by Guest | Apr 19, 2021 | Move Well
I am 86 years old (87 shortly) and after my Mary, my wife for sixty years passed away three years ago, I could not walk a straight line. Even before my Mary passed, I began having serious balancing problems. My doctor recommended that I visit a physical therapist. The therapist recommended that I begin taking classes at the YMCA and since I was a past member of the YMCA, I re-activated my membership and signed up for YOGA classes. The YOGA teacher (Thea) recommended that I sign up for the Tai Chi and Qi Gong classes which would be beneficial in correcting my balancing concerns. So, I signed up for both classes and then added Enhanced Fitness and the gym room where I could use different weights treadmills, cycling, and rowing to refresh many parts of the body. I eventually met some people in the classes that enjoyed taking a walk after finishing the last class, and so I added a nice walk before heading out.
I have always been very physically active, in spite of my years, and easily adjusted to the numerous exercises available to me at the YMCA. I was not attempting to turn back the clock on my body, but to provide maintenance to keep it in better physical condition.
Attending the different classes was something I really looked forward to as I would be getting the exercises that I believed my body needed and equally important, I would be meeting new people and enjoying social contact as I have lived alone since my Mary passed. I am very pleased with the physical, mental and social benefits that I have derived, as I have somewhat improved my balancing problems and enjoy very much the social contact. I can now stand with my eyes closed and not feel like a big wind is causing me to sway and I have met many very nice people.
I leave the Enhanced Fitness class early and go to the gym and work with the exercise equipment for 1/2 hour and wait for the Enhanced Fitness class to finish. I join up with a few of my classmates and we go for a walk, quite often, regardless of what the weather is like. While we walk, we converse about anything and everything. After the walk, I head for the store or home. I go to the YMCA 4 days every week.
Benefits:
- We share stories about life and continue to learn
- We share recipes and enjoy new ways to cook and enjoy different foods (some are absolutely delicious)
- We share books (always find something new in life)
- We share plants/cuttings and seeds (I LOVE gardening and the miracle of ALL life)
- We share stories of life (Everyone can learn something from any other person)
- Before the COVID-19 interruption, I would bake oatmeal cookies (my recipe) and take them in to every class and share them. Because of COVID-19, I take in Dove chocolates instead and tell my classmates that they are energy pills and we laugh.
The major point of the benefits is SHARING, we try to give something beautiful and good to others as we take our daily walk of life.
AUTHOR: Joe Gluzinski, TCW Walking Group Participant
by Guest | Apr 14, 2021 | Recipes
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 2 packages (3 ounces each) ramen-style noodles
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in thin strips
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- ½ cup water
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh ginger (or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger)
- 2 carrots, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
- ½ large head cabbage, thinly sliced (about 6 cups)
- ¼ cup green onions, thinly sliced
Directions
- Bring 4 cups water to boil in a 2 to 3 quart saucepan. Add noodles, cover, and remove from heat (do not add flavor packets). Wait one minute, drain noodles and set aside.
- In a small saucepan, combine peanut butter, soy sauce, and 1/2 cup water. Heat over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat.
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat (350 degrees in an electric skillet). Add chicken and cook until no longer pink when cut, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add red pepper, ginger, and carrots and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add cabbage and cook 3 to 4 minutes or until cabbage is crisp-tender.
- Stir in green onions, cooked noodles and peanut sauce. Toss and serve immediately.
- Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.
Notes
- To avoid peanuts or peanut butter, try this stir fry with sunflower seeds or sunflower seed butter.
Photo and Recipe Source: https://www.foodhero.org/recipes/mo-moo-indonesian-stir-fry
by Guest | Apr 14, 2021 | Move Well
Portland, Ore. – March 18, 2021 – This spring, Trailkeepers of Oregon, Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge Regional Tourism Alliance, Oregon Coast Visitors Association, U.S. Forest Service, and Oregon State Parks are kicking off another season of the Trail Ambassador Program to equip Columbia River Gorge, Mt. Hood and North Coast visitors with information they need for a safe, informed, and positive experience when hiking in the region. The Trail Ambassador 2021 season will kick-off on April 24th and Trailkeepers of Oregon is currently seeking volunteers.
Volunteer Trail Ambassadors will be placed at some of the busiest trailheads in the Mt. Hood National Forest, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, and North Oregon Coast. Volunteers will have the opportunity to table at trailheads and hike the trails on weekends during peak season. Volunteers will engage with the public to answer hiking and recreation related questions, promote responsible hiker ethics like “Leave No Trace,” and steer people to useful resources like OregonHikers.org and ReadySetGorge.com.
