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email: info@wllovillage.org
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Note: This is a long newsletter, click the link at the very top that says, 'View this email in your browser'. Enjoy reading what's new and newsworthy with WLLO!
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This month's articles
(view in browser and click on the title link to jump directly to the article):
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About Luscher Farm
A City park that’s also a working farm? That’s exactly what makes Luscher Farm such a treasure.
Luscher Farm, once a dairy operation owned by Rudie and Esther Luscher, was purchased in 1990 by the City of Lake Oswego. The property and buildings are maintained as an agricultural example to educate interested visitors in local food and organic plant production.
Built around the turn of the twentieth century, the Luscher Farm is the most intact historic farm in Clackamas County. It includes a farmhouse in the Queen Anne style, a gambrel-roof barn, a chicken coop, a garage/bunk house, and several smaller outbuildings on a 47.71-acre site. The farm's primary historic use was for dairy farming and cattle breeding. "Luscher Farm" actually consists of multiple properties which belonged to Luscher, Farr, Taylor, Rassekh, and Lang and were purchased by the City of Lake Oswego between 1991 and 1999. The entire collection is located just outside the southeast edge of city limits at the corner of Stafford and Rosemont Roads.
Beyond the 47-acre namesake Luscher farm, the park extends eastward to include an additional 55 acres of open, rolling meadows, wetlands, hedgerows, heirloom fruit trees, oak savannas and wildlife—all to explore and enjoy by wandering mowed pathways through the meadows or strolling the paved Stafford/Rosemont Trail.
Today, Luscher Farm is home to a variety of organic and sustainable gardening and farming programs:
Luscher Farm Community Gardens: One of Luscher Farm's most popular programs is the Community Gardens! There are over 180 organic garden plots at the picturesque property. Program participants grow fresh organic produce and flowers in their assigned beds, and each gardener also provides 4 hours of volunteer service at Luscher Farm during the season. Several WLLO members have plots at Luscher Farm (LeeAnn, Marjorie, Ellen, Lois) and invite you to visit them if you are up at the farm.
Children's Garden: Families and children are invited to make connections with the natural world in this stimulating and special place for people and plants. Children are invited to see how produce grows in this incredible “outdoor classroom”.
Farm Field Trips: The farm offers field trips for school aged children to learn about raising livestock, organic gardening, composting, pollination, and more. Feeding the chickens and counting worms are popular field trip activities.
Community Supported Agriculture: Let Nature set your table for as little as $5 a day for fresh, organically grown produce in a CSA share or half share. The farmer contracted with the City plants and harvests from the fields at Luscher Farm, with help from a staff of strong young folks who believe in small farms and sustainable farming.
The Friends of Rogerson Clematis Garden: Thanks to friendly volunteers wearing purple shirts, you can see heirloom roses, a Baltic border, and a heritage apple orchard, all around the old farmhouse. As well as clematis! Taking a unique approach, the clematis are displayed in a residential setting, providing the opportunity to show how well they combine with other plants. It’s a wonderful place to find inspiration and ideas for your own garden. Covering one acre around the historic Luscher farmhouse and the stately 120-year-old copper beech tree, the Garden’s winding paths lead you into the various display areas, each with a special focus. The pathways around Rogerson Clematis Garden and the Backyard picnic areas are made of compacted gravel and are firm, flat and stable. They are accessible to most people, including those pushing strollers and using walkers or motorized chairs.
See website link for more:
Friends of Rogerson Clematis Garden(link is external)
Friends of Luscher Farm(link is external)
https://www.ci.oswego.or.us/luscher
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WLLO Volunteer Highlight
Sue Driggs
Sue Driggs, WLLO’s Volunteer Organizer/Recruiter/Manager, has a past! Yes, before retiring, and before WLLO, she worked for and developed all those skills she uses today, to keep us in volunteers.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Sue is one of 4 siblings. Her mom, (mostly stay-at–home) did some short time gigs as an office clerk and a telephone operator and her dad was a diesel mechanic, who subcontracted for NASA. This required several moves during Sue’s young life (six different schools from kindergarten to 5th grade), eventually landing in Long Beach, Mississippi, where Sue finished grade school and almost the rest of high school. She finished her senior year in Pensacola, Florida. (Such a gad-about!)
Following high school, Sue and her first husband moved to Seattle, Washington, where she worked as an X-Ray tech for ten years. But she pined for her true calling. Turns out she was interested in engineering! So, she went back to school and got her degree in engineering, at 32 years old. Not just plain vanilla engineering; she got a Bachelors’ degree in Ceramic Engineering (known more today as “Material Science”).
What could the job prospects be in such a field, in 1987, during the recession? There were only 3 positions available for the graduates; Sue got one of them! Referred by a friend, she met with and was hired by a recruiter for Precision Cast Parts, where she worked for five years. She relocated to Portland to take the job.
In 1992 she switched companies and worked for HSA Engineering and Consulting Services, and in 1998 she went to work for Wacker (now Siltronics). At Siltronics, Sue worked a variety of positions, with some nice perks like travelling to countries like Korea, Japan, Singapore, Austria, etc. Another perk? This is where she met her current husband Craig, also a WLLO volunteer.
