Photowalk - Outside is Overrated Edition

[olivermoss]

I found another Butterfly Repopulation Station:













So, the funny thing about this Nature Walk is...


Welcome to Unpaved Portland! The cross street is a two way street with houses fronting on on it. The walk is on an alley, but it's an alley in the sense that it's motor vehicle right of way with street signs, not like a back alley. That is public land mean for transportation. Some people grow crops on unpaved streets, fence it off like it's their own yard, etc, but here the neighbors collabed on a nature walk.

A surprising amount of this city is unpaved.

And, walking back the other way:


See the kitty? that cute... sweet looking little... Yup, that's the fuzzle. My arm is still not the same... shape. You don't need details. moving on...



The plantings are still getting established

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Cool mural, love the snakes

The monarch station is a cool thing! (I love monarchs, but can only count on seeing a few each year here, so they're an exciting semi-rarity.)

The unpaved road being used as a nature walk is interesting. It really does shock me how much of the city is unpaved! How often does it cause problems when people fence off sections of the unpaved roads that are supposed to allow through-traffic?

And oh dear, that little bastard of a kitty. >:(

[olivermoss]

I was out to track down the other butterfly station and a few other things. glad I got it!

I honestly don't know how much of a problem farming on roads is. There is a house near me that just yoinked a section of road by fencing it in during the pandemic. I don't know how Oregon's adverse property laws are, but in CT they'd have a legal claim on the land by now. Portland had planned to crack down and push for paving everything, but that program was supposed to begin at the start of 2020 and... it ded. Yeah, that did not happen and I haven't heard boo since. Initially, my 2020 plans including trying to shoot unpaved roads while they still existed. I may have made a navel gazey post about how paving stuff is good, but I'd miss the unpaved road as part of Portland's vibe.

Cute, tiny, skinny little bastard. A nearby house had a bunch of empty cat food cans in the yard, so I guess someone is feeding all the strays and probably attracting them to the area.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm glad you found it!

I can see how that could fall under the same sort of ruling that squatters' rights and such do; possessing the property for long enough without challenge.

Ah, 2020.

The weird, twisty unpaved stretches really do add a lot to the general Portland vibe, I think. (In my geographically distant perception, anyway.) It's part of that quirky fantasy feeling that the city has in a lot of ways... having a perfectly paved grid system with adequate drainage just wouldn't *feel* the same.

That cute, tiny, skinny little bastard...

[olivermoss]

Growing out, the house next to ours doubled her yard by taking care of a bit of public land next to her. She was an ongoing source of stress for us because she really, really wanted to 'just garden, make life beautiful' in our yard. We kept having to rip up her plants and stuff.

Yeah, I love the unpaved roads. It's just such a uniquely Portland thing to have a city this big and have so many roads either unpaved, or the neighbors got cut-rate paving done and it didn't last so the roads look like sets from The Last Of US

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, that sounds frustrating to deal with. It sucks when someone seems to be well-meaning (I just want to garden!) but are doing so in a way that you really can't let slide without it causing a ton of shit.

It is really surprising for a city the size of Portland to have the kind of infrastructure it does. Patchwork paving/no paving at all... it's a really unique thing that provides a lot of character. I do realize there are downsides, but it's really hard not to love things that make a place actually unique!
So many cities could have whole blocks switched between them and have it be almost unnoticed... having a place that doesn't look or feel just like anywhere else is a very cool thing.

[olivermoss]

She wanted our land, and it was easier for her to access parts of it than we could so it was a giant mess. We had to hire people every couple years because we couldn't go over her land to fix stuff without getting legal threats, so we needed people who could get to the bottom of the cliff from the top. She was a constant source of stress for my Mom.

Portland got roads late in general. We were just a messy, muddy port town. These days we can't infrastructure because it requires plans with more than one step. I do really like the unpaved roads and people just deciding to farm on them. It's really hard to make it clear in a picture that's what's happening at times.

[mistressofmuses]

Ah, so that is NOT even a case of "seemingly benign" motives... she was just trying to take advantage and make things hard for you. That does sound like a nightmare of a bad neighbor situation.

Lol @ the "can't do it, requires more than a single step," haha.

I imagine it's hard to get across via pictures in some cases because it is the kind of thing I imagine few people (who aren't in Portland) see frequently. You see a community garden and go "aw, what a nice way to use a little side yard, or the verge next to a road." The idea that someone could just... do that... on a "real" road (for local definitions of real) might not compute.

I really do like the way the unpaved roads add to the general sense of place.

[muccamukk]

awww, what a sweet fuzzle! I'm sure nothing bad would...

Pretty little area. I love the Little Free Seed Library.

[olivermoss]

Nature, fresh air, sunlight, petting the kitties, supposed to be good for you, right? Going to stick to video games and blanket forts from now on.

It's a very cute library!