Arica Sears, the Deputy Director for the Oregon Coast Visitors Association, has been integral to bringing the Ambassador program to the coast. She notes, “The Trail and Beach Ambassadors provided an invaluable asset to the visitor experience last year by sharing localized messages and opportunities to visitors. This program supported coastal destinations during a time when businesses and agencies had reduced hours and capacity to communicate with visitors and will be a helpful part of Oregon’s reopening process this summer.”
Volunteers can look forward to volunteering at multiple trails in the Gorge as well. “We are excited to continue our partnership with TKO’s Trail Ambassadors. Despite significant challenges over the past year, their unwavering commitment to building, restoring, and maintaining hiking trails has been remarkable,” said Christy Cheyne, Forest Supervisor. “Trail Ambassadors will continue to be pivotal in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.”
“Last year, Trail Ambassadors from TKO helped both rangers and visitors within state parks by sharing info about trail conditions and Leave No Trace practices. Efforts like these help keep people safer, and help keep the trails in better shape, too. We appreciate the efforts of all of the Volunteers as we navigated the changes brought by 2020’s Covid 19 pandemic. We look forward to working with this year’s volunteers.” shared Oregon State Parks Ranger Miranda Mendoza.
Program organizers are looking for friendly, professional, outgoing individuals who enjoy informing and helping others and possess knowledge of Gorge, Mt. Hood and coastal trails. Volunteers are required to take an online training before signing up to volunteer. Volunteers who complete 24 hours of volunteer service earn a Northwest Forest Pass.
For Trail Ambassador Program details and how to sign up to volunteer, go to trailkeepersoforegon.org/trailamabassadors.
For additional press questions or interview requests, please contact Natalie Ferraro with Trailkeepers of Oregon at natalie.ferraro@trailkeepersoforegon.org or 360-921-1623.
About Trailkeepers of Oregon
Trailkeepers of Oregon’s (TKO) mission is to protect and enhance the Oregon hiking experience through stewardship, advocacy, outreach and education. They manage the popular hiking resource oregonhikers.org and work with thousands of volunteers every year on trail stewardship projects and Trail Ambassador activities across Oregon’s national forests, state parks and beyond . You can find out more about TKO’s work at https://www.trailkeepersoforegon.org/.
About Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge Regional Tourism Alliance
The Mt. Hood/Columbia River Gorge Regional Tourism Alliance seeks to build awareness for the region as a premier, multi-day, and year-round travel destination that benefits all communities in the region through global marketing, PR and sales. It is our mission to build awareness for the lesser-served communities in the region and support efforts for sustainable destination development programs and training opportunities. Learn more: http://www.hood-gorge.com/
For more local health and wellness information, follow Tillamook County Wellness on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
by Guest | Apr 7, 2021 | Recipes
Ingredients
- 1 1⁄2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3⁄4 cup diced carrot
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups diced summer or winter squash (fresh or frozen)
- 1 1⁄2 cups corn (fresh or frozen) or a 15-oz can (drained and rinsed)
- 1 1⁄2 cups cooked beans (any type) or a 15-oz can (drained and rinsed)
- 1 can (15 ounces) diced tomatoes or 2 cups diced fresh
- 3 1⁄2 cups low sodium broth (any type)
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper
Directions
1. Wash hands with soap and water.
2. Heat oil in a large pan on medium heat. Add carrot and onion and saute until onions have begun to turn slightly brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Add garlic, squash and corn and continue to stir for another 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add beans, tomatoes, broth, cumin and pepper.
5. Allow soup to come to a boil and then turn heat down to a simmer until all vegetables are tender to taste (15 to 30 minutes, depending on the vegetables used).
6. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.
Notes
- Try This: Change the vegetables and beans based on what you have on hand. Instead of cumin, try 2 to 3 teaspoons of Italian seasoning or 1 Tablespoon of curry powder.
Thanks to the Food Hero Indigenous Peoples work group for this recipe.
Recipe and Photo Source: https://foodhero.org/recipes/three-sisters-soup
by Guest | Apr 7, 2021 | Move Well
In Tillamook County, OR, the problem isn’t finding a place to enjoy the outdoors but rather that there are too many places to choose from. With hundreds of beach access points, dozens of parks and day use areas, over 40 boat launches, and over 200 miles of trails, how do you find the right park or the right trail for you?
