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Turning Paradigms Upside Down: Sixty is the new forty and MEAT is the New RICE

“Sixty is the new forty.” Hillary Clinton made the line famous last year when she celebrated her 60th birthday during the presidential campaign. Woodstock celebrated
Pam Stevenson

“Sixty is the new forty.” Hillary Clinton made the line famous last year when she celebrated her 60th birthday during the presidential campaign. Woodstock celebrated its 40th anniversary this past weekend and the Joan Baez concert at the Athletic Club on Sunday night was brimming with Bend's Baby Boomers.
It seems like friends have been turning 60 all around me this summer and, if there is any place with an aquifer of youth, it must be Bend, Oregon. The women I know are not wearing black and throwing in the towel. They are celebrating – and I'm not talking about little old lady tea parties.
They grew up and went to school in the pre-Title IX days. (Title IX, now known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, became law in 1972.) Dani, who turns 60 in October, recalls, “When I was in school they wouldn't let me take auto mechanics class. They said I would be a distraction. I could take home economics.”

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Mirror, Mirror: Reflections from Mirror Pond and Mirror Lake

On a Monday evening two weeks ago, I put in behind the Park & Rec building to paddle upriver and meet a few friends
Pam Stevenson

TRAGEDY ON THE RIVER
On a Monday evening two weeks ago, I put in behind the Park & Rec building to paddle upriver and meet a few friends for some whitewater play in the rapids above Bill Healy Bridge. It was 6:30 p.m., about 90 degrees, and the river was choked with floaters. As I began to paddle, I saw a dark colored shirt floating downstream and heard sirens start to wail. People yelled at me from the footbridge, “Look for someone in the water!”
Seventeen-year-old Aaron Garcia had been trying to swim across the river from Farewell Bend Park across the river with friends when he began to struggle and slipped below the surface.

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Who Me? Couldn’t Be

Guess what? You might be on steroids. Last week, it became known that David Ortiz tested positive for one of those pesky performance-enhancing drugs back
The Source Staff

Am I on Steroids?
Guess what? You might be on steroids. Last week, it became known that David Ortiz tested positive for one (or more than one) of those pesky performance-enhancing drugs back in 2003. But Ortiz says that he has no clue how he could have possibly ingested or been injected with steroids and they must have somehow been in some supplement he was taking.
That's right, this man unknowingly took steroids, just like Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and several other ball players who've used the “I don't know how that got in my system” defense after testing positive. This gave me pause, thinking: Could I, too, be unknowingly juicing?

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Nina de la Tierra: Child of the Earth: The mystery of the Jerusalem Cricket

I've been getting phone calls and e-mails recently reminding me this is the time of the year when unsuspecting humans meet up with our colorful
The Source Staff

I've been getting phone calls and e-mails recently reminding me this is the time of the year when unsuspecting humans meet up with our colorful and common—but sometimes alarming—Jerusalem Cricket.
Of all the insects that live in, under, over and on Central Oregon, none can catch a person's eye and generate more fear, questions, admiration, revulsion and other human emotions like that of Stenopelmatus fuscus, the Jerusalem Cricket, AKA:

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Nature's Grand Light Show: Capturing the cloud that isn't really a cloud

Every once in a while, Old Mother Nature knocks my socks off. While heading home last Thursday night with a small swarm of bees I
The Source Staff

Every once in a while, Old Mother Nature knocks my socks off. While heading home last Thursday night with a small swarm of bees I gathered out of a water-meter box in Bend, the scene above began to take shape.
At first, I didn't get it, and had no idea it was going to get better, but as the eye of God began to close, and darkness slowly eased across the western sky, those gigantic ice clouds, perhaps 50 miles or more high above the Earth, began to glow with eerie luminescence. By 10pm the light show was absolutely breathtaking. It left me with the feeling that a giant hole had been torn open in our Galaxy, and I was looking into another Universe.
Wanting to photograph the event, but not having my tripod with me was a problem, but I took a chance anyway, I had to capture that moment. I placed my tough old, true-blue, through-and-through Canon Rebel on the roof of the canopy of my Chevy S-10 (the replacement for my elk-killed Westy) and shot away. Not bad for a shaky old codger…

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Chatting in the Peloton: ValueAct and a class act

Last week, in between the Cascade Cycling Classic and the National Road Championships in Bend, I joined the ValueAct women's professional cycling team on an easy reconnaissance ride through Tetherow.
Pam Stevenson

A RIDE WITH VALUE ACT
Last week, in between the Cascade Cycling Classic and the National Road Championships in Bend, I joined the ValueAct women's professional cycling team on an easy reconnaissance ride through Tetherow. We analyzed the hills and the turns, discussing which ones could be taken at full speed in aero bars during the upcoming time trial. While riding, I had a chance to chat with several members of the team.
All of the riders said that the CCC was a really hard race, but the team did well. Bendite Chrissy Ruitter races on the ValueAct squad and placed sixth in the GC in the Cascade Cycling Classic, while Kristin McGrath, from Durango, CO soloed to victory in the final stage in the Awbrey Butte Circuit Race.
“The whole team rode a great race,” commented team director, Lisa Hunt. “I told them they could win it and that's what they did. I'm so proud of all of them! Now that we've had a taste of victory on this course, we're going to try to do it again [at Nationals], but they might not let one of the girls go at the exact spot!”