Sue decided to give retirement a try in 2018, although it turns out it wasn’t for her (yet), so she took job at a small manufacturing company in Tigard as the Quality/Safety/Facilities Manager, which she loved! She gave it another three years until she finally retired full time.
WLLO is not her first volunteer rodeo! She gave her time to “Girls on the Run”, an organization that spurs interest in young girls in sports, by teaching them to run 5K’s. She acquired her cat, Della (Street) at the Cat Adoption Team (CAT), where she also volunteered.
Sue found WLLO through a friend in her Walk/Run group. Curious to see if there was a village in Lake Oswego, she looked us up and made that first contact through the WLLO website. Lucky for us.
Many thanks to Becky Crew for this article!
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Welcome new Volunteers
We are grateful for our WLLO Volunteers! Thank you for all you do! Welcome to Karen E, Peggy M and Sabrina T, we're so happy to have you aboard.
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NO GUILT BOOK CLUB’S NEXT MEETING IS
TUESDAY, Oct 13 AT 10:30 AM
I n September, we discussed Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy.
Join us in October! Ellen Steel will be hosting at the Thirsty Caterpillar and we will discuss My Friends by Fredrik Backman.
Our upcoming reading list is:
Oct - My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Nov - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Dec - Holiday Celebration
Jan - The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson
Return to Table of Contents
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Lake Oswego’s Thirsty Caterpillar: Where a bookstore, kids’ play space and wine shop meet
 
One-part bookstore, one-part experiential children’s play area and one-part wine and coffee shop, Thirsty Caterpillar is meant to be a portal into the powerful world of literature, according to owner Elizabeth Rogers.
Thirsty Caterpillar is now open at 4200 Mercantile Drive (near Biscuits Cafe). For wine and beer offerings, It will offer curated glasses and bottles, as well as beer and coffee.
“My mom was a first-grade teacher … she just loved reading; she loved little kids and bringing out those imaginations,” said Rogers. “When I lost my mom, she had Alzheimer’s, four years ago this April, but really six years prior, when she was diagnosed, I had this big ‘a-ha,’ wake-up moment of just how fleeting life is.”
So, Rogers decided to pursue her dream of opening a bookstore. With the added components of wine pairings and children’s play, the idea for Thirsty Caterpillar was born. As a bookstore, Rogers intends for Thirsty Caterpillar to provide new fiction options for readers of all ages. There will be a monthly book club and several author talks. Check it out!
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Fall Fest at the Forest celebrates the changing seasons with a range of family-friendly activities, entertainment, and delicious food.
Fall Fest in the Forest
October 17th, 2026 |11am-2pm
Mary S. Young Park
West Linn, Oregon
Free mini pumpkins to decorate
Live Music
Trick or Treat throughout the forest!
Dress up in your Halloween costume!
Harvest crafts
Food & Beverage Vendors
Dog costume contest!!
Skeleton Scavenger Hunt
Carnival-style games & prizes
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TERRY'S EARTH FRIENDLY TIPS
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 WASH AND DRY
Eliminating Plastics from Our Cleaning Chores
By
Terence M. Shumaker
shufly46@comcast.net
Recent revelations and product releases have made my wife and I rethink products we use in everyday household cleaning. Washing and drying clothes, and washing dishes.
Those activities, for years, have involved purchasing cleaning products in plastic containers. But new products for washing clothes and dishes have helped eliminate the need for plastic containers. Many of you are probably using some of these products now, but just in case some of you are not aware, let’s take a look at a few.
WASHING DISHES
  Liquid dishwashing detergent, and some powder detergents, are packaged in plastic bottles. But a fairly recent innovation thrust upon the market are dishwashing “pods”. These small pods contain dishwashing detergent enclosed in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which is touted as safe for the environmentally safe because it is degraded in the wastewater treatment process.
But the research in this area is not conclusive, and studies disagree on how much PVA is completely dissolved and how much, in the form of microplastics, remain in the environment. Knowing that microplastics have been found in deep sea trenches, tap water and in mothers’ milk, should be concerning to us all, regardless of the type of plastic.
Microplastics from dishwasher pods adds 8 million tons of plastic waste to the oceans every year. These tiny particles can be ingested by marine life, leading to physical harm, nutrient deficiencies, and even death. Knowing that, we should all be doing our best to reduce the number of plastics we contribute to the waste stream.
 But you can eliminate any possibility that you are contributing to the release of microplastics into the environment by purchasing dishwashing “tablets” that may even come in a reuseable tin container.
One such product that we use in our house is Blueland dishwashing tablets. You can initially  purchase the reuseable tin container and buy refill packages later. The tablets are not enclosed in plastic and completely dissolve into dishwashing detergent. We’ve found the results are just as good as both the liquid and plastic pods, and the environmental impact is minimal. Several dishwasher tablets are on the market, and a couple more are shown here.
WASHING CLOTHES
Once again, eliminating plastic containers of laundry detergent is an easy task since the introduction several years ago of laundry detergent “sheets.” These thin pads of compressed detergent are packaged in a paperboard container, which is recyclable, and the results are just as good as any liquid detergent sold in plastic bottles.
