Just down the country road from our house, ducks, snowy egrets, blue herons, and thousands of other birds and wetland critters call this wildlife sanctuary home. It has only been a sanctuary for a short while ... when I was a child I remember this slough of the Willamette River being drained and farmed, hence our affectionate name "the Onion Flats". The nearby road would sometimes flood over during the rainy season ... which in this part of Oregon is pretty much every month between September and June. I can remember when the Onion Flats froze over after one of these floods. My brothers, sisters and cousins and I crawled out over the ice to glimpse the grasses floating in the water underneath. I can still picture the waving fronds of reeds, rushes and grasses underfoot.
This wooden shed has been tucked away at one end of the Onion Flats ... abandoned for as long as I can remember. I have always been curious as to it's original purpose. It was built around the stump of an old tree, long since cut down. Now that the wetlands have been restored, it sits partially underwater for most of the year and won't last much longer.
But I will always wonder about the mystery of it's past, and enjoy the wonder of it's present.
You've caught something very special here.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the time some teenagers thought they could drive over the Onion Flats when it froze over? We drove past, just as the front end of their car broke through the ice. I remember those youngsters scrambling across the ice, to stand open-mouthed, as their car settled down through the ice, only the top left above water.
This is a truly wonderful photo. When I look at it, I can sense the mystery and pathos of the abandoned building hiden amungst the willows and brown rushes of the old onion flats.
I LOVE this picture.