Now, this is a pretty fun kind of precipitation: tiny crystals of fog, that might add up to a centimetre after a day or two. But it looks pretty great on the […]
Snowing Fog
Walking Among the Stars
Sometimes I am reminded that these mountains, lakes, grasslands and forests are part of a planet spinning among the stars. I followed the coyotes up into the hills again yesterday afternoon. Coyote […]
Ice Wine Harvest
Yesterday, the grapes came in to be pressed for the 2011 ice wine vintage. The temperature dropped down to Minus 11 here in Vernon and stayed cold all day. Here’s the local […]
Terroir
Terroir is an ancient wine-making term that defines a wine by the soil and sun exposure on which it is grown. Surprisingly, it is contentious. Beats me why. Terroir for All to […]
King of the Grass
I was out on the Commonage today, south of Vernon and above Kalamalka Lake, and found some Giant Wild Rye Grass growing on the road margins of a riparian area. The tallest […]
The Border Remains Open
Local residents and rare populations of desert shrews will continue to be able to cross the line in the sand between the vineyards and hayfields of Chopaka and the nut orchards and […]
Water Cress
Here’s some wild Okanagan water cress I found at the end of last week. It goes to prove that dry, grassland habitats are really aquatic habitats, rich in ponds and secret water […]
The Headwaters of Okanagan Lake
While following coyote tracks through an abandoned orchard in Okanagan Landing, I found the unknown (and unexpected) headwaters of Okanagan Lake. You can just make this water source out in the middle […]
Burning Water
There are two major uses to which contemporary society puts the high country above the dry Okanagan Valley: water collection for settlement use, and forestry. As I suggested yesterday, the two are […]
The Elegance of a Landscape (Within a Landscape) [Within a landscape]
Sometimes beauty is not just what we can see with our eyes. Take these leaves of rabbitbrush, for instance: Wet Season Rabbitbrush In the heat, its leaves will be far more silver […]
Okanagan Okanogan 