 In our house we use a product called Tru Earth laundry detergent. But scores of such products are now on the market and you can look at many of them here. This product is one of the most environmentally friendly on the market. The paperboard package is completely recyclable and the laundry sheets dissolve into detergent in your washing machine, leaving no micro-particulates of any kind.
Additionally, the package occupies but a tiny amount of space on the shelf of your laundry room. No fumbling with clumsy plastic bottles. And the average price of a package of 64 Tru Earth laundry sheets is comparable to the same amount of liquid laundry detergent
DRYING CLOTHES
 Gone are the days when most of us used clothes lines with real clothes pins to hang our clothes to dry. Although that activity is seeing a rise in popularity, most of us don’t engage in it any more. Dryers have taken over that chore.
For many years now, most of us have used dryer sheets to help reduce the static on items that come out of the clothes dryer. But these products contain chemical softeners, fragrances and anti-static agents. They can cause allergies, irritate the skin and pollute the air. I know it when the neighbor is drying her clothes because the air is filled with a cloying fragrance that seems to stick to my nostrils.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out this site, which is one of many, that discuss the environmental impact of dryer sheets.
A better, environmentally safe, option? Wool dryer balls. Natural  and safe for the environment, and your health. Years ago, my wife made some for us, and they worked so well she made scores more as presents for friends. We’ve been using them ever since. Yes, occasionally there may be a bit of static with some materials, but overall, they’re a far better option if you are at all concerned with your own health and that of the environment. Especially that neighbor who is outside working in the garden when you’re drying your clothes!
HELPFUL HINT
If you’ve got any dryer sheets left over when you switch to wool dryer balls, don’t toss them. When the yellow jackets are active and you’re outside, just tuck one or more dryer sheets in your belt or waistband, and the pesky little guys will avoid you like the plague.
ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE CLEANING
If you’re at all concerned with the plethora of plastics polluting our environment, then it may be worth your while to investigate some of the products mentioned here. Using them is not a compromise, it is an environmentally safe and effective cleaning alternative, that generates far less garbage and is much more kind to you and the environment. Finally, it will reduce the amount of garbage and recyclables you generate. Happy cleaning.
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ITEMS FOR OUR NEXT RECYCLING COLLECTION
November 10 is our next pickup day. Home goods are on the pickup menu. See below. The Community Warehouse provides a much-needed service for those less fortunate than us, who need a helping hand to make a new home. We all have so much that we can part with, and there are so many folks out there who would love the chance to give your stuff a new happy home.
WLLO RECYCLING COLLECTION SCHEDULE
November 10 is our next pickup date, and we’ll collect materials for the Rebuilding Center. See below. As always, we pick up plastic film, (no crinkly plastic film), and all clean clear #1 PET and PETE plastics. Please, no black or colored #1 plastic.
If you have a question about something you want to recycle, and it’s something your WLLO Recycle Team picks up, please contact the appropriate recipient given below. Their list of items they accept changes regularly. Thanks for your help.
November 10: Building materials, tools, plumbing and lighting fixtures, fasteners etc. The Rebuilding Center breathes new life into these items. https://www.rebuildingcenter.org/donations
January 12: Cleaners, pesticides, chemicals, light bulbs, smoke alarms, paint, batteries and other hazardous materials. Metro South Hazardous Waste site reclaims and recycles.
https://www.oregonmetro.gov/tools-living/garbage-and-recycling/garbage-recycling-hazardous-waste-disposal-oregon-city
March 9: Electronics and everything with a power cord. PLEASE: NO LIGHT BULBS OR SMOKE DETECTORS! But LED light bulbs are ok! Free Geek rehabilitates and recycles this stuff. Please wrap up cords and cables and secure with a twist tie or rubber band.
https://www.freegeek.org/take-action/donate-technology
May 11: Furniture, linens, dishes (no chips or cracks or alcohol-themed items), kitchen utensils, mattresses/box springs, small appliances (in working condition), decorative items and artwork, rugs etc. Items are donated to the Community Warehouse. https://www.communitywarehouse.org/give-furniture/
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WLLO & Villages Events
Check out our calendar on our website homepage. It's easier to read, you can change how information is displayed and the calendar is also printable.
- Also be sure to check your Week-At-A-Glance email. Members and Volunteers receive Week-At-A-Glance emails every Sunday with detailed information for the upcoming week.
- Summary of Regularly Scheduled Events:
- Ted Talk Discussion Group - Monday 11:00 AM
- Book Club 2nd Tuesday at 10:30
- Brisk Walk Wednesdays at 9:00 AM
- Chat and Stroll Wednesdays at 10:00 AM
- 2nd Thursday of the month - Happy Hour in person at 4 PM
- The 3rd and Last Friday - Coffee in person at 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM
- One Friday of each month - Coffee Hour on Zoom at 9:00 AM. Watch Week at a Glance for date.
- For registration, calendar questions, or log-in help, contact the WLLO office (503-308-8223). To get log in details to specific events, email info@WLLOvillage.org. (Many events are for members and volunteers only.)
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