Howdy Casual Ramblers!

It’s been a while since our last Casual Camera, moreover, it’s been a while since I posted stuff in general; life has been busy with a new job and a whole bunch of worldbuilding on a sci-fi story. I was hoping to have enough schematics and illustrations to publish as a Casual Camera, but that will need to wait.

In the meantime, however, I did go on a hike through Miller Woods.

Miller Wood can be found just outside McMinnville and is managed by the Yamhill County Soil and Water Conservation District. The district is doing the work to maintain the area as a wildlife habitat. That means no pets are allowed on the trails and habitation efforts are undertaken to provide wildlife with safe harbor. You can read more about their work here.

What results is one of my favorite aspects of Oregon: just how gorgeously green it is.

---

---

To the out-of-staters, they hear about the rain and overcast clouds and seasonal affective depression and think it must be a dreary place to live. But to Oregonians, it is merely payment. One side of a bargain that gives us the Garden of Eden from May to September.

It helps that it has been unseasonably sunny——usually April and May are rained out just as much as December or January——and I’m sure climate change is responsible for this. But in that moment, walking around Miller Wood, my mom and I were not complaining.

Just taking it all in. Breathing in what Mother Nature gave us in order to celebrate an early Mother’s Day. (Mom also got some vinyl records and a handwritten note——I’m trying my best out here!)

As a matter of course, my Mom and I talked quite a bit about the need for humans to not only preserve wild spaces, but reduce their footprint in order to steward those spaces. If the burden of consciousness is to know what is wrong with our world, then the gift is the capability to do something about it.

P.S. There will be a Casual Camera for June soon, I’m just waiting for an event to happen in May that I want to photograph.

---