I hate to say it, but the dream that has kept my family tied to the land for 91 years in this trough in the Columbia Plateau is over. Instead of a […]
The Only Hope for the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys in a Culture of Fire
After Nature, Living Water
The land is your village. This might mean that forests look a little different. This Douglas-fir grove on the Big Bar Eskers is dying, partly because of the stress of the ingrowth […]
The Fire is Us
There are fires in all directions, for the fourth year in a row. Note the smoke above, in the Okanagan, and below, in the Cariboo. Cough cough. There’s a lot of talk […]
Hot Climate Onions
It was 47 degrees Celsius last week. My garlic ripened off, my currants fizzled, my raspberries got set back, my winter onions explained that the year was over, and my perennial Egyptian […]
Everybody Has an Apocalypse Story Now
Hey, look at what’s going down in the news: Scientists Call Northwest Heatwave the ‘Most Extreme in World Weather Records’ Well, um, yeah, and as the source of that article, commondreams.org says, […]
Global Warming in Lytton, A Long View
We are all grieving, for people lost, lives damaged, and a beautiful town vanished from Cascadia. The scorching temperatures in Lytton this last week, and the horrible loss of the entire town […]
How Hot is It in the Okanagan?
So hot that the native vegetation has abandoned summer, to wait it out until spring. It’s nice to think of this ancestor as a beautiful springtime sunflower. Truth is, it wouldn’t be […]
A Good Year for Birds (But Not for Everyone)
The robins hatched their young a couple weeks early, but the gold finches are six weeks ahead. Viruses are spreading through the wild roses and some have lost their pink .. … […]
Ponderosa Pine: Almost a Loner
Ponderosa pines are not a species that likes to mingle with other tree species and communicate root to root. They prefer to stand out in the grass and wait for fire. Still, […]
Balancing the Atmosphere With Algae
So, on the grasslands, blue green algae (part of this healthy soil crust in the Cariboo) pulls nitrogen from the sky and makes it available to plants. So does the lichen on […]
Okanagan Okanogan 