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Pity the Poor Osprey: Catching up with one of nature’s best fisherman

Do your osprey have large talons?The osprey (Pandion haliaetus), has never had an easy life, and probably never will. It eats fish, and anything that
Jim Anderson

Do your osprey have large talons?The osprey (Pandion haliaetus), has never had an easy life, and probably never will. It eats fish, and anything that eats fish is- somewhere along life's trail-going to have a collision with Man's interests or Nature's. To make it worse, it's that way wherever Osprey live, and, except for Antarctica, they are found worldwide.

Long before Man came onto the scene, osprey and eagles had been conducting a one-way battle for fish that works like this: Osprey spends hours hovering over water that has fish swimming beneath the surface. Osprey spots fish. Osprey catches fish. So far so good…
Those of you who have watched osprey dive after a fish have been thrilled as I have to observe the headlong plummet they make toward their intended target. They've got a lot of things going for them at this point; one is a built-in filter in their eyes that cuts the reflection from the surface of the water, sort of like a Polaroid lens. Diving head first, and with that remarkable eyesight, they can keep a sharp eye on the unsuspecting fish. Just before they hit the water, however, the Osprey does a split-second position shift. The wings are raised directly overheard, and instead of diving headfirst, they are now feet first, and it is in that attitude they hit the water.

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The Heat Is On: Pull a water toy out of the quiver

Surf- Skiing Paulina Lake The heat is on. It’s supposed to be close to 100 degrees all week long. I feel for the cyclists
Pam Stevenson

Surf- Skiing Paulina LakeThe heat is on. It's supposed to be close to 100 degrees all week long.
I feel for the cyclists in the Cascade Cycling Classic last week and
the National Championships this week. As if the elevation, the hills
and the competition weren't tough enough, you know it's a scorcher when
you can see the heat waves shimmering off the black asphalt and hear
the tiny tar bubbles going off like Jiffy Pop under your wheels. As
much as I love the bike, the water is the place to be right now. The
only dilemma is which water toy to pull out of the quiver.

SEA KAYAK
If I could only have one boat (heaven forbid), I'd
pick my sea kayak, because of its versatility. My 17-foot 6-inch
Wilderness Systems Shanai is a fast daytripper perfect for a paddle and
picnic on any lake (and now is absolutely the time for that). It's fast
enough that it's in demand every year for PPP, but it can also take me
on a weeklong expedition in the San Juans or Canada.

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That Lizard Has a Hole in it!: Or does it? On the trail of the side-blotched Uta

Our common, Side-blotched Lizard, Uta stansburiana.I need to make an apology. Throughout all the years I’ve been preaching from this pulpit, I have never once
Jim Anderson

Our common, Side-blotched Lizard, Uta stansburiana.I need to make an apology. Throughout all the years I've been preaching from this pulpit, I have never once (that I can recall) mentioned one of our more handsome reptiles, the side-blotched lizard of the genus Uta. For this I apologize, profusely!

You'll note I used the genus name along with the common name, as this is what I was told the lizard's name was when I met up with my first specimen at Fort Rock years ago. I was strolling along the ancient lake terrace just above the present parking lot, counting Prairie Falcons nests in the towering crags, when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something orange-ish suddenly scamper away on the rocks. The reason I actually noted the movement at all was probably the flash of bright orange.
My first glance didn't reveal what it was, as the movement stopped when I stepped closer to the rock outcropping. Then I saw it, a lizard with a bright orange throat and belly. Wow! It was beautiful!
Looking at it closely I saw what appeared to be a hole in the lizard's body, just behind its front leg. When it stopped, however, I could see that it wasn't really a hole, but a dark blueish spot. With the stealth of a Navy SEAL I crept up on the lizard and in a lucky grab I had it in my hand. I had no idea of its name, common or scientific, and no one to ask. (My good friend and herpetologist, Al St. John of Bend, author of Lone Pine Publisher's superb publication, Reptiles of the Northwest, was about 10 years old at that time, busy chasing snakes around McMinnville.) But down in my rig, I had a brand new copy of Stebbins' textbook, Amphibians and Reptiles of North America.

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Bike Bonanza: Tour des Chutes, Deschutes Dash, CCC and Nats

Breaking away, Central Oregon style, at the CCC.For bike lovers, this is sensory overload season. The wildflowers are ablaze along Sector 16, there is a
Pam Stevenson

Breaking away, Central Oregon style, at the CCC.For bike lovers, this is sensory overload season. The wildflowers are ablaze along Sector 16, there is a century ride to choose any weekend, and the Central Oregon Crit Series (www.centraloregonracing.com) is in full swing on Wednesday nights in Northwest Crossing…and it only gets worse.

TOUR DES CHUTES
The fifth-annual Tour Deschutes was a huge, hot hit on Saturday with over 1,000 people riding to raise awareness and money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the St. Charles Cancer Survivorship Program. "At the finish line, cancer survivors go through a special chute and receive a yellow rose. It was amazing to see how many people went through that chute and the community support for (event founder) Gary Bonacker and the event," said 45-mile ride participant Suzie Miller. "My Dad died of lung cancer from all the smog in Southern California and I have a picture of us riding together on my bike. Whenever the going gets tough, I ask Dad to help me kick it in."

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