Most people look for recreation information on the internet. However, in Tillamook County, it’s usually not that simple to find what you’re looking for. Multiple land management agencies, each with their own website and map, offer different types of recreation in different places. Anyone looking for a trail to hike must check 4 or 5 different websites to get a good idea of what is available. Trying to dig up all the facts on parking, entry fees, and restrooms could make anyone feel like they need a degree in investigative journalism. Even finding the local park in your own town can be difficult without a knowledgeable neighbor to share local information.
In fact, this is a problem for more than just visitors and locals. It’s also a problem for the towns, the county, and even the state and federal land management agencies. The Access to Physical Activity Committee (APAC) was formed as part of Tillamook County Wellness to focus on bringing the benefits of movement and physical health to more people. The committee brought together a wide variety of community, industry, and agency partners to try to understand and overcome the challenges that people in Tillamook County face when they are trying to be more physically active.
APAC recognized three major problems with lack of information in Tillamook County:
- Recreation information was scattered and separated by type, land owner, and availability. Each agency or organization had separate websites and separate maps. Trying to find a trail required searching through multiple sites.
- Recreation information was incomplete and not available online. Local resources had never been added to websites. Details such as parking, restrooms, and pet-friendliness were not included in descriptions of parks and trails.
- Recreation information is outdated and incorrect. Without regular updates, information on many websites was not always current.
Tillamook County needed a comprehensive, interactive map that would show all of the recreation and trail resources in the entire county; including every agency, landowner, and land manager. The map would be an all-inclusive experience that would give visitors and locals all of the information they needed with a simple click; restrooms, parking, pet-friendliness, fees, amenities, and more. This map would have the most accurate and up-to-date information about the recreation opportunities available in Tillamook County.
In the fall of 2019, TCW, together with Visit Tillamook Coast, The Northwest Youth Corps (NYC), and the USFS Siuslaw National Forest had put together the funding and the cooperative network necessary to hire an intern specifically to work on their ambitious mapping project for 6 months. In January of 2020, the Access to Physical Activity Committee welcomed me as their new intern to the project. I began work on the project right away and together we planned to finish it in a year, an ambitious but achievable goal.
The working theme of the map project was “More information is always better,” and it made sense to apply that to the data collection process. I had to consider what kind of information would be needed to make this map useful to outdoor enthusiasts as well as to agency land managers. What questions would people be asking when they looked to this new map for answers?
Some things were easy to guess such as noting which recreation sites had a restroom, how much parking was available, and whether dogs were allowed. However, we decided to gather even more information about each site and to include high-quality pictures to help people know what to expect. In the end, the list of attributes to include in the data collection was long and encompassed every type of recreation we could imagine. Attributes included categories such as Status (open, closed, unknown, etc.), Features (ocean view, old growth forest, sand dunes, etc.), Facilities (picnic table, fire ring, bench, etc.), Activities, (camping, hiking, beach access, etc.) and many more.
In the spring of 2020, I began identifying all of the recreation sites and trails located in Tillamook County. I would need to personally visit each one to gather data for the map project. Using the data I’d received from several agencies back at the beginning of 2020 as a baseline, I added new trails, new recreation sites, and new information to the map. It was exciting to see the visual representation of how our knowledge about Tillamook County was increasing.
The map had so much potential to help the county improve its recreation and trails projects and to improve access to outdoor recreation for everyone that APAC decided to advocate for a new full-time position to keep the momentum going; Outdoor Recreation Community Coordinator. This would create a dedicated position to manage and update the map, maintain and increase communication and coordination between the partners, and work towards creating a balanced and fully-realized recreation network in Tillamook County that would provide improved access to everyone.
The future of the Community Coordinator role is still under consideration, but APAC is confident that it will go forward. The map will be fully transformed into its new web format and publicly available by early summer of 2021, just in time for everyone to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine on the beautiful Oregon Coast in Tillamook County.
The new map is featured on the Tillamook Coast website here. You can also discover great places to get active on the Tillamook County Wellness website under the Move Well tab.
AUTHOR: Samantha Goodwin, Northwest Youth Corps GIS Intern
And for more details and photos, check out the full story written by Samantha Goodwin, “Tillamook; Outdoors (A Summary): How A Map Brought A Community Together”
For more local health and wellness information, follow Tillamook County Wellness on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
