The science of botany got its start in plant classification and botanical gardens. Because of that, contemporary human understanding of plant communities largely revolves around species and their interactions. The results can […]
They might be called russian-olives, and they might look and taste like sour, sawdusty olives, but they’re really dates, and they are weeds. They wreck ecosystems, displace native species, reduce environmental diversity, […]
A long time ago, orcharding started in the Okanagan when Lord Aberdeen and Lady Aberdeen planted the Coldstream Ranch with fruit so they could make jam and compete with these folks from the old […]
A lot of art takes place out of doors. Here, for example, is a lovely spring ritual that can colour up even the windiest day: Springtime Apple Heave Ho Spartans and Granny […]
Architecture is an art that balances functionality, beauty, innovation and tradition. It gives us stuff like this: American Robin Summer House, Keremeos Grass and mud living quarters, decorated with binder twine and resting […]
Gravity is the point at which the energy of the universe touches the earth. We should be able to use that. Who needs fossil fuels. Here, for example, is the energy that […]
Here’s how the American and Canadian governments think about the border that cuts our valley in two: Oroville-Osoyoos Border Crossing, Highway 97 It is, as you can see, pretty hard to tell […]
Here’s one of the gardens at the University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus, right smack dab in the middle of the grasslands of Ellison, north of Kelowna. Given that the American half […]
Time is a strange thing. The farther in distance we look into the night sky, the father back in time we are seeing. If we look far enough, we see the beginning […]
There’s a thing that happens with sheep in the mountains of Wales and Iceland: they become acclimatized to the mountain, and pass that acclimatization on to following generations. Once they have been […]
