY
OSU Extension Service
The members of the Mitchell
picnic party have gone down in
history as the only casualties of
an enemy attack on the Ameri-
can mainland during the war …
the only casualties so far, that
is. Even today, 70 years later,
it’s worth remembering that
the Japanese launched 9,000 of
these devices, each loaded with
three bombs. Only 361 of them
have been accounted for.
Clearly, thousands of them
fell harmlessly in the Pacifi c
Ocean … but it’s still a possibil-
ity that one or two fell unnoticed
in a deep forest somewhere, and
are still up there, just waiting
for some careless cross-country
trekker to fi nd one of them the
hard way.
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