Recently I’ve become dissatisfied with my knowledge of trees. I’m not entirely certain what has caused these feelings at this point in my life – I just find myself looking at a tree and becoming irritated with myself if I can’t identify it.
Therefore I’ve begun a course of study in the trees in my local area; an activity made much easier than it otherwise would be thanks to the superb book Trees to Know in Oregon by Ed Jensen as published by Oregon State University Press Extension Service.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, the activities of the U.S. Forest Service were not just the doings of some far off bureaucrats in Washington D.C.; they were the stuff of daily conversation around the restaurants and coffee shops of the hundreds of small towns populated by people who drew their existence from the vast tracts of forests that blanket the region.
When one is a reviewer of books, each trip to the post office is a potential path to discovery. For example, just the other day a package arrived containing a new book from Oregon State University Press: A Hunger for High Country; One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh.
For those seeking to explore, or simply learn more about, the many rivers to be found in the state of Oregon, the publication of Tim Palmer’s Field Guide to Oregon Rivers by Oregon State University Press should come as welcome news indeed.